Think of the Devil

Fifteen

He grinned at the joke, and some part of her felt proud for getting him to smile so much. "'Daredevil-ing?' Is that what you call it?" (Does she mean to be so funny?)

"Answer the question," she sighed, crossing her arms.

Sitting on the edge of his bed, he started to pull on a pair of old combat boots. "It's good to have on. Never know when I might have to go 'Daredevil-ing.'" He shot her a smirk.

She moved closer, leaning against a pillar near him. "How can you tell if your clothes match?" Immediately she cringed, not sure of how polite it was to ask a blind man how he navigated his disability. "Sorry. You don't have to answer that."

He shook his head, an amused smile still on his face. "Don't be sorry." (That's one of the nicer questions I usually get.)

"I can only imagine," she muttered.

He paused very briefly as she responded to his thought, still adjusting to her ability, before he leaned down to tie his shoes. "I used to have braille labels for my clothes. Told me which suits were which colors. The rest of the clothes I bought were usually in neutrals so I didn't have to worry about matching." After a beat, he added, "Why, am I mismatched? Sister Maggie told me most of these clothes should match."

"No, not at all," Jane replied, feeling a bit abashed. "I don't know. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry, or ask questions you've had to answer a million times already. Sometimes it's just hard to remember that you can't actually see."

Shaking his head, he rose to his feet. "I already told you, Jane, you don't have to apologize. Maybe it's because you never got a chance to know me before you knew I was Daredevil, but I've always appreciated how you treat me. Most people tend to walk on eggshells around me. You've never done that." (I've always liked that about you.)

Nodding, she said, "Well yeah, you're not made of glass. You're just blind. Although calling you blind feels like an oversimplification. I've seen the way you 'see' or whatever. It's... really cool, actually."

His head tilted in curiosity as he took a step towards her. "You can see that? How I see things?"

She suddenly felt a bit small under his intense gaze, his eyes focused somewhere around her mouth. She swallowed hard. "Yeah. It's... hard to explain, but... Yes, I've seen it."

Matt exhaled, a sad smile pulling on his lips. "The only way I can think to describe it is a world on fire."

Jane frowned, his answer troubling her. "I can see what you mean. The colors are definitely warm, like embers and flames and stuff. And the way the outlines of shapes look to you."

His head tilted again, hearing the pensive tone in her voice. "Well, how would you describe it?" (How else could you?)

Jane bit the inside of her cheek as she looked up at him. The small space between them was becoming more obvious to her. She wasn't entirely nervous, but she couldn't explain the fluttering feeling in her stomach either.

"When I saw it," she murmured, "I thought it was more like... watercolors, I guess. The way that the outlines bleed in and out, how it's splotchy sometimes. The softness of the oranges and reds."

"Watercolors?" he breathed. (She sees watercolors.)

Standing just in front of him, she could tell that he knew how her body was reacting to the closeness. Her skin was warming to the point that he could feel it. His head was still tilting as he listened to her increasing heartbeat. Inside him, there was a hesitance that permeated through her, but something else lurked beneath the surface. While she couldn't tell exactly what the feeling was, it reminded her of the feeling she'd been trying to shake since coming down here.