Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Everyone was astonished when Nerys settled. Foggy had tried not to be too upset about that.

He’d kind of understood the reactions, for the most part. A cheerful, sweet little boy settling as a lynx - he could see where the confusion was coming from. But equally Foggy remembers being so upset, so hurt, that so many people in his life apparently didn't know him very well at all. In every shocked reaction was an admission that people weren’t seeing the important parts of him, the strength and determination Nerys represented. Somehow nobody was seeing the boy with the ferocious curiosity and the keen eyes, with the maddening drive to keep punching above his weight as long as it meant doing the right thing.

Nerys’ form fit perfectly, in Foggy’s eyes.

And she was perfect. She was sleek and powerful, truly beautiful, with sandy yellow eyes and rich, luxurious fur. She’d lope alongside Foggy, enormous paws padding a reassuring rhythm on the concrete, his beloved partner in whatever the opposite of crime was. Foggy loved her more than he could ever put into words, and when she'd settled, that love had found a home: familiar, constant, dependable.

Predictably, his peers hadn't seen it that way. Foggy's classmates had been ruthless, made cruel by jealousy, intimidated by the imposing creature at Foggy’s side. They'd decided Foggy must be insincere, untrustworthy, hiding some kind of unknown danger within.

(It isn't until much later in life that Foggy would realise they'd actually been right about that last part, and that it wasn't such a bad character trait to have in his line of work.)

Nerys never trusted strangers much after that. She'd go along with the mask of pleasant friendliness Foggy would give to win people over, but she always held stubbornly onto her cold suspicion, her instinct to protect Foggy from unknown intentions. She'd sit rigidly beside him during conversations, ears pinned back, eyes gone cold. 

So when Foggy's lying in the dark opposite his brand new college roommate, head tucked safely under Nerys’ chin, he's floored by the words she rumbles in his ear.

'I like them.'

Chapter Text

Eleri had always been different.

Of course she was, because apparently Matt could never, ever catch a break. He used to think he’d been saddled with an actual, real, biblically bestowed demon at times. He’d look on with longing as the other kids played with their beloved companions, their daemons forever by their side to provide unconditional love and support.

Eleri’s love and support had always seemed decidedly conditional to Matt.

Matt had heard his dad talking about them with the school counsellor one time, not long after his accident. He'd been sat on a chair in the corridor, listening in as his 'consistently concerning behaviour' was discussed in clinical simplicity.

It was the first time he’d heard that hushed, embarrassed tone from his dad, and it was the first time he'd heard the phrase whose variants always seemed to wind up in descriptions of Eleri.

“She’s just- she’s always been a little off.”

A little off.

It’s a nice way of putting it.

Eleri was a little off in the way she seemed to take a maddening, insatiable delight in ruining Matt's entire life. She was the living embodiment of everything Matt was trying so hard not to be: she was bold and unrepentant, bristling with opinion and entirely intent on voicing every one of them she had. She'd berate Matt whenever he bent the truth, whenever he hid himself from others or withdrew from the confrontation. She ignored the concept of self-preservation entirely, using every ounce of persuasive power to try to convince Matt to fight and scrap with the other kids, with the bullies, to get him to bait the teachers into arguing about things he knew they were wrong about.

Matt, so desperate to keep to his father's guidance, to keep his head down and his nose out of other people's business, was sick of it. Because Eleri succeeded in her persuasions more often than not, disappearing into his pocket as a demure moth or a slick little beetle whenever there were consequences to be faced. 

Matt hated her for it.

She hated him for it too. 

Matt's ankles were constantly littered with tiny bite wounds and angry scratches, made by whatever type of claws Eleri fancied using that day. It was always him being told off for kicking back at her though.

It was exhausting, constantly fighting his own soul.  

And then suddenly Matt was alone in a dark, hostile world, with no one but Eleri.  

She’d despised Stick. Really, truly hated him. Matt still holds the vague belief that she’d settled like that just to spite Stick.

He'd wanted so desperately for her to settle as something impressive, something strong and brave and loyal, just like his dad. He’d wanted her form to keep him close, for him to walk beside Matt every day, keeping him on the right path. Instead she’d settled as a stoat - an agile, slippery creature, hissing bright words of mischief into Matt’s ear.

More than anything, Matt just remembers being confused.

Who the hell was he, when his soul seemed to be the exact opposite of what he was meant to be?

A stoat was a predator, he’d tried to reason with Stick.

Stick had scoffed in his face, harsh and condescending.  

“She’s a god damn weasel, kid. You know what weasels are? They’re prey. Prey to bigger things, more powerful things. That’s what everyone will see now.”

Then their first winter after settling had rolled around.

Matt will never forget the primal noise of disgust Stick had made in his throat, the sheer repulsion emanating from him when Matt had first showed up to training with Eleri's rich terracotta coat beginning to fade, changing, to pure, gleaming white.

Settled daemons weren’t supposed to change.

Stick had made sure to make that very well known to them both.

Matt loathes that it was Stick who'd finally bought some semblance of agreement between him and Eleri, had finally gotten them on the same side. He hates that Stick had accomplished what he’d failed to do his whole life, just through terrifying, merciless pain. They'd realised what it might feel like to lose each other forever, and Eleri had finally clung around Matt’s neck to whisper words of comfort in his ear, rather than ones filled with criticism.

Matt, for once, hadn't pushed her away. 

Stick left, soon after.

It was always just going to be the two of them, whether they liked it or not. 

Until Foggy Nelson shook Matt's hand too enthusiastically in a dorm room, that is.

Chapter Text

Foggy’s first week as a law student is… different to what he’d been expecting.

It’s wildly exciting, sure, and the buildings are beautiful and grand and he’s so proud of the fact that he’s actually here. He can feel himself walking boldly into adulthood, a newfound freedom under his feet, finally surrounded by peers he shares interests with, etc, etc.

What he hadn’t been prepared for was the fact that everything’s new. The public transport is new, and he doesn’t know how to work the cards at the laundromat, and he has to trek all the way across campus for any type of hot food. Even the air is different here, crisper and colder and unfamiliar.

He also hadn't been prepared for the majority of his peers to consist of people far beyond the tax bracket he's used to interacting with. He has to keep reminding Nerys not to raise her hackles so obviously.

It’s all a bit much, really. He misses his family, the easy familiarity of old friends and old stomping grounds, of love and support and home-cooked meals. This constant stream of tense first impressions and poorly concealed judgement is starting to wear him thin.

So he’s really fucking glad Matt and Eleri are cool. Even if they are a little odd.

Foggy thinks it’s not such a bad thing though, really. Odd is good, when then norm seems to be bragging about which of your parents’ industry connections will get you hired in the future.

Matt's first week is unbearably, excruciatingly overwhelming. Eleri stays velcro-close at all times, hunched up on his shoulders whispering directions in his ear. She presses flat against his chest as they pretend to sleep, the dorm block vibrating with the noises and smells of hundreds of other students surrounding them.

Mostly they don't make it through the night.

Matt goes out walking instead, mapping the streets under the cover of darkness. He doesn't bother with his cane - nobody knows him here yet anyway. Eleri wraps herself around his neck, head poking out from his hood to revel in the night air and to narrate any interesting bits of the visual world to him. Matt considers it one of the more useful aspects of her stoat form, how expertly suited she is to being active at night.

It’s a familiar state they're finding themselves in again. When the going gets tough, they survive together. Even if Eleri does keep egging him on to climb up fire escapes.

Foggy notices the night-time outings. He doesn't say anything about them yet.

He's been noticing a lot of things about Matt and Eleri, as the weeks start to slide by.

“Does she always wander off like that?”

“What?” Matt asks, distracted, not expecting the question.

They’re sat outside in a relatively quiet part of campus, trying to soak up the last of the mild September weather between lectures. Nerys is splayed out in a patch of sunlight at their feet, napping in the grass beside the picnic bench they’ve set up on. Eleri has indeed wandered off to weave a complicated trail across the damp lawn, nose to the ground, following criss-crossing networks of mole tunnels under the surface. Matt’s trying to enjoy any aspect of the limp veggie burger sat in front of him, failing pretty comprehensively at it.

“She likes doing her own thing, huh?” Foggy tries again, absently picking at his own lukewarm cafeteria food.

As if on cue, Foggy turns to watch as Eleri makes a sudden dart across the lawn. She takes a running leap, diving at the ground and scrabbling furiously at the soil. Matt groans, calling her back.

Eleri doesn't show any sign of hearing the demand. Matt sighs, unsurprised. 

“She sure does,” he says instead, giving up on the burger entirely. He's beginning to regret letting Foggy talk him into this lunch session. 

“Is she hunting moles?” Foggy asks then, as Eleri presses her nose into the freshly dug soil, sniffing intently.

Matt dips his head, focussing in on her.

“Yep,” he answers wearily; it’s nothing new.

Foggy takes in the lacklustre answer with a vague nod. He wonders if Nerys would go off chasing rabbits, given the chance. He makes a note to ask her about it later.

“She ever catch one?”

Matt shakes his head.

“Nah, she’s not hunting for real. She just likes chasing stuff.”

Foggy hums, still watching Eleri. She's given up on her digging now to weave across the lawn again, occasionally pausing to sniff at an interesting spot in the grass.

Matt tries calling her back again. He can tell she’s walking the limits of how far a normal daemon's meant to go, if Foggy's strange tone is anything to go by.

‘You’re not helping me keep a low profile, you know,’ he privately chides.

‘When did I ever agree to that?’ Eleri mutters back.

She does adjust her path though, beginning to arc back towards the bench. She's satisfied with her fun for today, pushing at the boundaries of Matt's patience.

Matt knows there are eyes on him. It’s not Foggy's warm gaze though, who despite Matt’s best efforts seems to be stubbornly intent on befriending him. The eyes he keeps feeling are more intense - it's the watchfulness of a big cat, of a powerful animal trying to figure him out.

It’s not often Matt feels like someone’s circling him like this, weighing him up for size. It’s exciting. Stick’s training still echoes infuriatingly in his mind though, reminding him not to get too close, not to let himself become weak. He needs to keep up the polite-but-distant exterior that usually works so well for him. 

So it’s beyond frustrating when Eleri keeps engaging Foggy in bright conversation, no matter how much Matt begs her to stop.

“Do you like reading?”

It’s pretty normal for people to talk to other people’s daemons. What's not so normal is for a daemon to instigate that conversation themselves, against their person’s wishes. Nor is it particularly normal for said daemon to patter obnoxiously across someone's open textbooks to sit right in front of them, waiting expectantly for an answer.

Matt groans from across the room, mentally kicking at Eleri.

“Matt likes reading,” she continues, ignoring him easily.

“Matt would like you to stop bothering people,” Matt tuts at her.

Foggy nods though, grinning at Eleri's strange, unyielding confidence.

“Yeah, I like reading."

Eleri takes in the answer, and after a few moments of silence she seems to reach whatever conclusion it was she was considering. She speaks again. 

“What do you read, then?”

Nerys’ ears twitch, following the conversation intently from her spot beneath the desk. She's never met a daemon who acts like Eleri does.

“I dunno, lots of stuff,” Foggy shrugs, glancing over to where Matt’s still sprawled out in bed, pretending not to be listening. “I like stories, and I like science. Stuff about nature, wildlife, things like that.”

Eleri narrows her eyes briefly at that, assessing the answer. She gives a quick nod of acceptance, and moves off to nose about amongst the items on his desk. Foggy can’t help but feel like he's just passed a test.

“What do you read, then?” he parrots back.

It makes Eleri pause, and a small head turns to look up at Foggy in surprise. Foggy feels a stab of pride at the look. 

Regaining her composure, Eleri turns back to the tupperware of stationary she'd been inspecting. She seems to preen a little at the question, enjoying the importance of being addressed specifically. Behind his glasses, Matt rolls his eyes. 

“I liked the lord of the rings,” she starts, ignoring Matt’s quiet groan from across the room. “Matt never finished it though, started reading boring law texts instead.”

That makes Foggy laugh again, savouring the mental image of a boyhood Matt casting away his storybooks for dour philosophy texts.

“Can’t you read them yourself?”

“She doesn’t have thumbs,” Matt deadpans from the bed, making Eleri bare her pointy teeth in his direction.

“Don't you wanna finish reading them?” Foggy turns to him then, smiling properly now. “You don't yearn to know how it ends?”

Matt shifts under the question, uncomfortable with the answer.

“Braille books are hard to get,” he explains shortly, aiming for a casual air, “especially ones that long.”

Foggy's amusement sinks a little at that. It's an unfair answer, one he'd never thought about. 

“Damn, that sucks dude,” he tries, voice softening, hoping Matt can hear the sincerity he doesn't quite know how to get across. “We’ll watch the films sometime," he suggests instead, "how about that? I’m an excellent narrator."

Matt snorts at the suggestion, ignoring the way it makes his chest go tight.

“I’m pretty sure they already come with audio description,” he points out, ignoring Eleri mentally kicking at him for the dodge.

Foggy makes a sound of dismissal, brightness returning to his tone. 

“Yeah, shitty ones,” he brushes off easily. “Trust me, my descriptions are way better. C'mon," he presses, when Matt still doesn't reply, "it'll be fun.”

Something about the way Foggy says it traps Matt's polite dismissal in his throat. There's something growing in his chest, something nameless and unknown. Stick's droning voice dims in his head. 

"Okay," is all he can make himself say. "Yeah, okay.”

Foggy gives him a small cheer at that. On the desk, plastic pen lid in her mouth, Eleri turns self-congratulatory. She holds her quarry up high as she trots away, something akin to smugness radiating from her.

Chapter Text

They’re half an hour away from being late to their 9am, and Matt’s still digging haphazardly through his drawers for a clean towel, scruffy and hungover.

Daemons also have to suffer through their person's hangovers, and both Nerys and Eleri are feeling suitably bitter about that fact this morning. Eleri's sprawled out in bed still, sunken into the too-nice sheets, half-heartedly pestering Matt to try and make herself feel better.

It’d been a truly terrible attempt at a party they’d gone to last night, attending just because they'd been invited and that’s what college students were supposed to do. Now everyone in the room was in their own private misery, without even the satisfaction of a good night to show for it.

A pretty standard student morning, really. 

“This shower better heal you,” Eleri starts up, voice lazy and taunting. “You made a bet with that oily guy last night that you’d beat him in debates today.”

Foggy’s sat propped up at his desk, trying to make his eyes focus long enough to skim through the reading he hasn’t done for their next lecture. As usual he keeps getting distracted by the bickering conversation happening on the other side of the room.

He eyes Matt, who does seem decidedly worse for wear, doubtful a shower will do much to fix that. He’s grey faced and pale, suitably ashen, hair a greasy mess. He's still wearing the holey jogging bottoms he'd worn for pyjamas, and there’s still mud scuffed across his neck from where they’d started climbing trees on their way back to the dorm.

Foggy can’t seem to make himself look away.

“Who told him I’d do that?” Matt shoots at Eleri, trying the laundry hamper for clothes now.

Eleri stretches out, not-so-subtly rubbing Matt’s face in the fact that he’s not in bed as well. She pokes her head up to answer, radiating innocence.

“You did.”

Matt scoffs, tossing a too-ripe shirt back to the pile.

“No I didn’t.”

“Part of you did.”

“Right,” Matt sighs, knowing what must have occurred there. “So after you signed me up for that did you do anything else horrid?”

“Not that I know of,” Eleri dismisses, “you started in on those off-brand beers around then.”

That at least, Matt can remember. He suppresses the rolling of his stomach at the thought.

“Excellent. Thanks for that, as always.”

With a successful armful of vaguely clean clothes he makes for the bathroom. Eleri stays exactly where she is, wriggling back down into the duvet.

“You’re so welcome.”

Foggy watches Matt cross the room to shower, not realising that's what he's doing until Nerys huffs a laugh from where she’s waiting by the door, smug to have caught Foggy staring.

Foggy flips her off, cheeks heating, and turns away so he can pretend to read again.

‘Stop talking to strangers.'

Eleri’s riding in Matt's hoodie pocket today, too tired and too off balance to hop along beside him. She’s curled into a very tight ball, trying to shield her eyes from the light that keeps flickering in to assault her.

‘No,' she refuses, ignoring Matt's subsequent sigh. 'It’s fun. Besides, he was being an asshole to us.’

That makes Matt pause, his irritation at Eleri momentarily on hold.

‘He was?’

‘Bigtime. Said you’d only made it in to fill the diversity quota.’

It makes Matt grit his teeth, which makes Eleri grin.

She’s very much looking forward to the next hour's entertainment.

Matt, hangover shakes and all, destroys the slimy bastard.

He makes sure to make it very publicly humiliating for him, for good measure.

"What are we doing to celebrate?"

Matt, currently face down in bed waiting for the combination of pain meds and stale crackers to digest, groans into the mattress. 

"C'mon," Foggy badgers at the response, having recovered slightly more than Matt by now. "I'm pretty sure the guy had tears in his eyes by the end of it, we have to do something to mark the win."

"Lying as still as possible sounds quite nice," Matt suggests weakly. 

"God, it really does," Foggy sighs, folding easily - he's still not entirely back to full health.

Nerys has a flash of inspiration then. She mulls the idea over, glancing to where Eleri's splayed out dramatically on Matt's desk chair.

"Can we try that Thai place again?" she suggests, trying not to sound too nervous as all attention in the room whips to her. "I liked the papaya salad last time."

Foggy's eyebrows shoot up at the request, entirely taken aback by his daemon's apparent newfound sovereignty. Even Matt lifts his head in surprise.

Eleri also lifts her head, giving Nerys the best devilish grin a stoat can muster, pleased that her bad influence seems to be spreading.

Chapter Text

Two months in, and Matt’s starting to relax into the fact that someone, god forbid, might actually enjoy being his friend.

Two months in, and Foggy’s enjoying the honour of watching, little by little, Matt’s true self emerging.

Matt’s true self is a horrible little terror, turns out.

Foggy’s seeing less and less difference between him and Eleri by the day.

Matt hates bar trivia, he’d been quick to realise. Mostly because of the fact he’s not very good at it.

Matt’s deadly smart in lectures, so Foggy finds it highly entertaining to witness how little he actually knows, having been raised in a catholic orphanage entirely devoid of pop culture.  

This is the third trivia night he's trapped him into coming. 

“Beyoncé?” Foggy repeats, voice shocked into an entirely different octave, “you think Blue Monday was Beyoncé?”

Matt can't understand the disbelief.

“Is that wrong?”

“Yeah dude, that’s wrong."

“It’s New Order,” Nerys informs Matt from where she's sat keenly at Foggy’s side. Nerys loves bar trivia.

No recognition flashes across Matt’s face at the name.

“And that’s a band?”

Foggy makes a choked sound, tipping his head back to beg the ceiling for guidance.

“Did they keep you in a box over there or something?" he digs. "Let you out for hymns and bread?”

“Listen,” Matt rallies, gesturing emphatically with his near-empty glass as he tries to defend himself, “you think a place run by Nuns has the normal amount of exposure to classic rock? Give me another year in the real world, I’ll have caught up. There’s no need for this to taint my record.” 

“Nah, you goofed it,” Foggy brushes off easily, not falling for Matt's poorly disguised pleading not to be teased about this in the future. “No second chances.”

"Wonderful mindset for a lawyer to have.”

Eleri watches from where she’s perched on her own barstool, head swinging back and forth as she follows the bickering.

She also loves bar trivia.

“My rule will be firm but fair,” Foggy's saying in a grand tone, before adding flatly- “and New Order isn’t classic rock, so another point against you there.”

“Pretty sure we’re not meant to rule,” Matt counters, ignoring the last part. He pretends he can’t sense Foggy waving a hand in dismissal.

“Trust me buddy, if I ever pass the bar I am absolutely gonna be using it to lord over people.”

Matt shakes his head, unable to stop the smile creeping up on him.

“Sure," he grins, "can’t wait to see how that goes for you.”

A question about Greek mythology stumps everyone in their team of four. Matt groans, fed up of being so endlessly and publicly humbled.

“I got nothing,” he sighs, tossing back the pen he'd been spinning uselessly between his fingers.

Eleri lets out a weary sigh as well, mimicking Matt's tone.

“Me too.”

“No one asked you,” he shoots sideways.

“No one ever needs to,” Eleri continues loftily, “should be taking my word as gospel.”

“Blasphemy,” Nerys interjects brightly, her favourite thing to do as of recent on account of the fact it always gets her some kind of response. 

Sure enough, Eleri's ears pin back and she bluff charges in her direction, paws smacking against the plastic stool seat sharply. Nerys doesn’t so much as flinch, just raising her eyebrows in amusement at the action.

Their walk home is difficult, to say the least.

Nerys keeps tripping over her paws, eventually having to walk leaning heavily against Foggy’s legs for support.

Matt had bundled Eleri into his hood long before they'd ever left the pub, drawstrings pulled tight to secure her in place. The state they’re in, she’s incredibly likely to sprint off after a squirrel and never look back.

No way he’s letting that be how that particular secret's exposed.

"Foggy?"

"Matthew."

Matt giggles, trying again to grasp at the words he wants. He's feeling uncharacteristically open tonight, with the beer and the cold air and the way this is becoming familiar, walking home from nights like these. A question he'd been shoving away for a while comes easily to the surface. 

“What was it like for you? Growing up?”

Foggy processes the question with difficulty; he'd been unaware he'd have to use his brain again tonight. They're walking through a wooded section of campus, the path ahead mostly devoid of other people beyond a few similarly drunk students weaving back home. He sways to turn and look sideways at Matt, who’s focussing very hard on the pavement, cane swinging lazily in front of him. Foggy has enough critical thinking ability left in his brain to feel the somberness underlying the question.

"With the small gang of siblings and all?” he asks. Matt snorts, nodding, still focussed on the ground. “Well it was loud, first off," Foggy starts, smiling at the thought. "Like, all the time, just hollering from every angle. But yeah, it was nice," he says, trying to find the right words to fit the night. "I always had someone to talk to. I don’t take that for granted."

Matt looks all too contemplative for Foggy's liking. He continues, determined not to let Matt spiral into gin fuelled misery.

“They wanna meet you, you know.”

That does it - Matt’s head bobs up in surprise. Foggy almost can’t bear how perplexed he looks by that information.

“They do?” Matt asks quietly. 

“Are you kidding me?" Foggy laughs, brain snagging on the way Matt's voice had turned soft with confusion. "They’re more keen to see you than they are me at this point.”

Foggy's not lying. Whenever Matt inevitably becomes the subject of his phone calls back home, be it Foggy relaying some anecdote or Anna asking after him directly, his presence is always heavily demanded the next time Foggy visits.

Matt listens to Foggy’s heart beating truth beside him, strong and sure. He struggles for a response, too sideswiped by whatever surge of feelings are swarming around his half-lucid brain. Then he feels Eleri burrowing down snugly into his hood some more, teeth chattering in comfort against his back. He smiles, small and true.

“I think I'd like that,” he decides. “To meet them, I mean.”

Foggy once again can’t quite handle the look he's getting. Matt's cheeks are flushed, a hopeful little grin shot in Foggy's direction. Foggy thinks for a brief, electric moment that it sure doesn’t look like a smile you’d give someone you were solely friendly with.

But Foggy’s also consumed a lot of gin tonight – he’s reading into it too much, surely.

‘You like him.’

Foggy glares into the dark beside his bed, knowing Nerys’ powerful eyes will be able to see the look from where she's tucked under the desk. He thunks his head back into his pillow in frustration - he’s so not ready to unpack how true those words feel right now.

Luckily he knows exactly how to nip this conversation in the bud.

‘You like Eleri.’

Nerys suppresses the urge to take a leaf from Eleri’s book and swat at Foggy's feet with her paw. She settles for an agitated huff in his direction instead, entirely unwilling to move right now.

Stalemate. 

Matt lies in bed that night with his head swimming, mulling over the last few dizzying hours.

He's accidentally made a friend somehow, and he can't muster any of Stick's residual displeasure at that fact. And Foggy's a brilliant friend at that - one who’s quick and funny and kind, who's strong and smart and thinks Matt’s equally as brilliant, and-

He needs to calm down about it. 

Foggy's just a casual, normal friend, and that's great. Wonderful, even.

He really, really doesn’t want to consider it much harder than that.

Three guesses for what Eleri keeps trying to make him do.

Two months in, and Matt first gets a glimpse of the feeling.

Nerys is padding along beside him, heavy feet beating a comforting rhythm that his mind can't help but gravitate to, grounding him amongst the roar of student chaos. Matt sinks into the sound, letting the warmth of familiarity fill his chest. It's a feeling he hasn't felt in a long time.

The steady reassurance of a friend beside him.

He nearly stumbles at the realisation, shocked at the ease of that thought. He immediately shoves the feeling away, yanking at the ragged remnants of his plan to avoid letting anyone get too close. 

Eleri bites at his earlobe.

Chapter Text

It’s beginning to take its toll, is Columbia Law.

Their first round of exams loom ahead, and the shiny newness of having made it to college is starting to wear off. Foggy’s sick to death of reviewing endless case law hunched up at a cheap desk, and Matt’s sick to death of living in a freezing cold dorm block with walls that feel like cardboard.

There's a tension building, is all. Not only is the novelty of making it to college wearing off, but the progress Foggy'd thought he'd been making on cracking Matt's crispy little shell is seeming to tank as well.

He tries not to feel too upset by it. 

Eleri doesn't make any attempt to hide the deep, bone-weary exhaustion she and Matt are drowning in. She makes the fact clear in her form, lying draped across the back of Matt's neck or curled up in a pocket all day, rarely surfacing. Her lithe body moves like worn fabric, lacking the vibrant mischief of her usual state. She hasn't tried to trip up Nerys in ages. 

Foggy notices it all, watching apprehensively as Matt holds his head high and staggers on, resolutely ignoring the cracks beginning to form.

Matt knows Foggy’s noticing.

He hates how obviously Eleri broadcasts his weaknesses for all the world to see. Especially for Foggy to see.  

He’s taken to walking at night again, if only to avoid the moments of downtime where Foggy keeps trying to talk about their feelings.

Eleri keeps trying to reply to him, see.

‘You need to get a grip.’

They’re walking too far downtown to be reasonable, neither of them caring that much. Matt’s trying to lose himself in the sounds of cars on wet tarmac, in the buzzing of wires overhead. Eleri’s sat curled in his hood, tracking the patterns of streetlights flowing past as Matt walks.

‘Why should I?’ she bites back, voice sharp. She’s equally annoyed by Matt’s constant anger of late, sick of the actual, real arguments always bubbling under the surface between them. ‘I’m tired.’

‘Oh I know," Matt scoffs, the sound purposely mocking. 'You’re being so fucking obvious about it.’

‘Just because you hide every single emotion you feel, doesn’t mean I can.’

Matt scowls.

‘You absolutely can, I know you can. You’re just doing it for attention.’

‘And why is that bad?’ Eleri counters fiercely. ‘What’s so abhorrent about your friends knowing you’re suffering?'

Matt bites at the insides of his cheeks. The answer to that question isn’t one he feels like getting into right now.  

They walk in silence a little more. Eleri goes back to watching the lights of the city pass by.

It's tipping towards dawn now, and after an extensive return route they’re nearly back at the dorm. There's even time for a few hours sleep before they have to get up for lectures, so Matt counts the night as a win.

Until Eleri speaks up again, agitated and unsettled. She wants to broach the subject before they're back in a room with Foggy and Nerys.

‘It’s nearly winter, Matt.'

Matt, who’d just started calming his heartrate back to something normal, sneers at the statement. His heart starts up its hammering again, the anxiety of that fact making his throat go tight. He doesn’t want to think about it.

‘I’m aware, thank you.'

Eleri narrows her eyes, scrabbling out from Matt’s hood to drop to the floor and walk sullenly alongside him instead. She veers off to stamp in a series of puddles in defiance: for once, she wasn’t trying to be antagonistic about it.

‘You have to tell him.’

They’re climbing the concrete stairs to their building now. Matt wishes she’d just drop it. Eleri watches Matt’s sigh curl up as mist in the cold air. The continued lack of dawn light only highlights her insistence - autumn is ending, and they don’t have much longer to do this.

Matt pauses at the top of the steps, Eleri's urgency pushing at him.

‘I know, alright?' he admits softly, just trying to get her off the matter. 'I know.’

‘He’ll understand,’ she presses, willing Matt to decide some kind of plan of action for this.  

Another sigh. Another breath dancing through the air.

‘I know,’ Matt says again. Eleri knows the hollowness to his voice has nothing to do with the early hour, nor the vague stress of college life.

‘So why are you being all broody and annoying about it?’

Matt huffs, appreciating Eleri’s goading tone returning. It's more familiar.

He just hates this. He hates having another thing so visibly different about him. He hates that it’s just another part of himself that’s always on show, always giving something away for everyone to see. He digs his cane out of his coat, gritting his teeth and tugging the rusting door open.

‘I’m sick of having something to tell people at all.’

Chapter Text

“Dude! What the fuck is going on with you?”

Matt freezes. He hadn't bothered listening in to check if Foggy was asleep before entering the dorm, something he's deeply regretting now. He resists the urge to thunk his head into the door he’s just closed behind him. He ignores Eleri’s ears perking up.

‘Oh- perfect, you can tell him now,’ she tells him sweetly. 

Matt bites at the inside of his cheeks again. 

‘And you can fuck off.’

Foggy knows Matt and Eleri are talking to each other. He knows there's some sort of shared knowledge they're leaving him out of. He knows it.

“How come you’re still up?” Matt directs at Foggy, clearly trying to buy for time as he shrugs out of his hoodie.

Foggy has to mute his frustration at the obvious dodge. Instead he lets the sick worry he's been wrapped up in seep into his voice. 

“Ruining my sleep schedule to make sure you got home alright," he says.

Matt sets his face into something impassive at that, ignoring the guilt crawling in his gut at the knowledge. This novel aspect of friendship keeps tripping him, that his quiet self destruction actually has impacts beyond himself now. It's something quite new to him. 

"Sorry," is all he can think to offer, the word made tight and small by everything unspoken behind it.

‘Don’t you dare fold, Nelson,’ Nerys hisses at Foggy from the floor, making Foggy steel himself against the tone.

“You’re not forgiven,” he challenges, lifting his chin in defiance. “Tell me what’s going on Matt.”

‘Go on then, tell him,' Eleri goads, winding around Matt's feet. 

‘Seriously, fuck off,' Matt throws back at her.

“Matt?”

Matt startles, made aware of the fact he’s still stood lamely by the door. He can tell by the lack of buzzing in the air that the main lights are off, but he still angles himself away from Foggy (and Nerys’ keen eyes) as he crosses the room to his bed.

“I’ll let you know when I’m going out next time,” he mutters, trying to de-escalate, busying himself with digging out bed clothes. Eleri’s disapproving glare burns into the back of his head from her spot on the windowsill at the move. He resists the urge to throw something at her. 

“Absolutely not what I asked,” Foggy pushes, entirely familiar by now with Matt's usual tactics to avoid conversation.

Matt sighs, lethargic brain failing to come up with any sort of masterful escape plan for this situation. He kicks his shoes into a corner and chooses not to answer instead.

He's just too tired.

“You smell like rain.”

It makes him pause, dipping his head to consider Nerys in the silence that follows her remark. He feels her heavy gaze on him, the meaningful weight her attention seems to hold.

“We got caught out,” he mumbles into the dark. “Wasn’t that bad.”

It'd been a large part of why he'd gone out, actually. He likes the rain, how it changes everything, how immersive it is to listen to millions of droplets falling across the landscape. He likes how few people are out when it's raining, how private the world seems in a downpour. It's peaceful. 

“You’re gonna get sick,” Foggy tuts at him, unaware of all this. “You’re gonna get sick, and then I’m gonna get sick," he carries on. "You're not even wearing a coat.”

Matt leaps at the opportunity that's just presented itself – if there’s one thing to get Foggy off track, it’s his mothering instincts.

“I grew up in a draughty orphanage Foggy, I’ll be fine,” he says in dismissal.

Foggy makes a wounded sound, dragging his hands through his hair. Matt hears his exasperation clearly, grinning at how well this always seems to work.

“Please don’t start with the orphanage stuff," Foggy groans, "I’m meant to be staying mad at you. Do you know how hard it is to be mad at an orphan?”

“I don’t think I’m technically an orphan,” Matt counters, pulling an age-softened hoodie over his head. “My mother could be out there thriving, for all I know.”

Foggy groans again, louder this time,

“God, your life's a tragedy,” he grumbles, smiling at the sound of Matt's subsequent quiet laughter. “If you grew up in an orphanage you automatically get to use the title, I'm pretty sure that’s how it works.”

“The title of orphan?”

“Yeah.”

“What a boon.”

Foggy's laughter joins the room as well then, and he has to fight to drag some seriousness back into his tone. 

“Gets you out of arguments with your friends pretty well though,” he says.

Matt fails to suppress a smug grin in reply, knowing he's just done exactly that. He crawls into bed, digging himself under the covers.

“It’s surprisingly effective.”

The room isn't ringing tight with tension anymore. It's faded into the background again, made slick and easily ignored by the moment of familiar banter. Foggy's ready to give up and try again at a less delirious hour, so he's not at all expecting Matt's apprehensive voice to pipe up from across the room again.

“Listen,“ Matt says, faltering when he realises he has nothing ready to follow. Eleri makes the move to speak into the gap though, and Matt jumps to cut her off. “I’ll tell you, Foggy,” he rushes, trying not to lose his nerve at the way Foggy’s heartbeat skips in response. He doesn't even know what he means by it, which thing he means to share - there are too many to choose from now. “Just- some other time, okay?” he says, letting some pleading seep into his voice.

Foggy holds himself still, breathing carefully as if he's afraid any type of movement will spook Matt out of the moment. It's the first time Matt's actually admitted that there's something to tell. It’s a weak admission, and it still feels distinctly like a dodge, but it’s more than he’s ever given before: Foggy's ready to run with it. 

“Okay,” he allows, whispering it into the gloom. “I’m holding you to that though," he says louder. "We're friends, Matt. You gotta let me in."

Too much time passes before Matt replies again.

"Okay."

The word makes Foggy smile, regardless of how small Matt sounds saying it.

There's an unfamiliar warmth spreading in Matt's chest as he tries to drift off.

He’s Foggy’s friend. It's become an immovable fact now. Despite all the unfriendliness he’s been exuding recently, Foggy’s still here, waiting up for him, badgering him to share his feelings.

His friend.

It’s nice.

It's a little terrifying.

‘You’re a giant fucking wimp, you know that right?’

Matt's resultant silence is answer enough for Eleri. She knows he’s perfectly aware of the fact.  

Chapter Text

Matt leaves it too late in the end.

Because of course he does.

It happens on a dull Wednesday morning, of all the possible times. Matt’s brushing his teeth despondently at the sink, wet hair still plastered to his forehead as he frowns in concentration, trying and failing to recall the relevant contract statutes for their seminar that afternoon.

So it’s a complete, horrible surprise when Foggy walks by, and he gasps.

It’s an awful, gut-wrenching sound, one that makes Matt freeze, blood going cold.

Eleri, sat on the tiled floor beside him, swivels her head to stare at the source. Matt damn near flinches at the surge of despair she feels seeing whatever look Foggy must have on his face right now.

Beyond the frozen scene, movement catches his attention as Nerys cranes her neck from across the room to try and see what’s going on.

Matt doesn’t have time to process anything. Before he gets the chance to try Foggy’s stuttering out a shocked excuse, grabbing for his things and telling Matt he’ll meet him in lectures.

The door slams shut.

Matt’s left dazed in the cavernous silence it leaves behind.

Eleri hops up to the counter wordlessly, turning to inspect herself in the mirror. Her heart sinks at the unmistakable patch of white fur smattering across her spine.

'My back,' she says simply.

Matt drops his head in defeat. He leans forward at the confirmation, hands gripping the edge of the counter too tight. He spits his toothpaste into the sink with force.

‘Fuck.’

Eleri eyes him in the mirror with a sigh. She holds back the urge to say I told you so.

(It’s a very strong urge - she thinks she might be getting quite good at this self-restraint thing, really).

Letting Matt spiral into his misery, she turns to inspect her back some more. The roughly bordered patch doesn’t stretch far yet, and the edges are beginning to turn apricot as brown fur mixes with white. She’d been a little itchier the past few days (and had told Matt that), but the shower must have kick started the moult.

So it begins.

Daemons aren't meant to change. 

Eleri doesn't care about the fearful looks or the unabashed sneering they get. She doesn't care about the yearly rounds of social shunning and uncomfortable confrontations. She despises it on behalf of Matt.

She hates watching their days grow painful and tangled every winter, Matt trying to withstand everything forced upon him for this simple difference, the extra resistance it brings to his life. To have a daemon that changes an aspect of their form is a fair rung up the ladder from those who don't settle, but the taboo and superstitious dread aren't too dissimilar. If anything, people were more ready to voice their opinions on it, made more bold in their condemnation of it.

You're an easier target, basically. 

Eleri can't wrap her head around it. All souls are unique, right? That's like, daemons' whole thing. So she can't fathom why people are so ready to ostracise those who happen to have particularly volatile ones.

It's not like she can control it. It's just who she is. 

Privately Eleri quite likes the changes her coat goes through: it’s pretty fun to change colour. It livens things up a bit when there's snow to blend into and squirrels to chase.

Eleri spends the day deep at the bottom of a pocket.

Matt spends the day trying not to snarl at the sky, cursing whatever higher power gave him yet another complex life issue to deal with.

Foggy spends the day quietly freaking out.

It’s not much of a surprise when he returns to an empty dorm that afternoon.

He’s getting a pretty good grasp on Matt’s coping mechanisms by this point.

“What’s the plan then?” Nerys sighs, nosing the door shut behind them as Foggy makes a beeline for the bed. He reaches a hand out instinctively to pet her ears once she joins him, and she shuffles closer to let him get a good angle.

“He won’t talk to me.”

“He might."

Foggy hears the hope in her voice, and thinks about the conversation he and Matt had in the dark. He thinks about the fact that Matt didn’t even tell him, in the end.

“I doubt it."

Nerys shucks off Foggy's hand to spring up onto to the mattress, flopping down in a less dramatic fashion to lay her head on his chest.

“Eleri might,” she tries again.

“And he’ll be royally pissed if she does.”

Nerys snorts.

“So?”

“So it won’t exactly be a productive conversation, will it?”

Nerys sighs again, her breath fluttering loose strands of Foggy's hair. Foggy resumes stroking her head, staring at the ceiling, trying to parse through too many conflicting thoughts at once. 

“What do you think? About daemons like that?”

It’s dark now, and Matt still hasn't returned. Foggy’d called him a couple times, but after his third attempt the answering message had disappeared. Matt had turned his phone off.

So he lies in bed overthinking instead, taking a page from Matt's book. Nerys lies pressed into his side.

She'd been waiting for a question like that. She thinks hard about her answer now, trying to figure out the exact words she wants to use here.

“I think,” she starts carefully, “that there’s a reason it happens. And I think there’s also a reason they didn’t tell us, but that those things aren’t the same,” she finishes, willing Foggy to understand that distinction. “Do you believe what people say about it?” she asks, pushing herself up to level a challenging look at him.

“Do you?” Foggy fires back, meeting her look with an apprehensive one. 

“No,” Nerys answers firmly, no hesitation.

Foggy stays uncertain. He doesn't know what it is he should be feeling. Something in his gut just revolts at the idea, at the very concept of a settled daemon changing like that. It fills him with some kind of dread, an unease he can't place other than he just feels it.

But on the other hand, it's Matt.

He doesn't see how those two things collide.

“It is strange though, isn't?” he tries, “it’s not normal.”

Nerys narrows her eyes at him. She has the distinct urge to raise her hackles.

“And?”

Foggy falters at her cold tone. 

“And,” he continues, scrambling to justify himself, “it’s like, bad luck or something, you know? An omen.”

“An omen,” Nerys repeats flatly, face the picture of scepticism.

“Yeah,” Foggy says, lacking any real conviction even to his own ears. “It’s like a- a sign of something.”

“Oh yeah?" Nerys sneers, "a sign of what?” She's trying to have patience here, to allow for these simple human perspectives - it's so easy for them to be hoodwinked by fear.

“I dunno,” Foggy snaps, stress and confusion fraying at his reasoning. “Bad stuff!”

Nerys turns her head. She takes a breath to steady her mind. If they're to have any hope of getting past this, Foggy needs to work this out. 

“If you can’t even answer, why do you believe it? Are you just following along with the masses? Christ," she curses, making Foggy's stomach jolt as he feels her frustration. "Do you not think they get enough of that?”

Cold shame starts to seep in amongst the fear and confusion as Foggy processes her words. Nerys continues, pushing away from his side to drop off the bed and pace in agitation.

“So Eleri changes - so what? They’re still our friends, and they still have to go through this every single year.”

Foggy jolts again, his perspective shifting by degrees; he hadn’t thought about that, about how Matt must have been dreading this, knowing that everyone would see him even more differently by the end of the year. Because everyone would know, soon enough. Professors would notice, and their peers would have a hefty new piece of ammo to use against him. Hell, even their usual baristas would know, would instantly be able to mark Matt as different.

Just like Foggy had.

Fuck. 

Nerys pauses in her pacing, her frustration subsiding as she watches the cogs turning in Foggy's head as he stays quiet for a moment. 

“Why didn’t he tell us?” he asks eventually, more to the ceiling than to her. 

“Because most people gasp, and run away," she answers plainly. 

Foggy thinks about Nerys' settling that night.

He lies awake, studying the stains on the ceiling tiles, and thinks about how it'd felt to be shunned because of his daemon, even one that'd fit the societal norm. He remembers how lost he'd felt, how heartbreaking and unfair and confusing those years had been, all because of something he couldn't help. 

He remembers how alone he'd felt.

He thinks about how Matt was probably pacing the streets in the dark right now, replaying the memory of Foggy running away from him.

He thinks about Matt feeling like this every single year since he'd settled.

His resolves hardens into something concrete that night, immovable in its fact.

Foggy's going to sort this.

He's going to make it right. He'll unpack the amorphous dread that still sits in his heart at the sight of Eleri changing - it’s superstitious nonsense, that's all. 

Matt’s not evil.

He’s just weird.

And he's sure as shit not going to be alone anymore. 

Chapter Text

Matt, predictably, goes out walking.

He barely registers the people streaming around him, all the regular daemons and normal lives and pleasant friendships. He ignores the lecture he's meant to be in right now, the seminar he should be preparing for later. 

His phone keeps buzzing in his pocket. He turns it off. 

It's not so much that he's spiralling - there's no real sense of panic, no mental anguish as he thrashes about in painful tragedy and betrayal. 

It's all just numb, really. Matt's head buzzes with the droning of familiar, empty acceptance.

This is how it always went.

Foggy hadn't gotten more than a glimpse of Matt's real self. A two-second glimpse of the least shocking part of it, at that. 

One peek at the real him, and Foggy had fled without hesitation.

Matt shakes his head harshly to the side, trying to dispel the surge of hurt the thought brings. 

He'd thought there was at least a chance of it being different this time. 

He really liked Foggy, was the thing. For a brief moment Matt had experienced a friend who treated him like he was any other college student, laughing and teasing and making him go to stupid bar trivia nights to drink cheap gin, someone who looked at him for too long and let him borrow his hoodies when he was cold. 

Someone who's family wanted to meet him. 

Stick was right though, in the end. 

People like him couldn't live a normal life. He wasn't a normal college student, and he didn't have friends. 

Stick was always right, and he hates him for it.

Eleri stays hunched close, pressing her head into the crook of Matt's neck from her usual perch on his shoulder.

She isn’t peppering in her usual narrations and slick backchat. She sits in silent support instead, claws gripping Matt's shoulder as she reassures him of her presence. 

Even she's struggling to counter Matt's rapidly forming plans to wall himself off from society once more. 

She can't get the look on Foggy's face out of her head.

She'd never considered the fact that Stick might actually have been right before. 

Matt knows without listening for their heartbeats that Foggy and Nerys are still awake. He pauses in front of the dorm with the key in his hand, head bowed. He thinks he might be sick.

‘C’mon,’ Eleri tries her best to encourage, still planted solidly on his shoulder. ‘We're great at this conversation by now.’

She winces at the sound of misery Matt makes in reply.

‘You’re not helping.’

‘Oh,’ she tries instead, turning her words sly in the hopes that'll be of more use, ‘you want me to mope around uselessly with you instead? That what you'd prefer?’

‘Shut-‘

‘-the fuck up. Yeah, I got it,’ she sighs, finally moving to tip her body forwards and slide down Matt's chest to get to the floor. She digs her claws in as she does, stretching out her aching limbs. ‘You can’t stand in this hallway forever Matt. Might as well get it over with.’

Foggy startles at the sound of a key in the lock, shoving upright from his previous position splayed morosely across his bed. 

"Matt-"

"It's fine Foggy, don't worry about it," Matt cuts in immediately, turning away to dump his coat on his side of the room. Eleri trots neatly beside him, hopping up onto a bedpost to get a good vantage point for the upcoming conversation.

Foggy flounders a little. After all the planning and practicing of what he was going to say in his head, he hadn't ever factored in the idea that Matt might not want to hear any of it. 

He really thinks he should have. 

"I'm sorry, Matt," he saying in a rush anyway, "I was stupid and ignorant. I shouldn't have reacted like that."

Matt lets the rehearsed words wash over him. They bash uselessly against the numbness. 

"S’okay," he mutters, still facing away as he starts to dig through drawers for a clean towel. "Pretty standard reaction, really."

Foggy watches Matt's stiff, jerky movements, thrown by the hollowness of the admission, by the emptiness to Matt as he says it.   

"I know dude, it's why I'm so sorry," he tries again, shuffling sideways to swing his legs over the edge of the mattress. "I should've known better."

"And he shouldn't have run away like a little wimpy baby," Nerys chips in lowly.

Matt's head tips at that, mouth quirking. 

He gets the distinct feeling Foggy's gotten a good talking-to at some point.

He appreciates it. It wasn't often people listened to their daemon's voice of reason on this.

Foggy's still watching Matt intently, still waiting for him to say something in a tone of voice he recognises.

Matt continues grabbing stuff for bed, steadfastly ignoring Foggy's staring. 

Foggy's stomach claws with panic; he can't have ruined this. 

"Seriously- I'm really sorry, Matt."

Matt, sliding a drawer shut sharply, replies in that same dull voice.

"There's nothing to be sorry for Foggy. It's fine."

A noise of frustration bounces around the room. It makes Matt flinch.

"It's so not fine!" Foggy argues, unable to stop his voice from rising. "It's-"

"Look- I get it," Matt cuts in again, just wanting this to be over. "We're fucked up. It's unnerving. I should have told you."

Foggy's throat goes tight, hearing Matt like this. He doesn't recognise this blank despondency in his words, how clearly he believes them. 

"Uh- no, actually," he counters, making Matt falter slightly. "I think my reaction was like, exemplary of why it makes perfect sense you didn't."

Matt blinks in surprise, tripped by it. On the bedpost, Eleri gapes.

No one's ever thought about it like that - the way Matt thinks about it. 

He swallows, trying to regain his composure. 

Foggy watches him, waiting on some kind of reply.

It never comes.

Matt, now with an armful of pyjamas, makes a beeline for the shower. Eleri drops from the bedpost to slink across the room and follow him. 

She avoids meeting Nerys' eyes as she does so. 

Foggy makes a final ditch effort, standing to trail weakly after Matt.

“It's just- you don’t have to like, hide shit from me, you know?" he says desperately, begging Matt to really hear him. "You can just tell me, and we’ll deal with it together. Like friends do."

Matt pauses with his hand on the bathroom door, his back to Foggy.

He stops only for a moment before he's slipping inside and clicking the lock behind him.

Foggy clings to the pause. 

Chapter Text

The next week isn’t a fun one for Matt.

There’s only so long you can hide your daemon from society.

After the first day’s moping Eleri doesn’t curl up in his pocket anymore. She trots at Matt's side with her pointy head held high, impervious to the whispering that always seems to follow them now. 

It's how they always handled it - shove down the shame, walk at a casual pace, let the wide-eyed looks roll off of them. Matt focusses on the reverberations of his cane on concrete to drown out the muttering, ignores the noises of disgust that echo as he enters a lecture hall. 

He gets called in for a ‘quick catch up’ by his personal tutor. He doesn’t go.

He goes walking a lot.

Foggy watches it all miserably, distanced by the careful blankness Matt keeps in place around him now. Cinder block walls have slammed right back in place, the ones Foggy had been patiently dismantling all semester.  

It's not that Matt's ever rude to him. He's never cruel or unfriendly, never seems to foster resentment or upset. Foggy almost wishes he would, though, just to break this passive, stilted politeness he keeps locked in place.

Matt knows Foggy's regret is real. He knows the apologies and attempts to reconcile are genuine and heartfelt.

He's learnt his lesson though.

Even Eleri's pokes and prods to listen to the apologies are half-hearted; she's still not talking to Nerys. 

Matt thinks that more than anything is a sign that this is how is has to be.

Foggy'd gone out tonight.

He regrets it.

It’s the first time he’s gone out without Matt. He realises it on his walk into the city. 

His mood never recovers after that.

Matt’s apparently asleep by the time Foggy's pushing quietly through the door later that night. It's an unexpected sight - either he’s faking it, or his body's finally given in and crashed. Either is better than the empty bed Foggy's been getting used to seeing though, so he clicks the door shut and moves about the room as quietly as possible. 

He’s getting into bed bleary eyed and headachey when Eleri catches his attention. She’s hunched up on the windowsill above Matt's bed, sleeping with her head tucked up against the wooden frame. Amber streetlight spills in from the plaza outside, picking out the apricot speckling of her still-unfinished moult.

Foggy thinks she looks strangely beautiful in her raggedy state. She still has a mask of brown over her eyes, her ears still black tipped and terracotta. The distinctly bandit-like energy of it compliments the usual mischievous kind she usually radiates.

Nerys springs up onto the bed beside him then, circling and pawing at the duvet to dig out a comfy spot. She settles down, her great head flopping onto the mattress with a sigh. She looks up expectantly at Foggy for him to join.

Foggy’s still looking at the lonely form of Eleri, lofted up separate from the Matt-shaped pile of duvet below her.

Something about the sight just feels so off, for some reason.

Chapter Text

The energy in the dorm is tense, to say the least.  

It's been two weeks now. Two weeks of dual cold shoulders from Matt and Eleri, of Foggy trying every single big-brotherly trick in the book to get them to break. 

It's been two weeks of Matt dodging those attempts at every turn. Eleri, for once, lacks her oppositional attitude, joining Matt in his solitude. 

Foggy's never had a friend be right there in front of him, yet be so completely unreachable. 

It's a Friday evening and Foggy’s sat ruminating in equal parts frustration and hurt, propped up forlornly against his headboard. Nerys’ head lays heavily across his ankles. She misses Eleri's snark, the casual playfighting and muttered bickering she'd gotten so used to her days being full of. Life seems too quiet without her now. 

Foggy can feel her misery mingling with his own. It's unbearable. 

“How long are you gonna do this for?” 

Matt's focus is pulled from his textbook, and he has to clamp down on the instant sense of fear Foggy’s confrontational tone brings up. Eleri shifts uncomfortably from her perch on top of the desk lamp beside Matt, eyes flicking between Foggy and Nerys. She's been having a hard time sorting through her own feelings about this whole bastardly mess, and as such is choosing the survivalist approach of staying quiet until she does. 

“Do what?” Matt answers dully, making Foggy's jaw clench. 

The frustration is starting to win out over the hurt. 

“I dunno," he says, unable to stop the unpleasant ring of sarcasm lacing his words, "completely fucking locking me out? Is that ringing any bells?” 

The rising volume of it makes Matt double down, determined not to rise to the bait. He keeps his voice carefully flat.

“I’m not locking you out, Foggy."

Foggy's resounding disbelief answers him.

“So is this it then?” he demands, pushing out of bed now to advance on Matt. He can’t help his voice warping with emotion, can’t tell if it's unfair for him to feel like this, if it's selfish of him to demand this of Matt. He's just so hurt. He's sad and worried and confused, and he misses his friend.  “Are we just like, done? I fuck up a little- which I totally admit by the way- and this is just how it is now? Forever?” 

Matt keeps his head low, pretending to still be reading. Eleri stays where she is, watching owlishly. 

This is their first proper argument. 

Matt can feel his mask cracking. His breathing's coming too quick, fingers stumbling over the page carelessly. He can't take this. Chair legs scrape loudly on hardwood as he shoves away from his desk in sudden overwhelm, Foggy's protests falling uselessly on his ears. Eleri hops discreetly down to follow him across the room. 

Foggy's frustration takes a sharp upturn, morphing into something pleading. 

"No- c'mon Matt, don't just fucking leave."

Matt's already tugged on a jumper though, grabbing for his cane by the door. 

"Matt-"

The door's slammed and the room's sunk into festering silence again, Nerys sharing a miserable look with Foggy - she hasn't moved from her position on the bed the entire time. Her voice comes out defeated, resigned. 

"What d'you expect?" 

“Hey! Freak!” 

The yell startles him. Matt'd been suitably sunken into his brooding, disoriented now by the sudden shouting. Eleri’s claws tighten on his shoulder as he cocks his head, trying to pinpoint whoever it'd come from. 

“Yeah, over here.” 

The hairs on his neck are standing up. There's a guy making an aggressive beeline for them across the campus courtyard they're in, the smell of sour adrenaline and cold, blustering bravado rolling off him in waves. 

Probably the one who was shouting, then. 

But it’s daylight on a packed college campus. Eleri's heart beats fast and high beside him, her tiny body taut and tense and readying for an attack.

They both know what situations like this inevitably devolve to.

There are people around.

Matt can’t do anything here.

“Where you going, hotshot?”

Matt’s scrambling to process the information his senses are bringing him, eyes flickering behind his glasses as he tries to string together some sort of escape plan for this. 

He doesn’t register the metal rod swinging from behind.  

There's a flash of bright light and he's stumbling forwards, Eleri making a clumsy attempt to leap to the floor as she's thrown off balance. The first guy takes a step to stop Matt’s fall, rough hands shoving him back upright. Laughter bounces through the air, warped and ringing to Matt's ears as he tries desperately to orientate himself. He vaguely registers Eleri veering her way back over to him, only for an attacker's boar daemon to bat her away easily with its thick, tusked snout. Her body slams into a low wall nearby, making Matt cry out in pain. 

The first guy’s speaking again. Matt can’t make sense of it.  

Another shove at his shoulder. Matt staggers. He doesn't know where his cane is.

A kick lands to the back of his knee then, and suddenly he's hitting the ground. Hard.

He already knows the blows are coming.

It doesn't last long, all in all. 

The only thing Matt can do is curl in on himself, too stunned to fight back, and his lack of response inevitably bores them. With final taunts the pair move off, still laughing coarsely and congratulating between themselves on their success. 

Matt rests his head on the concrete, trying to focus on his breathing. He listens to the din of footsteps around him. Some falter and slow their pace, the sound of vague concern filling the air, but most carry on their usual, hurried rhythm.

No one stops.

He reaches out for Eleri. She slinks forward, limping and low to the ground, flopping into his grip.

There are people around. 

Why is no one helping? 

Chapter Text

Foggy’s in a lecture when he finds out.

He's watching the door nervously as Matt gets later and later, knee starting to bounce in growing agitation. Nerys’ head is on the other one, peering through people's legs to keep her eyes locked on the door as well. 

Argument or not, Matt's attendance had fallen too low for him to miss any more lectures. 

He'd gotten an email about it. 

He should be here. 

The last dregs of students are filtering in when a friend from Foggy’s legal methods seminars slips in amongst them, stopping to scan the bustling room with urgency.

His stomach had dropped with an iron sense of dread long before their eyes lock and she makes a hurried beeline for him.  

Nerys is standing by the time she reaches their row, breathless with panic. 

“Do you know?” 

Foggy stares, heart hammering.

"What's happened to him?"

Foggy shoves out into the aisle with his ears ringing, poorly packed backpack swinging from one shoulder. Nerys cuts her way ahead to clear a path to the door and the two of them hurl themselves out into an afternoon already turning bitter and dim in the winter light, praying Matt's ended up somewhere they can find him. 

Matt's back in the dorm.

He doesn’t remember much about getting there.

Must be muscle memory, he thinks blankly, standing in the doorway and trying to make his brain work.

He's having awful difficulty making his brain work.

He decides he should probably take his coat off. It’s dirty now, scuffed and smeared from concrete and boots. 

Tears prick at his eyes as he holds it in front of him in a bundle, trying to stop his breath turning ragged. 

It's the only one he has. 

There’s blood on his clothes. Not too much, but some. He tries to scan his body for any spots gone bright with injury. It doesn't work. 

All of him hurts. 

He needs to buy more peroxide at some point. 

In trying to control his breathing Matt realises he hasn't been breathing at all. He thinks that’s probably why his head’s spinning so much.  

There's a tug on his jeans as Eleri tries to yank him back to the present. 

He dips his head, considering her for a moment before bending down slowly and painfully to scoop her up with gentle hands. Her body feels stiff and tense against them as she curls up, teeth grinding in pain.

Tears prick at his eyes again.

He asks himself how this is fair. How is it that he always ends up back here, hurt and confused and alone as he cradles his soul in his hands, wondering why people seem to hate her so much. 

He sits on the edge of the bed for too long, Eleri still cradled firmly in his hands. He keeps them strong around her, encasing her shivering body in his lap.

Eventually he manages to focus the energy to move again, dropping sideways and bringing his legs up onto the mattress. He ignores the shocks of pain lancing through his chest as he toes off his shoes, knocking them to the floor with two loud thumps.  

The haze of shock and adrenaline is starting to lift, Matt's thoughts turning dark and oily without it. 

His head hurts a lot more now. 

Is this how Foggy feels as well? Is their previous friendship the only thing holding him back from insults and swings and kicks? Or is it because Matt shares a room with him?

Is he afraid of him?

He thinks that's probably illogical. Foggy's heart always beats truth in his apologies. Matt listens for it especially. 

But he can't stop thinking about the day Foggy'd first seen. The sound of his gasp, the panic in his voice as he'd stammered out apologies and fled. In Matt's head his words mingle with disgust now, the senseless hatred of his attackers seeping into the memory. 

He'd really liked Foggy. He'd really thought Foggy might actually have liked him as well.

Eleri squirms her way up to her usual spot underneath his chin at some point. Movements usually so slick and familiar have turned jagged and weak. She doesn’t feel right.  

Matt holds back tears and buries his head into his pillow, hating the world. On both of their behalf. 

He'd been weak. He's out of practice. He should’ve sensed the metal swinging for him, should’ve known the yelling was being used as a distraction. He shouldn’t have let himself go to the floor, shouldn't have curled into ball like a child that couldn’t defend themselves. He could’ve grabbed the guy’s wrist, twisted it and thrown his weight down. It wouldn’t have been too suspicious.

He’d let his guard slip, let himself get wrapped up in college life like he was a normal fucking person.  

Stick’s voice is in his head and he’s 11 years old and he's so god damn sad.

The door's opening and Foggy's at his side and there are soft hands on his face, and the tears he's been trying to hold back finally break free.

Chapter Text

He thinks he's dead, when he first sees him.  

In hindsight Foggy thinks that might have been an overreaction. In the moment though, looking at his friend curled up in a weak little ball on top of his duvet, cracked blood on his face and Eleri nowhere to be seen, Foggy thinks his reaction is perfectly appropriate.  

“Matt! Oh my god Matt, please be okay.” 

Matt stirs at Foggy’s frantic touches, and Foggy tries not to collapse in relief.  

Alive, then.  

His eyes stay shut though, and he's cold and he's pale and Foggy knows from the first aid courses his friends mocked him for taking in high school that if he can’t rouse Matt, he’s getting in an ambulance. Nerys paces in distress at the bedside, winding a body tight with panic around Foggy's knees. 

“Matt,” he begs, voice still too high and strangled as he shakes his shoulder, “you gotta open your eyes buddy, tell me you’re awake.” 

Matt's starting to register the words crashing around his head now. Situational awareness leaks back in and he tries his hardest to flinch away from Foggy's hands, to slip back into blessed unconsciousness. He buries his face into his pillow. He doesn't want to think.

Foggy’s anxiety wracks down a singular notch as he watches Matt burrow deeper into his bed: it’s a very familiar move. The familiarity of it works to ground him, in the midst of still having no fucking clue how serious this might be. 

“Matt,” he orders again, louder this time, "I know you can hear me. Say words or I'm calling an ambulance.” 

That does it. 

Matt groans at Foggy's threat, moving his leg a few feeble inches in signal of his continued alive-ness.  

Foggy huffs. Again, reassuring, but not quite enough.  

“What was that?” he presses, trying to leak some teasing into his voice. Nerys shoves into his side to get a better look at the prone form on the bed, and he runs a calming hand across her neck. 

Hating this, Matt clenches his teeth and turns his head, pain shooting across his temple as he does. He forces actual words to come out.  

“M’fine, Foggy.” 

And Foggy does collapse at that. There's a shaky noise of relief and he lets himself sink on the floor, sitting back and dropping his head against Matt's bedside cabinet.  

It’s a very Matt shaped response.

“Thank god,” he offers from the floor, in his best imitation of sarcasm. He closes his eyes, hands reaching for Nerys' steady weight beside him. “I was worried you were hurt.” 

Matt's lip quirks. His reply still comes out hollow and empty.

“Does hurt," he mumbles. "Still fine.” 

Foggy laughs, delirious and watery and not at all a happy sound.

“Okay buddy," he says, turning to look at Matt as he tries to make himself breathe in a normal rhythm. "Eleri okay?"

Giving Matt a mental shove Eleri pushes her snout forwards from between his clasped hands, the rest of her head following after a quick scent of the air.

Her moult's mostly finished now, and normally clean white fur lies matted and bloodied in too many places, the wound across her temple matching Matt's.

Nerys pushes her head across the mattress as she emerges, sniffing at her carefully. Eleri squints into the light to sniff back. 

"We're fine, Foggy."

Foggy, also doing a poor job of holding back tears now, can only scoff. He can't take his eyes away from the rust of dried blood against white, the cut he can't quite see the details of. 

"You have a head wound."

Matt manages to shrug somehow.

"S'only minor."

"Okay," Foggy replies flatly to that, once again in disbelief of the lengths Matt's stubbornness will go to. "Minor head wound. Anything else?"

Matt's thoughts have turned strangely numb now that Foggy's steady presence is bringing the reality of his situation back into focus. Thick exhaustion is taking over instead, the physical pain and mental torment blurring together into one useless pile.

"Matt?" Foggy prompts again, when no answer comes. 

Matt sighs. He really wishes he could roll over right now, away from Foggy's attention and worry. He's pretty sure he can't do that without crying though, and he knows he has no choice but to give in. He recites his injuries in dutiful monotone. 

"Cracked ribs, tear in my shoulder, many bruises."

Foggy's eyes go wide.

"Cracked- Matt!" he reels, pushing up from the floor in shock, setting Nerys pacing again. "We gotta- we gotta go to the hospital! They need to like, scan you and stuff."

Matt decides to see how bad rolling over will actually hurt. He has to immediately stifle a yelp at the attempt, screwing his face up and pressing a hand against his side.

"A scan won't help," he says through gritted teeth, as Foggy's heartbeat starts up its panicked rhythm once more. "They heal on their own just fine."

Foggy's Matthew-dread-radar pings, turning his voice suspicious.

"And you know that because...?"

Vague alarm bells flash in Matt's head as Foggy's sentence tapers off. They're entering dangerous territory.

(Truth territory).

"I just know, Foggy," he dodges tiredly. He just needs to lie very still and focus on not having a single thought, and he'll be back up in a day or two. "Trust me."

Foggy's getting a terrible feeling about this - different to the terrible feeling of thinking his best friend was dead a few minutes ago. Now it's morphed into a sense of sinister foreboding, like he's teetering on the edge of something big and black and very carefully hidden from him.

It's not the first time he's felt the press of a void like this.

Matt listens to the sound of Foggy thinking hard, of jaw muscles clenching and fingers fidgeting. It's a sound that usually means Matt is about to hate the next part of the conversation. 

“It’s nothing, Foggy," he says, knowing it's not working but desperate to try anyway. "Just- fucking leave it.” 

Matt's right; it doesn't work. Foggy's ruminating quickly turns to frustration.

“Right," he forces out, voice starting to rise now. "So you’d just leave it if it was me beaten half to death in the street? If I politely asked you to drop it?" 

Matt bites at the insides of his cheeks at that, trapped by the reasoning. He's able to scan his body a little better now, can pick out the creaking of his ribs and the strange flushing noise of broken capillaries as bruises start to form. He’d gotten off lightly, all things considered. He doesn't know how to make Foggy see that.

“I’ve had worse.” 

Foggy makes a choking sound, and Matt realises that wasn't the reassurance he'd meant it as. He holds back a curse; he forgets violence isn't commonplace in normal people’s lives.

“When?” Foggy's demanding then, trying to make the dots connect.  

Matt doesn’t have an answer for that question - he’s lost track of how many times. For once Eleri stays quiet and subdued in the face of his avoidance, head retreating back into the safety of his hands. 

Foggy watches her slip back into hiding, Matt's hands closing around her protectively. The action makes him falter, makes him force his energy calm.

"Matt, what happened?" he asks again, pleading now.

The desperation in the question makes Matt's heart hurt. 

"Nothing out of the ordinary," he lands on, knowing it's not helping even as he says it. "It's fi-"

"Stop saying it's fine!" Foggy interrupts then, finally reaching a breaking point. "Jesus Matt, you're not fucking fine! You just got attacked, you're the absolute fucking opposite of fine!"

Matt's throat goes tight as Foggy yells, and he wills his panic to spill over. He feels so hopelessly lost, so confused by this ferocity of attention, of care and concern and worry. He has no idea what he's meant to be doing with it. 

"Sorry," he chokes out thickly, the sound making Foggy's heart lurch. "Sorry," he says again, hoping it's what Foggy wants to hear, that it'll get him to stop being angry. In his hands, Eleri presses the uninjured portion of her head into his palm. Her little body shivers against him. 

Foggy's frustration promptly evaporates.

"No- Matt, it's not- you don't have to apologise," he stammers, taken aback by the response. He looks to Nerys for help, suddenly so entirely out of his depth. Her equally panicked eyes do nothing to reassure him. "It's okay," he tries weakly, knowing the words aren't true. 

He thinks he might've just tripped into the void.

Chapter Text

It's Nerys who'd calmed Matt down in the end. 

Whilst Foggy hovered and hyperventilated she'd leaped up into the bed to lay her weight next to him, careful to keep a safe distance away but crawling close enough for her rumbling purrs and steady, reassuring breathing to demand his focus.  

Matt had listened to the shifting of her muscles and the rush of air in her lungs, and he'd tried to make his brain go mute.

The last thing he remembers was the thought of thick fur beneath his fingertips, deliriously soft and thrumming with an otherworldly warmth. 

Foggy had let him sleep.

And now Matt's acting like the whole night had never happened. 

At least that’s how it looks to Foggy when he's woken up by the usual bashing sounds of Matt digging around for clothes, back turned and head bowed. He stares at the familiar scene for a while, brain crawling back online, before pushing himself up against the headboard.

“You’re up?” 

Matt doesn’t react to the hoarse surprise of the question. He keeps digging through his drawers.

Nerys' head emerges from beneath the duvet beside him, and Foggy scans the room for Eleri, coming up empty. 

“How’re you feeling?” he tries again, when no answer comes. 

Matt clenches his jaw, throwing a hoodie over his shoulder. That fucking question.

He feels fine, all things considered.

"Don’t say fine,” Foggy adds quickly. 

Bugger. 

Forcing his face impassive Matt secures the rest of his clothes in his arms, turning to make a beeline for the shower. 

“Sore,” he makes himself mutter in passing, closing the door behind him to put an end to any possibility of further discussion.

Foggy's left sitting in bed, the low thrum of anxiety starting to set in.

This isn't going to plan. 

If there ever was a plan.  

His attention's grabbed by a rustling in Matt's bed as Eleri chooses to make her presence known then, working her way free from an elaborate pile of bedding. Her little head pokes out into the air, angling towards Foggy.

They regard each other for a moment.  

“Will he talk to me?” Foggy asks quietly.

Eleri keeps considering him, something desperate and unreadable in her eyes. She doesn't look well. 

“Find a way to make him," she says eventually.

Her muffled addition shocks Foggy. He watches her dig back down into the safety of her nest, feeling like a quiet admission of partnership has been made - a morose comradery centred around the shared desperation to help someone they cared about.

Matt emerges from the bathroom half an hour later in jeans and a thick, sturdy hoodie, apparently ready for the day. Foggy, who's crouching down to wrestle with their terrible coffee machine they keep on the floor, does a double take.

He straightens up quickly.

“What are you doing?” 

“We have lectures, Foggy," Matt answers dully, starting to gather things from his desk to shove into his backpack.

He's casting around to try and remember where he left his glasses when Foggy crosses the room to stand in front of him.

“You don’t,” he tells him, a sureness in his voice that sets Matt on edge. “You're on like, medical leave or something. A compulsory sick day. Besides," he hastens to add, "they don’t start till 11.” 

Matt winces. 

“I was just-” 

“Running from the conversation?” 

Foggy watches Matt doing that thing he does, setting his jaw stubbornly because he knows he's been caught.

“I don’t want to talk about it," Matt says curtly.

“Tough shit," Foggy dismisses, "you’re fucking talking about it."

Beyond them, Matt tracks Nerys quietly crossing the room and taking up a deliberate guard position by the door. Eleri chooses the moment to dig herself out of bed again, keen to see how this stalemate goes. 

Foggy's not moving on this though. He's planted himself firmly, ready to block any attempt of Matt's to leave with a bodily wall he can bounce off of all he wants.

Matt's moving stiffly, the bruise from his head blossoming into a sickly black eye. Other than the injuries however, Matt's returned to the flat, standoffish state that Foggy's so terrified will become their norm.

If he’s able to look neutral after last night, god knows what else he’s keeping out of sight.

He has to put a stop to this. 

"Matt," he pleads, a desperation in his voice he'd never heard from himself before, "please- just tell me what happened."

Matt recounts the event in a few clipped sentences. He's already blocking out the details in his head. 

When he's done, Foggy's heart is hammering a bright rhythm around the room. 

He's furious, in a way Matt’s never known from him before. Nerys’ claws scrape the linoleum as she leaves her position blocking the door, crossing the room to leap up onto his bed. Matt can hear her fur bristling, her lips curling as she wraps herself protectively around Eleri's nest. 

Matt's stunned by the response.

He'd even made sure to carefully sugarcoat his words.

“And no one helped?" Foggy asks as he paces, his broadcasted outrage contrasting Matt's flat acceptance from the edge of his bed. He'd had to sit down before long, lightheaded and off-balance. He needs to eat. "No one even tried to stop them?”  

It makes Matt heart hurt with the naivety of it, of the disbelief in Foggy’s voice.

“People don’t stop things like this, Foggy." 

His response makes Foggy pause. The gap in his lived experience has suddenly become horribly, shamefully apparent.

"So this has happened before?" 

Matt laughs, bitter and blunt. 

"Yeah," he says shortly, "this has happened before." 

Silence meets him. Well, silence to the normal ear. Matt can still hear Foggy's thumping heartbeat, his too-shallow breathing, his fingers dragging through his hair every now and again in agitation.

On the bed, Nerys noses at the pile of blankets Eleri's buried under.

No snout emerges.  

Foggy makes up his mind. 

Matt's head tips as he follows him crossing the room, snatching his coat off the hook.

"Right," Foggy says, pulling it on over his sweats, calling Nerys to him. "Stay here," he directs at Matt, voice gone firm once more. "Rest.”   

The way it sounds like an order makes Matt object, just on instinct. 

“Foggy-”   

“Rest," is all he gets again, as Foggy pulls on a hat.

Matt realises he's making to leave then, and definitely not for lectures. "What-" 

“I mean it Matt," Foggy cuts him off, as Nerys finally leaps off the bed to join him by the door. "Don’t move. I'm gonna sort this." 

Matt stays rooted in place at that, completely perplexed by the notion. He doesn't have a chance to try and question Foggy again. A slamming door lights up the room.

Eleri shifts a little beside him. A quiet satisfaction emanates from her hiding place. 

Chapter Text

Foggy crosses campus in furious, laser-focused silence. He runs through statutes and case law and civil procedures in his head, and he tries not to think about the sight of dried blood caking Matt’s hair to his temple. Nerys stalks at his side with her ears pulled back tight, all sinuous movements and snarling lips.  

This can’t be legal.  

A thread of watery panic is starting to grow however as they approach the building housing the paltry disability services, as Foggy’s arguments struggle to come together into anything concrete and binding. 

This might very much be legal.  

It's still early, and the building's not entirely open to the public yet. Foggy grits his teeth and squares his shoulders as he weaves through fluorescent-lit corridors, hoping the look on his face and Nery’s harsh, raised hackles will work to keep anyone from asking if he should be here.  

He reaches the inquiries desk and the receptionist listens to him speak with wide eyes and a pale face.

They tell him no one’s available.

They don't let Foggy speak enough to make his case beyond that, so he sets himself on a chair in the waiting room front and centre, hounding every member of staff that walks by until they finally acquiesce and send someone to deal with him. 

For all the use it does.  

He's led to a shabby little meeting room by a reluctant caseworker, a man in his forties holding a laptop that hasn't been turned on yet, a man who looks visibly uncomfortable to be the one having to sort this out. His daemon's a small, gleaming black beetle of some kind, and her barbed feet grip tightly onto his shirt collar as they sit down. 

Foggy tries to step into the role of the one in charge here. He tries to take advantage of the discomfort in the air. 

He demands to see CCTV footage of the area. He demands an email be sent college wide to call for witness statements. He demands they find out who did this.   

None of it works. None of it even registers, as far as he can tell. 

Condescending nods and empty, useless platitudes bounce back at him. They form a thin veneer over that growing uneasiness, the deep sense that Foggy's trying to access a conversation that shouldn't be had, that he's breaking unspoken rules about what's allowed to be spoken about. 

“This was a hate crime, plain and simple,” he says again, Nerys sat like a sphinx in the corner, eyes pinned on the man's skittering fingers as he types.

“Mr. Nelson, we can’t know-” 

A growl laces the stale office air at the attempted pacifying, quiet and low, and it makes the beetle daemon's antennae flick and shiver. The man glances down in subtle alarm. 

"I'm afraid, um, we just- we don't have any proof of that being the case," he tries to reword, cringing at the resultant scoff it gets him.  

"No proof?" Foggy reels, trying to shove away the sense of hopelessness starting to tug at him as his options dwindle. "His daemon changes, for christ's sake, what else would they have been attacking him for?"

"Well-" the man starts again, clearly trying to decide if what he's about to say is going to elicit any more fury in his direction. "Given Mr. Murdock's disability, it, um- it could be argued-"

"Then argue that," Foggy cuts him off, ignoring the distaste of that idea in favour of trying to maintain any sort of leverage here. 

It earns him another pained, faux-apologetic look. 

"Again, Mr. Nelson," the man wheedles, weak and papery, "we have no proof." He closes his laptop, bringing the meeting to an effective end. "I'm afraid there's just nothing this office can do for you."

He leaves with copies of the paperwork needed to file a police report. He knows they won't have braille ones available, but he asks anyway, just to make a point.

He’s told he should expect a phone call to follow up. He knows he won’t get one.  

He takes the long way home, leaving campus entirely to try and lose himself in any sense of urban community. He weaves through reams of people who don't look at him, who have somewhere else to be and other things to think about, and he tries to process the injustice of it all. He tries to find an out, to think of some miraculous answer that he can bring to Matt in triumph.

By the time he's finding himself back on streets he recognises, no answers have come. 

It makes a lot more sense why Matt didn’t tell him now. 

It turns out there are no systems in place to deal with something like this. There are no statutes. No case law exists. 

He couldn't be the one in charge, because there was nothing for him to force the caseworker to do. 

The law had failed Matt, in that shabby little meeting room. 

Chapter Text

“I bought you- uh, soup.”  

The sentence hangs awkwardly in the stuffy air of the dorm. Then the duvet shifts, and Matt’s bleary head surfaces from the bed. He tracks Foggy’s movement towards him, face pinching in confusion when something hot and fragrant is deposited on the table beside him.

“What?”

Foggy’s heart is beating way too fast in his chest. He’d thought it might be nice to stop by the fancy organic place that Matt liked to go to, not wanting to come back completely empty handed. But now he’s here and Matt was still wincing when he moved and Eleri was still buried somewhere in the bed, and suddenly the gesture feels stupid. 

It feels too little, in the face of it all.

He taps the wood veneer in familiar signal to its whereabouts anyway, watching as Matt’s head dips, following the sound. 

“You brought me soup?” Matt echoes, still visibly processing.

“Uh- yeah." Foggy's hand goes to Nerys' head as she presses into his legs for support, also feeling unsure. “It’s what you do when people are sick.”

Matt keeps buffering; he's pretty sure his brain isn't working right. The room smells like vegetable broth and suet dumplings and his ears are ringing faintly. Somewhere down by his waist Eleri’s nose pushes up, scenting the air.  

“No one’s ever brought me soup before."

Foggy’s already strained heart gives a jolt. He’s saved from having to think of a reply to such a quietly sad sentiment by Matt levering himself into a sitting position. Eleri, jostled by the movement, creeps out into the open beside him, clambering up onto one of his legs when he crosses them. Her eyes follow Matt’s hands as he reaches carefully for the container.

“Thank you,” Matt reminds himself to say, after a few more seconds of silent processing have stretched out into the room.

He holds the styrofoam in his lap, fiddling with the crinkly plastic of a pre-wrapped spoon. Eleri chews impatiently at the lid of the container, pulling Matt's attention back down when it cracks loudly. He puts it to the side, a fresh, billowing wave of steam rising. It's the winter soup from that café he knows washes their dishes correctly, the one he doesn't go to very often because it's so far out of their usual way. 

Foggy must have detoured specially.

The thought feels heavy with significance. There's a nameless weight to it, how Foggy's heart is hammering and Nerys is prowling at his side - Matt can feel it all meaning something. But for now his newfound uprightness has sent his head spinning and his very recent concussion threatens to turn the feeling into a bright, searing headache if he concentrates too hard: he needs to spend some quiet time thinking about it later to unravel the moment exactly.

Plus, he's pretty hungry.

“Yeah,” Foggy eventually answers, swallowing to try and clear his throat of the lump that’s worked its way there with the look of Matt right now. “You’re welcome buddy.” 

“They wouldn’t do anything.” 

Matt’s sat propped up at his headboard taking slow, careful mouthfuls of soup. Every now and then he pauses the spoon over the bowl so Eleri, sitting with her paws on the brim, can lean in to lick delicately at the hot liquid. 

Neither of them show much reaction to Foggy’s admission.  

“They generally don’t,” Matt says, already feeling too drained for this particular conversation.  

“I mean, like, fucking anything,” Foggy keeps on, a bitterness to his voice that makes Matt shift uncomfortably. 

“That’s just how it is,” Eleri tries to field, getting that familiar ache in her chest of someone realising the fact only after Matt's had the shit kicked out of him.

Foggy's jaw clenches. He looks out at the crisp, pleasant day outside, hating it for its obnoxiousness. It feels like a betrayal somehow, like the world is proudly broadcasting how little it cares about Matt's suffering. 

“Well I’m not gonna let it be," he decides, a firmness in the words that makes both Matt and Eleri freeze. He's sat at Matt's desk with Nerys by his side like a guard, the image giving something serious and intense to the moment. "I dunno how yet, but I’m gonna fix this. I'll find those assholes, and I'll make them pay.” 

Nothing about what Matt’s feeling is familiar now. Now it's his heart beating too fast, thumping against his ribs as feeling floods his veins. Eleri turns sharply from her perch by the food, looking to Nerys. Wild, ferocious eyes meet hers. She hasn’t been letting herself look at them much recently.

She can’t look away.

“They’ll always be more,” she hears Matt say above her, sounding distant.

Nerys sinks down, sphinx-like, still holding Eleri's gaze. The hint of claws scraping on hardwood cuts clear to Matt's ears.

“Then we'll find them too.”

Chapter Text

Foggy tells their professors that Matt's sick today, that he doesn't know when he'll be back. None of them take any issue with the excuse, and none of them enquire any further about him.

Foggy keeps getting angry, whenever he thinks about that part.

It's evening and Matt's in bed, seemingly dozing. Foggy knows he's still awake though because Eleri's sat grooming herself up on the windowsill above him. There's something smug to her posture as she works, the way she's chewing loudly at the fur around her ankle, clearly pleased with herself for ruining Matt's illusion of sleep.

He stays watching her for a moment, transfixed by the tenuous shape in the low light of the room. She's entirely white now, snowy and bright but for sharp black eyes and a rush of black fur at her tail.

There's no hint of blood on her coat anymore.

She's beautiful.

'She looks lonely, don't you think?'

Nerys had discreetly perched herself at the end of Matt's bed earlier. She lies flopped on her side there now, legs carefully arranged so as not to bump against his. She's also watching Eleri. 

The comradery of it reassures Foggy, who looks back to the solitary shape in the window. She doesn't look any different than usual - calm and bold and unrepentant, unbothered by her lofty position above it all. But Foggy knows by now how much more there is hidden under the surface, the way she can't help but broadcast the things Matt keeps such an iron-tight lid on.

He knows she watches him and Nerys sometimes, eyes wide and ears pricked like she's seeing something entirely new to her. He sees the way she playfights with Nerys, all bodily contact and clinging limbs, the way she skitters away from Matt's private scoldings to attack again from a different angle, heedless of the disapproval. 

Eleri twists then, oblivious to the scrutiny she's under, trying to reach a patch of sticking up fur on her back.

Foggy's getting that feeling again, the one he'd never encountered before he met Matt. It's something sad and disconcerting, shifting in the corner of his vision. When he'd seen that raggedy patch of white fur on Eleri for the first time, he'd thought he'd been looking at it properly for once.

It's still here though. It still won't come into focus.

“Are you not settled?”

Matt's eyes blink open. On the windowsill Eleri's smug aura vanishes instantly, something tense and wary taking its place. Wide eyes meet briefly with Foggy's before she jumps down from her roost, hitting the bed with a soft thump.

Matt has to swallow around his alarm to answer. People didn't usually ask that so plainly. 

“We are,” he says, running a gentle knuckle over Eleri as she crawls into the space below his chin. “She just changes a little, that’s all.” 

A hush has fallen over the room, a nervous reverence to the tightrope walk of this conversation. Foggy can't tell if he's relieved by the answer, nor whether he feels guilty about that fact. He doesn't particularly know anything of what he's feeling anymore.

“How come?”

Matt blinks again. People really didn't ask like this. People demanded more information from him with morbid interest and poorly concealed repulsion in their voice. They shouted and sneered, attacked him in the street. They didn't ask with curiosity. Foggy sounds like he genuinely wants to hear what the answer is, not because he feels entitled to know.  

Too bad Matt doesn’t have anything for him.  

“I dunno," he shrugs, stroking at Eleri absently, hating that the one time he's actually willing to tell the truth he doesn't have anything of substance to offer. “No one really knows. At least that I can find out.” 

And Matt’s hunted. He’d forced nuns to search for likely tomes in the church stores, scoured libraries and pestered library assistants who fled from his questions as quickly as they’d sought him out to ask if he needed any help. A few passive phrases, a declaring of the phenomenon, little more. An entire branch of life, unexplored. 

From her spot on the bed, Nerys flicks an ear.

“Maybe she just likes being difficult."

Matt's lip quirks, considering it. The room relaxes a fraction.

“I wouldn’t put it past her."

Eleri wriggles, snaking her head out over Matt's shoulder to glare down the bed.

"Stop referring to me in third person. I'm right here.” 

Nerys gives her a mock snarl back and Matt's threatened by a smile, and Foggy watches on and feels something start to loosen in his chest. There's an unintended weight behind Eleri's words that makes him think. 

“Okay then,” he says, zeroing in on her, challenging in a way he knows she likes, “why do you change?”  

It works perfectly. Eleri goes slack with surprise, turning to Foggy to look at him with wide eyes, ears pricked. He grins back at her. Eleri keeps staring.

No one has ever asked her before. Even Matt rarely went beyond a flippant ‘why do you have to be like this?’ remark, internally flinching away from any real thought on the matter. Her answer feels too personal to speak out loud though. Now she's been given an actual opportunity to be vulnerable, she can see why Matt runs away from it so quickly.   

Below her furry body, Matt has to hide his amusement at her speechlessness. Eleri senses it anyway, and it tugs her from her shock.

“Maybe I just like being difficult,” she snips, tipping sideways to burrow herself back down into the duvet again. She makes sure to push clawed feet against Matt's face as she goes.

Foggy laughs brightly at that, and Matt finally smiles. The motion feels unfamiliar after so long.

Eleri tucks herself quietly back against his neck, and it sets him thinking.

She’s lying. She doesn’t do that often. He strokes a soothing finger over her head.

She doesn't try and bite at it like she usually does.

“What does it feel like? For her to change?” 

They've ordered last minute takeout for the night, sitting now on the hardwood surrounded by half-eaten food and empty wrappings. Nerys and Eleri lie settled amongst the mess, Eleri planted like a cat a safe distance from Nerys' front paws, her careful posture a contrast to Nerys' languid form. 

“I dunno,” Matt says again, shifting a little in discomfort at the question and wincing as it jostles his ribs. “I try not to think about it.” 

“So it doesn’t feel any different?” Foggy presses, thinking that completely insane. How could someone just not think about that?

“No, it does feel different." Matt pokes vaguely at his abandoned noodles, trying to squirm out from the attention. He's never talked about it with someone like this. "I just don’t know how.” 

Foggy keeps looking at him, astounded. Trust Matt to have such a mysterious answer.

Matt abandons his poking. It's not the exact truth - he does know a little of what it feels like for Eleri to change. Beneath the anxiety of it all there's something cold and bright and clear to it, a strange focus that settles over them. They seem to fit better with the season as Eleri's coat molts, the ice and the grit and the wind of the city kept at bay by thick white fur.

He just doesn't know what that means. He doesn't know if it even does mean anything.

Hence the fact he doesn't like to think about it.

"You should really try journaling or something," Foggy tells him, teasing, watching Matt carefully to see if that's something that's okay between them again. "Get in touch with your feelings."

Matt grimaces, disliking the direction this conversation is heading in.

"My feelings keep biting my toes in the mornings," he says lowly.

"Funny that," Foggy counters, grinning again as he hauls himself to his feet to start packing up their mess. "S'almost like they're trying to tell you something."

They're meant to be sleeping. Matt's spent most of the day asleep though - it's way off now. Eleri sits hunched and alert back up on the windowsill, pupils wide as she tracks rabbits across the lawn outside.

Foggy also feels far from sleep. He lies awake with his head pillowed against some part of Nerys, thinking about all the odd things Matt has been letting slip lately.

“Why do you know what cracked ribs feel like?” 

Matt grits his teeth at the question, a faint breath of frustration escaping him. Eleri stays statue-like above him, shifting her focus inside. Trust Foggy to remember that detail.

“I got beat up a lot," he mutters back at him, hoping it's enough to end the conversation.

It's not really a lie.  

Foggy doesn't respond. He knows it's not a real answer. It's there in the way Eleri's silhouette has gone still, ears pinned back as she listens to the room, the way the air's gone hushed and unsure again. 

It's there in the fact this is the first time they've talked properly in days, though neither of them have addressed that yet. 

Foggy wonders if it's just something he'll have to get used to - that he's never quite going to get the whole picture with Matt. 

“You said you’d had worse."

Matt huffs another breath. Foggy's blowing this out of proportion. His head barely hurts anymore, and his ribs only when he moves. The bruising will go down over the week. He’s eaten. He’s fine, really. It's Foggy who won't be, if he acquires the knowledge that it was an adult beating the shit out of him and calling it training.

It's too much, for normal life. The truth doesn't fit anywhere.

“I didn’t know it was that bad,” Foggy whispers, mostly to himself.

It's heard anyway, and the naivety of it lands horribly. It drags a wounded, awful scoff from Matt's throat: he's sick of this part of his life not even being a blip on people's radars.  

“Didn’t you?”

Matt listens to Foggy's mouth click shut at the unexpected ferocity of it. Guilt wrenches at him with the sound.

“Sorry,” he says into the silence he'd created.

“No, you’re right,” Foggy's quick to reply, voice a little stronger now. "That was dumb. I was being dumb." He takes a breath, trying to let the emotions sort themselves out. "I should've known." 

Another stretch of silence. Foggy lets it sit, feeling out the shape of Matt's hurt. He'd never realised how lucky he was, not having to confront this part of society. Shame swirls, but Nerys tucks a paw up to be able to move her head closer to his, soothing the feeling away. Something more determined replaces it. Something useful.

“Nerys liked you immediately, you know that?” he finds himself saying. “That’s like- never happened before.”

It takes a moment for the words to register with Matt. They make Eleri turn, peering to pick out Nerys amongst the gloom. Half buried into Foggy's pillows, Nerys lifts her head to meet her look. Matt feels the interaction happen, the beat of warmth at their silent communication. Then Nerys buries her head back down, and he's left to try and process the abrupt surge of thought and feeling brought on.

He knows Nerys is wary of strangers. He knows she takes time to warm up to people, even ones Foggy apparently liked plenty. He hears her muscles stay sinewy and tight in their presence for weeks, the air lighting up with tense ear flicks and shifting paws as she monitored the interaction. She'd never had that around him. He just remembers the feeling of being watched, of being considered. He remembers hearing her laugh for the first time, the air turning golden with it when Eleri first took a running leap to fling herself around her neck.

The energy to feel angsty and prideful in his isolation is draining. It doesn't seem to fit anymore. Right now he's sore and cold and Foggy's laughing with him again and he doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know what he's feeling, what he's meant to be feeling. Stick had been proven right by the world so many times, but now Foggy's here and he sits on the floor with him eating the takeout he knows Matt likes the most, and he'd spent the afternoon typing up meticulous lectures notes so Matt could listen back to them later.

He’s never had someone have his back like this. There's something warm and hopeful in Matt's chest and it doesn't feel like it's him and Eleri alone against the entire world anymore. 

Nothing about Stick's teachings seems to apply right now. None of it makes sense around Foggy.

“Why don’t you tell me things, Matt?” 

Foggy sounds so small saying it. The question rings plaintively, a hint of pleading to it. It clashes painfully with the warmth in Matt's chest, that Foggy's voice could sound so far from that feeling.

Matt can't help a defensiveness surging up to meet it though, practiced and primal and innate as it is. Eleri shifts above him, and Matt works to press back against it for once. 

"I just- I can't," he tries, having to physically force the words out as he searches for the right ones. “I don’t know how.”

The admission is a quiet one. Foggy thinks Matt sounds young, saying it.

Nerys moves then, gently dislodging him as she slips away to pad over to Matt's side of the room. After pausing to give time for him to object, she springs up to what's becoming a familiar spot at the end of his bed. She lays herself down, Matt feeling the weight of her head sinking carefully beside his knee. 

Quiet, serious words vibrate around him. 

“You'll learn.”

Chapter Text

Sometime in the night Eleri had snuck down from the windowsill to set herself next to Nerys on Matt's bed. Foggy knows this because he's halfway through assembling himself for a coffee run the next morning and she's still there. 

She's not quite cuddled into Nerys' side, not even really touching her, instead choosing to rest in definite, deliberate proximity, an inch or so of warm space keeping them separate. Foggy keeps stopping to steal glances at her. It's the closest the two of them have gotten in a long time.

Nerys' eyes are still shut, her head still at Matt’s knee, an air of satisfaction about her. Foggy has to mentally unstick his throat to comment on it.  

'You look smug.’

Bleary eyes open to regard him for a moment, closing again as she settles back down, indifferent.

'You look jealous.’

It sticks Foggy’s throat right back up again, the boldness of it catching him off guard. He doesn't appreciate it.

He hadn’t even registered her not being in his own bed that morning - it wasn't unusual for her to have spent the night somewhere over on Matt's side.

He wonders when that started happening.

Nerys refuses to move as Foggy readies to leave. He decides to repay her earlier comment by leaving anyway.

Their bond starts to pull as soon as Foggy's through the door. Familiar aching grips at him, his skin prickling with sick urgency. He forces himself to keep walking, receiving a surge of anger from Nerys at the action. He ignores it. A gasp stutters from him, and he has to dash at the tears suddenly filling his eyes. He wants to clutch at his chest. 

It only lasts a few more steps. Heady relief comes with the clacking of claws on hardwood, Nerys appearing through the door with a face like thunder. Foggy takes a shaky breath, near-dizzy at the sight of her. They've only done this a few times, most of them just a determined attempt to antagonise the other, but each time proves nothing more than how completely not worth it the action is. 

Nerys sulks after him down the corridor, glaring something foul. Foggy swallows around his fading nausea, any apology he might have getting cut off when she makes a loping lunge in passing, mouthing at his hand in a mock bite before strutting off ahead.

He stares after her, dumbstruck.

She's never done that before.

'You can’t just not think about it.'

Matt ignores the small entity weaving around his feet - all morning he’s been hoping that if he does it long enough, she’ll give up. Eleri, aware of this approach, headbutts his ankle when she doesn't receive a response. She looks up at him plaintively. 

'I really like them, Matt.’

Matt flips the page of his textbook with more force than necessary. He wishes she'd stop. His head’s so full, and he’s so behind on his reading, and there are way too many things surrounding that statement that he doesn't want to think about right now. He pushes Eleri away with his foot.

'Trust me, I know you do.'

He tries to focus back on the reams of case law in front of him. Eleri pushes the issue back into place for him to consider. He shoves it back at her. 

She's winding around the legs of his chair now, chittering in agitated intervals. The noise makes Foggy look up from across the room, eyeing the interaction discreetly.

‘Which means you like them too,’ Eleri keeps on.

Matt grits his teeth.

‘You’re projecting,’ he dismisses, making Eleri bare her teeth up at him, frustrated.

‘The truth? Into your thick little skull?’ she replies, scrambling up a desk leg. ‘Glad you noticed.'

Level with him now she noses around his books, pushing notes out of the way and biting at any odd edges she likes the look of. Matt pointedly ignores her, refusing to rise to it. Eleri narrows her eyes at the silence, rounding on him.

'And just to be clear,’ she says, stepping obnoxiously over the pages Matt’s trying to read to stand in front of him. ‘When I say like, I mean-‘  

Matt's had enough. He cuts her off with a sudden lunge, making a bid to swipe her off the table. She darts away from the attack easily, Matt only managing to trip her back legs. It knocks her off balance mid-leap and she hits the floor with a clumsy thump. Another round of chittering fills the room, angrier this time, and he doesn’t recoil fast enough to dodge her- 

"Dude!” Foggy yells, watching Eleri skitter away to a safe distance with her fur standing on end. “Did she just bite you?" 

Matt grimaces, making a vague noise of acknowledgement at Foggy as he starts his fingers moving across the page again. 

"It's fine,” he says, pressing his other foot against the bite to stem the blood starting to bead there. “She does it a lot." 

Foggy can't think of a single reply to that - he's pretty sure that's not how these things are supposed to go. He looks quickly to Eleri, scowling in fierce annoyance from under a chest of drawers, eyeing Matt’s feet like she wants another go.

His heart's starting to beat too fast again. 

Against his shins, Nerys sits frozen. A tendril of shared horror passes between the two of them: that's not what her bite had been like this morning. That one had been entirely pretend, teasing and disapproving and not at all backed by any real force.

Eleri's had been real. She'd been biting to hurt.

The day passes uneasily. 

Matt convinces Foggy he needs a walk once evening rolls around. He needs the fresh air, he says, for his health, and to exercise some of the pent up energy out of Eleri. 

Eleri flashes her teeth again at that part.

"I'm not a dog," she tells them icily, lofted up in her usual position by the window.

"So you don't want to go run around in the grass?" Nerys tries to tease.

More teeth meet her, the effort falling flat as Eleri turns back to the glass. She tries not to feel the twinge of hurt at the action.  

Coats and hoodies, scarves and hats. The ground's starting to frost already. It's nearly December.

They walk mostly in silence, Nerys pressing close against Foggy's side. He knows she's still spooked; something awful and unsettling has been thrown into light by the parallels of the day.

Eleri's behaviour had always seemed mostly rooted in cheek before now, and Foggy wonders if he'd made an unconscious decision at some point to see it that way. Now he sees the memory of Matt grabbing for her, too quick to be pulling his strength. He sees real, burning hatred in Eleri's eyes, gleaming from a space too small for Matt to reach into.

The bickering and the arguing, it was always just the surface. Matt's hands weren't scratched and scabbed from playfighting.

He feels stupid, for this to be the first time he's comprehending it like this.

Nerys pushes her head into his thigh then, trying to ground him. Foggy's hand finds her head automatically, and he tries to look for Eleri. He spots her a ways off on her own, dipping into a ditch to dive beneath streams of lacing brambles. 

She gets so far away sometimes, Foggy thinks. She separates herself from them too easily. He wonders if Matt feels it, the way he does when Nerys goes too far. The thought makes him glance sideways, making a quiet study of Matt's face. There's no hint of hidden pain to be found, no signs of an otherworldly agony being forced down. There's only careful impassiveness, Eleri scrabbling out of the ditch ahead of them not seeming to bother him in the slightest.

It must be different for different people, Foggy decides on.

'I was only pretending earlier,' Nerys tells him softly, curled up small against his side that night. 'I'd never really bite you.'

Foggy shakes his head, hair ruffling against his pillow.

'I know you wouldn't,' he reassures her, fingers curling into the thick fur of her neck. They're quiet for a while, each silent presence comforting the other, before Foggy asks, 'do you know why she does it?'

Nerys' head shakes this time. It feels so wrong, to have witnessed such viciousness between a person and their daemon. She can't ever imagine hurting Foggy.

'I don't want to ask.'

Chapter Text

"You know you're coming to mine for the holidays, right?"

It's been two weeks. Things are a little better now, in that Matt's talking to him again and the bruises on his face have turned more yellow than purple. The fleeting warmth they'd had back between them has faded however, leaving something awkward and stilted in its place, their interactions tainted by the mutual knowledge of everything shoved under the surface of the fragile truce. Foggy hates it, but he prefers it to Matt's stubborn silence, so he calls it a step in the right direction. 

He tries to make the suggestion casually, even though he knows it won't land that way. Sure enough he watches as Matt goes inevitably still, his fingers pausing over his work and his muscles tightening in alarm. Eleri, splayed beside him on a textbook with teeth marks in the corners, lifts her head with interest.

"My mom insisted," Foggy carries on, doing his best to force an air of light-hearted discussion into the topic. "She's like, totally in holiday hosting mode y'know? She loves a full house." 

It's not working, he can tell. Matt's already doing that thing his face, shaking his head and grimacing with fake regret, an apology ready on his lips. From the other side of the room Nerys watches the scene with her head held low, sharing a brief look with Eleri.

"I dunno Foggy-" Matt starts, "it's not-"

"It'd be fun," Foggy cuts him off, already turning desperate, his voice gone thin and pleading with it. "Everyone wants to meet you." 

It makes Matt falter, his brow softening and his throat bobbing as the words sink in. Against his will, the careful mask of dismissal drops a notch: it's something he doesn't think he's ever heard before. He finds the sentiment difficult to believe, even if Foggy's heart beats truth behind him.

Still on the textbook, Eleri's head sinks back down as Matt processes, her eyes narrowing, ears pressed flat to her head. She hasn't been talking much as of late.

The silence stretches on, and Matt shakes himself to reply. He drags the mask back into place, his face going stiff and impassive once more. He can't do this.

"I was planning to stay and study," he says, turning in his chair and gesturing half-heartedly back to his books. "I gotta catch up."

Foggy, ready for the excuse, doesn't back down.

"You can study at mine," he parries easily, making Matt frown.

"It's not-"

"Matt."

It's too forceful this time, too unguarded to be ignored. Matt's excuses die in his throat at Foggy's interruption, his head dropping as he realises he's not going to get out of the approaching conversation.

"You can't stay here."

It doesn't get him a reply, but Foggy watches as Matt's head tips sideways a little, off towards Eleri.

'We're gonna have a bad time if we stay here,' she tells him sullenly. 'You know that right?'

Matt just shoves at her voice, turning away to rub away the tension collecting in his forehead. Because of course he knows it. He's been decidedly ignoring the upcoming holidays, how he'd have nothing to do but listen to the other students through the walls, all the parties and well wishes floating through the drywall of the freezing cold dorm room, an empty bed looming opposite him.

"We want you there."

All heads swivel to Nerys as she speaks. She sits sphinx-like at the top of Foggy's bed, attention pointed directly at Matt.

"Really, dude," Foggy's quick to add into the surprised lull, making Matt's head dip back towards him. "It wouldn't be the same without you."

It's too much. A frustrated sigh scrapes the air, Matt cursing his useless head as it failed to process the dead end he's found himself in.

"C'mon buddy," Foggy keeps on, "Please?"

It sounds so genuine, Matt can hardly bear it. He thinks about the last few weeks, the lengths Foggy had gone through, anxious and desperate to help in any way. It makes him feel sick, how little he can understand the actions.

He's not going, but Matt can't bring himself to put the nail in the coffin today. 

"I'll think about it," he finally acquiesces, as Foggy gives a small cheer of relief across the room.

It earns him the break he'd been desperate for as Foggy relaxes and heads back to his own work, Nerys settling down again as well with her great head laid gently on the duvet.

Matt turns back to his textbooks. On the desk next to him, a maleficent paperweight, Eleri bares her tiny teeth.

'Liar.'

It's been two days since Foggy had raised the issue, and they're on their way back from their afternoon of lectures. Matt had been allowed to go to them again, per Foggy's approval, and so far it'd been going okay. Matt's bruises were becoming less brutal-looking by the day, much easier for lecturers to ignore in polite conversation. The rhythm of his cane was still off, his shoulders stiff and sore and scabbed, but he was doing better.

Nobody had given them any more trouble, even if people's eyes did follow them for too long in the hallways now. Matt had said to expect it, but it still gets a rise out of Foggy. There's too much unusualness to them now, Matt with his white daemon and his beaten face. No one talked to them much anymore.

The evening's a cold one and they walk in the dark shoulder to shoulder, Matt's hand at Foggy's elbow again. Foggy savours the feeling, clinging to it as something real between them, a remnant of the times before any of this had ever happened.

Eleri winds her way through the dark ahead of them, rooting in flowerbeds and dipping into ditches. Foggy watches her distantly. She's been quiet lately, ever since she'd bitten Matt. Foggy can't read it, not that he could ever read her much anyway. She'd become a dark shadow to their days, her unsettled state betraying Matt's neutral front. 

"So, have you thought about it yet?"

He so wants this for Matt. He can't help but think it'd be an awful, dangerous step back for him to have to spend the holidays here alone. Matt stays quiet beside him at the question, and Foggy's hand finds Nerys' head for comfort.

Matt's coming home with them, he just doesn't know how to make him see that yet. 

Trying again, he pushes his voice into something goading and teasing, hoping it works to shed the weight that always seemed to stick to their interactions now. 

"What," he pokes, nudging his arm against Matt's side for emphasis, "so you’re just gonna lurk about the dorms for the holidays? Some kinda studious christmas ghoul?"

Again, it gets him nothing. Foggy sighs, eyes going to the ground again. He does a double-step to kick a stick towards Eleri for her to chase, watching as she darts after it, pouncing into the grass with her claws bared. He grins at the image, and finds the courage to pull Matt to a stop beside him.

"C’mon Matt," he tries, as Matt lets himself be stopped. "That’s way too fucking sad of an image. Don’t put me through that. How am I meant to have a good time with that in my head?"

And on and on and on. Eventually Matt starts digging for excuses, dodging Foggy's pleading with non-answers and half-hearted maybes. Eleri keeps her distance from it all, listening in with a body held taught with frustration.

She's keen on the idea. She knows Matt is too, deep down.

Matt lies in bed that night finally able to relax in some semblance of quiet, Foggy having given up the day's badgering after Matt's handy suggestion of ordering in dinner. Now he listens to distant thumping music and the hum of electricity in the walls, and he lets his brain mull over the idea some more.

It's pointless, inevitably. Nothing works. Everything was too messy, too tangled and unfamiliar, every thought wrapped around the half-truths plaguing his life. Nothing seemed to fit right. 

He thinks about Foggy's family, large and rowdy and apparently itching to get to know him. The idea doesn't make his chest go warm with surprise anymore. Instead it drags cold panic into his body, the phrase heavy with expectations he knew he couldn't fulfill.

Foggy's family didn't know him. As far as they were concerned Foggy was telling the whole truth, that he was a good roommate and friend with a few strange quirks. If he did go, he knows they'd be sorely disappointed by the version of him that arrives. 

Up on the windowsill, Eleri stares out at the damp streetlight of early morning. Below her Matt's mind still whirs, the familiar sensation of fruitless rumination making her stomach turn. She tries to block it out, pushing it from her mind.

Her head dips against the glass as she closes her eyes. She's so tired. 

Chapter Text

Foggy's heartbeat kicks up a notch. It's the first morning of the weekend, and his quiet investigation is finally starting to pay off.

A friend of a friend of a friend had managed to produce the names of the two people and their daemons connected to Matt's attack. It hadn't been particularly hard in the end: they'd shown their faces in broad daylight on a busy college campus. All Foggy'd had to do was filter through the web of peer-reviewed gossip until he reached someone in the know.

Now, he sits at his desk and he clicks through photos on the college website, trying to find the right group of formally posed sports society members he's looking for. He clicks again, forehead tight from focussing, until the right group pops onto his screen.

Last year's football team. From the key at the bottom the first name is easy to match to a face, broad and vicious and mean, his boar daemon stood garishly at his side. Foggy lingers on him for a moment, his eyes flicking to Matt across the room, apparently still asleep. His injuries are mostly gone now.

Searching for the second name, he quickly finds the accompanying face grimacing into the sun, his basset hound daemon sat in a pile at his feet. Again, Foggy lingers. In comparison to the first one this guy looks so normal. He seems like an everyday person, unlikely to be the type to beat someone with a pipe. It's unnerving.

But the faces had just been for his own benefit. With their names confirmed it's a simple enough process. As the morning progresses Foggy finds them in the email directory, and after that it's easy to find out what course they're on, what Professors they have. He searches through their coursemates, the people who might know anything about them. He's looking for a name he recognises, someone he knows isn't a terrible person, someone who might have useful information.

Dirt, he thinks it's called.

Matt spends the morning lying carefully still in his bed, Eleri clamped in his hands under the covers so she doesn't ruin the façade. He listens to the hurried typing of Foggy composing emails, trying to soothe the sense of uneasiness it brought.

It'd come up a few times in the last couple of weeks, Foggy having odd moments of avoiding comments or sudden bouts of computer work. Matt had pretended not to notice anything strange about the behaviour, and they never brought it up. 

It feels weird, he decides, being on the other side of deception. He supposes it's something he can’t really be mad about. So he sits on the idea, mulling over the feelings it brings up, and stays under the covers until Foggy's behaviour loses it's strange fervour.

The new week starts, and once again their morning is interrupted by Foggy's computer dinging with an email. Half prepared to leave for the library, Foggy abandons his bag on his bed to sit down and read it.

It's everything he needs; just like that, it's sorted. His friendly whistleblower had asked around. They'd been met with a loud reputation for plagiarism, for frequently boasting about lying on their admissions, a wealth of the usual bull-headed actions of people too confident in their invincibility.

Foggy knows people like this. He knows it'll be true. He re-reads everything, head already buzzing with an action plan, opening up new tabs and searching for admin emails.

"Foggy?"

Foggy jolts. Matt's stood waiting by the door ready to leave, Eleri on the dresser next to him, sitting in their bowl of keys. 

“Shit," he says, scrambling for a suitable excuse. "Sorry buddy, I gotta go run an errand real quick." 

Matt makes a face. He's doing it again.

“What?”

“Just quick," he carries on, standing now, grabbing his bag and shoving things into it. Their bowl of keys jingles as Eleri hops out of it, eyes narrowed. Nerys lowers herself against the bed in between them, trying to duck out from the suspicion. "You go ahead. I just have to go do something.”

Guilt tugs with the confusion in Matt's voice as he eventually agrees, but Foggy pushes the feelings aside. It'll only end up in an argument if he tells him now.

Matt leaves, and Foggy gives it 10 minutes for him to get a head start. Then he follows him out, heading in the opposite direction.

He has to file a formal complaint with admissions. He has to fill out the paperwork and meet with a college representative. He has to open his case. 

It comes to fruition barely a week later, on an unremarkable Tuesday evening. Foggy hears it from his classmates that morning, filling him in on the newest updates.

Both of them have been suspended, pending a formal investigation by the college. Gross academic misconduct, they'd said. But it’s just a formality of the process - plagiarism didn't fly, even for wealthy students, and especially not at a college as prestigious as this one.

They’ll be expelled, in a public and embarrassing way, one that will no doubt stain their academic records for years to come. It’ll be hard to get into a new school, and it’ll be hard to explain it in future job interviews.  

Foggy tells Matt over dorm-room pot noodles that night, too nervous for any sense of pomp and circumstance.

Matt's ears ring as the explanation unfolds, the noodles growing cold on the floor beside him as his worldview shifts with a significant clunk. At some point Eleri crawls into his lap to listen,  Matt's hands cupping over her body protectively.

'I told you I'd get them buddy.'

That's what Foggy had said. Matt rolls the words over in his head, feeling them out, trying to fit them in against the mess of his brain.

It's dark. They'd gone to bed soon after, Foggy having the blessed emotional intelligence to see Matt had been affected by the news, and might enjoy some time to think about it. 

So Matt's where he always ended up, lying awake in bed as he listened to Foggy's breathing turn deep and steady.

Everything else feels different though. Even Eleri seems spooked by the gravity of it, foregoing her usual windowsill perch to sit in a stiff loaf on the bedside table.

Foggy had their back. He hadn't just said the words, a vague promise without any consequence. He'd shown them, quietly and without fanfare. Without reward.

'Please be normal about this,' Eleri mutters beside him. 

She doesn't say it with malice. Her voice seems quieter in his head, her usual animosity shaken out and replaced with something familiar and teasing again.

She hasn't sounded like that in a long time. 

Matt almost feels laughter bubbling up, and he has to work to keep the feeling clamped down. It's giddy, and entirely unexpected. Untucking an arm from the duvet he reaches out to her. She noses at his hand before standing to trot along his outstretched arm, making a small leap to land with a soft thump in the duvet. 

'We've been alone for so long.'

Every new experience here seemed to push harder and harder against Stick's teachings, against the voices ingrained in his head. They used to guide him with such clarity and strength, and now nothing made sense when he listened to them.

'Every time you go back to that life, things go badly in your current one.'

When Foggy asks again, a few days later, if he’ll come with him to meet his family, Matt finds himself agreeing.

Foggy’s energy lights up with the answer. Nerys' rumbling voice joins the celebration, turning Matt's vision soft and warm with the bass of it.

Foggy had gotten him revenge. In a non-violent way, he'd given Matt justice.

So he agrees, and it feels like the first step into the gaping unknown, a distinct decision to turn his back to his training. Matt feels sick with it.

Eleri, hanging out of his hoodie pocket with her arms dangling, sends out a curl of comfort.

Matt flinches at the feeling. 

Chapter Text

They agree it's probably best to brief the family about Eleri before they meet her. They sit down to discuss it, per Foggy's orders, to have a clear and concise conversation about the upcoming visit. Foggy wants Matt to be comfortable, and he wants to give his family the right instructions to not put their foot in their mouths the whole time.

Mostly though, he just wants Matt to keep talking. 

The conversation quickly devolves however, which Foggy thinks he should have seen coming. Before long they're skipping from the correct vocabulary to describe moulting daemons into flippant back and forth teasing.

“Make sure to warn them about her stealing shoelaces."

Petulant, Eleri spits out the threads of Matt's jumper sleeve she'd been chewing on, glaring at him.

“I’m not a child.”

Matt makes a face, tugging the jumper away form her.

“Do you have locks for your cabinets?" he carries on, grinning now. "She gets into containers.”

Foggy watches the bickering with a smile, pleased to see it. It's nice: this brighter side of Matt has been dormant for a long time.

"Mom might still have the baby gates from Candace in the attic," he chimes in, "I should ask her."

Eleri makes a noise behind her teeth at that, jumping to the floor to wind around the legs of Matt's chair.

"I could get over a gate," she mutters back at him.

“You did get stuck in that bin,” Matt's quick to counter.

Eleri stops her winding to look up at Matt in dismay, momentarily distracted.

“That was one time-” 

“You looked like a mouse in an oil trap,” Matt carries on, moving to turn back to his desk as Foggy and Nerys laugh from across the room.

Eleri's energy crackles at the sound of laughter, wound up now, too excitable. Matt sighs as she makes a familiar hissing noise in her throat, skittering across the lino around his ankles, tail raised in a familiar stance of imminent attack. She's going to sprint for Nerys, just for the sake of it. Matt senses it in time, bending quickly to snatch her around the middle before she can run, tossing her back up onto the bed. She hisses again, teeth bared, before bouncing off across the bedspread. 

‘You’re being awful,' Matt shoots at her.

‘Technically, I’m you,' she shoots back.

Matt rolls his eyes.

‘Please don’t remind me.’ 

The tired words make Eleri pause her tearing at the duvet cover, looking up with her snowy fur askew. Matt tips his head in her direction, feeling her energy drop. When she speaks, her voice rings in the same exhausted manner as his own.

‘That's exactly the problem, isn't it?’ 

‘They’re still hiding something.’

Nerys whispers it against Foggy's neck that night, the warmth of a good day sinking around them as they lay in bed waiting for sleep. Foggy doesn't appreciate the uncomfortable reminder.

‘Yeah, no shit.’

The harsh reply doesn't bother Nerys. She shifts her head, pressing it closer to Foggy's heartbeat. 

‘Do you think it’s something bad?’

Foggy sighs, resigned to being forced to think about it. Matt was just so complicated. There was so much he didn't understand about his actions, about how he chose to conduct his life. Even now, having successfully navigated their first crisis together, he was still left adrift as to any of the actual details of what was going on in his head. He didn't know why Eleri would bite and scratch and fight, he didn't know why she wandered too far, why Matt never seemed to notice her distance. He didn't know. He didn't know.

‘I'm not sure,’ he eventually mumbles back, hating the uselessness of the answer. 'I mean, Eleri moulting wasn't exactly bad, was it? Just- like, big. Maybe it's something like that.'

Nerys hums, Foggy's brain vibrating with the sceptical sound.

'Maybe,' she echoes, going quiet for a moment before adding, 'do you think they're going to be okay? Coming home?'

Foggy keeps thinking. Worryingly, he thinks he can see it going either way in equal likelihoods. He doesn't voice that though, too scared to speak it into existence.

'I think it'll be good for them,' he decides, determined to be optimistic about it. 'However that might look.'

Nerys goes quiet again at the cryptid answer, unwilling to push it any further. She knows she doesn't have anything better to offer. 

‘I’ve never met a daemon like her,’ she says after a while.

Foggy sighs, rolling onto his side to wrap his arms around her, burying his hands into the rich fur of her neck.

‘And I’ve never met a person like him.’

Chapter Text

“You ready?” 

Foggy'd had the cab driver drop them off a block away, factoring in a nice chunk of time for Matt related pep-talking. It's finally cold enough for the snow to stick, and bundled up in enough layers to look appropriately festive they walk together cautiously over the slick sidewalk. Nerys' heavy paws pace confidently beside them, and she looks up with a grin at Eleri hammocked in one of Matt's hoods. She's peaking as little of her head out as possible to look around, dark eyes gleaming in the brightness.

Matt's foot slips in a heap of slush, his hand gripping at Foggy to steady him as he grits his teeth. He hates snow. 

“Does it matter if I’m not?”

“Course it does," Foggy replies easily, savouring the simple nostalgia the snowy neighbourhood always brings. "We can take another lap if you want. Try and get you looking less like you’re being marched to your execution.” 

Catching himself, Matt forces his face passive, relaxing his jaw and dropping his shoulders. 

“I’m fine," he says. "I'm excited to meet everyone.”

It gets him a quick laugh, Foggy's breath spiralling out into the air in front of them. Matt frowns at the noise.

“Gee, you sound so sure about that.”

There's no bitterness to the remark, nor in the quick beat of Foggy's heart at his side. Still, the words bring a sudden sobriety to Matt that makes him pause, keeping his hand at Foggy's elbow to spin him to a stop too. Foggy looks at him in surprise.

“I’m- I do mean it, Foggy,” Matt tells him haltingly, trying to feel like it's the truth. “I do. I’m excited. It’s just- you know," he sighs. "Families aren’t exactly my strong suit." 

Foggy's chest twinges something odd at that, and at the flush in Matt's cheeks and the breeze in his hair. Eleri's attention drifts down from the sky, watching Foggy with careful eyes.

“I know buddy," Foggy says, his voice gone soft and genuine with the feeling. "It’s big. But they’re gonna love you, I promise.” 

Matt tries to look reassured by that. He starts them walking again, Eleri's weight slipping off his neck to bury back down into the hood again. In his head he feels her still looking up at the sky, tracing the path of gently falling snowflakes. She's always liked the snow.

"I don't think I've even seen a real family holiday before," Matt adds after a while, absently dipping his head to listen to an inflatable snowman bristle on someone's porch as they pass.

Foggy looks sideways. He's quick to push humour over the sadness of the thought, rolling his eyes as his parents house comes into view ahead.

“Oh they’re gonna eat you up," he tuts. "Just make sure to throw the word orphan around, you’ll never have to wash a dish.” 

"Oh my darling! Franklin!"

Matt's first impression of Anna Nelson is her crushing her son into a hug infront of him, cooing into his hair as Foggy makes a wretched noise of embarrassment from somewhere amongst the embrace.

"And Matt!" Anna continues brightly as she lets Foggy go, turning on him now. "Come in, come in, oh it's so wonderful to finally meet you," she ushers, Matt feeling the tumbling of air currents as she waves them in. His smile falls into something a little more forced as he's addressed, but he keeps it up nonetheless. "I'm so glad you could make it."

Matt nods genially, keeping something charming and gracious in his voice as he follows Foggy's lead and stamps his boots off on the doormat.

"It's nice to meet you too," he says, stepping over the threshold into the heat of the house. "Thank you for having me."

Anna's badger daemon ambles around their feet as they fight to get their coats and boots off, Matt listening to his claws clacking on the hallway tile. As Anna leads them into the house, already launching into the plans for the week, Matt's hand stays tight at Foggy's elbow. The badger daemon sticks close to them as they walk, sniffing hard at the air. Looking for Eleri, Matt assumes. 

"C'mon Dolwen, get outta here."

Foggy's light dismissal is welcome, and as Nerys noses the badger onwards Matt feels a break from the scrutiny as the claws clack off ahead of them.

"We're in a gorgeous hallway," Foggy continues easily, Matt clinging to his familiar commentary as they walk slowly through the new space. "Goes on about 20 feet, runs the length of the house. That's a door to the living room," he says, reaching back to knock on a door to the left of them, "there's another to the kitchen up ahead on the same side. They join up on the inside, some sort of knock off French doors my Uncle made for us. Stairs on the right at the end, bathroom's up there, first door on the left."

Matt nods along, trying to piece together the description with the haze his senses are bringing in. He can tell the home is busy in a warm, cluttered way, the books and plants and decorations on every surface disorientating him more than usual. Despite his brain struggling to process the inputs into any sort of useful image Eleri stays tucked down in a ball in his hood, leaving him feeling unusually vulnerable. 

Trying to stay grounded, he tunes into the wider sounds of the house as they head for the kitchen. There are footsteps upstairs, clattering ones heading towards them, and there's a man's voice mingling with Anna's now. Foggy's elbow shifts and they make a turn, Matt dragging his fingertips over the door jamb as they enter. He braces himself.

Foggy's father, Ed, is waiting for them, along with his gull daemon, Tilia. They greet Matt with equal warmth and much less forceful investigation, Tilia clacking her beak in hello from a respectful distance away on the back of Ed's chair.

The footsteps upstairs had been Candace's, Foggy's younger sister, who races into the room to launch herself at Foggy with a spirited, cackling laugh. Her daemon's a quick little greenfinch named Iberis, who flits around Nerys' head as Candace and Foggy babble excitedly between themselves. Nerys seems to take great joy in snapping her jaws at the finch, feigning trying to pluck him from the air. 

Matt's ears are ringing. He's in over his head.

Already he can feel himself starting to slip. He's tripping up on conversations, lagging behind as he tries to answer the barrage of greetings and questions. Soon the clatter of drinks being made fills the room, the coffee machine buzzing and porcelain clinking as Anna pulls out mugs. The sounds seem to mingle strangely, some bouncing brightly off the tile floor whilst others sink softly into the worn wood of the cabinets. Matt swallows, trying to steady his heart.

'It's fine, Matt. Nothing's wrong.'

Eleri's words don't help. She's still in his hood, still hiding from everyone. Matt pushes at her with his mind, shoving her voice away with the kitchen noise.

It's Nerys who notices it first. Foggy feels her presence drifting as she slinks away to discreetly settle herself by Matt's feet. His eyes follow her to find Matt standing pale and uncomfortable up against the counter, lost in the conversation he's meant to be a part of.

Oh.

Quietly thanking Nerys, he waits to catch his father's eye, putting something urgent on his face as he nods his head toward the living room. Ed's brow furrows in confusion for a moment before something clicks and his attention flicks away to Matt. Quick to understand, he nods back at Foggy and clears his throat.

"Well, shall we adjourn to the living room?" he announces grandly, gesturing to the plush room of armchairs and coffee tables through a set of double doors. "Might be a little more comfortable in there."

It works to break the bubble of activity for a short while, and Matt makes himself breathe in the space it creates. He stays where he is as the group starts to move, waiting for Foggy's elbow to knock his arm.

"You okay?"

Matt grips at him with relief. A sudden swell of embarrassment rises with the gentle tone, but he shoves it down stubbornly. He can't afford to spiral here. 

"Yeah," he grits out, letting himself be led. He hadn't been able to turn down a drink, and now he tries to keep it steady as he taps his stick on the furniture cluttering his way, locking onto the dull echoes to try and paint the room more clearly. "I'm fine."

Foggy's on high alert after that. 

Mostly he deflects, diverting the investigative questions and chipping in answers until Matt starts to look less ghostly and more plain awkward.

Matt knows he's doing it, and though still embarrassed at his apparent lack of ability to be a normal house guest, he's grateful. Instead he listens to the daemons mingling amongst them all, active and bright and rambunctious as they celebrate their reconnection. It's harder for him to sense their movements, so unlike the usual physics of the world his body understood.

Underneath the flurry of teasing and snapping and wingbeats runs a thread of familiar warmth he can recognise however, the same one he knows from Nerys. He sits with the feeling; he'd thought it was just Nerys who had that.

Up above them all, Eleri stands out clear as day. She stays still and silent on Matt’s shoulder, her black-tipped tail wrapped around the back of his neck. She desperately wants to be in a pocket, burrowed down away from all the noise and attention. But Matt had told her it was rude to keep hiding, making her promise to at least try and act normal. So she'd crept out into the light, feeling eyes start to dart to her as people cottoned on to her presence.

He’d asked her not to ruin this for him.

She’s trying. Hard. But Matt's panic is her panic too, and she's never been as good as him at hiding it. Her eyes track the whirlwind of daemons around the room: she wishes she could join them, that this separation wouldn't inevitably creep in, the physical othering she can't help but create. At the very least she wants to talk to Foggy, to follow Nerys around like a shadow. But Foggy's relaying some sort of animated story about their studies to his parents, and Nerys is busy trying to trap Iberis in the couch cushions.

So Eleri stays where she is. She sits out in the open and digs her claws into Matt’s shoulder, watching the room for him. 

Soon the excitement settles, daemons turning tired and complacent in each other's company as the conversation turns to topics of the local neighbourhood and childhood friends. Matt listens politely, wondering how long they're supposed to stay here for. His initial nerves have faded into something solid and ignorable now, leaving a restless energy in its place. Did all families do this? They kept trying to get him to join the conversation. Matt knows he's doing a bad job of rising to the occasion, answering in simple sentences too blunt to be pleasantly conversational.

"So you're from Hell's Kitchen too then, Matt?"

Matt unsticks his throat for what feels like the hundredth time, grasping desperately for a way to answer Anna properly. 

"Uh- yeah, yeah we are."

He fights back a grimace. The weight of her gaze is heavy on him now, the prick of Dolwen's ears clear across the space. He knows Foggy will have told them not to ask much about his family. He doesn't know where this is going.

"And do you miss it much?" Anna continues.

Matt swallows again, trying to smile. It's not a bad question, and Anna's voice is still warm, if a little thin. Eleri's let her body slip back down into the hood again, her head peaking out to rest in the crook of his neck. Nerys has settled herself at the base of the armchair Matt's stuck in, splayed on her side with her legs sticking out over the carpet. Matt's been listening to her rumbling purrs for last half an hour, trying to match his breathing to the steady rhythm.

"A little bit," he says, trying his best not to think about it. "But- y'know, it's nice to be somewhere new. I have a bit more anonymity in a place like Columbia."

Anna nods along, Matt's senses sparking with the movement.

"You know, Foggy said the same thing," she replies, her voice growing more confident now as the conversation holds. "Room to grow, I imagine."

"That's just the excuse he gives," Candace chimes in eagerly, propped up in the corner of the sofa. "I think he's just trying to escape the butcher-themed family nicknames."

"Not true," Foggy pushes back, affronted. "I'm very proud of my heritage."

Matt snorts at that, thinking back to the multiple drunken accounts of Foggy's humble beginnings.

"Oh, he's continuing the butcher lore at college, don't worry about that."

He hadn't even meant to speak. But the room laughs with the contribution, and Ed sets off into a similar story of his own from his youth. The conversation flows on, and Matt feels a spark of accomplishment.

'You're getting better at this,' Eleri mutters in his ear. 

It's another hour before Matt's released, saved once again by Foggy suggesting he shows him where they'll be sleeping. After a brief tour of what turns out to be Foggy's childhood bedroom, Matt suddenly finds himself left alone, Foggy going off to help with dinner. Immediately Eleri puts herself to work digging in the bed, stretching out under the duvet to burrow herself into the dark. After a few minutes of standing around aimlessly, unsure of what to do in the space, Matt decides to sit and join her.

The voices from the rest of the house start to catch in his ears before long. Matt can't help but latch onto them, the drifting soundwaves turning into recognisable words as he focusses.  

“-different to what I was expecting,” Candace's voice filters in, along with blunt knocks of a knife on a chopping board. 

“Oh yeah? How so?” comes Foggy's reply.

“I dunno. He’s quieter, I guess. And his daemon – she doesn’t talk much, does she?” 

Already regretting his eavesdropping, Matt's stomach sinks. Eleri's head pushes at his fingers, and his hand goes to her automatically, smoothing her ears down. Unable to stop himself from listening as the two continue talking, he doesn't notice the strangeness of such an unconscious action. 

“He’s just nervous," Foggy says with a laugh, the ease of it working to quell Matt's discomfort a little. "You guys are a lot.” 

Candace makes a noise of disbelief.

“We’re very welcoming,” she says, her voice lightening with the air of teasing.

“You’re very loud,” Foggy corrects neatly.

Matt imagines Candance shrugging at that, and the knocks of the knife stop.

“Same thing."

There's a moment of quiet then, voices replaced by clashing pans being from removed from cupboards and the tumbling of vegetables being dumped into them. 

“He’s twitchy," Foggy's starts again, something gentle and genuine entering the words, "but he’s solid.” 

“You do realise those are opposites.”

A sigh scratches the air, intermittent with the rushing of a tap.

“Yeah, well. Welcome to Matt.” 

“So what do you think?”

Dinner had gone as well as it could, and everyone had retired to bed promptly afterwards. Now Anna and Ed sit up against the headboard together, lit by the twin lamps above them. Ed looks up from his book at Anna's question.

“Of Matt?” 

Anna hums. Foggy's best friend and roommate hadn't exactly been what she was expecting. She'd been prepared for nerves, but she hadn't thought there'd be such an uneasiness to him. Foggy's been talking about him for months, this quiet boy with his strange daemon: she so wants to understand what it is he's seeing.

“Well, no matter what, Foggy’s enamoured with him," comes Ed's answer beside her, his voice ringing with amusement. "That much is obvious.” 

It works to get a smile out of Anna. She can't help but agree as she thinks over the day, of the sight of Nerys at Matt's side all evening, attentive in a way she doesn't think she's ever quite seen her be before. Still, the knot of anxiety in her chest keeps wriggling.

“He doesn't say much, does he?” she tries to prompt again. "He's awfully quiet."

Again, Ed tries to level his voice with calm reassurance.

“He's just arrived," he says, being careful not to fan the flames of Anna's worry. "He’ll warm up, just give it time."

“But what about his daemon?” Anna's quick to counter, leaning forward with the question, her intensity growing. "She didn't even want to be seen."

They’d talked about it beforehand, when Foggy had told them about Eleri. Anna hadn’t really known what to do with the information. It was Ed who'd done the reassuring, having a little more experience with that world than her. At his steady advice Anna had told herself that Eleri was still just a normal daemon, that the superstition around altering daemons was just that - superstition. But now she thinks of the tiny puncture wounds on Matt's hands as he'd accepted his drink, the scratches in varying states of healing. She thinks of Eleri’s claws digging into Matt’s shoulder as he smiled politely at the conversation going on around him, his daemon betraying his mask. 

Ed hears the disquiet in her question, the worry in her frame. He sets his book down. 

"Foggy said they'd both be nervous," he reminds her. "It's their first time meeting us, and they probably haven't had a lot of good instances of that in the past. We need to be patient, is all."

Cradling Dolwen in her lap, Anna thinks about it. She rubs at his soft black ears, listening to the sleepy grunts of comfort coming from him. Perhaps she's nervous too: she can't even begin to wrap her head around having a daemon like Eleri.

“She’s so different,” she says gently.

Ed nods, reaching to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Up on the bedpost, Tilia shakes her feathers, tucking her neck down.  

"She is," he agrees, thinking of the glimpses of Eleri he'd gotten today, the visible distrust he's never seen from a daemon before. "But so was Nerys when she settled," he carries on, remembering a similar feeling of strange unease, seeing someone's soul so clearly and it not being what he expected. "And she turned out to be the best thing for him. We just have to get to know them, is all. Keep an open mind."

Anna nods, taking in the words. She can't help but feel them fall flat however: if daemons were the windows to people's souls, then Matt's soul was distinctly unsettling. 

Chapter Text

Matt, predictably, doesn't sleep. He doesn't even consider it; there's far too much to think about, and Foggy snoring from an air bed on the other side of the room doesn't help.

Eleri's barely said a word now that they're alone. He feels uniquely isolated, stuck in this unfamiliar house with this unfamiliar concept of a family, with a daemon that won't talk to him and an aching hollowness carving out a hole in his chest.

Even the Nelsons themselves - he's been around plenty of people before, but he's never been inside their homes like this, sat around doing family things as if he was meant to be included. He's noticed they all seemed to have the idle of stroking their daemons, or their daemons resting against them gently, their presence an immovable comfort.

It makes Matt feel insane. It makes him feel insane with his biting, arguing daemon, too difficult for him to understand and too violent for him to reason with.

He doesn't think Eleri's mute tonight out of malice though. He can feel a thick, heavy sadness blanketing their usually spiky bond. Having it all right in front of him now is more difficult than he'd imagined. All his well-buried miseries were being dragged back out into the open, parried around amongst normal people and normal interactions. It's messy and dark and he feels like a child again, bitter and resentful and scorned by life.

Once he starts hearing birds outside he gives up on the act of sleep entirely, heading downstairs. He doesn’t know how to make coffee here, so after a moment of unsure hesitation in a silent kitchen he goes for the back door.

Stepping out is a relief. The air is fresh and damp, a welcome contrast to the closeness of Foggy's cluttered bedroom. He stands at the door for a while, registering the features of the garden.

It’s a nice one, he can tell. Even in the dawn the space is buzzing, raggedy and bug filled and clearly well used. There's a patio and some mismatched furniture at the end of it. Matt makes his mind up: it seems a good place to sit and continue his arduous ruminations.

Anna rinses mugs in the sink like she does every morning, scanning the garden and assessing the weather. Today there's a dark shape at the bottom of the patio that makes her do a double take.

After a beat of panic she realises it must be Matt. Who else could it be? He's sat on the bench Ed's brother had built for them, a gift for them as new homeowners years ago. He's dressed only in a dark hoodie and sweats. She can't see Eleri anywhere.

She doesn't expect the image to hurt as much as it does, to make her knees go weak and her arms reach for Dolwen. The tap stays running in front of her and she reaches to turn it off, guilt clawing at her stomach. The doubts of the previous night seem pale and useless now, looking at the sorry form of him at the end of an overgrown garden. He looks lonely out there. Young, still.

She tugs a coat from the hooks by the door and heads out.

She watches Matt’s head tip in her direction as he clocks her approaching. Quite unexpectedly, Eleri’s head soon follows, popping up over his leg. Anna tries not to stare at her.

“You’re up early,” she says in bright greeting, giving Dolwen a push to go busy himself in the grass around their feet.

Matt gives a short smile in return, attention still on the garden. Eleri watches Dolwen leaving a trail in the dew soaked lawn around them, itching to join. There's moles to hunt here, she’s sure of it. Mice in the grass at least. Instead she stays glued to Matt’s side, treading her paws in frustration. 

"Couldn’t sleep,” Matt eventually provides, realising he's probably meant to be saying something in reply.

Apparently it's the right thing to do, as Anna makes a humming noise and sits herself down next to him. She doesn't miss Eleri's gaze following the movement. 

“I’m much the same when I travel," she says conversationally, turning to survey the ramshackle garden as well. "Are you usually an early riser?” 

Matt shifts, realising he'll have to make an effort here. He clears his throat properly, his voice dull from disuse. 

“Uh- the opposite, actually.”

"Ah, same as Foggy then," she says, smiling now. "Getting him out to school on time for that many years straight was a miracle, believe me."

It works to get a smile out of Matt, she's pleased to see. With the promising sign she carries on, watching Dolwen start to paw and scratch at a spot in the lawn.

“You know," she says, her voice dropping to something more genuine, "he’s always smiling when he talks about you. Even on the phone, you can hear it in his voice.” 

Matt's not expecting it. His stomach drops, twisting in surprise. He thinks that might be the nicest thing anyone's ever told him.

“And he speaks very highly of you too," Anna adds, nodding at Eleri.

Eleri near flinches at it, being addressed directly. She ducks down, slick to Matt's leg, ears pricked. She hasn't spoken a word to any of them yet. Matt finds himself amused by the reaction.

'Everything's fine, remember?'

Eleri flocks a scowl up at him before turning back to Anna.

"He does?"

Anna smiles at the little voice. It's stronger than she was expecting. 

"He says you're very mischievous."

Matt scoffs at that, Eleri's energy turning quietly smug.

“That’s one way of putting it," Matt mutters.

“Well, how would you put it?”

Damn. He'd drawn the conversation back to himself. Eleri hunkers down again at his side, watching with baleful eyes. 

“I don’t think there are words for it," he says carefully.

“No, I suppose there never is at your age," Anna replies, nodding to herself. "I think it must be something that comes with time.” 

Matt's a little floored by the simple admission. He'd never thought about it like that. In his mind Eleri had always been like this, always would be.

Anna watches him think on her remark. Satisfied, she calls Dolwen back to her. 

“Well I’ll leave you to it," she finishes neatly, standing up as Matt seems sink into his thoughts. "Coffee’s on, if you want any.”

Matt doesn't have much longer to think on the conversation; the Nelsons take holiday decorations very seriously, he's quick to find out. After a short breakfast he finds himself very suddenly removed from his broodings, sat on the floor in a production line of sorts, gluing painted cardboard stars onto twine.

Some kind of garland, apparently.

It's strangely sweet. Matt thinks he might like it. He's not thinking about the agony of his childhood anymore at least. The task is easy and repetitive, and there's Christmas music rolling through the air from an old fashioned device on the mantle. Foggy's sat at the far end of the room, sorting out boxes of supplies and feeding them to Candace, muttering to himself at the lack of organisation he's facing.

Eleri sits by Matt's hands on the coffee table, trying to constrain herself from batting the cardboard cutouts around like a cat. Candace, who's on cutting duty, watches her out of the corner of her eye.

"Does she see for you?" she asks after a while, when Eleri's resolve breaks and she hooks a claw into one of the stars, tipping it off the table.

Matt rolls his eyes, feeling for the lost star on the carpet. Eleri's head dips to follow his hands like prey, her eyes alight.

"Not exactly." 

Candace nods at the blunt reply, tossing another completed star into the pile.

"Ah."

It leaves the conversation stagnant again, just classic Christmas music and the sounds of crafts filling the air. Matt kicks himself, trying to remind himself that he does actually know how to talk to people.

"She can see," he starts again, grabbing Eleri around the middle and sliding her away from the stars as she makes another attempt at the pile, "but the image doesn’t come across to me. I do get a sense of it though," he adds, "and she describes things, so that helps too."

It works to get him an hum of interest from Candace, who spends a moment trying to recreate such an experience in her mind.

"That's pretty cool," she says simply. 

As they work on in a more companionable silence after that, Eleri takes the phrase to heart.

'You hear that?' she says slickly, dancing around his ankles, trying her best to goad Matt into bickering with her. 'She said I'm pretty cool.'

Chapter Text

“You know, it’s quite common for gull daemons to alter.”

Ed says it so casually, busy peeling potatoes at the kitchen table as Matt rinses out a cup in the sink. Matt's hands falter at the statement and he nearly drops it in surprise, managing to catch his grip just in time to stop the glass from clattering into the sink. In his pocket he feels Eleri go stiff, her tiny hackles raising in alarm. 

People didn’t normally talk about it out loud.

Ed watches Matt's blatant panic, the tap still running as he stands at the sink motionless. Despite the reaction he makes the decision to continue talking anyway, making sure to keep his voice carefully nonchalant.

“Well, maybe not common,” he corrects, “but we get it sometimes. Especially species with winter plumages. It's something my parents were worried about.”

Heart starting to slam in his chest, Matt tries to get his shock under control. It's a reaction he knows isn't likely to be necessary in this house, but he can't help the innate response of adrenaline flooding his body anyway, panic seizing at his chest. He has to force himself to unlock his muscles to reach out and turn the tap off, safely depositing the glass in the drying rack. Reluctantly, he turns towards Ed.

"Tils is a black headed gull," Ed continues, still in that steady, purposeful way. "They kept a close eye on her that first winter, waiting for her black to fade."

The pitter patter of waxy feet on the wooden table interrupts him then, as Tilia brings herself nearer. Ed strokes at her beak fondly, and Matt listens to the sound of keratin plates grinding together in comfort. 

"It didn't, obviously," he finishes, turning back to the vegetables. "Apparently I'm a simple summer gull."

Matt opens his mouth to reply, and when nothing comes out, he shuts it again awkwardly. In his head too many thoughts clamour for attention: he knows wild stoats change too, but only those in climates with prolonged snow cover in winter. He tries to tell Ed that, to chime into the conversation with anything at all relevant, but he can't seem to make his throat turn the knowledge into words.

"You ever read anything about it?"

Still mute, Matt shakes his head. He's becoming increasingly aware of his complete lack of responses. Luckily Ed doesn't seem to mind much, and his hands keep carving deftly at the potatoes.

"No, I suppose not," he agrees, watching Matt continue to stay frozen and uncomfortable on the other side of the room. "Though I suppose no one's ever written much. Shame, really - everyone else gets such lore from their forms."

Silence falls after it, Matt's brain spinning at the sudden existential spiral he's found himself in. He's had that exact thought before, one that he didn't think anyone else ever had. 

"What do you think it means?"

Matt doesn't know why he says it, barely even registering that it was his voice asking. Ed takes it in his stride easily though, thinking on it for a moment as he dumps the cut potatoes into a pot.  

"I'd guess it's just something that happens," he says eventually, leaning back in his chair with a thoughtful look, "the same as all the other ways daemons reflect personality. Maybe you’re changeable," he suggests, making Matt's eyebrows raise, "a duality, perhaps. Or maybe it's that you’re adaptable." 

Again, Matt doesn't respond, too gagged by the uncanny reading of his psyche. Ed decides to take mercy on him then; he stands, taking the pot to the stove, and on his way to the fridge to fetch more vegetables risks one final question.

"What do you think it means?" he mirrors back at Matt.

Matt's ears are starting to ring. His face falls at the question, his hand going to his pocket to scoop around Eleri, unable to answer with anything but a shrug.

What he thought it meant wasn't particularly something he could say in casual conversation.

In the resulting silence Ed watches Matt thinking, his eyes flicking down to track the motion of him reaching for Eleri.

He decides to leave the question with him for now, going back to the table quietly. 

It's Christmas Eve, and the Nelson family are gathered around the dinner table once again.

Tonight, Matt's struggling.

He and Foggy have barely had the chance to talk in the days that they've been here. Even in Foggy's room at night, their dual exhaustion left little time for their usual evening chats. So now, sat round the table with the party in full swing, Foggy keeps glancing at Matt with worry; he seems off, tonight, and he doesn't know why.

Under the table, Foggy knocks his knee against Nerys, pointing her in the direction of Matt's legs where Eleri sits in a ball on his lap. She gets the message easily, and starts to pick her way towards them with surprising agility.

Eleri senses her coming, lifting her head briefly to assess her before tucking it down against Matt's thigh once more. Reaching them Nerys sits, eyeing the way Eleri's holding her fur spiky and stiff with discomfort, how her paws stay tucked tightly beneath her body.

"You're still being shy," Nerys tells her, trying to break the ice.

Eleri's response comes back in a mumble.

"No I'm not."

A beat of quiet follows, Nerys growing unsure of herself.

"Are you okay?"

From the other side of the table, Foggy watches Matt as their daemons talk, knowing Matt's paying attention as well. His head's dipped to the side, clearly listening in. 

Eleri feels the multitude of attentions on her. She bristles, grinding her teeth in frustration. 

"I'm fine," she finally says, trying to make it sound more confident. "S'just loud."

After that Nerys tries again to engage her, but Eleri won't answer anything more. Eventually she backs off, picking her way back to Foggy.

She returns before long though, something yellow and papery held delicately in her teeth. With a deft movement of her head she tosses it up over Eleri, the too-big paper crown from a Christmas cracker landing over her body like a lasso.

Eleri looks up sharply at the sudden action, affronted by the gaudy item and by Nerys huffing her amusement she walks away again, pleased with herself. Eleri grumbles, shaking herself to try and dislodge the hat from her body. Still, she spots Nerys grinning from Foggy's side again, and something in her chest relaxes. 

Meanwhile, above her, Matt's brain is short circuiting.

When Nerys' great head had flicked over his lap, the tips of her fur had grazed his hand. Just for a moment, just barely.

But Matt had felt it. He could still feel it, his skin still tingling where the prickling guard hairs of her neck had made contact, bright, peppering sparks of energy firing in his touch receptors in response.

The rolling, clattering noise of the room comes back into focus around him as he fights to compose himself, and he listens in across the table to pick out Foggy's heartbeat from the rest.

Sure enough, it's beating a little too quickly, just like his. 

Chapter Text

"She goes pretty far, doesn't she?"

Candace says it innocently, an offhanded observation made in amusement as she watches Eleri pelt around the perimeter of the back garden. It's Christmas morning, and she'd joined Foggy and Matt on the bench outside for a breather from the rising chaos of the house. 

For Matt, it grinds his pleasant morning to a brutal halt. Throat locking up, he calls out privately to Eleri, demanding her back. She veers a little closer to the bench, but reluctantly so.

The conversation quickly moves on, and he tries not to let it get to him; people noticed it all the time (thanks to Eleri), and they didn't think much about it. But he still finds himself going quiet, a familiar anxiety flooding his system as he loses the momentum to stay present.

Luckily, Candace doesn't seem to notice, her and Foggy moving on to animatedly discuss their plans for handling the various extended family members arriving later that day.

Foggy notices Matt going quiet though. He notices because it's the same way he goes quiet when Foggy brings it up sometimes too.

Eleri did go far. She went far an awful lot, and seemingly without Matt realising it half the time. 

But it's Christmas morning, and there isn't time to dwell on it right now. Foggy quickly puts it to the back of his mind, tossing it into his growing pile of unanswered questions about Matt.

Instead, he sets about pulling Matt out of the downwards spiral he's visibly thinking himself into. It's a skill Foggy's developed to great success, and before they're called back in to help with the party preparations, Matt's looking a little more like himself again.

The day's nice. It's very festive, with food and drink and Christmas music pouring from every room, and everyone's laughing and playing games and exchanging heartfelt presents.

Matt clings on for as long as he can. Before he knows it it's getting dark outside and the day's almost over, and his head is ringing from the constant noise and raucous conversation, the laughter bouncing off the cabinets and the glasses clinking against coasters. Eleri sits in a ball in his hoodie pocket, flinching and grinding her teeth at the endless input. 

He tries to keep it together. It's nice, truly - everyone's happy, and the room's warm and filled with the smell of good food. People are keen to talk to him, to have him here in celebration.

He's glad to be here. He really is. 

It's just a lot, is all.

He gets the chance to remove himself after dinner, slipping out the front door as everyone resettled themselves in the living room. He stands on the porch in the winter air and drags what little capability his senses have back into play to figure out where the windows point. Then he sits himself on the steps, hidden from sight. He tucks his hands into his pockets and draws his knees up to his chest, and he tries to block out the muffled sound of Foggy's family having fun. 

The cold grounds him. With the reassuring constant of buzzing string lights lulling him away from the noise of the house, finally, he breathes.

Eleri crawls out to sit on his knee after a while, tipping her nose into the breeze, the colourful lights of the neighbour's decorations reflecting in her glassy eyes.

The peace doesn't last for long though, because of course it doesn't. Not half an hour later the handle of the door cracks behind him, and Matt jolts back from his dazed half-state as Foggy's voice sounds above him. 

"What are you doing out here?"

He asks it quietly, which Matt's thankful for. He feels a surge of it, actually, warmth blooming in his chest as Nery's muffled footfalls approach, as Foggy's nervous heartbeat sounds in his ears.

He's missed them. 

When Matt doesn't answer Foggy shuts the door, moving carefully to sit down on the step next to him. Eleri glances in his direction as he does, but doesn't say anything. Foggy looks at the two of them together for a moment, admiring the lights reflecting in both sets of eyes. 

"You okay?"

Matt considers it. He thinks he is, for the most part. Nothing's particularly wrong, besides his usual haggard fight with his soul, though he supposes even she's been a little more friendly as of late.

It was more a deep, heavy-set exhaustion dragging at his body, something beyond the sensory overwhelm of the last few days. He feels othered, somehow, despite being treated as anything but. The constant kindness he's been subjected to has him strangely detached, sent spinning as he was forced to process the feelings.

Foggy watches Matt visibly drifting off again, worry spiking his stomach. 

"Bit much, huh?" he tries again, recognising the shape of one of Matt's quiet moods, the kind where he's not likely to talk much. He tucks his own hands against his body as the cold starts to set in, Nerys laying herself down across his feet. Her own eyes also gleam in the lights as she watches Eleri.

Together they sit for a while, until Matt finds himself speaking, not quite aware that he's doing so. 

“Is everyone’s family like this?” 

It's said quietly, genuinely, as if he really didn't know the answer. Foggy feels his throat tightening at it, an unexpected surge of tears rising at the innocence of the question.

“Some of them,” he replies at last, equally as quiet. “The Nelson’s are pretty top tier though, on the scale of it.”  

Matt nods silently, thinking about it. In his pockets his fingers tug at the fraying seams of his jumper, his brow furrowed in thought. Foggy watches him thinking before letting out a small sigh, turning to look at the glittering neighbourhood as well.

“I should’ve thought this might have been a lot.”

Again, Matt doesn’t answer. He's having trouble making the words come to him, to even think them in his head. He feels embarrassment welling, watery frustration rising at his inability to stay happy even on Christmas. He feels distinctly vulnerable, and he can't make himself do anything about it. 

Luckily, Foggy's unphased by his silence, well used to having one sided conversations with Matt by now. He takes a steadying breath, speaking plainly.

“You’re part of this family," he tells him in a firm voice, willing Matt to hear it for what it is. “You know that, right?” 

It makes Matt's fingers freeze in their fidgeting. On his knee Eleri's tail twitches, her eyes flickering this way and that as she processed the words. Matt feels her surprise in his chest, bright and open and urgent.

He has to reply. He has to say something, anything at all that lets Foggy know he hears him, that he's grateful, that he doesn't know what to do with the feeling. All he can do is flounder however, his throat bobbing uselessly as he struggles for words.

He's interrupted before he gets the chance to form a response. 

At the edge of the garden, the dark form of a squirrel suddenly scrabbles across the fence posts, and all four of them turn to look at the strange sound. Foggy quickly turns back to see Eleri's eyes pinpoint the rodent, her lithe body going sharp and brutal as she zeroed in on her prey. Seeming to sense the danger it was in the squirrel pauses, flagging its tail as it looked to them in suspicion.

Foggy grins, not too upset by the seriousness of the moment evaporating as she fires off of Matt's leg to chase after it.

Even Matt's face flashes with a brief look of amusement as the squirrel flees from the attack, Eleri managing to chase it halfway up the tree trunk before giving up, watching it leap to the next set of branches with ease. Chattering in agitation she climbs back down, landing on the lawn with a thump to wind her way back through the garden, her nose pressed close against the wet grass.

It's such a familiar action to Foggy now, and the grin stays on his face as he watches her. She seems to pick up a scent at some point, darting off in a new direction, chasing it down towards the side of the house, out of sight. Foggy blinks at the strange image. 

“Can’t you feel that?” 

Matt's state of blessed distraction ends with an awful thunk at the words. He's held in limbo by it, but something stops him from calling Eleri back like he usually did. This time he lets her wander.

He's so tired. 

"I dunno," he manages to reply, his voice coming out cracked with overuse. “It’s uncomfortable, I guess."

Foggy's face falls with confusion even as he nods, not understanding the answer. He thinks of the white-hot, near-blinding agony of Nerys straying too far. He thinks of the sick fear and the dread and the spiralling loss, the immediate crashing regret of her stretching their bond to be stubborn.

It's a little more than uncomfortable, he thinks privately.

Eleri strays back into sight then. Foggy watches her trotting, non-plussed, along the front of the house to inspect the other side of the garden. At his feet, he can feel Nerys watching her too. 

“She goes too far.”

He says it softly, not knowing exactly where it comes from, nor why he shares it now. But he looks at Eleri, so separate from them all, and something in him yearns to have her back by their side. 

Matt closes his eyes at the words. He ducks his head, too numb to feel the panic from it. Like it always seemed to, Eleri's winter change had taken precedent in his life; he takes it for granted, the easier of the two aspects to hide. But now it's gaining traction again, and this time he has no real-world explanation for it.

There’s so many layers to his lies, he barely feels like a real person anymore.

Foggy sighs again at his lack of reply, just quietly, and Matt feels the dam break inside of him. Suddenly he wants to tell Foggy everything. He wants to tell him about his senses, about Stick, his training, what it'd done to them. He wants to tell him how they've been irrevocably changed because of it, that their bond was stretched, that he'd never be close to his soul ever again.

He wants to tell Foggy what he's never spoken out loud, even to himself. 

Somehow he swallows, fighting for the words to come out, dragging them roughly from his throat. It's the closest he's ever gotten before. 

“She’s, uh-"

He swallows again. Everything's stuck in his throat, messy and sharp and far, far too painful to work loose. 

Then the sudden surge of energy retreats as quickly as it'd come, and Matt feels the truth sinking down with it. It all feels so far off from this moment, sat quietly in Foggy's front garden, his first real Christmas. There's no way.

But Foggy's still watching him, waiting for Matt to speak. This time it's Matt sighing, tipping his head back to soak in the looming vastness of night sky. 

"She’s different,” he finally settles on. 

He feels Foggy slump a little at the obvious deflection, but he huffs a laugh anyway, watching Eleri furiously digging at a patch of dirt.

Again, the moment dissipates.

“You can say that again.”

'You're never going to tell them, are you?'

Matt's lying in a bed too small for him, one that he knows Foggy spent his whole childhood sleeping in. He can't think about it. 

'How can I?'

Tucked up in his folded arms, Eleri doesn't answer. She doesn't really know either, truth be told.

Times like these she could see clearly how Stick had managed to sink his grip into Matt so easily, to change him so fundamentally.

Having friends really did make things more confusing. They had things to lose, now.

But she could see the way Stick had twisted that truth into something terrible, something evil and isolating and insidious. She could see that the confusion was a fair price to pay for human connection, that it wasn't altogether a bad thing. She could see how it forced you to grow, to decide what it was that really mattered to you.

She knows Matt finds it harder to ignore the voices in his head telling him different. So tonight she winds her body around his wrists, trying to do the job of reminding him.

'It was so easy for Ed to see those things in me,' she says quietly, a little hurt seeping into her voice without her meaning it to. 'Why is it so hard for you?'

Eleri didn't think she was strange. She thought she was quite well-adjusted, really, in the scale of Matt's life.

Matt doesn't reply to her. He also doesn't unfold himself to push her away though, which Eleri counts as progress. 

'Why is it so hard for you to consider the fact I'm not evil?'

Silent until now, Matt can't help a scorned noise escaping his throat, too choked by the conflicting emotions trying to battle it out in his head.

'Because you're part of me,' he bites back harshly, even though the tone of it tastes awful. 

Eleri doesn't rise to it. Instead she goes soft and still, settling herself into the crook of his wrist, rubbing the silky fur of her chin against his skin.

'So?' she says simply. 'Are you going to be miserable about it forever?'

Chapter Text

Something strange happens, after that.

It starts the day after Christmas. The extended Nelsons have left, and the house has returned to some sort of state of relaxation. Everyone's full of leftovers and sat propped up around the living room, talking amongst themselves as a Christmas movie plays in the background.

Foggy's trying to deliver a spirited lecture that Candace isn't listening to, something about academic records and building one as early as possible.

Growing quickly bored on her behalf, Iberis flickers off from his perch to visit the coffee table Eleri's currently hiding under. With his tiny claws pinpricking the wood he peers down to look at her, head tipping back and forth. Eleri's ears twitch under the attention, but otherwise she doesn't show him any care, her dark eyes transfixed by the TV screen.

Iberis twitters softly, his beak crunching in anticipation.

"You're very small, for a stoat."

He says it clearly, brightly, pleased when Eleri's expression turns sharp with reproach. She turns slowly to look at him, her eyes narrowing.

From across the room, Foggy and Candace pause in their bickering to turn in astonishment as well. Matt, eyebrows raised, listens with interest. 

"Excuse me?"

Eleri says it with no small amount of hostility. Iberis' claws slip a little, and he flaps his wings in a short burst to right himself, carrying on in that bright, unbothered way.

"I'm just saying," he continues, innocence pouring from his feathers. "Do you still have growing to do or something?"

Matt grins. This is something entirely new. 

Eleri takes the bait without thought, her fur starting to bristle and twitch.

"Stoats are small," she says defensively, only just managing to stop herself from outright pouting. "It makes us better predators."

Flipping off from the table edge, Iberis flutters down to land on the carpet a little ways from her. Eleri tracks his movements like he's prey. 

"Not the one's I've seen," he replies primly.

Eleri nearly snarls.

"Oh, you've seen a lot have you?" she challenges.

Iberis' eyes scrunch with the reply, something playful in his body language as he pretends to pick at crumbs on the floor.

"A few."

He says it curtly, and in a small whirl of feathers he flies back to the armchair Candace is in. Eleri darts at the movement, feinting a chase, only to spot Matt, Foggy and Candace all watching her in amusement. Only then does Eleri recognise Iberis' tone.

The words had been goading, downright smug at times.

Teasing.

She relaxes at it, her teeth pricking as she lifts her lips in satisfaction, slinking back under the table.

She loves arguing.

From then on, it's a constant. In the days leading up to Matt and Foggy leaving Eleri lets herself be gleefully, brilliantly wound up by Iberis. She argues with him about nothing until she's leaping into the air with fury, her jaws snapping at tail feathers just beyond her reach, Iberis cackling with laughter as he fled to the highest bookshelves in the room.

Even Nerys joins in at times, chasing Eleri in turn, biting at her tail as Eleri chittered with satisfaction.

Matt tries to track the squabbles, equal parts confused and amused by the development. He thought it was only Nerys she did this with.

Then he finally recognises the baiting, all the bickering and play-fighting and chasing - it's how Nerys and Iberis had played, right at the start of his visit. It's the same type of boisterous fun, arguing for the sake of causing a chase.

The same type of fun Eleri loves.

He's happy for her, he thinks, and for once he can't think of any bad feelings to taint it with. 

It's the evening before they're due to back to college.

It's not so much a sending off party, more of a continuation of the fun that seems to happen every night in the Nelson household. Only this time there's drinks in hands and everyone wants to have conversations with them in particular, and as the night goes on everyone becomes a little louder and little more emotional about it. 

Again, it's nice. It's really nice. But Matt still finds himself sneaking out to take a breather on the porch all the same. 

He sits in the same spot on the steps, tucks his hands into his pockets in the same way. Eleri chooses to curl up in their warmth this time, body pressed tight against Matt's cupped palm.

He listens to the same buzzing of string lights, not feeling so heavy inside tonight, though he's not sure if that's simply the oncoming prospect of sleeping in his own bed again. He's a little reflective, a little overwhelmed. There's a lot still to process, a lot of backlogged thoughts left to sift through.

Mostly though, he's just tired.

Again, Foggy finds him out there before long. Not that Matt was trying to hide, really.

"I realised you were gone because Berry was quiet," he says from the doorway.

Matt huffs, shuffling up to make room for Foggy to sit next to him.

"I'm starting to forget what peace and quiet actually feels like," he mutters, as Foggy's warmth settles beside him.

But Foggy knows he doesn't really mean it: he's been catching Matt smiling at the three daemons often, head tipping as he tries to follow the fights.

"Welcome to two decades of my life," Foggy mutters back at him. 

Matt's eyebrows raise in brief comradery before they settle into a comfortable silence.

Foggy glows at his side, sitting a little too close to him. In the bright buzz of two beers and his first taste of Christmas sherry, Matt's chases the feelings it brings.

"You know," he starts, for once not being particularly careful with his words, "being with other people really puts into perspective how much I like you." 

Echoing, cavernous silence greets him. Matt tries not to full body cringe into it: he hadn't meant for it to come out that like. At Foggy's feet he feels the flicker of Nerys raising her head, ears pointing up bright and alert. Cursing the alcohol, he scrambles to cover himself.

"Not that I don't like your family," he says quickly, just to say something. "Just, y'know."

He sighs then, dropping his head as Eleri grins in his pocket, not knowing what he's even trying to get at.

"It's just easy with you," he finds himself finishing lamely. 

Still, Foggy doesn't reply. Matt tips his head sideways, still panicking, focussing his senses. To his relief he hears the contracting muscles of a face clearly grinning into the night, and own mouth quirks a little at the image. 

"Well, Berry seems to like you," Foggy replies eventually, his voice a little ways down from his usual register. 

Matt's eyebrows raise again, and he huffs another laugh, relieved the conversation is moving on. 

"He likes Eleri," he points out, begging the heat in his cheeks to dissipate.

Foggy shrugs, infuriatingly calm.

"Everyone does."

Matt's heart lurches with the simplicity of it, with the easy conviction in Foggy's voice. It's said lightly, like it's no big deal. Like it's not something Matt's never heard before.

He doesn't know what to reply to that, and when he's spent too long silently processing Foggy shoves him with his shoulder, knocking him out of it.

"Told you," he says, still smiling. "You're one of us now."

Even in the darkness Foggy can see the softness in Matt's expression, the agonising surprise in hearing such simple words. Unable to look at him like that for more than a second or two, Foggy loops an arm around his shoulders, pulling him in against his side in a one armed hug. 

Still stunned, Matt lets himself be pulled in. Unexpectedly, and in a way that makes Foggy's stomach flip and tumble with butterflies, he then lets his head drop against Foggy's shoulder, pliable and loose with drink.

Because he smells like Foggy, and he feels like home and familiarity and structure, and the exhaustion in Matt's soul yearns to bury itself deeper and deeper into the safety.

Not that he says any of that though. Matt's learned his lesson.

After a few seconds frozen by the action, Foggy decides to throw caution to the wind and let his own body lean into the warmth, his cheek resting against Matt's hair.

The weight of Nerys' head settles on his foot, and Foggy hears the rumbling of her soft laughter. 

His cheeks are going to start hurting, if he doesn't stop smiling soon. 

A yelled demand from the living room splits them up not long after, and silly and giggling and tripping they filter back into the mayhem. No one asks where they've been, and apart from a kick at Foggy's shin and a waggle of eyebrows from Candace, the night goes on as usual.

Soon everyone's winding down, fighting a losing battle against the low lighting and Christmas snack consumption. The movie becomes the focal point of the room once again, and everyone settles down to catch the tail end of it.

Nerys lies splayed out on her side as usual, spread across the carpet beside Foggy's armchair. In a more unusual move however, in the curve of her furred neck lies the small bundle of Eleri. She's curled into a loose spiral, her head tucked safely against the soft, velvety fur behind her ear. 

Ed gets up to fetch a final drink after a while, and when he comes back, he spots them. Sitting back beside Anna he nudges her, gesturing to the two daemons.

Anna leans over to see what he's talking about, and in the moment her heart catches: unexpected, unprecedented emotion fills her at the sight greeting her.

Nerys didn't cuddle. She just didn't do that.

She's never trusted anyone like that, before.

Chapter Text

It takes another few weeks for Foggy to start putting words to the realisation beginning to dawn on him.

Things were going well - that still stood. Life was moving again, with winter slowly turning into spring around them as their classes kicked up in intensity, and he and Matt were spending their time laughing and joking and commiserating with each other like normal. Sometimes that thrill of magic would dance and spark between them, and they'd both do a bad job of pretending not to notice it, and again, life would go on.

It was nice, and it was exciting, and Foggy feels better for it. 

But it was still there, flickering in his peripheral.

Matt was always, always holding something back. It was there behind his smiles and his careful words, hiding in the silent conversations Foggy knew were going on between him and Eleri. 

He can see it now, so clearly.

He'd thought that after the holidays, after Eleri had bickered and bonded with his family, after her and Nerys had crawled into a warm pile together to watch TV, that things would finally be sorted. He thought he'd finally done the impossible, and actually gotten to know Matt.

But even now, closer than they'd ever been, there was still something.

Foggy remembers the feeling from when Matt was attacked, when he'd mumbled about broken ribs, about experiencing worse. He'd felt himself standing right at the edge of a sinister unknown, and whenever he goes to step close to it now, he feels it pressing back at him just the same.

As time passes, Foggy's starting to realise that it might just be how it is, between them.

He finds it easier to ignore, after a while. The feeling was subtle compared to the rest of their hectic lives, compared to the reality of Matt sitting too close beside him, to the heat of his body and the curves of his face.

Foggy can easily distract himself from the curling sense of something hidden.

Because they were doing better. Things were good, still.

He could see it in Eleri, clear as day: as the weather warms, her winter coat begins to burnish and blush with apricot undercoat, the fur around her eyes peppering with terracotta.

She's moulting again. 

This time however she does it openly, unbothered by any eyes on her as she rubs herself against furniture legs, scratching at the loosening fur. Amongst it all she winds around Matt's wrists and settles herself at his neck like a wary protector, and finally she looks like a daemon that's actually on his side.

Foggy savours the view. They look good, together.

And then they'll head to bed for the night and the feeling will start to creep back in at the edges, soft and strange and troublesome.

She still sleeps up on the windowsill, most nights.

"You look like a pirate."

Nerys says it in passing, huffing a laugh at Eleri's resulting glare. She's in an awkward stage now, one of her eyes still surrounded by speckled, half-moulted fur, the other already set amongst the dark, glossy brown of her summer coat.

Nerys is right: it does look like an eye patch.

Eleri prickles at the comparison however, bearing her teeth in return.

"Pirates kill people," she sneers back.

The room snaps then with the heavy clack of a large jaw biting at the air, and the skittering of claws on hardwood erupts soon after as a chase begins.

From his desk Matt rolls his eyes. He's trying to focus. 

They don't make it far, Matt grabbing Eleri around the middle as she shoots past him. In a flurry of tiny snarls, Eleri thrashes against his grip.

"She started it!" she whines in defence, finally giving up and going limp as Nerys laughs from across the room, tucking herself under Foggy's chair.

Foggy watches the scene from his own desk, enjoying the dramatic tussle. He's always impressed by how accurately Matt can snatch Eleri, how easily he seems to know where she is in the space. He mentally casts around for Nerys at the thought, feeling her glowing warmth beneath him. There are no details to her presence though, no way he could hazard an accurate grab for her. 

Must be a Matt thing, he thinks distantly. His other senses must overcompensate for his sight in some way.

Distracted, he continues to watch as Matt tosses Eleri to the desk, though he's snapped from his reflective mood when Matt suddenly pulls back with a hiss of pain, flinching away from her.

Foggy stares, shock starting to flood his system.

Eleri had bitten him.

Matt shakes it off though, turning back to his braille reader without much more care. Foggy eyes the skin of his wrist. There's no blood - it wasn't a real bite. But Matt still looks sour and Eleri still skitters off under the bed to brood, and Foggy looks down to share a wary look with Nerys.

It doesn't happen often anymore. But it still happens. 

They have to go to lectures soon after, and the tension of the moment passes quickly. They're walking the path they always walk to campus, Eleri perched on Matt's shoulder as she keeps a careful eye on the people passing them by.

Neither of them seem that bothered by their previous spat.

They walk in silence, and lulled by Nerys' footfalls at his side, Foggy tries to process the emotions still tangling inside him.

He's always surprised to see that side of Eleri again. He'd thought they were doing better.

They had been doing better.

So why did she still bite him? And why did Matt seem to be so fine with it? It's perplexing in a way he can't work through, and it only serves to feed the flickering in his peripheral vision.

But right now there's the steady weight of a hand at Foggy's elbow, and Matt's brows are furrowed as he silently mouths through a list of civil procedures they've been going over for their next class, and once again the anxiety sinks down somewhere easily ignored.

It's just how Eleri is, Foggy decides. 

That night, lying across from each other in a dark room the same as they've done every single night since they met, Foggy tries to think back to the first time he'd realised what he felt for Matt was something more than regular friendship.

Because he knows it now. It's simple knowledge that's settled solid and familiar inside of him.

He doesn't remember a single moment of realisation. There'd just been a growing understanding come over him, walking back from the bar drunk and silly and so in love with the person giggling beside him. Far from the intended effect however, the memories of those innocent, butterfly-inducing moments make Foggy's chest twinge with unexpected hurt, his lower lip starting to crumple as tears fought to break free.

How naïve he'd been back then, how little he'd understood what lay ahead of them.

Nerys pushes her head at him then, and Foggy tries to break free from the feelings. He doesn't like the shape of them. He blinks away his tears and evens out his breathing, trying to let his thoughts settle out again.

'We're never going to know, are we?'

For once Nerys' voice isn't grand and rumbling in his head. Instead her words come small and plaintive, and Foggy's heart twists a little more with the difference.

'He'll tell us one day,' he makes himself reply, in a voice equally as small, and not quite as confident. 

Foggy falls asleep that night to the crushing, cascading knowledge that loving Matt was going to hurt. For him to be in Foggy's life, it was going to be complicated and difficult and painful. And that was just the price he’d have to pay.

Because he would be paying it. There was no going back now. 

Matt's unsettling soul was a part of him, and in turn, a part of Foggy. 

Lying awake in a dark room as he pretends to sleep, Matt listens to Foggy's breath hitching and hiccupping, his eyes blinking wetly. Above him, he feels Eleri shifting her paws in upset.

Neither of them know what to do. Now, or in general. 

Matt doesn't think he'd even noticed his nervous, unsteady crush turning into something steadfast and known; accepted, but not acted on. A purgatory of his own making.

Matt's words come pale and weak, barely gracing Eleri's consciousness. 

'I wish it wasn't like this.'

She tips her head to the side, looking down at him.

'It doesn't have to be,' she answers softly. 'Does it?'

Her quiet question hangs awfully in the air. It's something Matt's been thinking about a lot recently. He listens to Foggy evening out his breathing, Nerys curling into his side as she soothes him.

He'd been so lucky to have such a brilliant presence enter his life, one who's heart beat as quickly as Matt's did when they sat too close to each other. But instead of happiness, he'd found a way to mire the situation in hazy sorrow.

He replies to Eleri in a voice split and cracked by regret.

'I think it might.'

Because he's quite sure of it by now. When he reaches inside and feels the devil crawling in his veins, he knows deep down that it's not Eleri who's the problem anymore.

They still don't talk about their daemons cuddling. Nerys and Eleri just sort of did it now, fed up with their human counterparts' apparent stalemate.

Whilst they spent their evenings bundled up against each other, soft and lazy and comfortable, Matt and Foggy danced around the opportunity for them to do the same.

In the end, the tangled mess of it all becomes hard and set and familiar, and they grow around it.

Foggy lets Matt keep his secrets. Matt doesn't see any way to share them.

It's just how it is. Life goes on.

It's late morning and Foggy's been up for a while, already ready for the day. Matt's only just waking up, still buried in bed whilst Eleri sits on top of the duvet at his hip, trying to reach her back as she grooms herself. She looks like a ragged sock that needs darning now, and neither Foggy or Nerys can stop themselves from staring at her as she spits out clumps of cloud-white coat, leaving them to join the piles already collecting in the corners of their dorm.

Before long Matt starts to shift and grumble, rolling over to send Eleri toppling down to the mattress. Foggy grins at the action, directing his attention to the rumpled form of Matt pushing himself upright. 

"Morning," he says brightly, laughing as Matt mumbles something unintelligible back. "When was the last time you had a good night's sleep?"

Matt grimaces, standing on unsteady feet to head for the bathroom.

"You can have those?" he mutters as he passes.

Two sets of eyes follow him as he does, drinking in the odd mess of his hair, the pyjama pant leg still caught around his calf. 

The bathroom door closes, and neither Nerys nor Foggy make the move to snark at the other for staring.

On a bright day in March, Eleri yanks out the final tufts of white from her fur, and once again she becomes sleek and earth-coloured and vicious looking. She fires around the dorm room announcing such a fact, bouncing off the walls and digging her claws into the furniture. 

From beneath his duvet, Foggy watches her fondly.

"Thank god that's over," he quips, grinning as Eleri snarls at him in return.

He bares his teeth back at her, watching Eleri's eyes light up at the move. When he turns away, he pretends he doesn't hear her scrabbling her way up to Foggy's desk, off to pick out a pen lid to chew on.

They have time for lunch between lectures today, and Foggy forces them to the canteen for cheap food, dragging them out to a bench on the lawns to eat it. It's not the same one that they usually sit at, but it's close enough. The sun's finally starting to feel warm on their skin now, and the mud beneath their feet is beginning to harden. It's a fine enough day to be sat outside.

Or so Foggy says.

Matt sits hunched in his coat, poking unenthusiastically at his limp sandwich. Eleri, pressed against his thigh on the bench, entertains herself by making faces at Nerys under the table. 

"It's technically still winter, you know," Matt points out. 

Foggy, non-plussed, gestures with his own limp sandwich. 

"I didn't think Catholics went by the solstice," he dismisses easily. "It's sunny, we're sitting outside."

"I can't feel my hands," Matt mutters in reply, giving up on his sandwich entirely to tuck his freezing fingers into his pockets.

'You could offer to hold them,' Nerys provides helpfully, shoving the suggestion into Foggy's head. 

Foggy kicks at her with his foot, smiling back innocently at Matt's suffering. Under the table, Nerys rolls her eyes at Eleri. In return, Eleri hops up onto the table, parading her gleaming new coat in the sun to have a go instead.

"So when are we going house hunting?" she prompts.

She's been reminding them of it often. They've agreed they're going to live together next year, because of course they are, and as such they need to find an apartment to rent. Eleri's very excited about the prospect, particularly for the climbing opportunities that multiple rooms have to offer. She's privately hoping for bookcases to be involved, perhaps some sort of overhead cabinets.

"When exams are over," Matt replies shortly however, making her deflate a little. "And if you keep bothering us about it, I'll leave you behind in the dorm."

Eleri grumbles at that, stamping a paw on the table as she jumps off to squirrel herself away in Matt's coat pocket to pout. There, she burrows into the warmth of his hand, holding back from biting at his fingers.

It is quite cold outside, still. 

Foggy's perked up a little at the reminder though. It's filled with promise, and he likes daydreaming about the opportunities it holds - he's getting tired of dorm food and shared bathrooms. He kicks the subject along a bit.

"We should really start looking soon," he says reasonably, trying to stay cool about it. "We gotta find somewhere nice."

Matt laughs, short and unenthused.

"On our budget?"

Foggy gives a weak laugh at it, glad Matt can't see his eyes flicking back and forth as he does so, trying to read into the careless tone. Matt seems to pick up on the drop in energy though, his face softening a little.

"We'll find somewhere," he tries again, a small smile pulling at his lips. "It's gonna be fun."

It works to reassure Foggy, and he nods, smiling now too.

"Until we sign a lease that makes us liable for damages," he offers, letting his voice pick up a teasing lilt again, "and we let a rodent loose in the place."

Matt laughs, properly this time, ignoring the sharp nip at his finger in reproach. 

Quiet falls after that, Foggy soaking in the sunny day as Matt lets his mind drift. He's brought back by Foggy speaking under his breath though, still smiling to himself.

"It's gonna be fun," Foggy repeats quietly.

He notices Matt paying attention then, and he swallows as a current of thrumming energy passes between them. But the peripheral feeling Foggy's trying to ignore flicks once, twice across the image, bringing an unwelcome surge of anxiety.

Foggy looks at Matt, framed in the colourful, hopeful scenery of spring, and he lets his voice go soft and genuine.

"Just- no more secrets between us, yeah?"

Matt's stomach drops with it. He barely manages to keep his face neutral as his throat goes tight, nausea lurching as he listens to the sound of Foggy's hopeful heart beating across from him. 

He can't breathe. He can feel Eleri hunching down uncomfortably in his pocket as he flounders for a reply; he's paused too long now.

He has no choice.

Just like he's done since the day they met, Matt pretends not to hear the pounding of Foggy's heart opposite his, and he opens his mouth to reply.

"Yeah," he says hollowly, forcing a smile onto his face. "No more secrets."