Aw man, readers. another day another chapter. Um, out of curiosity, I'm thinking of putting together a playlist for this story since tbh I've done that for shorter ones before and was wondering if any of you would want the link and/or to make suggestions. I'm really curious to hear what you have to say! ^u^
The next few years passed in a bit of a blur. When Foggy wasn’t busy at work (which amped up when some big-wig politician bent on illegal gentrification of Hell’s Kitchen was put away and then cases started coming out of the woodwork), networking his merry way across half of New York State, or socializing, he was making preparations for when his curtains would come down.
This last bit was an odd process. On one hand, you had the practical aspects of this… relocation. Some of these included making sure that Karen got a job with the New York Bulletin (a Mr. Urich had been very instrumental in convincing his boss to get her an interview), hammering out his last will and testament, making sure all of his clients knew that he would eventually be moving “Down Under” and really wouldn’t be able to reach him after November 6th, no really he was going somewhere quite remote and wasn’t even sure if he could receive e-mails.
Then there was the more emotional stuff. The messier part.
Foggy didn’t exactly have a lot of close ties with people. He didn’t have any quirky childhood friends that stuck around long enough and most of his college and law school friends had moved on and that suited Foggy just fine; he felt that a lot of those relationships had run their courses. As for family, well, after his father died during his sophomore year of college, all that Foggy had in the way of family that still contacted him was his mother (see also: the direct cause for his alienation from the rest of the Nelson Clan), and his relationship with her was rocky, to say the least.
Truth be told, the last time they had talked was when Foggy told her he was going to go into defense instead of prosecution. Rosalind Sharp had clicked her tongue, forced out a stiff, “More power to you, Franklin,” and then they said their goodbyes. The phone call lasted less than four minutes. That was years ago.
Some part of Foggy wanted to reach out to her, not for the Life Time-worthy reconciliation that he was sure wouldn’t happen, but rather to ask her what the fuck her problem was. But he knew that ship had already sailed. He wouldn’t get any answers that would fix those years, he wouldn’t come out the other end and forgive her, and Foggy was almost certain she didn’t see the problem with her clearly abusive child-rearing tactics such as withholding food as motivation or ignoring every accomplishment he shared with her but hyper-focusing on his failures.
No, the biggest tie he had to sever was with Karen. He was going to miss her. She was probably the best (human) friend he ever had, even if they had only known each other for less than 5 years when all was said and done.
She had seemed a bit betrayed when he told her that he was going to have to stop taking all of these pro bono cases and leave the city soon, but had finally accepted this decision at his insistence. He didn’t quite tell her what exactly what was going on, but when she pushed he had admitted that he might have gotten involved in some more unsavory characters who wanted him gone after a certain date.
She gave him a look that told him she understood that situation a little bit too well for comfort, but finally dropped it.
And really, if you thought about it, Foggy getting ready to leave didn’t hinge completely on breaking connections. Part of all of the networking that Foggy was going was seeing just how many of the associates he made were among Matt’s “people.”
Foggy felt that it would be important to have friends on the other side, for when he got there.
However, all of these new bonds paled in comparison to how close he and Matt had become.
After The Cocoa Incident it was like a flip had been switched in Matt. He suddenly became a lot more… sincere, was the best word that Foggy could think of. Before, Matt had been dorky and wry and all together an absolute treat to be around, but all too often lost in his own thoughts and a tad distant. Now, while Matt was most definitely still dorky and an utter delight, most of the reservations he had toward Foggy seemed to have been chucked out the window.
For starters, if Matt had been a little but spotty on ideas of personal space before, now Foggy was sure that he was just straight up ignoring them. Mind you, Foggy didn’t mind this change one bit, but he couldn’t help but be bemused every time Matt do stuff like flop across Foggy’s lap if they were sharing the couch or leaned into Foggy if they were ever side-by-side, public or private alike. Even funnier were the flimsy excuses that Matt would sometimes throw out (“I’m cold,” “this’ll help tie me to this plane for a while,” and “vessels are confusing” seemed to be the more popular ones).
If Matt’s idea of being subtle he was doing a piss-poor job of it, but Foggy wasn’t upset. Foggy got being touch-starved, and it seemed like Matt felt he couldn’t just ask for some contact and instead was weaseling it out of Foggy in the only way he knew.
Additionally, Matt also seemed to let go of a lot of reservations he had about telling Foggy what was going on at his work and started giving more active opinions on whatever Foggy was doing. All in all, he got a lot more talkative, and their nights in became more of a dialogue than Foggy monologue-ing.
And the fact that Matt was funny and caring and too fucking perfect to be fair was just icing to the cake and more often than not left Foggy breathless in that typical pain/giddiness that feelings and such often brought.
Ugh, his life was a mess and Foggy was roughly 70% sure that Matt didn’t notice the particular brand of hell he was giving the human. For being a relatively omnipotent being, there were times where Matt was cringe-worthy-ing oblivious.
This particular quirk can be best illustrated by an event about half way through Foggy’s Contract period. The two had decided that for once, the New York summer heat was more pleasant than miserable and had decided to roam around Hell’s Kitchen to kill off some boredom. Everything had been sunshine and ice cream (literally, Matt couldn’t go too long in public without a sacrifice before he started popping out extra appendages), until they stopped at a park and Foggy absently started narrating what was going on around them.
“…there’s a guy across the way that has the most horrendous shirt on. I’m pretty sure he took one of those Hawaiian shirts and used it to make a tank top, with safety scissors.”
“Hm,” Matt said, gnawing on a popsicle, “‘A’ for originality. Is he carrying a margarita? That would complete the look.”
“Aaah, nope.”
“Damn, ‘C’ for effort.”
Foggy’s laugh at that was an embarrassing snort of a thing, but it made Matt grin all the same. Chewing contemplatively on the end of his popsicle stick, Matt nudged Foggy’s side. “What else you got?”
“Hmmm, ah, there’s a couple to our ten o’ clock using the walking trail, a guy and a girl. They look like they’re talking about something serious, but more importantly I’ve seen grad students during finals that look less jittery than their dog.”
Matt took a second to drop reach out in the general white noise of the public space, until he heard a grave voice around the same distance at the noise that tiny, pattering paws made.
“…don’t understand why you can’t support me in this,” came a frustrated voice; it was deep, and barbed in a way that someone who felt attacked would speak.
“I am supporting you! And that’s the problem! While you’re off following your dreams in every dive bar gig this side of town, I have to stay home and pay the bills.” The other voice was angrier, enunciating crisply enough to grate unpleasantly against Matt’s ears.
“I bring in as much-”
The first voice was ruthlessly cut off before it could begin. “No, you don’t. Ever since you got laid off from your real job I’ve been footing almost all of the bills. If you had just listened to me and not-”
Here, Matt pulled back, and studied them a little closer. Just as he expected, the shape belonging to the second voice was clear to Matt, anger and blasphemy radiating out from their core to rest just under their skin. The second voice however was less clear to Matt, but pride and, oh! Quite a bit of infidelity had made their home there.
Matt leaned back onto the bench he and Foggy were perched on. “They probably get into some spectacular spats; they sound quite angry. No wonder the dog is stressed.”
Foggy was silent at this, and Matt immediately knew he had done something off. “Foggy?” he ventured.
“Matt,” the human murmured, “they’re more than fifty feet away. How’d you know that?”
Oh, oh hells Foggy didn’t know about his senses. Against his better instincts, Matt decided that maybe now was a good time to lead with the truth.
“I… sensed them.”
“So, you can hear them. At this distance?” The accusatory tone hadn’t left Foggy’s voice and it made Matt squirm more than he’d like to admit.
“Among other things,” he quickly answered.
“Really.” Foggy’s voice was flat and unimpressed. “Like what.”
“I can um-” (oh shit there was no way to put this nicely Matt was just going to have to run with it and hope for the best) “I can sense people’s... flaws. One of the two over there, is very wrathful.”
Foggy was silent a while longer before lowly asking, “So you’ve got super hearing and sinner-sense, and you didn’t tell me… why?”
“Humans never exactly take that well.” Ignoring Foggy’s grumbling at that, Matt went on, “And I was going to tell you! I just, I didn’t want you to act differently around me and I guess I kinda… forgot.”
“You forgot.” If it was possible, Foggy’s voice went even flatter, “You forgot to tell me you could clearly see every misdeed I’ve considered since the start.”
Matt winced. “It only works on deeply-rooted stuff. Like, habits or character flaws. There’s a big difference between a kleptomaniac and someone who steals to survive.” Matt was going to have to appeal to Foggy’s sense of morality to get out of this.
Foggy hummed, “No wonder you dislike humans so much. All you can see is the bad stuff.”
Matt groaned, “Yes, I know I didn’t think that through. But Foggy, it’s not seeing. I’m able to put together an idea of where I am more accurately than blind humans with these senses, but I have not been able to see for centuries. Screens and books are lost on me for the most part, and I mostly rely on my hearing to get me places. And the… 'sinner sense' isn’t sight either, it’s- it’s like sonar that I have to concentrate on.”
“…I keep leading you around and telling you where stuff is.”
Matt quickly picked up on the unasked question here. “And I appreciate that. I really do. It’s… a relief. All of the… data I get is often overwhelming and filtering out the unimportant input sometimes takes more concentration than I can spare.”
Here, Foggy let out a huge breath, but his heart rate remained relatively high. “I’m upset that you didn’t tell me this.”
“I understand.”
Foggy glanced over at Matt, who had taken up to fiddling with his popsicle stick. “You really forgot?”
Matt sighed, “It doesn’t come up often. I guess I forgot you didn’t know.”
In spite of himself, this wrung a slight chuckle out of Foggy. “You would.”
Applied Contract Law, 8/?
The next few years passed in a bit of a blur. When Foggy wasn’t busy at work (which amped up when some big-wig politician bent on illegal gentrification of Hell’s Kitchen was put away and then cases started coming out of the woodwork), networking his merry way across half of New York State, or socializing, he was making preparations for when his curtains would come down.
This last bit was an odd process. On one hand, you had the practical aspects of this… relocation. Some of these included making sure that Karen got a job with the New York Bulletin (a Mr. Urich had been very instrumental in convincing his boss to get her an interview), hammering out his last will and testament, making sure all of his clients knew that he would eventually be moving “Down Under” and really wouldn’t be able to reach him after November 6th, no really he was going somewhere quite remote and wasn’t even sure if he could receive e-mails.
Then there was the more emotional stuff. The messier part.
Foggy didn’t exactly have a lot of close ties with people. He didn’t have any quirky childhood friends that stuck around long enough and most of his college and law school friends had moved on and that suited Foggy just fine; he felt that a lot of those relationships had run their courses. As for family, well, after his father died during his sophomore year of college, all that Foggy had in the way of family that still contacted him was his mother (see also: the direct cause for his alienation from the rest of the Nelson Clan), and his relationship with her was rocky, to say the least.
Truth be told, the last time they had talked was when Foggy told her he was going to go into defense instead of prosecution. Rosalind Sharp had clicked her tongue, forced out a stiff, “More power to you, Franklin,” and then they said their goodbyes. The phone call lasted less than four minutes. That was years ago.
Some part of Foggy wanted to reach out to her, not for the Life Time-worthy reconciliation that he was sure wouldn’t happen, but rather to ask her what the fuck her problem was. But he knew that ship had already sailed. He wouldn’t get any answers that would fix those years, he wouldn’t come out the other end and forgive her, and Foggy was almost certain she didn’t see the problem with her clearly abusive child-rearing tactics such as withholding food as motivation or ignoring every accomplishment he shared with her but hyper-focusing on his failures.
No, the biggest tie he had to sever was with Karen. He was going to miss her. She was probably the best (human) friend he ever had, even if they had only known each other for less than 5 years when all was said and done.
She had seemed a bit betrayed when he told her that he was going to have to stop taking all of these pro bono cases and leave the city soon, but had finally accepted this decision at his insistence. He didn’t quite tell her what exactly what was going on, but when she pushed he had admitted that he might have gotten involved in some more unsavory characters who wanted him gone after a certain date.
She gave him a look that told him she understood that situation a little bit too well for comfort, but finally dropped it.
And really, if you thought about it, Foggy getting ready to leave didn’t hinge completely on breaking connections. Part of all of the networking that Foggy was going was seeing just how many of the associates he made were among Matt’s “people.”
Foggy felt that it would be important to have friends on the other side, for when he got there.
However, all of these new bonds paled in comparison to how close he and Matt had become.
After The Cocoa Incident it was like a flip had been switched in Matt. He suddenly became a lot more… sincere, was the best word that Foggy could think of. Before, Matt had been dorky and wry and all together an absolute treat to be around, but all too often lost in his own thoughts and a tad distant. Now, while Matt was most definitely still dorky and an utter delight, most of the reservations he had toward Foggy seemed to have been chucked out the window.
For starters, if Matt had been a little but spotty on ideas of personal space before, now Foggy was sure that he was just straight up ignoring them. Mind you, Foggy didn’t mind this change one bit, but he couldn’t help but be bemused every time Matt do stuff like flop across Foggy’s lap if they were sharing the couch or leaned into Foggy if they were ever side-by-side, public or private alike. Even funnier were the flimsy excuses that Matt would sometimes throw out (“I’m cold,” “this’ll help tie me to this plane for a while,” and “vessels are confusing” seemed to be the more popular ones).
If Matt’s idea of being subtle he was doing a piss-poor job of it, but Foggy wasn’t upset. Foggy got being touch-starved, and it seemed like Matt felt he couldn’t just ask for some contact and instead was weaseling it out of Foggy in the only way he knew.
Additionally, Matt also seemed to let go of a lot of reservations he had about telling Foggy what was going on at his work and started giving more active opinions on whatever Foggy was doing. All in all, he got a lot more talkative, and their nights in became more of a dialogue than Foggy monologue-ing.
And the fact that Matt was funny and caring and too fucking perfect to be fair was just icing to the cake and more often than not left Foggy breathless in that typical pain/giddiness that feelings and such often brought.
Ugh, his life was a mess and Foggy was roughly 70% sure that Matt didn’t notice the particular brand of hell he was giving the human. For being a relatively omnipotent being, there were times where Matt was cringe-worthy-ing oblivious.
This particular quirk can be best illustrated by an event about half way through Foggy’s Contract period. The two had decided that for once, the New York summer heat was more pleasant than miserable and had decided to roam around Hell’s Kitchen to kill off some boredom. Everything had been sunshine and ice cream (literally, Matt couldn’t go too long in public without a sacrifice before he started popping out extra appendages), until they stopped at a park and Foggy absently started narrating what was going on around them.
“…there’s a guy across the way that has the most horrendous shirt on. I’m pretty sure he took one of those Hawaiian shirts and used it to make a tank top, with safety scissors.”
“Hm,” Matt said, gnawing on a popsicle, “‘A’ for originality. Is he carrying a margarita? That would complete the look.”
“Aaah, nope.”
“Damn, ‘C’ for effort.”
Foggy’s laugh at that was an embarrassing snort of a thing, but it made Matt grin all the same. Chewing contemplatively on the end of his popsicle stick, Matt nudged Foggy’s side. “What else you got?”
“Hmmm, ah, there’s a couple to our ten o’ clock using the walking trail, a guy and a girl. They look like they’re talking about something serious, but more importantly I’ve seen grad students during finals that look less jittery than their dog.”
Matt took a second to drop reach out in the general white noise of the public space, until he heard a grave voice around the same distance at the noise that tiny, pattering paws made.
“…don’t understand why you can’t support me in this,” came a frustrated voice; it was deep, and barbed in a way that someone who felt attacked would speak.
“I am supporting you! And that’s the problem! While you’re off following your dreams in every dive bar gig this side of town, I have to stay home and pay the bills.” The other voice was angrier, enunciating crisply enough to grate unpleasantly against Matt’s ears.
“I bring in as much-”
The first voice was ruthlessly cut off before it could begin. “No, you don’t. Ever since you got laid off from your real job I’ve been footing almost all of the bills. If you had just listened to me and not-”
Here, Matt pulled back, and studied them a little closer. Just as he expected, the shape belonging to the second voice was clear to Matt, anger and blasphemy radiating out from their core to rest just under their skin. The second voice however was less clear to Matt, but pride and, oh! Quite a bit of infidelity had made their home there.
Matt leaned back onto the bench he and Foggy were perched on. “They probably get into some spectacular spats; they sound quite angry. No wonder the dog is stressed.”
Foggy was silent at this, and Matt immediately knew he had done something off. “Foggy?” he ventured.
“Matt,” the human murmured, “they’re more than fifty feet away. How’d you know that?”
Oh, oh hells Foggy didn’t know about his senses. Against his better instincts, Matt decided that maybe now was a good time to lead with the truth.
“I… sensed them.”
“So, you can hear them. At this distance?” The accusatory tone hadn’t left Foggy’s voice and it made Matt squirm more than he’d like to admit.
“Among other things,” he quickly answered.
“Really.” Foggy’s voice was flat and unimpressed. “Like what.”
“I can um-” (oh shit there was no way to put this nicely Matt was just going to have to run with it and hope for the best) “I can sense people’s... flaws. One of the two over there, is very wrathful.”
Foggy was silent a while longer before lowly asking, “So you’ve got super hearing and sinner-sense, and you didn’t tell me… why?”
“Humans never exactly take that well.” Ignoring Foggy’s grumbling at that, Matt went on, “And I was going to tell you! I just, I didn’t want you to act differently around me and I guess I kinda… forgot.”
“You forgot.” If it was possible, Foggy’s voice went even flatter, “You forgot to tell me you could clearly see every misdeed I’ve considered since the start.”
Matt winced. “It only works on deeply-rooted stuff. Like, habits or character flaws. There’s a big difference between a kleptomaniac and someone who steals to survive.” Matt was going to have to appeal to Foggy’s sense of morality to get out of this.
Foggy hummed, “No wonder you dislike humans so much. All you can see is the bad stuff.”
Matt groaned, “Yes, I know I didn’t think that through. But Foggy, it’s not seeing. I’m able to put together an idea of where I am more accurately than blind humans with these senses, but I have not been able to see for centuries. Screens and books are lost on me for the most part, and I mostly rely on my hearing to get me places. And the… 'sinner sense' isn’t sight either, it’s- it’s like sonar that I have to concentrate on.”
“…I keep leading you around and telling you where stuff is.”
Matt quickly picked up on the unasked question here. “And I appreciate that. I really do. It’s… a relief. All of the… data I get is often overwhelming and filtering out the unimportant input sometimes takes more concentration than I can spare.”
Here, Foggy let out a huge breath, but his heart rate remained relatively high. “I’m upset that you didn’t tell me this.”
“I understand.”
Foggy glanced over at Matt, who had taken up to fiddling with his popsicle stick. “You really forgot?”
Matt sighed, “It doesn’t come up often. I guess I forgot you didn’t know.”
In spite of himself, this wrung a slight chuckle out of Foggy. “You would.”
Matt huffed out a soft breath. “I would.”