“Oh.” Candace waves her hand. “Dumped his ass. He revealed himself to be a bigoted racist homophobe, I ain’t got time for someone like that. My youth’s precious, I’m not wasting it on him.”
“Good for you!” Foggy raises his hand and Candace gives him a high-five. She’ll be fine in college. And if she’s not, Matt’ll probably take it upon himself to make sure that she is if he finds out. Which probably won’t end well, for anyone involved, so Foggy should make sure that Matt doesn’t find out.
Matt’s frowning. “What?” Foggy asks.
The frown deepens. “I think your mum’s calling you.”
He says it the exact same moment Anna yells, most likely from the stairs, “FRANKLIN NELSON! COME HERE THIS INSTANT!”
Candace snickers. “Yeah, Foggy, your mum’s calling you.”
Foggy gets up with a groan. “Assholes, the lot of you.”
He exits the study and goes downstairs, where he barely manages not to collide with Mrs. Gershwin and her beer bottle. He excuses himself and darts into the relative safety of Grams’ kitchen, which incidentally is the second-largest room in the whole house. Life priorities according to Joy Connor.
“What?” he asks his mother.
Anna doesn’t look amused. “I’ve been calling you.”
“Well, excuse me, I’ve only been catching up with the one family member that seems happy to see me.” Anna rolls her eyes and turns back towards the counter. “So. Tom?”
“Ugh.” Anna shudders. “Don’t even remind me of that kid. I’m so glad your sister was smart enough to dump his sorry ass.”
Foggy shoves hands into the pockets of his jeans. “She wasn’t smart enough not to date him in the first place.”
Anna takes two mugs out of the overhead cupboard and fills them with drinks. “Not everyone can have such a good taste when it comes to partners as you do,” she says, casually.
“Yeah,” Foggy agrees before the whole meaning of that sentence dawns on him. Good taste? What? He squints his eyes. “You never liked Marci.”
She somehow manages to fit six pistachio cupcakes on the tiniest plate Foggy’s ever seen. “Marci’s an exception.”
“You weren’t overly fond of Debs either.”
She shrugs and turns back to him, and finally takes a proper look at him. She must not like what she saw, because she frowns. “Are you alright, honey?” she asks, concerned. “You look--pale.”
That would be the result of months of worry about Matt and the more recent hard work and sleepless nights and coffee and anger that went into his research. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?” Anna presses. “Perhaps something’s wrong, when was the last time--“
“I’m fine, mum.”
“Franklin, and what if it’s b--“
“Mum,” Foggy interrupts her. Why do people keep insisting on trying to talk to him about things he doesn’t want to talk about. “I have an appointment scheduled for next month. I’m fine, just tired, we have lots of work. Can we please not talk about this here, now? Grams has guests.”
She squints. “Foggy, everyone here--“
“Not everyone.”
She squints harder. And then it hits her, what he means, and her eyes widen in surprise. “Franklin,” she hisses, “are you lying to him?”
Foggy huffs, irritated. “I’m not lying, mum, I just never said, it’s never been relevant--“
“So you’re waiting for it to become relevant?” she carries on in that hissing tone. “That’s ridiculous, Franklin, I’m disappointed--“
“It was never important, and Matt has worse problems anyway.” If only she knew just how much worse. “Can we argue about this later, when there aren’t twenty people around to overhear?”
“Franklin--“
“Mother. Seriously. Later.”
“She sighs dramatically and raises her hands in defeat. “Fine,” she snaps. She turns to the counter, picks the mugs and hands them to him. “Honey rose tea, for you and Matt.” She turns back again and takes the tiny plate. “And cupcakes for the three of you.”
“Thanks, mum.”
She waves her hand. “Just go.”
He balances the plate full of cupcakes on top of one of the mugs and manages to get it upstairs without dropping anything, thank God for the practice he had while working part-time at a restaurant while in high school.
“Mum sends her love in the form of baked goods,” he announces loudly as he pushes the door open and walks back into the study. He’s greeted by two cut-off giggles. Matt moved closer to Candace, and they’re sitting with their heads bowed towards each other and are laughing under their breaths. Great. Just great.
“Did you and Stewie Morris really dress up as Sailor Moon characters for Halloween?” Matt asks. He’s trying to keep a straight face, he really is, so kudos for that.
“Yes we did,” Foggy admits and Matt cracks. Which is funny in itself, because Foggy’s not entirely sure Matt even knows what do the Sailor Moon costumes look like. “And it was awesome. I’m handing you a mug,” he says. “Honey rose tea, because mum likes you better.”
“Thanks,” Matt says and takes the mug. His fingers brush Foggy’s and he smiles. “Why Sailor Moon?”
Foggy shrugs. Matt probably expects an answer like ‘I lost a bet’ or ‘it was a dare’. It’s neither. “Because why the hell not?”
“Holy shit,” Candace says suddenly.
“Me being into anime is hardly a revelation, Cande,” Foggy says, rolling his eyes. But Candace’s not looking at him, or at Matt, even. She’s staring out of the window and at the street.
“It’s not that,” she breathes, and she’s pressing her face so close to the window that the glass fogs. “It’ just--I think--Dick’s here.”
Foggy frowns and moves closer to the window. “You mean great-uncle Richard? Isn’t he dead?”
“Not great-uncle Dick, he’s most definitely dead. It’s Grandpa Asshole.”
“No way,” Foggy breathes. He presses closer to Candace, to look out of the window as well. “It can’t be.”
“It is.”
“Grandpa Asshole?” Matt asks.
Foggy and Candace share a look. Right, Matt doesn’t know the story of Grandpa Asshole. Foggy waves his hand at Candace, giving her permission to share this story.
“So you know Grandfather Nelson, right?” is what she starts with. Matt nods. Of course he knows Grandfather Nelson, he went on family holiday with the Foggy and Cande during the summer break between years two and three, and he had the pleasure of meeting Grandfather Nelson and being subjected to his hardcore fishing lessons. “Well, people tend to have two grandfathers.”
“I’m aware,” Matt replies, clearly amused.
“Grandpa Asshole is Grams’ douchebag ex-husband,” Candace says and Foggy has to fight the urge to moan. She blew the story, like, for God’s sake, Candace, how could you blow it.
“See, Grams used to live in Massachusetts,” Foggy picks the story up, because clearly Candace is not to be trusted with it. “She had this husband. Weird guy, kept creepy company and would disappear for days on end into the woods or the mountains.”
“Okay.”
“So eventually Grams has had enough. She kicked the dude out, divorced him and moved to New York,” Foggy continues, skipping for now all the stories of Grandpa Ray teaching mum to punch people when she was four. He’ll fill Matt in later. “Ray disappeared completely for years and everyone thought that was the last they’d seen of him.”
“But bitch it wasn’t the last they’d seen of him,” Candace picks up. “Sadly. It’s a dark family secret, Matt. Grandpa Asshole pops up once every few years, appears out of the blue, annoys the hell out of half of us, offends the other half, and then disappears again. For example, he came to mum’s wedding. It almost resulted in the whole thing being called off.”
“Next time he shows up, I’m five,” Foggy says. “I think Grams threatened him with her hunting knives then, but I’m a bit fuzzy on the details.”
“Next time was when Foggy was twelve and I was three,” Candace chips in. “Ray comes over, saying that he was ‘in the neighbourhood’ for some reason--“
“It was before we moved to Trenton,” Foggy clarifies, “so at the time we were still living in Hell’s Kitchen.”
“--and offers to take us to the park. Mum was less than thrilled with the idea.”
“She pulled a shotgun on him.”
Matt’s jaw drops. “What?”
Candace laughs. “We shit you not, that’s my earliest memory, mum running after Ray with a shotgun. She still owned one, at the time. It was so badass.”
“Then Ray completely ignored us for the next, what, fifteen years? Eighteen. Eighteen years.”
“He called a few months back, before my birthday. Apparently something chased him to New York again.” Candace shrugs. “I don’t know what he wanted, I told him to fuck off and hang up.”
“He’s an evil, creepy guy that everyone hates,” Foggy sums up. “Never gave a single shit about us. In fact I’m fairly certain that he’s incapable of experiencing any higher emotion.”
“And he’s here, now,” Matt says.
“Yup,” Candace confirms.
“Apparently,” Foggy says. Something occurs to him. “Someone should probably go downstairs and check on mum and Grams. With dad still out on the prolonged beer run, there’s no one to make sure everyone leaves alive.”
“You’re older,” Candace notes, the ever-helpful Candace, “and heavier, you go.”
“You’ve seen Ray less times,” Foggy points out. “Plus all you’d need to do is call the cops, that doesn’t require you having such a tactical advantage over him.”
“He called me this year while you haven’t interacted with him in almost twenty years,” she bristles. And pouts. God damn that pout of hers. “We should rock, paper, scissors it.”
“Fine.”
They do. Foggy loses, because of course he loses. The universe doesn’t like him.
“How,” Foggy grumbles as he leaves the study. There’s a commotion downstairs. He can hear Mrs. Palomas cursing.
“You always use scissors first,” Matt tells him.
“No, I don’t.”
“You do,” Matt laughs. “And I’m blind. If I noticed that, your sister did too.”
“And it never occurred to you to maybe tell me about that?” Foggy asks and Matt snickers, presses his palm to his mouth to hide the giggle.
The voices coming from downstairs become louder as they move towards the staircase and walk down the stairs as quietly as they can.
“--not welcome in my house. Get out, Raymond.” That’s Grams, breaking out her most authoritative tone of voice. Go Grams.
Foggy’s one foot on the landing already, with Matt halfway down the stairs behind him, when Ray moves into their line of sight. Foggy’s, Foggy’s line of sight. Ray is--ass unimpressive as ever. Hair as white as always and in as much disarray, cane, glasses, clothes that have clearly seen better times. And that goddamn smirk that makes Foggy want to punch him every time he sees it. It’s the reason Foggy doesn’t smirk, goes either full-on smile or nothing at all: Foggy has the same expression when he tries to, his lips curve the same way Ray’s do, and Foggy already looks enough like Ray without having to add another layer of similarity by adopting the same mannerism. Foggy’s spent two years of his early teens practicing different expressions in front of a mirror, hoping to pick some that make him look as unlike Ray as humanly possible.
“What, I can’t wish my wife happy birthday?” Ray sneers, because he’s an absolute and utter asshole, God, Foggy hates him, Foggy hates him almost as much as he hates Stick. ‘Almost’ being the operative word here, because Stick is a miserable evil goddamn bastard while Ray is just--Ray is a douchebag and an asshole, was a crap and violent husband and even a worse father, but he never ascended to quite the same plane of evilness as Stick did.
“Ex-wife,” Grams spits out.
“Dad,” Anna says as she grabs the sleeve of Ray’s shirt, squeezes his arm “leave. Or I’ll call the police, I swear I will.”
“Stick,” Matt whispers behind Foggy, and he sounds gutted.
“What?” He heard wrong. Must have. Foggy turns his head towards Matt as he asks the question, and it almost dies on his lips. Matt’s pale and he’s gripping the railing so hard that his knuckles have gone white.
“Stick,” Matt repeats, louder.
There are two other people, beside Foggy — who feels as if someone just snatched the floor from under his feet — that react to that one word. Grams turns her head towards Matt and her expression clouds with anger and suspicion, and Ray… Ray grins.
“Matt,” he says with fake cheer in his voice, “I didn’t expect to see you here, kid.”
He wrenches his arm out of Anna’s grip, nods Grams goodbye and leaves, slamming the door shut on his way out.
The absolute silence that settled in the hallway lasts about a minute. The same minute it takes Foggy to jump over that last step, make it to the door and out, runs after Ray, heedless of Anna’s perplexed calls.
Stick, Stick, Stick, is the only thought that’s clear to him, the only thing he can focus on. I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, I’ll fucking kill you.
Fill: nothing he can't endure [8/?]
“Good for you!” Foggy raises his hand and Candace gives him a high-five. She’ll be fine in college. And if she’s not, Matt’ll probably take it upon himself to make sure that she is if he finds out. Which probably won’t end well, for anyone involved, so Foggy should make sure that Matt doesn’t find out.
Matt’s frowning. “What?” Foggy asks.
The frown deepens. “I think your mum’s calling you.”
He says it the exact same moment Anna yells, most likely from the stairs, “FRANKLIN NELSON! COME HERE THIS INSTANT!”
Candace snickers. “Yeah, Foggy, your mum’s calling you.”
Foggy gets up with a groan. “Assholes, the lot of you.”
He exits the study and goes downstairs, where he barely manages not to collide with Mrs. Gershwin and her beer bottle. He excuses himself and darts into the relative safety of Grams’ kitchen, which incidentally is the second-largest room in the whole house. Life priorities according to Joy Connor.
“What?” he asks his mother.
Anna doesn’t look amused. “I’ve been calling you.”
“Well, excuse me, I’ve only been catching up with the one family member that seems happy to see me.” Anna rolls her eyes and turns back towards the counter. “So. Tom?”
“Ugh.” Anna shudders. “Don’t even remind me of that kid. I’m so glad your sister was smart enough to dump his sorry ass.”
Foggy shoves hands into the pockets of his jeans. “She wasn’t smart enough not to date him in the first place.”
Anna takes two mugs out of the overhead cupboard and fills them with drinks. “Not everyone can have such a good taste when it comes to partners as you do,” she says, casually.
“Yeah,” Foggy agrees before the whole meaning of that sentence dawns on him. Good taste? What? He squints his eyes. “You never liked Marci.”
She somehow manages to fit six pistachio cupcakes on the tiniest plate Foggy’s ever seen. “Marci’s an exception.”
“You weren’t overly fond of Debs either.”
She shrugs and turns back to him, and finally takes a proper look at him. She must not like what she saw, because she frowns. “Are you alright, honey?” she asks, concerned. “You look--pale.”
That would be the result of months of worry about Matt and the more recent hard work and sleepless nights and coffee and anger that went into his research. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?” Anna presses. “Perhaps something’s wrong, when was the last time--“
“I’m fine, mum.”
“Franklin, and what if it’s b--“
“Mum,” Foggy interrupts her. Why do people keep insisting on trying to talk to him about things he doesn’t want to talk about. “I have an appointment scheduled for next month. I’m fine, just tired, we have lots of work. Can we please not talk about this here, now? Grams has guests.”
She squints. “Foggy, everyone here--“
“Not everyone.”
She squints harder. And then it hits her, what he means, and her eyes widen in surprise. “Franklin,” she hisses, “are you lying to him?”
Foggy huffs, irritated. “I’m not lying, mum, I just never said, it’s never been relevant--“
“So you’re waiting for it to become relevant?” she carries on in that hissing tone. “That’s ridiculous, Franklin, I’m disappointed--“
“It was never important, and Matt has worse problems anyway.” If only she knew just how much worse. “Can we argue about this later, when there aren’t twenty people around to overhear?”
“Franklin--“
“Mother. Seriously. Later.”
“She sighs dramatically and raises her hands in defeat. “Fine,” she snaps. She turns to the counter, picks the mugs and hands them to him. “Honey rose tea, for you and Matt.” She turns back again and takes the tiny plate. “And cupcakes for the three of you.”
“Thanks, mum.”
She waves her hand. “Just go.”
He balances the plate full of cupcakes on top of one of the mugs and manages to get it upstairs without dropping anything, thank God for the practice he had while working part-time at a restaurant while in high school.
“Mum sends her love in the form of baked goods,” he announces loudly as he pushes the door open and walks back into the study. He’s greeted by two cut-off giggles. Matt moved closer to Candace, and they’re sitting with their heads bowed towards each other and are laughing under their breaths. Great. Just great.
“Did you and Stewie Morris really dress up as Sailor Moon characters for Halloween?” Matt asks. He’s trying to keep a straight face, he really is, so kudos for that.
“Yes we did,” Foggy admits and Matt cracks. Which is funny in itself, because Foggy’s not entirely sure Matt even knows what do the Sailor Moon costumes look like. “And it was awesome. I’m handing you a mug,” he says. “Honey rose tea, because mum likes you better.”
“Thanks,” Matt says and takes the mug. His fingers brush Foggy’s and he smiles. “Why Sailor Moon?”
Foggy shrugs. Matt probably expects an answer like ‘I lost a bet’ or ‘it was a dare’. It’s neither. “Because why the hell not?”
“Holy shit,” Candace says suddenly.
“Me being into anime is hardly a revelation, Cande,” Foggy says, rolling his eyes. But Candace’s not looking at him, or at Matt, even. She’s staring out of the window and at the street.
“It’s not that,” she breathes, and she’s pressing her face so close to the window that the glass fogs. “It’ just--I think--Dick’s here.”
Foggy frowns and moves closer to the window. “You mean great-uncle Richard? Isn’t he dead?”
“Not great-uncle Dick, he’s most definitely dead. It’s Grandpa Asshole.”
“No way,” Foggy breathes. He presses closer to Candace, to look out of the window as well. “It can’t be.”
“It is.”
“Grandpa Asshole?” Matt asks.
Foggy and Candace share a look. Right, Matt doesn’t know the story of Grandpa Asshole. Foggy waves his hand at Candace, giving her permission to share this story.
“So you know Grandfather Nelson, right?” is what she starts with. Matt nods. Of course he knows Grandfather Nelson, he went on family holiday with the Foggy and Cande during the summer break between years two and three, and he had the pleasure of meeting Grandfather Nelson and being subjected to his hardcore fishing lessons. “Well, people tend to have two grandfathers.”
“I’m aware,” Matt replies, clearly amused.
“Grandpa Asshole is Grams’ douchebag ex-husband,” Candace says and Foggy has to fight the urge to moan. She blew the story, like, for God’s sake, Candace, how could you blow it.
“See, Grams used to live in Massachusetts,” Foggy picks the story up, because clearly Candace is not to be trusted with it. “She had this husband. Weird guy, kept creepy company and would disappear for days on end into the woods or the mountains.”
“Okay.”
“So eventually Grams has had enough. She kicked the dude out, divorced him and moved to New York,” Foggy continues, skipping for now all the stories of Grandpa Ray teaching mum to punch people when she was four. He’ll fill Matt in later. “Ray disappeared completely for years and everyone thought that was the last they’d seen of him.”
“But bitch it wasn’t the last they’d seen of him,” Candace picks up. “Sadly. It’s a dark family secret, Matt. Grandpa Asshole pops up once every few years, appears out of the blue, annoys the hell out of half of us, offends the other half, and then disappears again. For example, he came to mum’s wedding. It almost resulted in the whole thing being called off.”
“Next time he shows up, I’m five,” Foggy says. “I think Grams threatened him with her hunting knives then, but I’m a bit fuzzy on the details.”
“Next time was when Foggy was twelve and I was three,” Candace chips in. “Ray comes over, saying that he was ‘in the neighbourhood’ for some reason--“
“It was before we moved to Trenton,” Foggy clarifies, “so at the time we were still living in Hell’s Kitchen.”
“--and offers to take us to the park. Mum was less than thrilled with the idea.”
“She pulled a shotgun on him.”
Matt’s jaw drops. “What?”
Candace laughs. “We shit you not, that’s my earliest memory, mum running after Ray with a shotgun. She still owned one, at the time. It was so badass.”
“Then Ray completely ignored us for the next, what, fifteen years? Eighteen. Eighteen years.”
“He called a few months back, before my birthday. Apparently something chased him to New York again.” Candace shrugs. “I don’t know what he wanted, I told him to fuck off and hang up.”
“He’s an evil, creepy guy that everyone hates,” Foggy sums up. “Never gave a single shit about us. In fact I’m fairly certain that he’s incapable of experiencing any higher emotion.”
“And he’s here, now,” Matt says.
“Yup,” Candace confirms.
“Apparently,” Foggy says. Something occurs to him. “Someone should probably go downstairs and check on mum and Grams. With dad still out on the prolonged beer run, there’s no one to make sure everyone leaves alive.”
“You’re older,” Candace notes, the ever-helpful Candace, “and heavier, you go.”
“You’ve seen Ray less times,” Foggy points out. “Plus all you’d need to do is call the cops, that doesn’t require you having such a tactical advantage over him.”
“He called me this year while you haven’t interacted with him in almost twenty years,” she bristles. And pouts. God damn that pout of hers. “We should rock, paper, scissors it.”
“Fine.”
They do. Foggy loses, because of course he loses. The universe doesn’t like him.
“How,” Foggy grumbles as he leaves the study. There’s a commotion downstairs. He can hear Mrs. Palomas cursing.
“You always use scissors first,” Matt tells him.
“No, I don’t.”
“You do,” Matt laughs. “And I’m blind. If I noticed that, your sister did too.”
“And it never occurred to you to maybe tell me about that?” Foggy asks and Matt snickers, presses his palm to his mouth to hide the giggle.
The voices coming from downstairs become louder as they move towards the staircase and walk down the stairs as quietly as they can.
“--not welcome in my house. Get out, Raymond.” That’s Grams, breaking out her most authoritative tone of voice. Go Grams.
Foggy’s one foot on the landing already, with Matt halfway down the stairs behind him, when Ray moves into their line of sight. Foggy’s, Foggy’s line of sight. Ray is--ass unimpressive as ever. Hair as white as always and in as much disarray, cane, glasses, clothes that have clearly seen better times. And that goddamn smirk that makes Foggy want to punch him every time he sees it. It’s the reason Foggy doesn’t smirk, goes either full-on smile or nothing at all: Foggy has the same expression when he tries to, his lips curve the same way Ray’s do, and Foggy already looks enough like Ray without having to add another layer of similarity by adopting the same mannerism. Foggy’s spent two years of his early teens practicing different expressions in front of a mirror, hoping to pick some that make him look as unlike Ray as humanly possible.
“What, I can’t wish my wife happy birthday?” Ray sneers, because he’s an absolute and utter asshole, God, Foggy hates him, Foggy hates him almost as much as he hates Stick. ‘Almost’ being the operative word here, because Stick is a miserable evil goddamn bastard while Ray is just--Ray is a douchebag and an asshole, was a crap and violent husband and even a worse father, but he never ascended to quite the same plane of evilness as Stick did.
“Ex-wife,” Grams spits out.
“Dad,” Anna says as she grabs the sleeve of Ray’s shirt, squeezes his arm “leave. Or I’ll call the police, I swear I will.”
“Stick,” Matt whispers behind Foggy, and he sounds gutted.
“What?” He heard wrong. Must have. Foggy turns his head towards Matt as he asks the question, and it almost dies on his lips. Matt’s pale and he’s gripping the railing so hard that his knuckles have gone white.
“Stick,” Matt repeats, louder.
There are two other people, beside Foggy — who feels as if someone just snatched the floor from under his feet — that react to that one word. Grams turns her head towards Matt and her expression clouds with anger and suspicion, and Ray… Ray grins.
“Matt,” he says with fake cheer in his voice, “I didn’t expect to see you here, kid.”
He wrenches his arm out of Anna’s grip, nods Grams goodbye and leaves, slamming the door shut on his way out.
The absolute silence that settled in the hallway lasts about a minute. The same minute it takes Foggy to jump over that last step, make it to the door and out, runs after Ray, heedless of Anna’s perplexed calls.
Stick, Stick, Stick, is the only thought that’s clear to him, the only thing he can focus on. I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, I’ll fucking kill you.