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The little old lady coos at Foggy and pats his hand, smiling at him. She's one of those old ladies who's shrunken like a raisin with her age, short curly grey hair, wrinkles everywhere, a print dress, pearls, even a cane. She's cartoonishly Old Lady-ish, really. The living and breathing personification of the concept of old ladies is pinching his cheek.
"It was nothing, Mrs. Wick," Foggy says. It wasn't as if there were any cases that weren't pro-bono for him to focus on. Might as well. "Give Nelson and Murdock a call if you ever need help again. And spread the word to your friends! Maybe not the 'will work for free' thing though..."
"What a darling." Mrs. Wick pats his stinging cheek, finally released. "I simply can't let you go empty handed, after doing such a good deed, too. Here you go, sweetie."
She reaches into her (huge, seemingly bottomless) purse, and Foggy is honestly expecting hard candy or something else stereotypical like that. Mrs. Wick is hilarious. Instead though, she mutters "ah ha!" and waves an unearthed box of tea in the air triumphantly. The sound of a single tea bag clattering around inside the paper box rattles along with Mrs. Wick's numerous pearl bracelets.
"Drink this for luck and prosperity, dearie," she says, pressing it into his hands. "You deserve it."
Wait, Gypsy Grandma as a twist? Nah, lots of old people have weird superstitions. Still comfortably within the expected.
Foggy thanks her, slips the tea into his pocket, and promptly forgets about it.
-
His dinner's almost ready (as in the pizza guy's almost here), and Foggy is tragically out of beer. He's in the middle of genuinely considering having tap water with his pizza when he remembers the tea bag. Tea with pizza. Well, better than water that vaguely tastes like rusty pipes, he guesses.
Over steaming pepperoni and tea leaves, Foggy raises his cracked mug ("Life is a beach!") and toasted, alone and completely unnecessary. "To luck and prosperity."
The tea tasted weird, but he washes the taste out with deliciously, hot, cheesy pizza goodness. It'd probably been lounging around in the bottom of Mrs. Wick's gigantic bag for literal years anyways. It's not strange.
Not at all.
-
Foggy always stop by the same cafe every morning on his way to work. Less expensive and crowded than Starbucks, good pastries, coffee that tastes like battery acid (guaranteed to wake you up!), and surly service. The person in front and the one behind him try and make conversation with him while they wait. Well, there are naturally chatty people out there, it just so happens that Foggy was saddled with two of them at the same time. Two chatty, oddly nervous, wide eyed people. Foggy jokingly tells himself he must be in the Twilight Zone when the cashier smiles instead of glares at him. Is outright baffled when he actually sees a number scrawled on his cup. He's not the Hunchback of Notre Dame or anything, but he's always had to work for his phone numbers. It doesn't just happen effortlessly like that.
But it's just a phone number, and he forgets about it as soon as he throws the empty Styrofoam cup away into a trash bin (cranky hipsters are just not his type) before he enters the office building. Karen and Matt are both already in, and they're just as normal as he left them yesterday. Karen ribs at him for not joining her drinking last night ("It was Matlock night, Karen." "No wonder old ladies like you Foggy, they recognize one of their own."), and Matt goes out of his way to be casual just enough for Foggy to know that he's probably beat up a bit worse than normal. Reckless ass, going around making him worry.
They do work. Karen spends her day trying to fix the ancient fax machine again. Matt works on one of the pro-bono cases they've got. Foggy desperately looks for a paying client. The day takes a turn back towards the bizarre again when he actually finds one. He manages to lure them into the office, but this is usually as far as he gets. Impressive their office is not. Instead of looking at the fax machine making malfunctioning noises (fair), or Matt's walking stick (infuriating), or the furniture they have clearly gotten from Craigslist (come on, everyone does it), the client seems to only have eyes for him. Which is. Uh. Karen and Matt, two of the literal hottest people Foggy has ever met, are right there. Matt doesn't even notice when you gratuitously check him out! (Or so those who didn't know better thought. Like him, for the past decade. Dear fucking god.)
"So if you'll just sign this contract, Mr. Smith..." Foggy coaxes, pushing the pen and contract towards the man who is not even pretending to be looking at the contract. Maybe he can work this weird, inexplicable thing to his advantage. Money is at the forefront of his mind, so tantalizingly close, helping him shrug off this strange turn of events. He's not used to people pursuing him.
"Would you like to discuss our history first? See if we're right for you?" Matt interjects, and what the fuck does he think he's doing?
"We've won all our cases so far," Foggy says quickly, before Mr. Smith takes Matt up on this offer and sees that they've had exactly one paying client so far. Who was very clearly a murderous psychopath. A beat later he remembers his advantage, and smiles as charmingly as he can at Mr. Smith, which is very charming indeed, thank you very much. Mr. Smith visibly melts. It's still weird, but flattering. So very flattering. Wait, shit, is his heart beat elevated? Foggy bets it fucking is. Which means that Matt knows that his heart beat is elevated. Aah, having an empowered best friend can be kind of embarrassing sometimes, which is not a downside Foggy would've predicted.
Mr. Smith signs the contract, and then he tries to stick around, chat up Foggy. Matt drives him out, snippy remarks hidden underneath a thin veneer of professionalism which is more condescending than polite, really. Mr. Smith doesn't seem to notice, too dazzled by Foggy, apparently (so weird). Foggy doesn't mind too much, considering the contract is already signed. That money is guaranteed. He's looking forward to paying his rent on time.
Matt is lowkey pissy for the rest of the day, so Foggy and Karen drag him out for drinks, which seems to cheer him up a bit. Until someone walks up and starts hitting on him. As in, on Foggy. Not Karen or Matt. Foggy's the one who walks up to people, not the one who get's... walked up to. And then it happens again. And again. And a-fucking-gain.
Shit is officially creepy. (Also, Matt's pissy again. Not like it took him an hour to calm him down or anything! Not like Matt goes Daredeviling extra hard when he's upset! Oh no! Not at all! Fuck.)
-
Mrs. Wick does take him up on his offer on calling them again, although she doesn't do it because she needs help. Apparently, he does.
"So," Mrs. Wick says, suddenly all awkward and skirting around the topic instead of just being a picture perfect grandma with weird ideas about tea. "My wife finally convinced me to go to the optometrist." Wife? Score one for Mrs. Wick for not fitting neatly in the old lady box after all. It's actually kind of funny/cool. He almost misses the next words out of her mouth, crackling over the phone line.
"And I must admit now that her nagging was... justified." She says the words like it's worse than pulling teeth, and Foggy hears a self righteous ha in the background sound on the other side of the phone line ("shut up Beatrice this is serious"). "Have you drunk the tea I gave you?"
"Yeah," Foggy says, and resists the impulse to tack on "and it was shitty."
"Fuck!" Mrs. Wick curses, and Foggy blinks, startled. He hears Beatrice cackling in the background, and Mrs. Wick starts cursing at her too. "Okay. Okay! So. That was not tea for luck and prosperity I gave you."
Foggy makes a neutral humming sound, playing along, humoring her. Mrs. Wick seems to be taking this seriously.
"I seem to have instead given you... Love Potion Number Nine."
"... Isn't that a song?"
"It's called a reference! The point is, people are falling heads over heels for you, right?"
Foggy is in the middle of giving her some placating agreement, when he stutters over his response, realizing that he should be giving her actual agreement. Because falling over heels sure describes what people have been doing around him the last couple of days.
"Damn it. It's working. Okay, don't panic, this should only last a couple of weeks. Maybe months. But you can bang the effects out at any moment you want!" Foggy chokes on air, mind still reeling. "You heard me. A good fuck will take care of all of your amorous admirers, which is everyone, currently. Except for other witches, 100% ladies only people, which is rarer than you'd think, people already in love with someone else, which is also rarer than you'd think, or aromantic people, which is far more common than you'd think. Sorry, and have fun!"
And then the decidedly deceptive Mrs. Wick hangs up. Foggy quickly finds out she's blocked his number, and also his personal number, somehow.
-
Foggy does not want to accept the existence of witches just like that. He already lives in a world full of super heroes and villains. And aliens. Who invade New York. Which is where he lives.
He doesn't want to accept it, but it is so, so hard not to.
He valiantly experiments anyways. Calls in loads of clients, tries to see how many he can charm into a paying agreement with the firm. There is a disturbing yet overjoying amount of agreements. There are two exceptions. One is a man who flagrantly stares at Karen the entire time ("100% ladies only people, which is rarer than you'd think"), and frankly Foggy is all too happy to kick him out. The other is a married woman (there have been another few married clients who all stared longingly at Foggy the entire time, which saddens the romantic in him, but gratifies his inner cynic). Mrs. Wick's nonsense seems to be holding up so far.
"Are you wearing a new cologne?" Karen asks.
Foggy is alarmed. He hadn't even stopped to think about how (mostly) normal his friends were, and what an unthought about relief that was. If Karen was starting to be affected as well-- "No, how come?" He smiles unconvincingly.
"Because damn has your game been good lately. What's your secret, Nelson?" She smiles jokingly at him, one raised eyebrow the only testament to the fact that she was genuinely curious.
"Must just be having a lucky streak," Foggy inadequately explains. He honestly wasn't able to come up with an explanation besides "magic", which was what he was trying to avoid saying in the first place.
Karen shoots him a suspicious look, but in the end just shrugs and goes back to her desk. She suddenly has some actual work to do now that Foggy's reeling in some real clients. He might have to start holding back a bit on that, actually. They're just a two-lawyer-and-one-secretary firm. It stings, not pressing his advantage when he finally has it. They always need clients so bad. At least Matt wasn't here to screw him over for some odd reason, instead out, too busy handling another client's case.
Foggy manages to distract himself from this line of thought by wondering whether Karen is aromantic or a witch. (Foggy has SEEN her shoot Matt some entirely fair and expected once overs, okay, so he knows that he can cross 100% ladies off the list at least.)
It could honestly be either.
-
It was not either. It was neither.
Foggy (with some helpful hints from Matt) has caught Karen sweet talking with her secret boyfriend Brett Mahoney on the office phone during office hours.
"I cannot believe this level of unprofessional-ism!" Foggy declares, waving his arms around grandiosely. He's really going to play this up for all it's worth.
"He can't believe you didn't tell him," Matt translates for him, unbidden.
"'Sweetie-pie'!? I'll have you know that this is a very somber establishment, Ms. Page!"
"Sweetie-pie is your new nickname now. He will never let you live this down," Matt continues.
Karen is bright red, but also trying desperately not to laugh.
"Seriously though, if you don't use this to manipulate the police to our advantage then I will have you declared a traitor and disinherit you."
"As if you weren't already blackmailing Brett with threats of giving his mother more cigarettes," Matt unhelpfully points out, as he is wont to do.
Karen finally breaks, howling.
Foggy's just glad the potion's not working on her. And the fact that she's happy, dating a guy that Foggy knows he can trust really doesn't hurt at all. Matt echoes the unspoken sentiment with his soft smile, a hand clasped to his shoulder.
-
It had honestly not occurred to Foggy for a moment to "bang it out".
Because these people aren't infatuated with him, but with some sort of magical pheromones he's giving off or whatever. Because they're basically super roofied and not in control of themselves around him. Foggy may use that to squeeze as much money out of them as possible, but he won't have sex with them. Because it wouldn't be sex, it'd be rape.
Man, Mrs. Wick turned out to be a really dark little old lady.
So Foggy is stuck for the next few weeks (or months) fending off unrequited advances. It is unexpectedly tiring. Foggy actually feels sorry for crotch-explodingly hot people. God, he'd never thought that'd happen. Next, hell will freeze over.
Karen is reasonably puzzled, but amused. Matt continues to be pissy. It's all very surreal.
-
Foggy tries also not think about why Matt isn't acting like a love struck fool. He fails. Hard.
He knows that Matt isn't aromantic. While all of his earlier relationships have indeed crashed and burned, there have been a LOT of them, and Matt painfully clearly tried so hard in every one of them. Was invested. Interested.
Which leaves witch, straight, or in love with someone else. And Foggy will be damned if Matt is a witch on top of everything else, chose to keep yet another secret after he'd sworn to be honest. Which only really leaves 100% (unattainable) straight Matt, or in love with someone else Matt. Foggy isn't sure which idea he dislikes more. A Matt he never he had a chance with, or a Matt who's happy? Well, it's actually really obvious when he phrases it like that. Now he just feels like an non supportive jerk.
Is he disappointed that Matt wasn't affected by the tea-potion thing? It'd be weird. Karen would notice, and he wouldn't know how to explain it to her. He'd feel like a jerk, making his best friend act and think and feel stuff he wouldn't normally do, think, or feel. He'd probably end up avoiding the office until everything blew over, which would be terrible for their already pretty terrible business.
But at least it'd mean that Foggy would have had a shot after everything was said and done. No matter how remote. But he knows that that's just wishful thinking, had always know that. Clinging to any hope deep, deep down was stupid of him. This could be actually sort of seen as a good thing. A final wake up call.
Foggy still sends Mrs. Wick twelve angry drunken texts in the span of one night, blocked or not.
-
It occurs to Foggy to tell Matt about the love potion. His first reaction is to hold back out of spite. He can keep a secret too. His second reaction is to feel like a hypocritical jerk and change his mind. His third reaction is to be embarrassed and change his mind again. Witches? Magic tea bags? He'll look crazy. His fourth reaction is to remember that Matt can hear his heart beat, can tell whether he's lying or not, has lived through some crazy shit, still is. He'll believe him. His fifth reaction is to get mad when he remembers the heart beat thing and the could-always-tell-when-you-were-lying thing. His sixth reaction is just to call Matt over so he can put himself out of his misery already and rip this whole thing off like a mortifying, absurd band aid.
Telling secrets is hard.
Matt comes over looking worried. His face does some interesting acrobatics when Foggy tells him. Blank incomprehension. That facial expression that's basically the nonverbal version of "Oh, so that's what that was about." And then his face goes carefully neutral.
"So... do you know why I'm not... affected?"
"You're either straight or interested in someone else. Or you've been magic on top of everything else all along and decided not to tell me. I gotta' tell you Matt, if it's that last one--"
"I'm not a wizard, Foggy." Matt smiles at him, and Foggy grins back, ignores the fact that Matt kind of dodged the question there. Maybe he didn't. Maybe he just assumes that Foggy knows that he's straighter than an arrow. He probably is.
"That's a relief, even though an abracadabra that'd fix this mess would be great about now. I don't think you're supposed to block your client's number, and the barista is getting progressively bolder with her advances. At this point, I might have to just start drinking Karen's coffee."
"I'll pray for you," Matt says mildly, but his stupidly handsome brow furrows at the reminder off their lusty clientele.
"So, which is it?" Foggy says, forcing a topic change that'll be less painful for Matt but infinitely more so for Foggy. Perhaps he's a masochist. "Straight or taken?"
"I won't be pulling a Karen, if that's what you're asking."
"Talk about a dark horse," Foggy says agreeably, and downs some beer to try and avoid thinking about the indirect answer that was just given. Straight. Never had a shot, never would have.
"... I'm not straight either though, I'm pretty sure," Matt says slowly, carefully.
Foggy spills beer all over his shirt and almost coughs his lungs up. Matt patts him on the back some and makes concerned noises.
"Wha... what?" Foggy clears his throat. "You're... aromantic?" Foggy had not seen this coming at all--
Matt does that thing where he looks like he'd be rolling his eyes if he weren't blind. "I'm already in love," Matt says, almost shyly. "But it's not with someone else."
Foggy stops breathing for a moment again, for non beer related reasons this time.
Their first kiss tastes like lukewarm Heineken.
-
Foggy ends up choosing not to "bang the effects out" even when the option finally becomes viable. So he loves money. Sue him. Except no, you can't, he can out-lawyer anyone. ANYONE. Matt is a goody two shoes Catholic boy who's default setting is to take it glacier slow, so he's perfectly fine with it. (It was mostly those girls who seemed to come straight out of noir TV dramas who made the first moves.)
In retrospect, Foggy finds it kind of hilarious/embarrassing (embarralous? Hilarissing?) that his decision to finally bang his super hot boyfriend was prompted by the fact that the barista started sullenly glaring at him again one morning.
He never does drink off brand tea again.