Of Monsters And Men | Discontinued |

Episode Three - Concussion

Matt's apartment is cold. She shuts the door behind her, stuffing the key into her pocket. Rot instantly calms, setting Evren at ease. His heartbeat is steady, but panicky. She pauses for just a second, peering around the corner, only to see Matt laying against the brick wall, unseeing eyes wider than usual.

"Matt?" He doesn't respond, not even his eyes twitch towards her. "Matt? What's going on?" Again, no response. He never jokes about things like this-- even when he ignored her, he'll still give curt answers when she's worried. "Matty?" She approaches him, slowly, stepping harder than she needs to. He still doesn't move. He would seem dead if it wasn't for his heartbeat and the rising of his chest.

He flinches when she wraps her hand over his palm, looking back and forth, brows furrowed, mouth slightly open. Blood is staining the side of his face. She ghosts her fingers across it. He tilts his head away, grimacing.

"Fuck. You have a concussion, Matty. I should have checked on you earlier. I should have Left Grotto and Karen but-" She sighs, dragging her hands to her face, covering her eyes, dragging his along with hers. "You wouldn't forgive me for that. Let's just... Let's get you cleaned up."

She stands, pulling him up too. He stumbles. Rot reaches out a tendril as wide as her arm and wraps it around his waist to help him keep balance. The three move to the bathroom, setting Matt on the toilet and rummaging through his cabinets.

"Ev- uh, Evren." Matt stutters, eyebrows furrowed. She pokes his arm. I-I can't hear. I can't-"

She blots a cloth against his forehead, watching him recoil at the sudden touch. She tilts his chin, carefully, keeping her hand there as an assurance that she's here with him.

"I think I'm going to put my ring on James' gravestone." She says, simply. He can't hear her, so she may as well talk in a way she wouldn't otherwise be comfortable with. Her and Matt are friends, allies that work together during the nights, but she never talks about James. "It's been over a year, and I know that sounds bad, but... I can't keep holding onto him. It hurts more than it doesn't. Fisk is gone and he can't control me anymore and I just-" She sighs, taking a moment to take her palm from his chin and scrub away the tears in her eyes. "I have to leave him, really leave him, if I want to really take myself out of that life. James would have died for Fisk, and he died for me. I don't think there's much of a difference, though. If they had found me, not you, I would have just gone back. We would have hated each other. I might have even killed you."

She drops the rag onto his lap, picking up a small piece of gauze. She presses it into place, dragging his hand to hold it there as she stands to grab the medical tape. His hand grips onto her wrist just a tad tighter, not letting her leave his reach. She sighs. Rot trembles beneath her skin, gently wrapping around Matt's hand and her wrist.

"I hate thinking about that. Rot hates it when I get like this- thinking about things that never happened. But what if it does happen? What if they come back and they brainwash me again and I can't do anything?" Her shoulders jerk, even as she tries to force herself to stay still, to breathe normally. "I don't think I would be able to handle that."

She tapes the gauze into place, Rot keeping them tied together as she puts everything away. She settles back where she found Matt, who eases himself to be by her side. Their shoulders are pressed together, along with their hips, Rot easing itself back into her. She leans her head back, shoulders slacking until she finds herself unable to tear herself free from the doze that suddenly has ahold of her.

'We need to sleep. We can't protect anyone like this.'

Reluctantly, she does so.

Nightmares greet her-- Matt being blown apart by the man with the shotgun, James pulling Matt piece by piece into his own grave, Foggy screaming at her- that it's her fault, that James would have stayed dead if she had just kept the ring around her finger like a chain- keeping her tied to James, to Fisk. Everything was swirling and upside down and sideways and she couldn't think, couldn't breathe. Foggy screams so loud his jaw cracks and falls apart and his skin sloughs off of his body and twists into a mass that drags itself down her throat until she's the one screaming.