trustinthedevil | (no subject)

"Self employed."

Matt rests his head on Frank's shoulder, feeling a bit smug. That's what happens, Frank, when you wake up a sleeping devil in its natural habitat. You become trapped by its wrath. It's sleepy, cuddly wrath.

"Meeting a client this afternoon. A paying client." Important, that bit. He huffs out a breath. "I need a better office."

"You need a better job," Frank mutters, dryly. He'll never be sold on the nobility of protecting shitbags, whether with fists or the law. And Matt can argue about innocence all he wants, but he'd tried to defend Grotto and he'd tried to defend Frank: they'd both been guilty as sin.

So.

"Maybe I got shit to do," he tacks on, a smidgen unconvincingly. Maybe four hours of sleep after the last two days he'd had isn't entirely enough...

"Nobody has shit to do this early."

Not everyone Matt defends is bad. Hes still thinks, sometimes, about Mrs. Cardenas and how he couldn't help her. Those are the people he wants to help. They need his help. He exhales through his nose, because now he's thinking about it, and he rolls away from Frank. Let him get up and do his shit.

"If you can try to be quiet, that'd be nice."

Well, his goddamn bluff got called, didn't it? (Frank needs to stop expecting he can get away with that shit with Matt.) Still, he can practically taste the mood shifting, and he lays there for a split second longer without Matt warming up his side before deciding it's probably for the best anyway. Really. It is.

So much for holding onto shit with both hands, huh?

He grunts, pointedly doesn't examine why he feels a touch guilty, and rolls out of bed more carefully than the first time so as not to steal all the covers away again. He pads into the kitchen, makes a cup of coffee, takes a shower (without singing, you're welcome Red) then makes two more cups of coffee and hunts for wherever he'd discarded Devildog's leash the night before so they can bail while Matt's still sleeping.

Well. Now Matt's awake. Without Frank there, it's hard to settle back down. Stupid as that is. He lies there, looking up into nothingness, listening. The Keurig. The shower, the water kicking in and screeching quietly through the old pipes. The Keurig again. By the time he hears the leash, Matt's out of bed.

He rubs at his face where the blood is (he thinks), moving with a bit of lag. He leans against the counter, waiting for a moment or two. He's awful at this, he's convinced he's somehow ruined it all, and that's ... Typical. Class Matt Murdock. Fun while it lasted.

"It's customary to say goodbye," Matt says. "I'm just guessing you're leaving." Frank might not feel like he's rushing, but Matt can hear it. Moving faster than usual, an urgency in it all. "Thanks for dinner last night."

Frqank pauses, having finally found the leash mostly tucked beneath the couch, with only the clasp sticking out in the open. Holding it now, as Matt finally emerges from the cocoon of his bed, Frank feels an awful lot like a kid caught with his hand stuck in the cookie jar and he's not entirely sure why.

"You wanted quiet," he reminds Matt, in his own defense, giving Devildog an exasperated look as the pit makes a beeline for Matt and waits expectantly for the petting that always comes when he trots up close enough.

"Oh, right," Matt says. He obligingly pats the dog on the head, ruffling his ears. "And goodbye would have really just thrown me over the edge."

But he's smiling. He's not sure if he believes himself or not, this could be another one of those moments where Matt's tricked himself into thinking everything's fine. "I'll ... Talk to you later."

Frank hesitates. Frank never hesitates anymore, except with Matt. When they're tucked together in bed, or on the couch, or in the kitchen he forgets, maybe a little too easily, how out of sync they are. How new they still are to each other. With his wife, even when their tempers snapped and they fought like cats and dogs, he got her, what she wanted out of him.

Or maybe that only exists now, in retrospect, colored by nostalgia and the awfulness of her absence. Of not being able to fight with her about the petty things anymore.

Matt isn't nearly as brutally blunt as she was: no, he's more or less the opposite. Frank's still all about facing issues head-on, though, so, "Why're you being so squirrelly, huh?"

Any chance that might have remained for Matt to find the humour in this is gone. He feels chastised by the accusation and he shrugs, feeling tired and sore.

"I don't know. Habit?" They can't even go twelve hours without stuff like this happening. Maybe the night before was a fluke. It makes Matt sigh. Resigned. He finds Frank and touches his chest, leaning in to kiss his cheek. The action is quick and Matt's on his way back to bed. It's too early to argue. Better to just avoid it.

"Goodbye, Frank."

Frank's not fast enough to catch his arm before he goes, but that sure as shit doesn't mean he won't follow. "Goddamnit, Red," he complains, dropping Devildog's leash back onto the couch in a pointed rattle of chains. "It don't work like that. You know? This don't—I don't work like that. Yeah."

He stops in the bedroom door. Awake but not particularly even-footed. He's got words, but they're all in a jumble. "I gotta know what you want. But you won't talk, you know?" Never really does, either. Before it had been... cute, honestly. But after last night and this morning, suddenly it doesn't all just seem like a case of being shy, or a little too catholic for his own good. "I know you got shit to say. I need you to, you know, I need you to say it."

"Right now I want you to go."

The moment Matt says it, he regrets it. He turns around and moves to Frank, to catch him before he steps away. His fingers press into the fabric of Frank's shirt and he clutches, just a bit, just in case Frank tries to go.

"No - that's not ..." He's a disaster. Matt presses his forehead to Frank's shoulder. "Can we restart this morning? Rewind back to bed. If you want to go that's fine. I can't make you stay. I want you to stay."

Ain't that a kick in the teeth? Frank twitches when Matt's fingers find their way into his shirt, but it's not because he's got any desire to actually step foot out the door.

Then Matt's head comes to rest on his shoulder he almost agrees—almost—but he knows better than anyone that letting this shit lie is a good way to have it blow up in his face later. "I'm not going anywhere," he says gruffly, which is more or less a threat considering Matt's initial reaction. "We still gotta talk. Going back to bed and pretending it didn't happen isn't gonna fix what's bothering you." A beat. He leans back, and touches the corner of his mouth where he's still got a bit of dried, flaking red. "And you still got blood on your face."

"Yeah, well, nothing new there," Matt says in regards to the blood. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. He's not sure what to say, what he wants to say or what Frank wants him to say.

"Frank, it's - Five-thirty in the morning. I can't think full thoughts let alone talk about them. I just ... Want you to stay until I can. Preferably with me in there," he nods back to the bed, "and we can fight after. Even if I don't know why we're fighting."

Five thirty in the morning is perfectly viable daytime, Frank feels.

But he's mollified enough by the promise of talk later that he'll allow himself another hour or two of sleep for once. Reluctantly. (Well, """reluctantly.""") "We're not fighting," he grouses, taking Matt by the elbow to steer him back towards the bed. "Sit," he adds, heading into the bathroom for a washcloth and warm water, at least, to clean off Matt's face. No sense in getting into the nice sheets twice speckled with someone else's blood.

"Hmm. That's true. No one's been punched yet."

He feels better, though. Less anxious over Frank slipping away. Matt sits down and listens to Frank move around.

"It's just that, usually when people don't announce they're leaving, it's because they're trying to sneak away. I thought I did something. Maybe."

When Frank comes back he flips on the bedroom light, and tilts Matt's face up towards it with the tips of his fingers so he can see which patches of red are his own blood and which are someone else's before he rubs them off with the damp cloth.

"Thought you were going back to sleep," he says, brow wrinkling half in concentration over the task at hand, half at Matt's sentiment. "And you weren't thrilled the first time I woke you up."

"That was my own fault. But I still don't think a see you later would be hard."

Matt presses his fingers to Frank's sides, snorting when he discovers Frank's shirt is tucked in. He plucks the fabric free, then realizes there's also a belt. Cone on, Frank. Going back to bed isn't condusive to belt wearing so Matt takes care of that, too. Matt stands up to press a kiss to Frank's lips.

Frank rolls his eyes to the ceiling but returns the kiss anyway. He'll not hear any insults to his impeccable Dad Fashion, damnit.

He hooks his fingers around the backs of the devil's thighs, hoisting him up off the ground and tipping him back onto the mattress. He tosses the washcloth back through the bathroom door where it hits the sink with a wet splat! and pulls back the sheets so he can slide back in.

"How late do you plan to sleep?" he rumbles, already feeling the extra weight in his bones that comes from laying back down while tired. Not that Frank can actually tell what Matt's clock says without practically rolling him over onto the floor so he can reach the alarm and slap the top...

Edited 2016-06-23 00:11 (UTC)

There are worse ways to get moved around, Matt thinks. If Frank isn't careful, Matt's going to start expecting to be carried around everywhere in his apartment. The thought makes the corner of his mouth turn up and he rolls over, pressing into Frank's side, nose to Frank's neck. For a moment, Matt thinks he's wide awake but the fatigue settles in quickly. So he just hums and shrugs.

"At least until eight." He does, after all, have to finish reviewing the documents that got abandoned the night before and get ready for his meeting. "Nine, latest."

Frank hums back in what might be agreement (or he might just be making noises to make them), and falls asleep again to the feeling of breath ghosting rhythmically across his skin for the first time in a long time.

He wakes back up between breaths, feeling strangely fuzzy from head to toe. Everything is warm, especially where the devil is pressed against his side, but the buttons and seams of the jeans he got dragged back to bed in are digging into his hips and he has to pee from the three cups of coffee he downed before turning around and passing right back out.

He grunts, shifting until he can shake Matt without actually lifting himself up, feeling somehow even more groggy now than when he forced himself awake the first time. But in a nice way. "Hey," he says into the bright, warm room, just in cast shaking Matt didn't get the job done.

This is an easy sleep. Best sleep Matt's had without the help of painkillers or sure exhaustion in ages. He hums as he stretches, the shaking doing the job. But Frank's voice is a nice way to get him to crack his eyes open. Even if he doesn't actually need to see.

"Hi," he says, sounding pleased and sleepy and well rested. He's about to reach over to just touch Frank when he pauses, feeling how warm it is, listening to the sounds on the streets. Sitting up, Matt presses his hand on his clock and nearly groans when the voice tells him it's eleven-fifty-one. Maybe he should've set an alarm.

"I need a shower. Do I need a shower?"

"Shit," Frank breathes, sounding more than a little surprised. He hasn't slept so late since—the hospital, probably, when they'd kept him just this side of completely-drooling-on-himself sedated.

He sits up, running a hand down his face before looking Matt up and down. "Yeah, Red," he says, not one to mince words. Like, ever. Even where appropriate. "Desperately." A beat. "Let me take a piss, first."

"Thank for that, Frank."

Matt deadpans at him, then hauls himself out of bed. "It's all yours. I need to figure out -" Everything. Well, while Frank's going to the bathroom, Matt can find a suit to wear. He passes his hand over each jacket, even though he knows by count what each one is, he rubs the fabric between his thumbs. The process is repeated with shirts and ties, all of which get laid out on the bed so Matt can clean himself up. He figures he can shower in ... Two minutes. Maybe four. That's good.

"If you wanted to be nice, you could take those papers on the table out there and put them in my bag."

Frank locates his belt from the floor first, once he's done in the bathroom, and then heads to the living room to scoop the papers into Matt's bag. When the devil comes back out of the shower, dressed and ready barely a handful of minutes after hopping in, Frank has gotten himself a fourth cup of coffee from the Keurig and pulled the ingredients out of the fridge (which he probably put there in the first place) to make ham sandwiches. He wraps one in a paper towel and hands it to Matt, trying not to sound as amused by the hapless mess as he is.

Explains quite a bit about his own trial if this is an average sort of morning for Matt Murdock. "Need a ride?"

Yeah, but doesn't he look good? His hair is maybe still too damp but he thinks it'll dry by the time he has his meeting. As for that ham sandwich, well, it doesn't last long.

"Huh?" He's finding his shoes, sitting down to put them on. "That would be great. Really. Thanks."

Matt slings his bag over his shoulder and collects his glasses from the coffee table. His cane is nearby and he grabs that, too, then does a mental check. Yep. Good to go.