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sesamestreep · 3 months

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can’t do my homework and i can’t think straight

(read on AO3)

(read the series in order)

SUMMARY: Foggy spends a month and half thinking about that New Year’s Eve kiss with Matt and resolves to do something about it, finally. A/N: a Valentine's Day follow up to my New Years fic/1960s AU! Hooray!! LOVE! Content warning for some period-typical homophobia stuff but not a lot honestly and nothing explicit/violent. Mostly it’s just idiotic pining and being excited to kiss your BFF! Enjoy! MWAH! 💋♥️

People warned Foggy that something like this would happen. They said that his last semester of law school would be the toughest, not just because he’d have to worry about the bar exam and finding a job on top of his schoolwork, but because he’d find that he suddenly wanted to give up on all of it and do nothing instead. And he does! He’s getting precisely nothing done for any of his classes and even less done for his other responsibilities. He, apparently, wants to squander twenty-something years of hard work in school, tank his grades, and abandon all of his ambitions at once. But that’s unfortunately not the worst of it. Foggy has a bigger problem. It’s one thing to not want to deal with his responsibilities, but the thing he does want to do instead is…dangerous. It’s not something he should be considering at all.

On New Year’s Eve—or, rather, in the first moment of the New Year—he’d done the most foolish, drunken, idiot thing that he’d ever come up with in his whole natural life and he’d kissed his roommate at the stroke of midnight. It wasn’t a serious kiss—he’d been going for Matt’s cheek, trying to be friendly about it, but Matt had turned at the last second and he’d caught him on the mouth instead. All told, it had only lasted a moment, but it had been on his mind ever since. Neither of them had gotten carried away, or done anything really that Foggy regrets, except the part where they eventually broke apart and acted like nothing had happened. That had been regrettable and, if Foggy’s being honest with himself, it’s the breaking apart that he most regrets.

In the month or so since, they’ve successfully gone back to normal. They’re the same as they’ve ever been, except now Foggy knows what it’s like to kiss Matt—earnestly and chastely, sure, but a kiss is a kiss. And the really dangerous thing is that he wants to know more. He wants to know what it’s like to kiss Matt with the guarantee of privacy, when they’re not in uncomfortable party clothes at a stuck up classmate’s apartment, when they don’t have the excuse of New Year’s Eve. He wants to know what it’s like to kiss him just as earnestly but not so chastely. He’s distracted by daydreams of pinning him to his bed and kissing him for hours and then—he doesn’t know what, then, but he’s thinking about it rather than studying right now and he doesn’t have the faintest idea what he’s supposed to do about it.

It’s proven to be a persistent distraction. In the library, he thinks of talking Matt into sneaking off and kissing him in the dusty old reference section where no one would interrupt them. When they’re grabbing food on campus, he thinks of kissing Matt briefly on the lips when he thanks him for grabbing him a cup of coffee or passing the salt shaker, like Foggy has seen old married couples do. When they’re alone in their apartment, trying to get ahead of all their work for this semester, Foggy thinks about sitting on Matt’s bed, where he does most of his studying, and gently taking off his glasses and putting them aside so he can kiss him until they both forget about law school and the bar exam and the future.

It’s a wonder he hasn’t flunked out already.

It’s just nerves, he figures. Foggy doesn’t want to deal with reality, where he has to graduate and get a job and become an actual adult in the next six months, so he’s picked something outlandish and impossible to distract himself with. He’s never wanted to kiss another guy before this, so it’s odd that it’s started now. Too odd to be a coincidence. It has to be some sort of avoidant behavior.

Then again, he has spent the last six years of his life talking about how great Matt is and grumbling good-naturedly about how all the girls want him instead. Was this something he was always thinking of in the back of his mind during those moments? He calls Matt handsome a lot, after all. And why had he even gone to kiss him on the cheek that night anyway? Matt had talked about not wanting to kiss someone at midnight that he’d never see again and Foggy had been, well, a little drunk but also unimpressed. Matt loved to flirt with girls and never see them again. It was a constant source of annoyance among the female population of their acquaintance. Foggy had just felt fed up with Matt’s excuses and reckless and drunk and he’d…well, he’d thought it was his right, as Matt’s best friend, to shock him out of his bad mood and cheer him up. And so he’d kissed him. No matter how much he tries to do the math, he can’t make it add up right.

Foggy’s not the sort of guy who cares about these things, usually. He’s been called a pansy and a sissy and a lot of less nice words his whole life, because he’s a little soft and a little sensitive and he doesn’t care about a lot of the things guys his age are meant to care about. He can’t keep the rules of football straight enough to care about catching the game, he doesn’t know anything about cars because he grew up in the city without one, and he wants to be a lawyer to help people, not to be able to afford a country club membership one day. That’s apparently enough to be considered effeminate these days, as some men are only too happy to tell him. Foggy doesn’t let it get to him often; he knows who he is and he earned that the hard way. People that don’t get it don’t have to bother with him.

He never felt weird about it growing up. He was always a mama’s boy anyway, and his mother didn’t try to toughen him up or anything silly like that. She appreciated the help in the kitchen and with the housework and she insisted that if he was going to go off into the world, he would know how to hard boil an egg and sew a button and iron his own clothes, so that he wouldn’t be dazzled by the first girl who could do those things for him. It was, she claimed, to ensure he ended up with someone worthy, someone he actually liked and respected. Respect was a big thing with his mother, for obvious reasons, he supposed. She’d been insistent with teaching him and his brother how to act right around girls. She taught them to take no for an answer, and to listen when girls talked about their dreams and their needs. She’d had to teach their father these things after they got married, and she considered herself lucky that she’d got herself a husband who was even willing to put in the effort, but her sons were going to do better. They would be respectful and kind and decent. They would be gentlemen.

Foggy’s brother got married right out of high school and started providing his parents with grandchildren immediately, so the pressure had been off Foggy for a while. Thankfully, too, because Foggy met lots of nice girls who were interesting and pretty and none of them seemed to feel the same way about him. He’s dated, of course, but it always stalls out somewhere. The closest he got to something serious was with Marci during their sophomore year but she ran hot and cold on him for a almost a year before they ultimately called it off. Foggy wanted someone who wanted him all the time, and he suspected Marci also wanted that too. That she wanted to want him more than she actually just wanted him. She got engaged to someone else a few months ago and Foggy had drank himself into a stupor about it more out of general dissatisfaction with his life than personal injury to his pride. Matt had rubbed his back and lied through his teeth about how Foggy would find someone too someday during the subsequent hangover.

Which brings him back to Matt, like always. Foggy’s comfortable around Matt, in a way he’s never been around any girl, but he always assumed that was pure socialization. His mother and everyone else on earth had been drumming into his ear from the age of 10, if not earlier, that he wasn’t to take liberties with girls, that he should never be alone with them, that they were different creatures from him and that they wanted different things—nicer things and softer things, purer things—and that they’d be insulted by his base desires so he’d better keep those damn things on a leash around them. Foggy doesn’t mind being respectful, but he’s met his fair share of girls in college and law school, and some of them want things that make him blush. Some of them, he imagines, would be just fine with the things he wants to do with them, if their parents and teachers and whoever else could just ease up on the expectations every now and again.

He doesn’t feel that guilt when he thinks about Matt. He doesn’t feel like he’d have to lie about what he wants with another guy. He wouldn’t have to avoid or acknowledge the specter of marriage if he was with another guy, because it’s not a possibility. He wouldn’t have to panic about getting anyone into trouble—well, he wouldn’t have to worry about getting anyone pregnant, at least. Fooling around with a man is, technically, illegal, so he could get someone into a lot of trouble, actually. But he and Matt already live together. There’s a lot less danger with that kind of thing in your own home, or at least he thinks. He doesn’t know for sure.

He’s only ever been with girls, and only a few. He doesn’t even know any gay men, as far as he knows. He just…gets hot when he thinks about it, and he suspects that’s enough. Maybe it’s the sort of feeling that only matters when you act on it—maybe if he finds a nice girl and settles down and never thinks about doing something filthy to his best friend in the law library again, he can safely claim he’s just a straight man for as long as he lives—but Foggy already thinks that’s bullshit and he hasn’t even done anything yet. Just the thought is enough, for him. Maybe not for other people, that’s not really his business, but the minute he started thinking and feeling this way, he knew something about himself. Maybe not something he’d necessarily been hiding or ignoring, but something that was true nonetheless, whether it was new or not.

And now he’s thinking about Matt and running his hands up his sides and combing his hair with his fingers while he kisses him senseless for endless stretches of time and his essay isn’t getting done and he’s hard underneath his desk. He leans back in his chair, disappointed in himself as usual, and counts back from one hundred by threes until he calms down. Something must be done about this, he decides, then and there. This is getting out of control.

By the time Matt comes home an hour later, he’s come up with a plan. A stupid plan, probably, but a plan nonetheless.

“Matt, thank God,” he says, as Matt strips off his coat to hang it up by the door. That action alone does not make his heart race, at all, and he would swear to it under oath. “Save me from this essay.”

“Going that well, huh?” Matt asks, coming to stand by his shoulder, and smelling of the sharp, cold winter air.

Foggy leans back in his chair, until his head rests against Matt’s stomach. Matt puts a hand on his shoulder, looking down at him sympathetically. “Spectacular,” Foggy says. “My best work yet.”

“Good to hear,” Matt says, giving him a friendly, encouraging pat before starting to turn away. “I’m going to take a shower to thaw out. You mind?”

“No,” Foggy replies, definitely not thinking about warming Matt up himself. “I mean, it’s not like the heat in this place is anything to write home about.”

“I meant, you don’t need the bathroom before I go in there?”

Foggy shakes his head, clearing out the cobwebs. “Oh, no, go ahead.”

“Thanks.”

“Wait, Matt…”

“Yeah?”

Foggy licks his lips, thinking about his incredibly stupid plan and decides he’d rather get it over with now, so that if it crashes and burns, Matt will go take his shower and Foggy can suffer his embarrassment alone and in relative peace. He can even sneak out of the apartment, if it goes really, really poorly.

“I just remembered, I, uh, had a question for you,” he says, trying to seem nonchalant about it.

Matt shifts to face him more fully and crosses his arms over his chest. “Okay. Shoot.”

“Are you doing anything Friday?” Foggy asks, feeling like his heart is beating in the vicinity of his throat. “Night, I mean. Friday night.”

“Uh, no?” Matt answers, hesitantly. “I don’t think so. Why?”

“I was thinking we could go to the movies,” Foggy says. “I mean, I want to go to the movies and I hate going alone, so if you’d—it’d be my treat, since I want to go and you maybe don’t—but if you’d go with me, that would be, well…good.”

“Oh,” Matt says, softly and with some confusion. “Well, I don’t really go to the movies much, for…obvious reasons.”

Foggy’s face heats. “Right, of course. I know. I just…I could describe stuff, when there’s no dialogue. I’ve done that before…with you…”

“Sure,” Matt says, looking slightly uncomfortable. “But the, uh, other thing is…well, Friday is Valentine’s Day.”

“Oh, I hadn’t actually realized,” Foggy replies, faintly. He had known, of course. He was counting on everyone around them being gooey in love to embolden him and maybe soften the ground a little. Holiday love rituals had gotten him this far, after all. “You probably have plans, or you want to keep it open for a girl, or something.”

Matt shakes his head, frowning. “No, no, it’s not that,” he says, stuffing his hands into his pockets uncomfortably. “It’s just that the movies will be packed with people on dates and we’ll be ruining the mood talking through the whole picture.”

“Yeah,” Foggy says, sadly. “You’re probably right. I, uh, just thought…well, I needed a carrot on a string to get me through this essay and I thought if I said I’d go to…never mind. I’m acting nuts and I hadn’t realized, about Valentine’s Day and all, so it’s—”

“Foggy,” Matt interrupts, gently, “you know, if you’re still upset about Marci getting engaged and Valentine’s Day is going to be tough for you this year, you can just say that.”

Foggy just blinks at him, utterly surprised by this. “What?”

Matt huffs, like he doesn’t really want to have to say any of this but he has to. “I just, you don’t have to lie,” he explains. “If you need company on Friday, just say so! I don’t mind. Valentine’s Day puts ideas into girls’ heads anyway, so I don’t mess around with it. We can do something the two of us. But be honest enough to tell me the real reason, okay?”

Foggy is nodding along with all of this like it makes all the sense in the world, when really his insides are in turmoil. Because his lie absolutely didn’t work and Matt saw through it immediately, but he’s also given Foggy the perfect new excuse—a better one, even. Matt will absolutely forego any other plans to support Foggy in his time of need. He’d get what he wants, which is to spend Valentine’s Day with his…well, his crush, and he wouldn’t have to admit anything right now. But he’d get it by lying, and that’s the sticking point. Because Matt just asked him not to do that and Foggy’s stupid and idealistic and, deep down, honest. He wants this thing, but he wants even more to get it honestly, which is just not going to happen.

He’s still nodding when he says, “That’s sweet of you, Matt, but you—you’re wrong. I mean, that’s not why I asked.”

Matt’s head tips to the side in interest. “Oh?”

The nice thing about being in love with someone who’s blind, Foggy realizes now, is that he doesn’t feel any pressure to look Matt in the eyes when he confesses his feelings. He’s staring at the floor, in fact, when he says, “I asked you out because I want to take you out. On a date.”

“You want to—on a date?”

Foggy laughs, a little bitterly, at the shock in Matt’s voice and doesn’t check to see if it’s visible on his face. Everyone wants to date Matt; how could this possibly be that much of a surprise?

“Yeah,” he says. “I do.”

“Why?”

Foggy laughs again and then sighs. In for a penny… “Well, what I’d really like to do is kiss you again and I think the old adage is that I should buy you dinner first.”

There’s a pointed silence after he says that, like Matt is trying to make him think about what he’s done and really stew in it. And it should be brutal, really it should, but the truth is, he feels better than he has in at least a month. It’s hurt more than he’s realized to keep this in, to lie and make excuses when he stares at Matt a little too long or wants him too much. There’s a chance this will ruin their friendship forever, that Matt’s actually deeply offended and sickened right now and will demand he leave or something equally dramatic, that Matt will react violently, as some men do, to the idea that another man wants him like that. But, more likely, it will just make things weird between them for a while, it will change their dynamic in some ways, but mostly, Matt will just know. About Foggy. And that feels…nice, in some way. Just to tell someone, to not be alone with the idea anymore. Even if he doesn’t get what he wants out of it.

“I thought a movie ticket would suffice,” Foggy continues, since Matt clearly isn’t going to say anything. “And a popcorn. I’m not a cheapskate, after all.”

“Foggy,” Matt interjects, sounding raw. It’s only then that Foggy chances to even look at him and his expression is open and…hurt. That’s not what Foggy was expecting at all. “Please…”

“Please what?” Foggy asks, breathless. He doesn’t dare to hope…

“Please don’t do this,” Matt says, and crushes that faint ember of hope immediately. “It was one kiss. It’s not a big deal. We don’t have to—“

“I know we don’t have to, Matt. I’m saying I want to. I want you.”

“You don’t. You’re confused, and lonely, and it’s just—“

“Matt, please,” Foggy says, holding up a hand to forestall him, “it’s okay. You can reject me, that’s fine, but do me the courtesy of not telling me how I feel, alright? I know how I feel, much better than you do.”

“I’m sorry,” Matt replies, shakily, like he’s trying hard not to cry and of all the things in this conversation that could break Foggy’s heart, it’s that. Not the parts about him or his own feelings, but knowing that he’s made Matt want to cry. Matt’s his favorite person in the whole world. Foggy never wants him to cry, least of all because of him. That’s the worst case scenario. “I’m glad you told me, really—“

“Okay,” Foggy snorts. “There’s no need for you to lie either.”

“I mean it, though! I am glad. And I’m—I love you, Foggy. This doesn’t change anything.”

It will change plenty, Foggy thinks, but he knows what Matt means. He means that they’ll still be best friends, and roommates, and they’ll still be here for each other. It means that Matt doesn’t mind that he’s…well, queer and that’s…something. It would be worth a lot more to him if it wasn’t on the heels of a rejection, so Foggy imagines one day he’ll be able to appreciate it, once the hurt of the other thing fades. If he’s good at one thing in this life, it’s brushing off rejection. He’s had his fair share of practice.

“Thanks,” is what he manages to say, staring at the floor again.

“It’s for the best,” Matt says. “It wouldn’t be like you think it would. I’d disappoint you, I promise, and then we’d ruin everything.”

Foggy picks his head up at that. As rejections go, it’s an odd tact to take. He’s had more than one girl do the whole ‘you’re too good for me and that’s why we won’t work’ routine with him and it never feels genuine. Matt’s talking like that now, except he’s shaking and stuttering his way through it, which either means he does genuinely believe it or he’s the world’s greatest actor. Foggy assumed the genuine feeling in what Matt’s saying was because he genuinely loves Foggy as a friend and hates to hurt him. But what if—?

“Matt,” Foggy says, softly, “I need to ask you something. And I promise I’m not being a sore loser or anything like that, but I need you to answer honestly.”

Matt fidgets where he’s standing, looking very much like someone who’s going to lie no matter what. “Alright,” he says, instead, the word coming out like a breath.

“Are you saying no because you really don’t want me at all?” Foggy asks, heart in his throat again. “Or are you saying no because you think you should?”

Matt’s expression turns pained. “Foggy…”

“Because I’ve been listening to what you’re saying—really, I have—and I haven’t actually heard you say that you don’t want this. That you don’t want me, I mean. You’ve just said it’s a bad idea, and it would go wrong, and you’d disappoint me, but you haven’t actually said no…”

“Don’t make me say it,” Matt whispers, with a white knuckle control over himself that Foggy envies. “Just, please, don’t.”

“I need you to,” Foggy says, and is disappointed to feel tears in his own eyes now. “I need you to, Matt, so I can stop hoping.”

Matt shakes his head, and Foggy prepares himself for it. To hear the word ‘no’ and start living in a world where he was stupid enough to ask for this in the first place. He thinks he’s tough enough to bear it, but it will be something to bear. He won’t be able to carry it off lightly, not for a long time, he imagines.

Matt takes another shaky breath, and lets it out slowly. “This is a bad idea,” he says, and Foggy’s never crossed a room faster in his life.

He’s never going to forget, not as long as he lives, the way it feels to take Matt’s face in his hands and move to kiss him, only to find him waiting for it, eagerly. The last time had been an accident, a mistake, a surprise and it had been clumsy and shy as a result. It hadn’t been his most passionate and artful kiss in memory but it had haunted him nonetheless. This kiss is something else. It isn’t artful either but it is the expression of a month’s—of who knows how long’s—worth of passion contained haphazardly, stuffed away where it wouldn’t bother anyone. If saying what he felt out loud for the first time was freeing, this is reality altering.

He knew Matt could kiss. Of course, he could. Being handsome could get you dates, but the sort of passionate pursuit Matt so often inspired could only come from being an actual good time. But Matt can really kiss, Foggy’s just now understanding. He’d normally be more gracious and more deferential about just slipping his tongue into someone’s mouth right away, but Matt’s parting his lips and allowing him in instantly, begging for it, really. Foggy knew he was passionate, but there’s a difference between knowing and knowing and now he knows. It’s like he’s holding fire in his hands.

“Still think this is a bad idea?” Foggy asks, against his mouth. He can feel Matt’s teeth against his bottom lip, not biting down, just there as they indelicately pant into each other’s mouths.

Matt groans, and Foggy feels it like it’s everywhere. “It’s the worst fucking idea of all time,” he says, shaking his head.

Foggy nods and moves to give him a series of brief, but equally messy kisses, all of which Matt meets just as eagerly as the first one. “We could stop,” he says, “if you want.”

“You can’t—“ Matt laughs, kind of miserably. “That’s not fair.”

“What’s not fair? We can stop! I’m not kidding.”

“I don’t want to stop,” Matt replies, burying his face in Foggy’s neck. “I mean, Jesus Christ, Foggy! You know I don’t.”

Foggy threads his fingers through Matt’s hair, his first fantasy to come to life so far. “I don’t know anything you haven’t told me, baby,” he says, emboldened by Matt swearing. He almost never does that, and he always looks all guilty and repentant afterwards. He doesn’t look guilty now, though.

Matt groans into his neck, which feels incredible, and Foggy takes the chance to kiss his temple where he can reach it. “Oh, God,” Matt says, not sounding pleased.

“What?” Foggy asks, maneuvering him so he can see Matt’s face again. “Was it the ‘baby’ thing? Because that just came out, but if you don’t like it…”

Matt shakes his head and rubs a hand over his face. “That was—I don’t know. ‘Fine’ is definitely not the right word, but…I don’t mind it.”

“You don’t mind it?”

A charming pink color rises in Matt’s cheeks. “I liked it,” he grumbles, as though it’s been bullied out of him.

“Then, what’s the matter? And don’t say nothing, because you took the Lord’s name in vain back there, so I know it was something.”

Matt shakes his head again, like he can keep whatever is bothering him at bay by just denying it enough. “It’s just…such a mess,” he says, quietly, like reality can hear them.

“It’s not such a mess, is it?”

“I don’t—I’ve never—I didn’t know you—“

“Matt,” Foggy says, holding his face, “baby, breathe, okay? It’s not—we don’t have to figure it out tonight.”

“Right, but—“ Matt pauses, chewing on his lower lip. “Everything’s different now, isn’t it?”

Foggy considers this, because a rash answer seems like the likeliest way to cause harm here. He’s had a month of thinking this over, deciding what it means in relation to who he is, figuring out how he feels about it. If he knows Matt, and if he’s had any sort of similar feelings since their first kiss, he’s shoved them somewhere dark and deep and refused to think about them at all. He’s trying to make sense of it all right now this second, which is a tall order for anybody and an even taller one for the likes of Matt.

“Some things are the same,” Foggy says, brushing a thumb over Matt’s cheekbone tenderly. “You’ve got me, same as always. We’ll figure out the rest eventually, okay? There’s no rush.”

Something about Matt’s expression says that he really wants to argue about this, but the daunting task of parsing everything this could possibly change for both of them, individually and together, must outweigh his stubbornness, because he eventually surrenders and nods. He lifts a hand up to curl around Foggy’s wrist where he’s still holding Matt’s face, his fingertips brushing against Foggy’s pulse point.

“Okay,” he says, sounding entranced by Foggy’s false confidence. “So, what now?”

“Well, I was going to let you take your shower, finally,” Foggy says, stepping back a little, “after I rudely distracted you.”

Matt wets his lips and nods, looking very distracted. “I’m not really cold anymore,” he says, with a laugh.

“One of my many talents,” Foggy replies, smiling. “I’m basically a furnace.”

“I already knew that.”

“Yeah, well…”

“I could probably still use the shower, though,” Matt says, thoughtfully.

“Yeah, go ahead. I need to work on this, anyway, and like I said, I didn’t mean to—“

“I think,” Matt interjects, slowly, like the idea’s still coming to him, “you should join me, actually.”

That stops Foggy short. “Join you?”

“Yeah,” Matt replies, licking his lips still, which…he really needs to stop that immediately.

“In the shower?”

Matt hums in agreement, and waits expectantly. “You don’t want to?” he asks, sounding surprised and…yes, disappointed.

“I don’t, um…is this something—is this code for something?” Foggy asks, feeling embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what I’m doing! I just thought if I acted like I was confident, it would—“

Matt comes closer again, and wraps his arms around Foggy’s middle before pressing a kiss to his sternum, which is covered in a thick, cable knit sweater and a few other layers besides, but he feels it like it’s directly on his skin.

“You’ve never showered with a girl, then, I take it?” Matt asks, and it’s very clear he’s trying to be patient and maybe not laugh, which Foggy appreciates, all things considered.

“Uh, no,” Foggy replies, mind reeling. No girl has ever offered and he’d never thought of it. He feels very sheltered all of a sudden. “I haven’t. Is it—is it fun?”

Matt clearly tamps down on his smile for Foggy’s benefit. “It can be,” he says, gently, “but if it’s too fast, we don’t have to…”

“Not too fast,” Foggy interjects, even though his heartbeat is already galloping away at the idea. Excitedly, though. Matt, naked. Matt, warm and wet in his arms. He can see the appeal. Easily.

“No?” Matt asks, eyes crinkling at the corners with amusement. Foggy’s excitement was maybe too obvious, in retrospect.

“I mean, it’s one way to conserve hot water,” Foggy says.

“Ever the pragmatist,” Matt says, and kisses him again, searching and slow and deep. Like he’s trying to pull Foggy under with him. “We can still take it slow,” he adds, when he’s got Foggy good and pliant.

Foggy nods, obedient. He’s struggling to think what Matt could ask for right now that he wouldn’t give him, but that doesn’t matter. They seem to want the same thing at the moment.

“We’ll figure it out,” he says, against Matt’s mouth. “Together.”

“Together,” Matt agrees, as they continue to get lost in each other.

After they’ve showered and gotten themselves decent again (which takes…a while, obviously), Foggy makes them both grilled cheese sandwiches and heats up some leftover soup while Matt sits on the counter, telling Foggy about his day and looking pretty. It’s the happiest Foggy can remember being in a very long time.

Once dinner’s done and eaten, Matt banishes him from the kitchen so he can clean up and orders him to work on his essay again. It’s been a productive and rewarding study break by any metric, so Foggy doesn’t argue, even though he wants to. He doubts his professor gives extensions for lovesickness, anyway. Not without a doctor’s note, at least.

Matt’s iron will only lasts an hour, until he comes to find Foggy working in the living room and starts kissing his neck without preamble. It’s pretty clear from that that the studying portion of the evening is now over, so Foggy picks him up and presses him into the couch cushions and does his level best to get Matt to take the Lord’s name in vain some more.

A few hours, and a lot more fooling around, later finds them in Foggy’s bed, because the radiator in Matt’s room has been making weird noises that they’ve had no luck talking their super into fixing so far. There’s the comforting sound of the functioning radiator running in the background, and the light rhythmic tapping as sleet hits the windows, and the noises of traffic on the street below, but mostly Foggy is just listening to Matt breathe as they lie together in the dark. He’s also playing with Matt’s hair again, because his daydreams didn’t do justice to how soft it would be and how quickly Matt would turn into a lap cat when he did it.

“Foggy,” Matt says, into the quiet, his voice soft and nearing sleep.

“Hmm?”

“You said something about Valentine’s Day.”

“When?” Foggy asks, wondering if he’d somehow fallen asleep and muttered to himself without realizing it. “Just now?”

“No. Earlier. You said you wanted to go to the movies.”

“Oh, right,” Foggy replies. “I was just…we don’t have to do that, I mean…”

“I still think the movies might not be a good idea,” Matt says, carefully. “But I, uh—I’ll still be around, you know. If you wanted to do something else…”

Foggy’s heart flips over in joy and excitement and a dozen other emotions he can’t identify, but he tries to maintain an outward appearance of calm, at least. “Are you saying you want to be my Valentine, Matt?” he asks, smiling unrepentantly.

There’s a long pause that very clearly telegraphs whatever Matt says next will be a lie. “I’m not saying that,” he replies, finally, almost a full minute later.

“Right,” Foggy says, just barely suppressing a laugh. “You’re just saying that you’re free on Friday, which just so happens to be Valentine’s Day, and that you’d like to spend it with me…”

“Right.”

“But you don’t want to be my Valentine.”

“I’m not saying that either.”

“So you’re not saying you want to be my Valentine, but you’re not saying you don’t want to be my Valentine? Have I got that right?”

“More or less,” Matt mumbles.

“I’d be your Valentine,” Foggy says, “for what it’s worth.”

Matt nods distractedly, looking slightly seasick and completely out of his depth. “Okay.”

Foggy decides then that the nice thing to do here is to put Matt out of his misery for the time being. “How would you feel about maybe staying in?” he asks, leaning in to kiss him again. “Rather than going out?”

Matt meets him in the middle, happily, qualms momentarily forgotten. “I feel strongly in favor of the idea,” he says, as their lips meet.

“It’s a date, then.”

#please imagine me putting a daredevil themed valentine sealed with a sticker #with a heart shaped lollipop taped to the front into the makeshift mailbox on your desk at school #because this is my valentines treat to you #I know it’s early but I wrote this in like December so…#I have been chomping at the bit to share it #30 days challenge resumes tomorrow or whenever I get my shit together again #here is a longer and dare I say better fic to tide you over until then #mattfoggy #daredevil #matt murdock #foggy nelson #valentines day #valentines day fic #series: having a coke with you #homelywenchsociety #that’s my writing tag! don’t worry about it!

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