The coffee finishes dripping and Matt is the first one to notice – of course he is. He leaves Karen and Foggy at Karen's desk and comes back with the pot in one hand and three cups dangling like strange fruit from his fingers. They each relieve him of one, and Matt pours himself a cup before setting it down on the desk and himself on his chair.
'How do you do that?' Karen asks.
'She means you,' Foggy supplies as Matt takes his cup to fill, as well. 'Leave room for milk in mine,' he adds.
'Don't I always?' Matt turns to Karen, even as he pours the coffee. 'How do I do what?'
'The… with the cups. How do you know when they're full?' Karen is genuinely fascinated, but Matt just shrugs slightly and takes hers too.
'I know these cups. They're the ones with squarish handles and tapering bottoms. I can feel when they're full from what they weigh.' Matt hands back her cup, which is just full enough.
'That's really impressive, actually,' Karen says.
'He does that with all cups. And glasses, and –'
'Yeah, the alternative is sticking a finger down the brim, and that's less… well, less sanitary.'
'Less impressive,' Karen suggests.
'Except when it backfires,' Matt says, grinning in Foggy's direction.
Foggy grins back. 'You mean that time with the…'
'… on 98th, yeah…'
'… oh man, that was hysterical!'
Karen looks back and forth between them, equally confused and curious. Foggy notices the perplexed interest she's telegraphing with her eyebrows and takes pity on her. 'Tell her, Matt.'
'You tell her. You tell better stories.' Matt sits back, sipping his coffee, and Foggy obliges.
Their fourth year at uni together, Matt and Foggy rented a tiny, rather dingy flat off a classmate's brother, who had gone to Japan and not come back. They had no furniture or kitchen items of their own, but that was okay since the guy had an overabundance of both. None of it matched, either.
One night, post-exam bar-hopping over with, they crashed on the dilapidated sofa in a pile of limbs and rumpled clothing. As Foggy was drifting off on the waves of dubious drinks coursing through him, Matt groaned and started to get up.
Foggy straightened immediately. 'What?'
'We need water.'
'I'll get it,' Foggy slurred and tried to heave himself to his feet by grabbing the sofa arm with one hand and Matt's knee with the other.
'I'm way less sauced, you know,' Matt tried.
'I'm way less blind,' Foggy countered, knowing he was in the clear saying shit like that. Anyone else would have gotten the silent treatment for the rest of the week. He managed to stand up, then snorted. 'Did you just say "sauced"?'
Matt giggled. 'Guess I did.' He slouched back on the sofa and Foggy stumbled to the… kitchen would be putting it generously. He filled two glasses from the tap and only spilled a little bringing them back to the lounge.
Matt accepted his glass neatly – then shoved it to his mouth and spilled its contents all over himself. He yelped with surprise and tried in vain to brush the water off, and Foggy laughed so hard that he spilled his own drink – also all over Matt.
'Why'd you do that?' Matt exclaimed indignantly as Foggy flopped down at the dry end of the couch.
'Why did I – you made me laugh!'
'Not that! I thought this was the – you know, the tall glass.'
'It is a tall glass.' Foggy had prudently gotten the two tallest glasses available for this quest.
'Yeah, but I mean the one with the thick bottom…'
'… you spilled your drink because I gave you the wrong glass…?'
Matt gestured exasperatedly. 'No, I – yes, because this glass weighs less, so I thought it was less full, because the other glass weighs more, and so it –'
'Dude, run that by me again tomorrow. I'm way too sauced for glass logic right now.'
'Did I really say "sauced"?' Matt asks, skeptically.
'I'm pretty sure you did. Anyway. Matt had to go refill our glasses, and then he borrowed my pink one-piece sweatsuit because he couldn't be bothered with more than one garment…'
'… plus it was so comfy!' Matt adds. Karen giggles at the thought of Matt in a pink onesie.
'… and that's how I learned to either let Matt fill the glasses, or tell him which glass I'd used.'
'They had names,' Matt clarifies, sagely.
'That they did.'
Karen is grinning wider than she can remember grinning in months. 'You guys, I swear. I will bribe you with eel juice and lasagna until you've spilled all these hilarious stories of yours.'
'"Spilled"!' Matt and Foggy squeak in unison before collapsing in fits of laughter. Karen joins them not a second later, and it's a miracle all their coffee stays in its cups.
A/N: Just a random thing that popped into my head and demanded to be written. Hope you enjoyed!
Thanks for reading!
