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If asked, at the beginning of the shit show that Frank’s life had become, if he thought there was any future for him that involved Matt Murdock, Frank would have scoffed and dismissed the idea immediately.
They’re too different , he would’ve probably said. Matt may dress us as the devil and beat up criminals until his hands are blood red, but he was still a patch of sunlight and hope that didn’t fit in the pile of mud, blood and bullets that Frank had buried himself in. He had darkness in him, alright. Castle had seen it more than once. But the undeniable truth is that, in his core, Red was deeply, purely and infuriatingly good.
And Frank didn’t think good had anything to do with him.
He had surrendered, yeah? He crossed a line Red and a whole lot of people never could, and he payed for it. He didn’t care if he caught his death out there, because Frank wasn’t sure if he even deserved to be alive anymore. He took pride in what he did and he knew, even back then, that that pride meant something was indeed broken in him that he couldn’t fix. Red had talked a lot of redemption shtick that day but he wasn’t too wrong in his early assessment of Frank.
So, when it ( they) happens the first time, it’s no wonder he is surprised at himself and, mostly, at Murdock. He wonders if sleeping with Frank is a new self-destructive habit of his, but, for some reason, he wakes up all soft and relaxed in the silk sheets and smiles a tiny, beautiful thing.
He tries to make excuses for the both of them. It was a thing of the moment, Frank tells himself. They had almost died in the confront between two gangs, the adrenaline and the thrill were still pumping through them madly.
Maybe, that’s what made Matt slowly approach, all feline grace and quiet movements, take him by the back of his head and slot their lips together as a starving man would in the face of food.
They had reached and touched each other, back in the bullet ridden base the both of them took down. Forehead meeting forehead as they took deep, gulping breaths and laughed euphorically. They had seen death come for them and dodged once more, and their limbs were shaking sporadically with left over energy.
But here, now, Matt is slow and sweet and he lets Frank slowly take control of the kiss. He doesn’t act like a man high on adrenaline and endorphins. He lets himself surrender into Frank’s bloody, bloody hands and melts slowly when he kisses back. Red takes off that stupid mask and meeting his pretty, clouded over eyes with his makes his whole body snap alive like a wire.
He grabs him, feels him all over, and Matty does the same. He tries to find the places that make him shiver, the ones that make him gasp, the ones that make him whimper so beautifully and kisses, caresses, worships.
Matt feels warm all over. He feels alive . And it makes Frank shiver in realization.
He wants him, all of him.
The next morning in the shower, his back and biceps sting with the scratches Matt left behind. He wonders if his bites, hickeys and fingerprints are stinging just the same on Murdock’s perfect, freckled skin.
Next time they meet is for a reconnaissance. They sit at Frank’s safe house and compare info at the end of the night. He should know better than getting distracted, but Matty’s neck is uncovered and he can see one of the bite marks he left behind. The redhead is in the middle of speaking when Castle slots his mouth closed against the mark, hands reaching for his throat and then his waist. Matt seems as desperate for him as Frank is and immediately straddles his lap.
It becomes routine then.
The new aspect to their relationship doesn’t change what they do, so they still meet a lot for their team-ups. Matt is really well put together, for a catholic guilt-ridden blind lawyer, who’s also, conveniently, a mutate turned vigilante. He doesn’t seem to sleep that much though, which Frank tries to remedy by getting him extra tired and blissed out by one in the morning, so he gets at least five hours of sleep.
He starts noticing these little things then. The little things Matt liked to hide that made him more human then he tried to present himself as.
First time he gets a clear picture of it, is when they are following a lead. Matt is disguising as a sighted person, walking with a low beanie and jacket. He walks amazingly well, dodging people’s path before they even change it. Those senses of his are extremely handy and he was trained to use them exceptionally well.
Thing is, they still don’t substitute sight, and Frank sees that first hand that day.
“Red-” he calls but there’s no time, so he slowly takes his elbow to pull him away from an uneven path in the concrete that would have probably made him trip. Matt only twitches his head, then, eyes turning downcast for a second, only to return to that sharp focus of his.
“He’s talking on the phone, same guy as before, Ed, he’s probably a supplier. He owes him money-” he keeps narrating what he hears, which is amazing, for the guys is at the end of the block. They’re in Chelsea by now, and the man keeps walking. Red is a wonder with tracking, not only due to his senses, but because he trained himself so well at it. To track the people he was constantly dodging now and to track their target.
He watches him, then. He wonders if it gets easier to track people due to their heartbeats. Because he had no problem walking around them. But now, he was heading straight for a small trash. Frank is about to nudge him out of the path again, but Matt’s faster. He dodges it at the last minute, probably feeling the vibration of the metal or some shit.
“Surveillance camera to your right, turn your head downwards” he says and Frank does.
And has to nudge him away from some spilled gooey unidentified mass he finds on the ground. Matt is too focused to notice by this point and Frank wonders how he can keep it on. He’s keeping track of their target, their target’s conversation on the phone, the people around him, Frank, surveillance cameras and whatever he can grasp of his surroundings. He wonders how in the hell he’s able to do that. And his respect for his - partner? Lover? - Red just increases tenfold.
It’s amazing, surely, and it must be easier to navigate with his cane. But it still hadn’t stricken him at that point that his senses themselves could be a problem to red. At least, not to the extent he learns they are afterwards.
Things keep evolving between the two of them. They meet most weeks to compare intel and keep track of each other’s ground, in a way. Frank covered most in the Bronx, these days. Harlem was well taken care of by that bulletproof guy. Red mostly stayed in Hell’s Kitchen, but he usually went through Clinton, Chelsea and Midtown too. This way, when a gang was expanding business or criminals were migrating somewhere else, they could keep track of them. It worked and it was an excuse to see Murdock, Frank was grasping at ‘em like a drowning man.
He doesn’t think he needs too, though. It’s just a bit easier on his pride. And his fears, too.
But then, Matt’s calling him for coffee shops for their little meetings, instead of his loft or Frank’s safehouses. He had two nearby. One in the kitchen and one in Midtown. He was planning on asking why, but as soon as he gets there the first time, he has to stop for a second.
Matt wasn’t wearing a suit and tie for the first time since they started meeting outside their vigilante roles. The only time he saw he wear anything else was that day, following their target in a hoodie and beanie. But now he looks... soft, in a way. No less dangerous, if that little smirk tells him anything. But still softer.
He wears a white tee and a dark green coat. And jeans too. Must be the first time he saw him in jeans. They probably won’t last. Frank’s hands itch to take them apart, rip those goddamn things off of his perfect pale legs. Red shaved too, which Frank never thought he’d care about, but he always felt so smooth under his hands and fingers-
“Hello, Frank” Matt takes his out of his little mental rampant, fumbling around for the menu and feeling it for braille. When he doesn’t find it, he just shrugs and smiles in his direction. “Won’t you... seat?”
Oh. Yeah. There’s that.
He felt like an idiot. Like a fumbling, clumsy 16 year old meeting a pretty boy or girl for the first time. Red must get that a lot because he smiles a bit knowingly and pushes the menu towards Frank’s hands as he finally sits in the booth. Red’s hands are scraped, he wonders what asshole is responsible for that.
Oh shit. He had to get himself together. This is getting ridiculous.
He grunts as a greeting, too much on his mind to think about forming proper words. Matt Murdock is more of a menace out of his suit than in it, and that’s saying something. The idiot loved to jump in front of Frank’s aim when he didn’t like where it was pointing. And parkour his way into gunfights with nothing but his two fists and 5”9’ of sheer stubbornness.
“Before we get distracted, I found some things out” Matt announces, and Frank squints at him. Of course little shit could notice. He didn’t know if he wanted to strangle him or straddle him. He got him all shades of confused and hot and bothered.
“This about the guy you sniffed like a bloodhound?” Matt probably rolls his eyes under his red shades and Frank suddenly wants to rip off those things. His eyes are beautiful, he shouldn’t have to hide him all day long. He has a sudden wish to just hold his face and kiss his forehead, too.
He really wants to see his eyes, now. Can’t stop remembering how they went half-lidded in bliss when they were rutting against each other, his hands scrabbling to find a grip in Frank’s arms, legs tight around his waist. How his mouth opened in a tiny ‘oh’ when-
“And... you’re distracted”
“I’m not” he grunts out, but Matty only smiles as if he had just won a case. And now Frank wants to punch him. Or just nail him to a bed and kiss him forever. Yeah, he’s got him all kinds of confused alright.
“Okay, I’ll take your word for it. Now, Jared Whitaker.”
“Who?”
“Apparently, he’s the head behind the operation. He deals with the money and all transactions. Rumor has it amongst his peers that he’s planning a little coup inside their ranks. The official head of the family isn’t really popular amongst them.”
“Makes things easier for us”
“It does. The official head, however, is Giovanni. Although they all call him Big White, for some reason. He did sound particularly heavy, and his heart isn’t in the greatest of conditions. Neither is his liver. Cirrhosis smells terrible , by the way.” Frank snorts. Smell cirrhosis, why the fuck is he surprised.
“Now. You don’t wanna kill those guys. So how does knowing their names help if we can’t track their guy back to the base, or the operations? You wanna bring those shit bags in Red, but they’re coming right out if you don’t have anything solid to give to the cops”
“Well Frank, so little faith. Who said we can’t track their guys back to the base or their ops?” Frank frowns, although a little amused by Red’s demeanor. He’s got that smile, the devil’s smile. But not the devil who punched his way to justice in the streets, no. The Devil who used cunning intelligence and lightning-fast thinking in court.
“You tracked ‘em?”
“Not really, no” Red takes a sip of his coffee, sugary probably. He likes to hide it, but Red’s a sweet tooth if Frank ever saw one. “But we know they have only two bases in Manhattan.”
“Yes...?”
“And we know for certain, one of them is in Little Italy, but we don’t know the other one’s address. We just know the one in Little Italy has the biggest flow of their people and it’s where most of their products go and most of their people live”
“Right. Red, stating the obvious...?”
“Hear me out. If for some reason, their base in Little Italy, let’s say, burned to ashes, they’d have to move. A considerable amount of their income and people will be there. Either to their closest base in Manhattan, where we know most of their documents and transactions are kept. Or to their base in Bronx. If they go to their closest base, we easily track them there. If they go to Bronx...”
“They will have to move enough people that we can easily track them back there” Goddamn it, Frank was in love. Must be the way to his heart by this point, planning arson together.
“Exactly” Matty is smiling victoriously with those goddamn plush, pink lips of his.
“Yeah. Alright. Get up” Frank slaps a few bills on the table, draining th rest of his coffee.
“What...?”
“Need to take care of ya”
“Take care of-... oh .”
They almost didn’t manage to make it back to Matt’s apartment without scarring some poor old lady’s eyes in the streets. Two hours later, Frank’s back was scratched and stinging again and Matt was complaining about being sore and something about never letting Frank’s teeth anywhere close his little lily white butt again.
It was as close to perfect as it could ever be.
After that, he stays during the mornings. Matty is always soft and dazed after a night of being well taken care of, and it’s a sight to behold. His usually tense shoulders would sag unworriedly, relaxing against the sheets as he woke up slowly. Stretching languidly like a cat, basking in the sunlight that got through the windows.
It comes as a surprise to Frank that Red would be so unused to kindness during sex. He’s constantly trying to please and give pleasure, and when that attention is turned to him, he almost doesn’t know what to do with himself. He’s also insanely sensitive, and Frank is careful not to overwhelm him while giving him a good time.
He thinks... no, he’s sure Matt should be more appreciated. Yeah, he’s amazing and he’s got magical hands, and his goddamn perfect talented mouth should be illegal. But there’s something special about holding him, taking care of him. In worshipping that body, that soft skin, those plush lips that felt like as close to religion as he’d ever get.
The mornings don’t take long to turn into afternoons. And then, a month later, Frank realizes he’s staying more at Matt’s then at his safe houses.
Staying as close and as often as he is gives him an insight on a lot of things he had only scratched the surface of, during the last few months working together with his red-clad idiot. He hides, most of the day. Little winces and nose scrunches, things that catch him out of guard. Slowly, but surely, Frank starts noticing how Matt’s senses take a bigger, heavier toll on him than he’d thought before.
It starts with the little things. How he’d flinch and shake his head with acute noises as simple as a beep from the ATM machine or a glass breaking in the kitchen. How he’d get nauseated all of a sudden, smelling something nasty from meters, blocks away. Not only smelling them, but also picking up on scents Frank’s nose would never feel.
He starts wondering, really, the day Matt smells a dead cat three streets away from them.
“Oh- what t-... oh my god ” and he immediately disappeared to the bathroom, dropping by the toilet seat and dry heaving. Shivering all over. “ Oh my god what the fuck -”
“Matt, what’s wrong? Matty?” And Frank, the smitten idiot that he was, turned useless when he didn’t know how to help. When the problem wasn’t solved with guns, fists, army experience, field medicine, anything that he actually knew how to fix. Those are things that, before his family’s death, wouldn’t leave him as shaken.
But now, when he’s constantly afraid to loose what he’s found, he isn’t as level headed as he used to be.
“The... neighbors, 3 streets down... just found a dead cat in the trash, what the hell is that smell. He’s been there a whil-” he stops talking and throws up. Frank just crouches by his side, breathing easier now that he has an explanation.
He has to spray the house with lemon and rose scented whatever-it’s-name Matt gives him, only so he’ll stop shaking and shuddering at the things his nose can pick on. It leaves him thoughtful and it takes him a while to sleep that night.
A week or so later, something similar happens again. They’re both in Matt’s place, eating some take-out Indian Matthew had insisted was the best in the neighborhood and possibly the whole of Manhattan, Frank, when he noticed it. There had been a problem on the sewers one street up Matt’s apartment, and they had been using jackhammers. It was making a hell of a lot of noise, even for Frank’s normal hearing.
“Matty, you okay?” He’d been getting progressively paler since the noise had started, but now he was almost ashen. For the first time, Matt give a full body flinch at Castle’s voice in surprise. His eyes widen, almost scared, and then slowly melt into realization. Is the noise just extremely annoying and grating, the headache-giving type, or is it actively hurting his ears? For someone who could smell a dead cat from three blocks away and cirrhosis from the rooftop of a building, hear creaking bones and heartbeats from streets away, it may was well be.
“I’m-... sorry, did you say something?” Red’s playing off as being distracted, but Frank’s calling bullshit. He never seen Red get ashen pale and flinch away from voices like that. He wasn’t convinced. But he lets Red get away with it, he’s dealing with enough, by the looks of it.
“You’re pale” he can’t help but whisper, fingertips reaching out for his cheeks and caressing the soft skin there. As he always do when Frank touches him, he sags into him, sighing wistfully. It’s a precious sight, how easily he gives in to the comfort. Frank feels warm spread in his chest every time it happens, to know, after all the shit that’s happened, that he can still care for, give love, give comfort. It feels unreal, some days. Perfect, in all the others.
The noise starts again, however. And Matt whimpers, flinching and bringing his hands to cover his ears. He tries to compose himself at the last second, shaking hands dropping to his lap. He’s barely touched his food. Frank thinks that’s good, he looks like he’s a step away from throwing up.
"Hum.. you know what, I should- hum... should take a shower. Why don't you get-" He swallows hard as man shouts and his head twitches in a wince. It’s almost painful to see.
“Matty...”
“Why don't you get ready for bed?” He asks, pleadingly. And Frank can’t fight against that tone. If it’s what Red wants, it’s what he’s going to do, period. Frank stands up, nodding, and slowly gets closer, telegraphing his movements to make sure he won’t surprise Murdock with them. When he gets close enough, he takes him by the neck to press a slow kiss to his forehead.
“Yeah. Okay. Go on sweetheart.” He can see Matt's whole body fight to melt in his touch at the same time it tries desperately to cringe away from the sounds coming closer to the windows. Frank lets him go, doesn’t want to keep him suffering if he doesn’t have to.
He stays there for an hour, under the running water. When he finally leaves, the sound had stopped a few minutes before and he looks... not exactly relaxed, but completely drained. He’s still a bit pale, but he lays down and cuddles as close as he can to Frank’s chest.
“There ya go” he mutters against his forehead, giving him a slow, comforting kiss. The sex is amazing, sure. But this is almost magical. The gentleness, the security of each other's arms, this physical, palpable certainty that he’ll wake up with him in his arms. Frank sighs, breathing into Matt's shampoo and kissing his head once more.
They fall asleep cuddling.
The next day, when he asks how Matt can deal with how that much sound, living in New York with the type of mutation he has, he answers with a tiny smile.
“It’s home,” he had said, quietly against Frank’s chest “It has always been. It’s all I know”
He has a sudden desire to show him something different, then. Wonders if, someday, he could escape with Matty to the countryside. Find a small house, just for the two of them. Grow flowers Matty can smell through the window when he wakes up. Grow old with him, just the two of them.
It’s the kind of wish he had for Maria and him, and after her death, it was the kind of thing he thought had died with them. But here, while sunlight shines so beautifully against Matt’s freckled skin, he feels it set alight once more. He holds him tighter. Maybe it won’t ever happen, but it’s something to hope for, and that, on it’s own, is more than Frank had had in the last three years since they died.
He had thought those hard days were all there was to it. Days Matt would have a hard time coping, take a few hours to get back on his feet and then go back to normal. He was proven wrong soon enough, however.
The incident still lurches and preys on his mind when it’s vulnerable, every time he looks back at it. Remembers the overwhelming dread he felt when he came home - and isn’t it weird, that Matt’s place became home so easily - one evening and immediately found broken glass scattered on the ground. He remembers how his ribs hurt with the force of his heart, as it ran rampant in anxiety. How a hundred different scenarios played in his head - what if Matt was taken, Matt was discovered by the police and arrested, Matt was being tortured somewhere, what if they killed him, what if what if - and how his breath stopped in his throat when he noticed the overturned drawers and the coffee table.
Please, no.
“ No no stop” the tension seemed to leave his body at the same time it increased, as soon as he heard Matty’s voice. He found the light switch by pure instinct, huddling closer to his curled up figure by the corner of the room, hands pressed tight against his ears. His head twitched from side to side, as if listening to several different things that demanded his attention. His knees were curled tight against his body.
From time to time, his body would give a small twitch, as if receiving tiny shocks. He only notices it’s from his own’s footsteps when he registers the pattern, the combat boots probably sounded as loud as thunder on his sensitized ears.
Slowly, very carefully, he took off his boots. Staying in socks so to muffle the sound as much as he possibly could.
“Matty?” he whispers, doesn’t want to hurt him anymore than he probably is. He wonders how loud Frank’s heartbeat is sounding on his ears right now. Is it grounding? Is it hurtful?
‘I liked it a lot, I think I've watched like, the whole season in a day. Right? I loved the actress in the movies, but this one in the series is much better ’ - the voice answering in the phone is like nails in a chalkboard and Matt whimpers, hands pressing harder against his head.
“Matty, sweetheart, listen to my vo-“
‘mom have you seen my socks? The ones with stripes?’
‘no Laura you should try your brothers room-‘
He shakes his head fiercely, as if trying to dispel the sounds. The girl is in the building a block away but her breath sounds loud and grating and please he wants it to stop.
‘Jesus fuck man, they keep cutting down our payment like that, I ain't gonna have this month’s rent-‘
“Matty, I’m going to touch you now, okay? I’m going to take you to your room, is that okay with you?” Frank voice is low and whispered right next to him, it feels nice. Please, make it go away.
‘come on Jamie, wake up, you know we've got to talk about it-‘
‘she won't let me go to the dance with Brian! She hates his guts, Carlie, you know that’
“No stop stop stop-” Frank realizes soon enough he’s not talking about him manhandling him to his bed, but to whatever it is he’s hearing. Carefully, he brings him to his chest, letting him curl up against it, seeking the warmth and something to muffle the sounds in.
“You’re okay” he mumbles, low and steady. Steady. It’s all he can think now. Help Matty calm down, stop whatever it is that’s hurting him, take care of him, make sure he’s alright. “You’re gonna be okay, Matty”
He slowly puts him down on the bed, caressing his knees as he curls in a fetal position. He comes back to the overthrown drawers then, looking for those earbuds he had found once. Noise concealing ones, by the looks of it. If the drawers are thrown like that, Matt was probably looking for it and couldn’t find them due to the amount of noise and input. Oh, sweetheart.
Frank helps him put them on, and Matt immediately relaxes a bit more into the bed. He’s pale and shaking, so he covers him up in silk and fleece and holds him close until Matt sags completely against his touch.
The next morning, when Frank wakes up, Matty is completely passed out by his side, clearly drained from yesterday’s attack. He kisses his forehead and nose before caressing his auburn hair slowly, feeling the soft strands and studying his man’s face. It’s clear by this point Matty isn’t used to talking about the things he needs, and it takes a lot of prompting for him to talk about the things he wants (except when it’s about sex, Murdock has no problem sighing sweetly by his ears what he wants, but he can’t think about that now), but this episode... it probably hurt him a lot to deal with this stuff. And it’s not like he could control it or stop it, those are his ears, his senses.
Frank’s head starts reeling by then. Thinking of everything that could possibly help and already making plans. He was a marine, at the end of the day, he studied a situation, he planned, he prepared, he executed it at the best of his ability. And he liked to think he had a good range of those.
When Red wakes up, his dreamy, sleep-dusted face changes into a sheepish expression. He clearly doesn’t know how to go about this situation, and probably is feeling ashamed. He had seen, more than once, how badly Matt felt about letting other people see his weaknesses and vulnerabilities. From the little he had gathered, it came from his old mentor’s shtick about being soft or whatever bullshit he fed Red as kid.
Frank didn’t like to think about it. That all the shit Frank went through when he was 18, 19 years old, in training, Matt experienced way earlier, when he was little more than 10, recently orphaned, recently blinded.
The old bastard was dead already so, bonus.
“Morning, Matty” he whispers by his ear, being careful but not patronizing. You might just lose an eye if you ever dare patronize Matt Murdock. So he does what he usually does when he stays the night, which happens more often than not by now. Castle kisses his forehead, and then his lips slowly and smiles when Red, as he always does, melts into the gentle touch. “Coffee or your fancy teas?”
“Fancy tea” Frank snorts at that and kisses his temple again, just once more. Matt is shaken but he can’t deny he is a bit too. Coming back to find the loft trashed and no sign of his little devil had been an experience he didn’t want to repeat any time soon.
As he went through the motions, he kept on planning, considering. He’d have to study a bit, how to help people with sensorial issues like Red. Maybe find Jones, contact her, ask around if she knows anyone with fancy ears like his man’s. Which is quite difficult to find, he knows from Matt that, if he doesn’t tune things out, he can hear sirens all the way to Midtown and gunshots all the way to Harlem and fuck , that’s something alright.
When Red gets out of bed, he’s got a bit more color on his cheeks. His skin looks a bit pale still but he looks well rested, at least. With the heaviness in the shoulders of someone who had a rough, long night.
Probably long week in Matt’s case. He was the type to let things pile up until he couldn’t deal with them anymore.
When he puts the sandwiches he made for himself and those sliced fruits with yogurt Matty likes in the morning, together with their drinks, he finally notices his love’s arms. His pale biceps have finger shaped bruises, his upper arms scratched raw and red. He didn’t draw blood out of himself, but it was a near thing.
“Be back in a minute” he grumbled, messing with his hair as he passed by him. Matt groaned a half-hearted hey and Frank had to hold back a chuckle at that. He went through Matt’s nightstand, looking for the nice smelling cream he used sometimes when he came back home sore and bruised from a particular hard night out in the streets. It usually worked wonders and Matt seemed to like the smell, always relaxing when he used it.
“Oh. You don’t have to” Matt notices what he’s doing as soon as he pops the bottle open. But he just pulls his chair closer to him, sitting down and holding his hands out. Matt smiles a small thing and gives him his pale arms. It’s funny how you couldn’t tell he was clearly from an Irish background looking at his face, but it became so clear when you set eyes on all those pretty freckles and insanely pale skin.
“I want to” he mutters back, squeezing a bit of the cream on Red’s left arm and massaging into his whole arm. He immediately relaxes against Castle’s touch, clearly comforted by the soothing, repetitive motions.
“M’kay” the devil agrees, a tad late, eyes slowly closing in lazy blinks, until they don’t open again. “Frank Castle”
“Yeah?”
“Are you a big softie inside, or is that just my eyes?” Frank snorts at that, shaking his head. Matt’s shitty humour was one of his charms.
“’tis just your eyes, sweetheart” Matt chuckles, at the same time that he blushes and it’s kind of endearing.
Frank’s quite smitten by those flushing cheeks, scarred knuckles, overall messy redhair and shy smiles. And really worried too, if he’s being honest to himself. Just remembering how vulnerable Matty had been, how in pain, his insides churned.
“What can I do to help, Matty? When things get that loud?” he asks, clearly not giving Matt any chances to try and dodge out of the conversations. If it was any other time and it was something that made him uncomfortable, he wouldn’t have pressured him. But all that played over and over in his head was Matt getting overwhelmed somewhere no one could help him, or worse, could take advantage of him or hurt him.
“Well... I just usually work myself to a state and wait until I pass out or just get exhausted enough to sleep” Frank pauses at that, narrowing his eyes to try and catch a sign it was a joke. Clearly wasn’t. Why is he surprised.
“Yeah, real healthy, Red”
The little shit chuckles.
“As Foggy would say, do I look like I’m capable of making healthy life choices?” Castle snorts, shaking his head at that.
“Buddy ain’t wrong there. Wonder what he’d say if he saw that- that fridge of yours, yeah?”
“Shuddup”
“Fruit, tea and water. Oh, and the 5 day old pizza”
Matty grunts. He chuckles and drops a kiss at Matty’s lips, relishing in how the auburn head sighed against him, muscles dropping loose and soft. He closes the bottle cap, and lets Red eat. “Water” Matt surprises him, mumbling it to his plate while he eats his sliced fruits.
“Hm?”
“Water. Helps sometimes. My dad used to-... you know, going blind suddenly, I got upset sometimes. Didn’t really connect the dots with my hearing until I realized I could hear his heartbeat. So he’d put me in the shower, when I got upset. Warm and all, got quiet, to soothe me, yeah” Red’s awkward again, he makes it clear with his tone he doesn’t expect an answer. Frank just hums to it, filing the information for later usage.
He can’t hold it for too long, though.
“Your senses. Can’t imagine... what they’re like all the time” Matt nods slowly at that, as if considering what to say, and sighs.
“Well it was really bad. After dad, I mean. But then, Stick trained me. To filter it, make sense of it, use it” fight with it, more like. Old douchebag, training fucking kids for war. Frank could never wrap his head around it.
He can’t think of that shit without getting worked up. Fuck.
He searches calm in the only way he knows by now: resting his forehead to Matt’s shoulder and taking his scent in. He smelled good, even after all the crying and trashing from the night before. Something fruity, it smelled nice. He could recognize that scent anywhere at this point.
His neck twinges a bit, and only then he notices how low he has to bend to get his forehead to Matt’s shoulder. His lips tremble, trying to hold back a laugh.
“Not. A word” Tough luck, Frank’s already chuckling low in his throat by that point, trying hard not to laugh louder.
“You a small boy Red?”
“I’ll show you small” and ow , punch to the ribs, low blow.
“Ow! Okay, okay, get it. Small but fierce”
“Bite me”
“Hum... I just might” he whispers then, peppering kisses all over Matt’s shoulder and neck. Wherever he can find exposed skin and kissing it. Biting, sucking, loving.
“M’gonna be late- f’r work” the redhead slurs out, all sweet and putty into his hands. Frank smiles against his skin.
“I think we can afford a little distraction” Castle mutters, smiling bigger when Matt shivers.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Just a few minutes”
“That easy, huh?”
“I’m not proud of many things, Red. But if I’m proud of one thing...” he carries him, hands under his thighs, bringing him to the couch and laying down on top of Matty’s warm body. “Is how pretty I make you moan when we’re just... like... this”
They get distracted. Again. It’s almost their default behavior by now. Getting distracted by each other’s... everything. Frank’s not complaining, though. No way he’d ever complain. Matt does, however, pouts all the way to work when he doesn’t get to return the favor.
Frank pretends he doesn’t smile fondly all morning after that. He has plans to make, after all.
The next time it happens, it's not much more than two months later. Red had been getting progressively jumpy, and Frank can recognize some of the telling signs. He’d space out, listening to things far away. Sometimes he’d twitch as if trying to dispel too much information, too much sound. He offered earbuds when he noticed that, but Red was still Red, and he still was a stubborn little shit with his I-absolutely-do-not-need-any-help-with-anything-because-there’s-absolutely-nothing-wrong-I’m-peachy attitude.
There were the funny things too. For example, when he randomly gasped at night, once, and lost his shit:
“ Oh what the- you did not just do that! Who the hell washes shirts with vinegar and oil- what the-“
Frank had a good laugh that day. Until he realized he was smelling and hearing that from streets away, and that usually meant Matty was loosing his tight rein on his senses. He started meditating more the few weeks before his second breakdown, but he’d twitch most of the time, unable to concentrate, and that, in turn, made him even more anxious.
He prepares himself then. He buys waterproof sound-concealing headphones. Reads online about soothing techniques to help people with sensorial issues. Repetitive motions, repetitive sounds to use as a focus point, take their mind away from everything else.
When he notices Matt spacing out, he tries to keep him tethered to what’s happening close to him. Keeps talking an endless stream of nonsense just so his voice could become something soothing (although he seriously doubt his voice could ever be soothing to anyone, Matty always said it was, so he believed his red clad idiot).
It helps for a while, delays the inevitable.
Two days before it happens, Matt cuts of a shriek when the neighbor from downstairs coughs. A family from the building next to Matt's uses bleach to obsessively wipe every goddamn room and Matt nose start getting red and he starts coughing and eyes watering. A cat would meow and he’d flinch, he’d meditate more, wouldn’t be able to concentrate, would get more anxious, loose a tiny bit more of his control.
Things were heading down a spiral, Frank just knew it wouldn’t take long before he snapped again.
Then a case goes wrong at work, a family of immigrants they were protecting has to be deported. Nelson gets a bit angry at his buddy about how distracted he is (and it’s not even the fun kind of distracted this time), and then Matt gets worse.
The morning he wakes up pale, bloodshot eyes twitching from time to time, head tilting towards sounds far away, Frank tries to convince Matty to stay home. He just knows they are due a breakdown and, by the looks of him, it’s probably gonna be today. Murdock is still, as fucking always, a stubborn little shit and decides he’s going to work.
He knows things are bad when he trips on the coffee table. It’s not even moved, but his espacial orientation is shot to hell. His hands shake the tiniest bit as they eat, and Frank doesn’t talk when he realizes how far gone Matty is inside his head and all the shit he can hear, smell and feel. He only mutters a tiny it’s going to rain tomorrow and goes take his suitcase and cane, prepared for work.
Frank insists in driving him there. Matty kisses him softly before leaving the car, clearly overwhelmed at everything. He keeps squirming in his clothes, they probably are itchy and scratchy.
“Are you sure you don’t wanna stay home and rest today, sunshine?” he asks quietly, Matt’s forehead to his.
“Don’t wanna disappoint, Foggy”
Damn it, Nelson.
Frank sighs, knowing this isn’t Red’s buddy’s fault. He nods slowly against his forehead, making sure he can feel it. A woman crosses the street with a son in hand and Matt twitches his head towards them. And then to the couple of old ladies talking together by the Deli.
He doesn’t go back to Matt’s loft or his safehouse. He knows Matt won’t last the day at work, he just knows. He goes back quickly just to take the headphones he bought and a fleece blanket in afterthought. He parks his car next to Nelson, Murdock and Page’s office and sits down in a coffee shop, reading a book.
Karen calls him 3 hours later.
“Hey... hum.. Frank?”
“How is he?”
“How’d you kno- it doesn’t matter. We need you here, Frank” she sighs heavily, voice clearly worried. “He’s under the table, he- he’s not answering to anyone or anything, he just got here and two hours later he stopped answering, stopped moving, stopped blinking, we have no idea what’s going on...”
“Be there in 5”
He’s there in less. Because he’s an smitten idiot and runs all two blocks to their office.
Nelson is by Matt’s door and Karen is waiting by the entrance when he gets there. She motions to talk but Frank presses a finger against his own lips, a sign not to make a sound. He slowly takes off his boots, thanking whatever shitty décor worked this place up for the carpet, and approached the seemingly empty office.
Matt was curled quietly under the table when he finally goes around it, kneeling slowly to the ground.
“Hey, sunshine” he whispers quietly, noticing how scarily still Matt is. He preferred the crying and trashing, now that he thinks of it. Matt pale and catatonic is way scarier. “I know everything is too much right now, but I need you to focus on my voice. Can you do that for me, Matty?” he notices him blink slowly, as if trying to process something “Nod for me, love, com’on” he whispers by his side, ignoring Karen’s and Nelson’s curious, worried glances their way.
When Matt finally nods, a slow tear makes it’s way down his cheeks. Oh, sweetheart.
“That’s it. You’re doing good, now... you remember where you are?” A slow, unsure shake of his head “That’s okay, sweetheart. Just keep listening to my voice, okay? Let all the other sounds go” Matt nods again, eyes teary and fever bright “You’re at you office. Karen and Ne- Foggy are here too”
He thinks this isn’t too different from when his men got too lost in the blood, screaming and gunfire out there. He’s glad he can do this. Glad he can help him.
“Can you hear my heartbeat, Matty?” Matt twitches, eyes wondering for a while. Movement, that’s good. He’s getting to him. After a while, he gives another slow nod. “Good. Focus on it, okay? Just my heartbeat and my voice, keep listening to it for me, yeah?” Matt nods a bit faster “Good boy, Matty” he whispers, coming closer. The movement doesn’t startle Red, probably because he doesn’t register it.
“I’m going to touch you now, is that okay, love?” Shit. It’s the second time he’s called him that now. It would usually fill him with the familiar dread of letting himself love again, opening himself to the possibility of loss. But now, it just relaxes to admit it, to see how Red reacts to it, tilting towards him.
“Hm” he hums this time, which comes out more as whine than a hum, but Frank counts it as a win. Karen has given them space by now, trusting Frank to deal with the situation. Nelson, however, doesn’t know him much and clearly does not feel comfortable with leaving his buddy with a mass murderer who wears a fucking skull to the chest.
He doesn’t think of them now. Matt’s got his whole attention.
When his fingers finally touch him, his shoulders start trembling. It seems his mind starts to reconnect with his body, showing all the stress. His muscles and body language all point to heavy fatigue and it makes Frank frown for a minute. This is way worse than he thought it could get.
“That’s it. Are you ready to come out yet, sweetheart? If not, we can stay-” he doesn’t get to finish his sentence, Matty huddling closer until he’s in between Frank’s legs. It hurts him to see this stupidly strong, amazingly fierce man look so shaken, so worn out. He’s happy to give him comfort anyway, and he’ll keep giving as long as Matty keeps asking for it. “Oh, Matty... those get real bad, huh?” he whispers, more to himself than anyone else, but the little bundle of shaking and cold skin and rapid heartbeat nods against his chest, a small, low whine getting stuck in his throat.
Slowly, so very carefully, he brings Matt to his feet, noticing how out of sorts he is with his surroundings. It’s clear he can’t orientate himself alone, but he doesn’t want him to feel ashamed afterwards, so he just puts a hand around his shoulders, the way he does sometimes when they are reading together at the living room.
“Thanks for calling me” he mumbles, low and steady to Karen and nodding to Nelson, who’s still frowning worriedly at his best friend. He’s a good guy, Frank will never tell but he quite likes him.
“Yeah... you’re.. you’re welcome” she whispers back, clearly unused to seeing Matt so shaken “Was that because of...?” she motions to her own ears, and Frank nods at that. Hand moving rhythmically in soothing rubs in his love’s shoulders.
“I didn’t know they got.. that bad” Nelson is the one to mumble then, and Frank sighs, shrugging a bit. Matt isn’t one to admit his troubles and his grief, it’s clear he wouldn’t tell without prompting. Nelson seems to realize the same thing, rolling his eyes and Frank fights not to snort.
Yeah, Nelson is a good friend alright.
He bids them a silent goodbye and guides Matt to the car. He makes sure he’s figured out where to step, the van is a bit high off the ground. When they’re inside, he takes the headphones out of the glove compartment. He had tested them on himself and they worked great.
“Can I put those on, Matty?” Matt reaches out to touch. He’s always been extremely tactile, his senses being overwhelmed clearly only increase that need so Frank handles it to him. Matt seems to notice what it is pretty quickly and puts them own.
His body language changes so suddenly Frank raises his eyebrows in surprise. Matt’s whole body goes lax against the car seat, sighing in relief at the reprieve. He feels around for the compartment again to find Frank’s bonnet, the one he wore during winter to work. He brings it to his nose and sighs gently against it, his senses now focused on tangible things. Frank smiles, and considers his plan halfway gone.
When they get to Matt’s loft, he lets him hang on his elbow and watches out for the stairs. Without his ears, Matt goes purely by touch and muscle memory and the vibrations. Which, honestly, Frank didn’t really understand how it worked, but it did, so he didn’t question it.
He brings Matty to the bathroom, taking one side of the headphones off.
“Take off your clothes, yeah? I’ll be back in a second” he waits for Red’s confirmation, kissing his forehead and going back to the front door, taking off his boots and finding the soap Matt seemed to like the most. They had one opened already, but he wanted to spoil him after a hard day. So he does exactly that, no one’s here to stop him.
Matt has already opened the shower when he gets there. His pale skin sprinkled by pretty freckles and some bruises over his ribs, from the last night out they had together, beating assholes. He had taken the headphones off and Frank chastises himself for forgetting to tell him about the waterproof quality of the thing, but Red clearly doesn’t need them. He stays with his head directly under the shower head, and the water probably muffles his ears enough. Maybe the sound it makes keeps the outside world at bay.
Frank’s no gonna ruin that moment, so he closes the door and comes closer. Taking off his shirt and socks, opening the soap and indulging himself staring at Matt’s small, fond smile when he recognizes the scent of the soap. He doesn’t look ready to talk yet, clearly too tired for that. But that’s okay too, Frank doesn’t need words to understand him by this point.
He bathes him. Gets him as relaxed and warm as he can in the shower, tells him small poems he had memorized during his days out of the country. Matt keeps his eyes closed, basking in Frank’s voice as a cat would do in the sunlight.
When he feels ready, he lets Frank take him out of the shower. Wrapping him up in fluffy, non-scratchy towels and bringing him back to the room. He puts the headphones back on, dries him and helps him dress. Kisses his lips and his forehead and his cheeks. Buries his nose in his hair as they lay down. Matt is as relaxed as he’s ever seen him, and that makes him smile like a fool.
If asked back then, all those years ago, if Frank saw any future with Matt Murdock, he’d probably said they were too different. That they’d never be able to work it out.
Now, Frank can’t see anything better than how he found a home by the redhead’s side.
They were already making it work. They could keep on making it work, together.
He had no doubt about that.