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He doesn’t like to eat in public. He doesn’t like to eat in groups, or around people in general, not even if the people are very nice and very polite, not even if they offer to share with him or order the same things he does. It’s harder to deal with than you’d think, really, especially in a career that is too much about nice suits and nicer dinner parties, in a city where you’re more than halfway expected to buy a hot dog on every street corner. He pleads an empty wallet too often for the excuse to ring true, anymore, but it’s not like he can tell anybody what his real reasons are. He gets very good at putting on a silly face and a silly voice and prattling on about his manly and chivalrous honor when people offer to pay for his meals, if he’s really so broke, and then everyone laughs and everyone forgets and Foggy is the only one not talking through a mouthful of mystery meat as whatever group he’s in makes its way toward whatever destination. With drinking, be it coffee or alcohol, things are somehow easier. It’s all right to sit next to someone and sip at a mug or a glass and he doesn’t really understand it but he certainly appreciates it, because he can’t afford to go his entire life without consuming something in a social setting, not if he wants to have any friends at all. He likes dates at Starbucks and nights at bars and he even likes Jamba Juice, because smoothies are in this weird food-drink limbo that he resolutely does not question, not even a little bit.
If it wasn’t for the whole “societal expectations revolving around communal eating” thing it would maybe even be something of a blessing—it’s certainly one for his wallet, when he saves enough on fancy restaurants to cover the food he actually will eat, when he can call for Chinese takeout (not that he does, not as often as he maybe should) and have it delivered straight to his door with nobody to stare him down and judge, when he can pick up bags of whatever he wants (whatever he wants is something he’s still getting used to, because god, adulthood is weird, so weird that he really hardly ever takes advantage of this apparent freedom) from the grocery store and cook for himself in his own apartment and it’s cheap—but it never quite seems to work out that way. No matter what, Foggy always feels his difference and discomfort like a shroud, like a veil, always feels like he sticks out like a sore and bleeding thumb every time he begs off dinners with friends due to some imaginary prior engagement, every time they know and he knows they know and he knows they aren’t going to ask him but their curiosity is picking at him, stabbing at him, their innocent smiles of acceptance nothing more than bared teeth. Everybody wants to know, he can feel it, he can smell it, and he can’t do a damn thing about it. It’s not like he can just tell someone, hey, I don’t like to eat around people, because all that would do is whet their curiosity and invite questions he doesn’t want to hear and doesn’t want to answer. It’s an impossible position and it sucks and by the end of his law school career the only friends he has are those he sees in class and never wants to talk too long to, just in case talk turns to trying out the new Indian place down the block.
Things are better around Matt, who has figured out his preferences and doesn’t question them, who is all too used to getting questioned, who knows what it’s like and doesn’t want to spread it around. Matt gets it even if he doesn’t know the reasons why, Matt lets him eat where and when he pleases and never asks about getting lunch together and even refuses invitations so Foggy doesn’t have to, usually with some self-deprecating remark about blind people having no use for restaurant décor; Foggy is supremely grateful all the time even if he has no intention of letting Matt know about, well, about things Foggy doesn’t let people know about ever. He almost thinks about eating with Matt, because at least the guy couldn’t stare at him, but he’d probably expect to talk and he’d probably be able to hear Foggy eat with those really weird-good hearing skills of his, and by the time Foggy reaches that train of thought he’s invariably lost his appetite altogether. So they don’t eat around each other, and they don’t talk about not eating around each other, and everything’s great in that department.
When they hire Karen, Foggy lives in quiet terror for weeks that she’ll ask him out to lunch and he’ll have to say no and make up some excuse and she’ll think he doesn’t like her even if he does like her, he really does, but there are things he won’t do, not even for pretty girls. But Karen is too preoccupied with her various and sundry near-death experiences, and when she does want to consume things in Foggy’s vicinity she is all too happy to want alcohol instead of anything else, and Foggy is all too happy to help her out in that particular department. She’s content to want alcohol for the foreseeable future, and this is the kind of arrangement he is perfectly comfortable with, so things are good there too.
He pins his issues down to the social, and ignores the sorry empty state of his fridge and his pantry and his everything else. He doesn’t have a problem, he’s just kind of poor and still new to living on his own and besides, someone with a problem wouldn’t be as fat as he is. He eats when he feels he’s done enough to deserve eating, because food is something that needs justification, and if he ends most days without deserving it then that’s just how things are. He isn’t starving, anyway, he drinks coffee and smoothies and cuts into his emergency hoards of junk food when he can’t think but for the noise of his stomach and he’s just fine, thank you very much.
He’s just fine.
(Author’s Notes: This is, I believe, my first-ever fill (it isn’t complete yet, of course, but still worth mentioning)! I really had no intention of starting something like this, not with finals coming up, but this prompt surprised me with how much I wanted it done to my exact specifications—as such, I realized I had to fill it myself. I cannot guarantee a regular schedule for updating (as mentioned previously, finals!) but I hope as much as you do that I can find it within myself to finish this. If you have any comments, critiques, concerns or suggestions, I’d love to hear them (is that allowed? Can I ask for that?)! I’m thinking about mirroring this with a chapter from Matt’s point of view, before moving on to what might be considered actual action. Any thoughts or advice? I hope I’m doing this right!)