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Greg's hovering around the door again. He only does that when he wants something, and honestly, Tom is feeling pretty bled dry.
“Greg. What is it?”
“Oh, hey, Tom.” He looks uncomfortable in a way Tom hasn’t seen lately, which piques his interest. Greg has been all slick, tailored suits and pomade and clouds of nice fucking aftershave since the merger. He’s adjusting well, which has Tom feeling... uncomfortable. Insecure, maybe. Greg is like a fucking boxing mannequin. He’s springy. Resilient. Pops right back up after you hit him.
“Spit it out, Greg.”
“Do you have like, a minute?”
“I do. Close the door behind you.”
Greg sprawls out on a seat in Tom’s office. He toys with one of the tasteful, meaningless knickknacks the decorator placed there.
“Tom, I just wanted to like, thank you? This year has been a total rollercoaster–well, you know– and there’s not a lot of, um, support in this kind of work environment.”
“Okay.” He nods for Greg to continue. Tom’s not sure where this is heading. Hopefully not a knife-in-back situation. It’s frankly fucking weird to see Greg earnest like this. He thinks he’s smooth about it but Tom knows Greg is an ungrateful shit at heart.
“It was, you know. Nice of you. And I appreciate that. You’ve been a kind of mentor to me, I guess, and that hasn’t gone unnoticed? So I wanted to show my gratitude and like, regard for you as a person.” Greg sucks in a breath at the end.
“Huh.” Tom tilts his head. This is new. He likes it, in some ways. But in others, it needs work. It’s not quite the literal groveling he’s sometimes fantasized about: Greg, with nowhere else to turn, falling at Tom’s feet and begging to be taken in. You were right about everything , he’d say. I need you, Tom. “Did Mattson finally make the promotion official?”
“Yeah,” Greg says, eyes big and earnest and fucking evil. “Just signed the, like, employee contract.” He mimes a scribble, and isn’t that cute . Tom’s going to follow him out into the water someday and he won’t be able to find his way back, Greg will just drag him down into his lair beneath the waves.
“Greg, thank you. It’s nice to be appreciated.” Greg perks up, smiling. Tom almost feels bad about what he’s about to say. “But fucking nice ? You may as well slit my throat and push me overboard. Don’t ever say that about me, man.”
“Right, sure. But when it’s just us? Isn’t that okay?”
“ Nice is a word people use when they can’t think of anything else to say. It isn’t a compliment. It’s a fucking curse in the business world. Bill was fucking nice.”
Greg nods, chewing on his lip, as he absorbs this. Good.
“Okay, well,” Greg says, getting up. “I’ll have to think of some other way to thank you, I guess.”
“Greg, hold on. You don’t have to leave, ” Tom starts. He kind of hates eating lunch alone.
“I really should, though.” Greg slips out the door before Tom can even say, “Okay.”
The rest of the day, Tom is consumed by thoughts of how his colleagues perceive him. Nice. Tom isn’t a pushover, is he? Sure, maybe for the Roys, but to everyone else? People in the real world? Tom can stand his ground. He’s capable of making hard, unpopular decisions. He uses footstooling to keep his underlings in check, for god’s sake.
He goes home to his empty apartment. Shiv is eternally locked in “business meetings” with her brothers these days, or traveling. She definitely knows what he did by now, but hasn’t deigned to acknowledge it. It’s unnerving, and it keeps him up at night wondering when she’s going to take her revenge.
He takes melatonin to get to sleep in his empty bed, and wraps his arms around a pillow. He drifts into a fitful sleep and dreams of being sent to a 19th century prison with Frank as his cellmate.
---
Tom wakes up tired and disoriented. He inspects the bags under his eyes in the mirror and contemplates cosmetic surgery. He looks pretty fucking alright for 45, but that’s just it, isn’t it? People are starting to tack his age on at the end when they talk about how good he supposedly looks.
Could he even take the time off for that? Theoretically he could, of course, because he’s the fucking boss, but in practice, the place will go to shit while he’s gone. He doesn’t yet have a new assistant or underlings he trusts.
The door rings as he’s doing up his tie. Tom frowns. He doesn’t know what it could be, this early. He hasn’t even had fucking coffee yet, he’s feeling haggard and annoyed. He’ll make them wait.
By the time he opens the door, whoever rang the doorbell has gone. There’s a big, gaudy floral arrangement on the floor in front of him, though. Nestled in a fucking bromeliad is a generic thank-you card printed on thick cardstock. It’s addressed to Tom.
It sets off alarm bells for Tom’s alarm immediately. Who the fuck would send him flowers? It makes him think of chain emails about poisoned jeans and all kinds of underhanded ways to kill people. Tom’s not a man people often have occasion to thank; he’s demanding and not always tactful. He’s probably eaten his fair share of spit in restaurants.
He thinks Shiv wouldn’t ask for a divorce, but she might feel better about widowhood. Yeah, he’s not going to touch these fucking things.
Tom retreats to the kitchen to look for some things. He doesn’t like what it says about him, but it takes him more than a few minutes to locate the trash bags in their kitchen. He finds some latex gloves for good measure, and eye protection in the form of a sun visor that Carolina mailed to Shiv months ago as some kind of passive-aggressive comment on aging past thirty.
He pauses with scissors in hand, but ultimately he gives in, goofiness be damned, and cuts out head and arm holes in a garbage bag to protect him from the worst of the pollen or poison or whatever those flowers are filled with. He rustles down the hallway and Mondale whines at him. Tom shakes another garbage bag open so he can deposit the bouquet into it with minimal fuss.
He double-bags the flowers and hops into the shower again to wash away the stress-sweat and any stray contaminants, which means he has to get dressed again.
He checks his watch as he’s in the elevator on his way out, and he’s already ten minutes late, but they’ll just have to fucking deal. Tom has earned the right to be a little late every now and then.
It’s a rough morning, and he has to face people who knew him from fucking Cruises and ATN and even earlier than that, which means they basically see him as a jester, still. No fucking respect, zero understanding of the stress involved in his new position.
He only gets a reprieve when lunch rolls around and he gets to see Greg.
Greg's happy to see him; it feels nice to have an actual human person perk up when he enters the room. Mondale doesn’t quite count.
Tom says, “Something absolutely fucked happened this morning.” He waits for Greg to acknowledge it before he moves on, which he does by nodding and making a funny little expression. They’re working on active listening. “Someone delivered this huge, anonymous bouquet for me. Like, just dropped it on my doorstep and left. I feel like I’m in The Godfather, Greg. Did you know you can poison flowers?”
Greg looks at him with a weird expression on his face, like a dog that’s just pissed on the carpet. “Oh, fuck, Tom.”
“What is it, Greg?” he demands.
“I didn’t know! I thought my name was going to be on the card. I, like, specifically requested that they put it there.”
“Are you telling me you sent those creepy fucking flowers?” Tom demands. “Why?”
“Well, like, you didn’t appreciate my last attempt at thanking you so I just thought... Hey, maybe Tom wants to feel. Wooed, or something.”
Tom scoffs. “Jesus, Greg. I thought it was my– someone trying to poison me. I almost called a hazmat unit.”
“Okay, well... That was not the intended effect. Did you look at them, at least? They had a bunch of different bouquet types. I chose the one that felt the most appropriate. Did it feel appropriate?”
“I couldn’t tell you,” Tom says honestly. “Greg, don’t worry about it, okay? I just– forget about it. I’m just glad I’m not going to wake up to a horse head under my sheets.”
Greg deflates a bit. “Sure, Tom.”
“But hey! How was your first day under Mattson, you fucking worm?”
“Good! Yeah, it was good. Like, I’m still not 100% on my specific job title, but from the way he talked to me, I’m not that worried about it. He wants to stick me somewhere in Digital. Where I can grow, or whatever.”
Tom feels a pang of loss for the Greg that followed him around like a puppy. He listen to Greg’s plans for the rest of the day and nods his approval of the tactics Greg's using to establish himself with his new coworkers.
---
Greg catches up with him at the end of the day on his way out.
“Gregory, did you wait for me?” Tom tends to leave at least an hour after the fucking slackers in his department, Greg among them. Except Greg isn’t in his department anymore, he remembers. He jumped ship, fled to greener pastures, however you want to say it.
“Maybe.” Greg shrugs. “Do you have, um, dinner plans?”
Tom gasps. “Greg! Why, do you have something? A reservation?”
“I mean, maybe I do.” A beat. “Okay, yeah, I do. I was hoping you’d join me?”
“It better be worth my while,” Tom says, knowing that anything will be better than the ten hours of emptiness that stretch out before him until he can justify going to bed.
Greg lights the fuck up, at that. “Great! What you’re wearing is fine. So we can head straight there.”
“Greg, when you’re this rich, you can wear what you want.”
Greg wrinkles his nose, this little defiant expression he makes sometimes. “That’s kind of the opposite of what you’ve been telling me this entire time?”
“Well, we weren’t this rich before. It’s true now, though.”
It’s a seafood place, with ultra-fresh fish and shrimp and fucking octopus. Tom wants to order the most avant-garde, tentacle-y dish and force it down Greg’s throat. Instead, he gets fried fish. It’s the treat he deserves after a hellish few weeks, or months. Maybe the whole year.
They’re about halfway through when the waiter approaches with some kind of dessert. Chocolate, it looks like. Tom scowls, because they’re nowhere near done with the entree, and it’s really poor serving skills to bring anything out while they’re still working on their plates.
“Oh fuck,” Greg says.
As the waiter draws nearer, Tom sees that there’s a little chocolate topper with “Happy Anniversary!” written on it. Tom can’t help himself; he bursts into nervous laughter, edging on hysterical. He hasn't even known Greg for a full year yet.
Greg mumbles out a “thank you,” and the waiter beats a hasty retreat to get away from the scene.
“What is going on?” Tom chokes out. “What did you tell them?”
“Okay, so,” Greg says. “Mattson let me borrow his, um, assistant? He said I should like, get used to delegating. That it’s a skill, or whatever. So I asked him to make reservations. Nice ones. For... fuck, I did say for someone special.” His brow furrows and his mouth draws into a pout. “I mean, it’s like a total game of Telephone, you know? The restaurant must have gotten confused.”
Tom giggles again, involuntarily.
“I keep fucking this up,” Greg says, dismay etched upon his face.
“It’s sweet, Greg, really,” he says, and without thinking, he moves to cover Greg’s hand with his own. It’s the kind of move he’d pull on Shiv. Another boundary blurred. “Buddy, consider me thanked. Okay? It’s getting a little exhausting.”
“It’s just like.” Greg fidgets. “How many dinners like this have you taken me out for? And this one didn’t even go right.”
“Well, that’s my role, Gregory.” Tom rolls his eyes. “I’m supposed to be teaching you how to be rich and choose a good restaurant and not look like a dolt in a suit. And look at you, decked out in tailored clothes, reeking of Tom Ford, fuckin’ complaining about the service at the restaurant I’ve been hearing about all month. I think I really did a number on you.”
Greg gives him a pleased little smile and looks down at his plate. “Yeah, you did.”
Tom looks at the cake. “This fucking thing is going to be melted by the time we’re done eating. You want to try it now?”
Greg nods, and they dig in. It really is fucking good. Tom’s willing to let it slide that it clashes terribly with his fish, and no one in their right mind would pair the two together. He almost says this to Greg, but the poor fuck seems fragile tonight.
At the end of the night, Greg calls his own driver and insists they drop Tom off first. Tom protests a little, because he really dreads sleeping in that bed, but Greg is a persistent little fuck.
“Okay, what now, Greg.”
Greg shrugs. “I don’t know, man. Um, I only had the dinner planned out.”
Tom snaps his fingers. “Okay, well, there’s a learning experience right there. If you’re taking someone out, you have to have the whole night planned out. Otherwise, just end it at dinner. With us, it’s fine, obviously, but anybody else? You’d be fucking floundering here.”
Greg nods seriously.
“ Well, do you fancy a nightcap, Mr. Hirsch?” Tom asks. It rolls off his tongue like the embarrassing flirtatious banter he should have realized it was before he said it, and he turns away from Greg to hide his cringe.
Greg looks happy to be asked, though, and the little leech is never one to turn down free booze. He nods. “I’m trying to like, branch out? So maybe... I’ll have what you’re having."
Tom, in a slightly sadistic move, pours them both negronis. It’s been his go-to for years, so he can do it pretty deftly by now, and it’s deceptively simple. He’s not sure if Greg will like the bitterness, though. It might not suit his Appletini palate.
Greg takes a sip, and Tom watches as he screws his face up and splutters. That never gets old.
“Fuck you, Tom,” he blurts. Tom glares, but that doesn’t make Greg backtrack anymore. “Is this even– even a real drink?”
“It’s Italian. It’s a classic,” Tom says. “Named after a general.”
Greg takes a slow second sip, then gags after he swallows it. “I’d have to like, chug this to get it down,” he says.
Tom shrugs. “Drown it in Coke if you must,” he says. “I’m not your dad.”
Greg looks at him kind of funny. “What, that wouldn’t... bother you?”
“I’m trying to be more lowkey,” Tom tells him.
Greg shifts in his seat on the far end of the couch, an arm’s length away from Tom. “I don’t, like, mind.”
“What’s that, Gregory?”
“It’s all very... Tom, when you get mad about stuff. And you know. It’s nice. When someone cares that much.”
“Who says that I care?”
Greg laughs. “You, dude. Like, constantly. But like I said, it’s cool. It’s, um, refreshing of you.” He dares another sip of his negroni. It goes down a little easier but he still winces. Greg can do it, Tom thinks. He just needs a guiding hand.
“Let me take that,” Tom says, without thinking about it.
“Hey, man, I was promised a drink,” Greg protests.
“And you’ll have it. Hand it over.”
Tom scoots across the couch, closer to Greg. He gets one hand in the short hair at the back of Greg’s head. Greg is sitting very still. Patiently, even. Tom says, “I’m going to make sure you finish your drink. Okay? Because I care.”
“Okay, Tom,” Greg says. He’s a little quiet. Subdued, maybe. But he watches with bright eyes as Tom brings the glass up to his mouth. Tom tips it gently, because he doesn’t want to fucking drown him. Greg opens up, which is great, because it means the red liquid doesn’t splash across his gray couch.
It’s a careful dance; Tom has to make sure Greg has swallowed before he tips more down his throat. He hears him swallow, hears the breath he takes when he’s ready for more. Tom pours more into his mouth, and Greg drinks it down.
It’s a small cup, but it still takes a few minutes for Greg to drain his cup completely. After the last droplets cross his lips, he’s left panting a bit.
Tom takes the glass away from his lips, and Greg licks them. His tongue is red, and his face is flushed.
“That was...” Greg says, his voice rough. He tries again. “Um. That was effective!”
“I do what I can to help,” Tom says evenly. He’s looked at Greg’s mouth before, of course, but he’s never had such a good excuse to stare, and he’s having the worst thoughts about his reddened lips.
Tom’s impulses have never led him so dangerously close to doing something irreversible, like touching Greg’s mouth or worse, kissing the booze off his lips.
Tom puts about a foot of space between them. “Did it work? The exposure therapy.”
“Oh, uh, is that what they’re calling it these days?” Greg says smugly.
“What the fuck does that mean, Greg?”
“Nothing, Tom. Like, yeah, I could maybe drink another without puking. That’s the goal, right?”
“It is,” he says. “Let’s do an Old Fashioned this time.” He knows Greg will love that sugary bullshit.
---
Tom is standing in Greg’s kitchen looking for something non-disgusting to eat with their wine. They're fresh off another dinner date, or whatever they're calling it. He finds Funyuns, and peach rings, and fucking saltines, but nothing with any complexity.
“How the fuck is the wine supposed to bring out the flavors of red dye #40?” Tom mutters. “Greg, you’re all surface flash. No substance. Not even a packet of Ritz.”
“Tom, can you just like, come here?” Greg sounds frustrated. “I don’t really give a fuck about the wine.”
“What’s the problem, Greg?”
“I wanted to do something,” he says. wringing his hands. He’s towering over Tom, making him feel small. Secure, maybe.
He puts his giant hands on Tom's shoulders. “You can stop me. Obviously.” He gives a shaky laugh. He bends down slowly, moving carefully like Tom's a skittish wild animal.
Tom is alarmed by the size and vivid color of his eyes when they’re level with his. But then Greg leans forward and presses soft lips to Tom’s. It’s definitely a kiss. Oh, fuck.
Tom pulls back and looks at Greg with what is likely an expression of raw terror. He kisses him again, though. It feels right. The sensitive skin of his mouth pressed against Greg. It’s not like he hasn’t imagined it before.
“Uh,” Tom says. “Was there a point to this?”
“I’m thanking you?” Greg says, voice pitched high.
“Oh. You're getting a lot of mileage out of that one."
“We can keep going, maybe? You seem... very receptive,” Greg says, his eyes half-lidded and liquid and oddly fucking sexy.
Tom grabs a fistful of the hair at the back of his head and pulls him back in. Greg licks into his mouth confidently, unlike how he does anything else, reducing Tom’s knees to jelly. He staggers back, pulling Greg with him onto the couch.
“Fucking schemer,” he says into the cotton covering Greg’s chest. “This was a scheme, wasn’t it?” His cock is throbbing as he slides his hands along Greg’s overlong torso. He slides his hands up under the hem and Greg shudders enticingly.
“Not as such?” Greg says from above. He’s pressing Tom into the couch. “You just seemed like you wanted it. Really bad,” he says, and then he’s kissing him again.
“That’s rude,” Tom says when they next break apart.
“No, it’s true. Fuck, can I blow you?” Tom can’t fucking believe this shit.
“Be my guest,” Tom says, which is likely the unsexiest thing he’s ever said to someone with their hand on his belt buckle. Greg just grins.
Tom feels like maybe he’s losing his mind or floating out of his body as he watches Greg undo his belt. He fumbles a few times in his eagerness, which has Tom bucking his hips, wishing for pressure against his cock. When he manages to get Tom’s pants unzipped, Greg finally does him the favor of grinding his palm against it, and Tom makes a hoarse noise of desperation.
Greg looks down from where he’s straddling Tom, looming over him, really. He grinds his hand slowly, deliberately from base to tip, and Tom has to turn his head away and bite his fist.
“Can you just fucking...” Tom bites out.
“Can I what?”
“Get on your knees, Christ. ” That does the trick, and Greg slides down to his knees in front of Tom. He has to fold himself up to get level with Tom’s still-covered dick, and once he does, he’s pressing his face to Tom’s urgently hard cock, nuzzling it in a manner both frustrating and arousing.
“Okay, now open up,” Tom hears himself say. Obligingly, Greg drags his tongue over the cotton. He soaks the fabric, licking slowly, spending enough time on the head, sensation dulled by Tom’s briefs, to deal psychic damage. Tom could probably demand that Greg pull his cock out and actually suck his fucking dick, if he wanted to. There’s something special about letting Gregory fucking Hirsch torture him this way, though.
“How’s it fucking taste,” Tom says out of desperation. That, finally, is enough to snap Greg out of whatever cocklust or deprivation wave he was on.
“I can’t really answer that?” he says. “Like, fucking cotton, man,” and he starts tugging the wet underwear down, the fabric chafing slightly against Tom’s dick. Tom lifts his hips to make it easier for him. Greg gets them down around Tom’s knees, and he surges forward to get his first taste. The head is slick with spit and precome already, and Greg laps delicately at Tom’s slit. Liquid clings to his tongue as he pulls back, and Tom’s dick twitches helplessly as he watches.
“ Fuck , Greg,” Tom groans, and he’s never going to be able to say Greg’s name again without thinking of how it feels to have him kneeling between his legs. He runs a hand through Greg’s hair, which is crunchy with hairspray. He’s fucking it up by combing his hand through the carefully-arranged strands.
Greg looks up, huge blue eyes, the picture of innocence, and he says, “Really fucking good.” He flattens his tongue over the head and Tom thrusts, just a little, against the slickness.
“I want your mouth, Greg, fuck, can you just,” Tom pants, doing exactly what he told himself he wouldn’t. Begging.
Greg listens, thankfully, and Tom feels the stretch of his mouth around his cock, sees it, and gasps. He makes little moaning sounds as he takes Tom deeper, and Tom feels him swallowing around his cock.
“You really like this, don’t you,” Tom says. He doesn’t sound as in control as he’d like. “I wish I’d known you were so fucking eager to please me.”
Greg moans again, his lips slipping over Tom’s cock. His eyes are damp and he blinks fast as he tries to take Tom deeper. Tom runs a thumb over his cheekbone. Poor Greg's bitten off more than he can chew, though, and he gags. He pulls off, gasping, and one of his eyes finally spills over. Tom rubs the tears away, and Greg smiles a little at the touch.
He sucks Tom back in, and the rhythm of tongue-lips-tongue and a sudden grasp on Tom’s balls has him teetering at the edge and tearing Greg’s fucking hair out.
“Greg, fuck you, I’m coming, so pull off now if you don’t want my cum in your mouth,” Tom hisses. “Jesus Christ.”
Greg hums around him in response, and redoubles his efforts until Tom’s orgasm hits, laying him out like a truck. Greg pulls back a little so it lands on his tongue. It’s fucking great, filling Greg’s mouth with his cum, making him swallow. Greg keeps licking even after Tom’s spent, like the evil bastard he is, until he has to shove him away by his shoulders.
Greg falls back against the coffee table looking like the cat that ate the canary. All dimples and smugness and ruined hair, plus the lower half of his face shining with spit and semen. Tom wants to take a photo.
Instead, he pulls Greg into the bedroom with him so he can try a few things.