Chapter Text
Matt didn’t realize how much he’d annoyed his brother until the third anonymous phone call.
The first was a novelty, not unpleasant. Tittering on the end of the line, then silence as the call disconnected. The second time he picked up, a reedy, unpleasant voice said, “I hear you’re looking for a good time?”
“I’m Catholic,” he said mildly. “I never have a good time.”
Another disconnection.
The third call followed the same pattern. And then they kept coming. All men, all breathily asking when, how, in what way he’d like to have a good time. Not if he wanted a good time.
Because of course Mike found the one place in town where the regulars would take a wall up on its offer of a booty call. None of the callers would tell him where it was, either— both times he tried to ask, they hung up abruptly. He got the distinct impression the establishment it was in wasn’t exactly legally owned and operated.
The forty-second call he received from an unknown number, he snapped.
“Whatever that wall told you,” he said, not even waiting for the caller to identify themselves, “I am not in the mood for a good time, I’m not up for fun, and neither will you be if you stay on this call.” Outside of the window, a shopping cart bumped along the pavement. Not one of the city’s loudest noises, but one of Matt’s least favorites.
A watery laugh trickled down the line. “Honestly? Good. I’m not up for fun right now either. I don’t even know why I called.”
The voice sounded friendly. But friendly as a habit, and the stranger’s hand was gripping the phone so tightly Matt could faintly hear his pulse through the phone line. That cheer was straining at the edges, close to snapping.
Matt could understand that feeling. With reluctant sympathy, he said, “If fun isn’t why you’re calling, what’s on your mind?”
A car honked its horn, then another, until the street in front of his building was a single cacophonous line. Not for the first time, he wished he could have afforded a slightly nicer office, one with actual soundproofing. “Shit,” the caller said, and for a single confused moment Matt thought he could hear the cars too. “Is it so obvious even a stranger with a sex line can tell?”
“It’s not a— this is my cell phone ,” he said irritatedly. “My regular, non-sex cell phone. My brother put my number on the wall somewhere and won’t tell me where.”
“That sucks, dude. Sounds like it’s been a week for both of us.”
“More of a two weeks. But yeah, thanks.” Matt fiddled with his pen. “And to answer your actual question… no, most people wouldn’t be able to tell. I’m… unusually perceptive.”
“I’ll say. Wish the people in my office could take their heads out of their asses long enough to perceive anything.”
He smiled, wryly, and pulled himself out of his seat. Better to close the office door if he was going to actually have a conversation. “Is that what you’re calling about?”
“Might be.” The man cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Look, I know this is weird, but while I’ve got you on the line… I’ve had a shitty day, and I’ve bitched to my family enough about this job. Mind hearing a stranger bitch about a bunch of other strangers?”
He wasn’t sure what compelled him to do it, exactly, but as he creaked the door shut, he said, “As long as this stranger’s willing to give me a name.”
“Foggy. Foggy Nelson,” the caller said easily, and his heartbeat was a little warped by the electronics, but Matt didn’t think he was lying. “And you are?”
His white noise machine buzzed and rattled as he tried to formulate a believable lie, then discarded the effort.
“I don’t know you that well yet,” Matt hedged. “I’d rather my actual contact info not go up on the wall.”
“Cool,” Foggy said, hurt in his voice, masked by that same habitual smile, and Matt felt a twinge of unexpected guilt. “But you don’t realize the power you’ve given me. I get to make my own name for you.” A faint hint of playfulness emerged. “Prince Humperdinck.”
Matt settled back into his chair. “That’s a mouthful.” It came out suggestive enough that Matt winced. He did not want to remind the man of whatever possessed him to dial his number in the first place. “Sure you don’t want to go with Westley?”
“From what you’ve told me, your brother’s more the type to command a band of misfit ne’er-do-wells.”
“True. My ne’er-do-welling is more of a solo act.”
Foggy laughed, a rich, pleasant sound. “Then I’ll call you Inigo. You seem swashbuckling and grumpy enough.”
Unbidden, he thought of Roscoe Sweeney. You killed my father— prepare to die wasn’t that far off.
“I’ll accept it,” he said. “And now that we’ve named me: how can I help you, Foggy?”
The hand on the phone tightened. “I hate it here,” Foggy said. “Everyone’s smug and I expected there’d be office politics, there always are, but they’re vicious. Cutthroat. And I need my blood on the inside, Inigo.” His tone went bitter. “I did months of research putting something together for a client but my boss took the credit. When I complained, they said I was too sloppy to write something that tidy.”
The ideas were jumbled, but Matt felt another unexpected twinge at the last sentence, this time of sympathy and fellow-feeling. Matt learned how to dress buttoned-up and sharp at a very young age. A hair out of place and he was the poor helpless blind kid again instead of the successful lawyer.
“I don’t get it,” Foggy continued. “I follow the dress code, just like the rest of them, but… I can’t ever get anything right. Can’t get anyone to take me seriously. I’m sick of it.”
Maybe this was a problem he could solve.
“I’m sorry,” he said, leaning forward over his desk. “I know what that’s like, and I want you to know it’s not a reflection on the quality of your work. It’s a reflection on the, the pettiness of the people observing you. But you want my advice?”
Foggy sighed. “Why the hell not.”
“It’s a game you’ve got to learn to play, so you can pick when they underestimate you.” He twirled his pen on the table, the scraping drowning out the street noise enough that he could concentrate. “How casual is your office?”
“Pretty fancy. Suit and tie.”
“Is yours tailored?”
“Nnnnnno.” Another heavy sigh. “You saying I need to?”
“It helps. But it’s an investment, maybe too much of one if you just want to figure out if dressing sharper will change their attitudes. Do you have collar stays?”
“No.”
“That’s an easy fix. I like the magnetic ones. Buy a pair, learn to use them, see if people respond differently in the office at all.”
“Thanks, dude.” Foggy’s grip on the phone had relaxed, enough that Matt could finally no longer hear his heart beating. “You are a surprisingly good listener and advice-giver, especially for someone whose number I pulled off the wall.”
“My pleasure.” Good. If Foggy was grateful for his advice, he probably wouldn’t hang up when Matt asked for some information in return. “Where are you calling from, anyway?”
“A bar at the edge of downtown. It’s called…” And just like that, his pulse was audible again. “Oh man, it’s called The Men’s Room. I wasn’t really paying attention when I walked in to use the bathroom.” He laughed, shakily. “Explains why they gave me a look when I said that, and why a couple of dudes tried to follow me there. Not that it wasn’t flattering, but I prefer my one-night stands with people I’ve had a conversation with, you know?”
“I do know.” It might have been a flirtation: hard to tell with the sounds of his body so distant. Irrelevant, either way. “Would you do me a big favor, Foggy?”
“Yeah.”
“Could you erase my number from the wall? Much as I’ve enjoyed this call, some of the others I’ve gotten have been less pleasant.”
“Sure.” The steady sound of Foggy’s pulse disappeared, and there was a rustling of cloth and skin as Foggy presumably tucked his phone into the waistband. Then the harsh sound of toilet paper being ripped off, and a squeaky rub that hurt Matt’s ears enough that he held the phone away from his face.
Foggy fumbled him out of the waistband of his pants. “It’s. Uh. Not coming off,” he said. “Pretty sure it’s written on in metallic Sharpie.”
“Of course it is.” Matt scrubbed his fingers over his eyebrows. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to come back there with a Sharpie yourself? I’d offer to reimburse you for it, but…”
“...you don’t know me,” Foggy finished. “I get it. Why don’t you just come wipe it off yourself? I told you where it was.”
“I, uh.” The answer was obvious, but he was unusually reluctant to give it to Foggy. For a wild moment, he almost considered going there himself, smelling for any Sharpie on the wall, and scribbling over it entirely. But there was no guarantee as to which number was his, and, much as he could moralize about it, he didn’t want to interrupt other people’s booty calls.
“Hard to scribble out your number with a Sharpie when you can’t see the walls,” he said finally.
One, two, three, four. It took Foggy about two fewer seconds to get it than average. “You’re blind ?”
“One hundred percent,” Matt said.
“Seriously, man?” Foggy said indignantly. “Your brother’s a dick. The tiny shriveled kind, not the fun type.”
Matt wrinkled his nose. “Much as I appreciate the sympathy, I’d rather stop thinking about my brother’s equipment.”
“Right. Right.” Three offices down, a printer clicked on and fed its paper into place with an inquisitive, flat hiss. “Well, I wasn’t ever planning on coming back here, but you’ve given me an excuse to steal supplies from my office, so…”
“I’d say ‘that’s the spirit,’ but I really don’t think I should be encouraging your petty theft.”
“Hmm. What if I tell you my office is hurting the little guy? That everything I take from them will get in the way of them actively making the world worse? Is petty theft on your behalf still wrong?”
“I’d say you’d have to make a pretty solid case. Theft is a sin for a reason.” But he found himself grinning. “I’d also say with that kind of argumentative power, you should be a lawyer.”
“Hahahaha.” Foggy sounded nervous. “Maybe.”