It is a Wednesday morning, cold and brittle, and Foggy hasn’t arrived yet.
Karen comments that it’s overcast and drizzling as she shakes out her wind-broken umbrella. Matt can hear the high wind scowling against the outside walls, the dull impressions of Karen’s footsteps as she sorts through files and paperwork. He sips carefully on coffee just the wrong side of hot, and feels out the Buccellato case-files for the hearing Friday, skimming over his braille terminal.
Karen’s watch has an echoing tick that is minutely too fast. Matt keeps having his phone read the time back to him, fidgets in his seat. He is not concentrating. He listens to the dog-bark of the wind, and the scritch of Karen’s pen nib against paper, and the off-skew tick of her watch. He wonders where Foggy is.
Between the two of them, they leave three calls that go straight to answerphone.
“I’m going to take my lunch break, I think,” Matt says decisively around quarter to eleven, already reaching for his cane. Karen knows he’s lying, offers company, but he says he’ll be fine.
On street-level, he forces himself through the push-back of the wind, hearing siren-wails, the crinkle of weighed down plastic bags, the rattle of buggy-wheels, the rasp of dirt and little ground undershoe. Instead of focusing on these, tuning into the pell-mell of the city, he thinks of the time, and the mechanical voice of the answerphone. He walks faster.
When he gets to the apartment block where Foggy lives, the lift is broken again, so he takes the stairs two at a time up four flights. He runs his hand along the walls of the fifth floor corridor, dislodging peeling plaster and shoddy paintwork. Mrs Ramirez has put something spicy on the stove, and it makes his tongue tingle. In the apartment opposite Foggy’s, a door slams shut. The wind is still rumbling outside like the thrum of the subway.
Matt tap-knocks on Foggy’s door, a playful you decent in there? code from their college days, and listens through the thin wood.
There is movement after a few moments, too slow, ungainly. Something is knocked over, the rustle of papers and a cup being put on the counter. Then the uneven pad-pad-pad of footsteps, patterned like a limp, and finally the grind of the door bolt being undone.
“Oh hey,” Foggy’s voice sounds hoarse and sleep-scratchy. “Is this my early morning booty call?”
Foggy does not smell right. Clammy, unwell. There is the tang of old sweat and deodorant, his hair frizzed through with the day-old manufactured aroma of apple shampoo. There isn’t the faint trace of mint from Foggy’s value-brand toothpaste, and there isn’t even the lingering tones of coffee to indicate he’s had his usual three by lunchtime.
His voice is pitched too light, a tremor trapped under his skin. His heart-beat is not calm. Matt pushes a smile onto his own face.
“Do I need an excuse to see my favourite person?”
“Flattery will get you nowhere, you realise.” Foggy’s quips are slower than usual, not as quick-fire, hunched in on themselves in delivery. “It’s only my body you’re after. It’s cool, I understand.”
Even Matt can tell Foggy is barely smiling.
“Can I come in then, Casanova?”
“Yeah, sure, why not.” Foggy steps aside and relocks the door when Matt crosses the threshold. There is something rickety about the stretch of muscle under his skin. “Can I er – get you anything? Coffee? Your mug’s still here. I cleaned it and everything.”
Foggy’s default reactions are taking over at this point. Matt dutifully keeps his voice as calm as possible. His hand wants to reach out and soothe this ruffled nervousness, but he keeps a tight hold on his cane.
“Just a small one.”
Matt follows Foggy into the cramped kitchenette. There is that sound again, the crunching clacking of something wrong under his skin, groaning like the weak point in floorboards. There’s something wrong with the way he’s walking.
“You weren’t at work this morning,” he starts tentatively, testing the ground. “I was worried.”
“You just missed the opportunity to ogle this fine form,” Foggy says, and his heartbeat jumps faster as he reaches into the cupboard to pull down the jar of coffee granules. “Sorry ‘bout that. I just – I wasn’t feeling very well.”
This in itself is not a lie. Matt takes another step out onto the ice.
“Don’t worry. We just weren’t sure. The Jameson case can wait a couple of days, take all the time off you need.”
“This is you speaking in your official role as partner?” From the sound of it, Foggy is struggling to uncap the suction lid on the jar. His hands are shaking too hard. “Thanks, Matt. There’s no need to worry, I should be up and about in a while, you’ll see.”
There is a clatter, a ting and the sound of something bouncing on the linoleum, and then the rain-patter of coffee granules spilling onto the floor.
“For fuck’s sake,” Foggy swears. His voice breaks in the middle, and his breath judders like a ship run aground when he tries to breathe out.
“Don’t worry, Fog. It’s only coffee.” Matt tries for levity. It does not work.
There is a brief silence punctuated only by the pot boiling and clicking off, by harsh scrappy breathing. And then Foggy starts crying.
Fill: tell me how all this will ruin us 1/2
**
It is a Wednesday morning, cold and brittle, and Foggy hasn’t arrived yet.
Karen comments that it’s overcast and drizzling as she shakes out her wind-broken umbrella. Matt can hear the high wind scowling against the outside walls, the dull impressions of Karen’s footsteps as she sorts through files and paperwork. He sips carefully on coffee just the wrong side of hot, and feels out the Buccellato case-files for the hearing Friday, skimming over his braille terminal.
Karen’s watch has an echoing tick that is minutely too fast. Matt keeps having his phone read the time back to him, fidgets in his seat. He is not concentrating. He listens to the dog-bark of the wind, and the scritch of Karen’s pen nib against paper, and the off-skew tick of her watch. He wonders where Foggy is.
Between the two of them, they leave three calls that go straight to answerphone.
“I’m going to take my lunch break, I think,” Matt says decisively around quarter to eleven, already reaching for his cane. Karen knows he’s lying, offers company, but he says he’ll be fine.
On street-level, he forces himself through the push-back of the wind, hearing siren-wails, the crinkle of weighed down plastic bags, the rattle of buggy-wheels, the rasp of dirt and little ground undershoe. Instead of focusing on these, tuning into the pell-mell of the city, he thinks of the time, and the mechanical voice of the answerphone. He walks faster.
When he gets to the apartment block where Foggy lives, the lift is broken again, so he takes the stairs two at a time up four flights. He runs his hand along the walls of the fifth floor corridor, dislodging peeling plaster and shoddy paintwork. Mrs Ramirez has put something spicy on the stove, and it makes his tongue tingle. In the apartment opposite Foggy’s, a door slams shut. The wind is still rumbling outside like the thrum of the subway.
Matt tap-knocks on Foggy’s door, a playful you decent in there? code from their college days, and listens through the thin wood.
There is movement after a few moments, too slow, ungainly. Something is knocked over, the rustle of papers and a cup being put on the counter. Then the uneven pad-pad-pad of footsteps, patterned like a limp, and finally the grind of the door bolt being undone.
“Oh hey,” Foggy’s voice sounds hoarse and sleep-scratchy. “Is this my early morning booty call?”
Foggy does not smell right. Clammy, unwell. There is the tang of old sweat and deodorant, his hair frizzed through with the day-old manufactured aroma of apple shampoo. There isn’t the faint trace of mint from Foggy’s value-brand toothpaste, and there isn’t even the lingering tones of coffee to indicate he’s had his usual three by lunchtime.
His voice is pitched too light, a tremor trapped under his skin. His heart-beat is not calm.
Matt pushes a smile onto his own face.
“Do I need an excuse to see my favourite person?”
“Flattery will get you nowhere, you realise.” Foggy’s quips are slower than usual, not as quick-fire, hunched in on themselves in delivery. “It’s only my body you’re after. It’s cool, I understand.”
Even Matt can tell Foggy is barely smiling.
“Can I come in then, Casanova?”
“Yeah, sure, why not.” Foggy steps aside and relocks the door when Matt crosses the threshold. There is something rickety about the stretch of muscle under his skin. “Can I er – get you anything? Coffee? Your mug’s still here. I cleaned it and everything.”
Foggy’s default reactions are taking over at this point. Matt dutifully keeps his voice as calm as possible. His hand wants to reach out and soothe this ruffled nervousness, but he keeps a tight hold on his cane.
“Just a small one.”
Matt follows Foggy into the cramped kitchenette. There is that sound again, the crunching clacking of something wrong under his skin, groaning like the weak point in floorboards. There’s something wrong with the way he’s walking.
“You weren’t at work this morning,” he starts tentatively, testing the ground. “I was worried.”
“You just missed the opportunity to ogle this fine form,” Foggy says, and his heartbeat jumps faster as he reaches into the cupboard to pull down the jar of coffee granules. “Sorry ‘bout that. I just – I wasn’t feeling very well.”
This in itself is not a lie. Matt takes another step out onto the ice.
“Don’t worry. We just weren’t sure. The Jameson case can wait a couple of days, take all the time off you need.”
“This is you speaking in your official role as partner?” From the sound of it, Foggy is struggling to uncap the suction lid on the jar. His hands are shaking too hard. “Thanks, Matt. There’s no need to worry, I should be up and about in a while, you’ll see.”
There is a clatter, a ting and the sound of something bouncing on the linoleum, and then the rain-patter of coffee granules spilling onto the floor.
“For fuck’s sake,” Foggy swears. His voice breaks in the middle, and his breath judders like a ship run aground when he tries to breathe out.
“Don’t worry, Fog. It’s only coffee.” Matt tries for levity. It does not work.
There is a brief silence punctuated only by the pot boiling and clicking off, by harsh scrappy breathing. And then Foggy starts crying.