Chapter Text
March 2nd.
The passage of years was something Stewy didn't deal with very well, he found himself having trouble waking up after a night out, terrible hangovers every time he drank, and sore muscles for days after a hard workout. Looking back, he took a lot of things for granted in his youth.
This morning he was following his usual routine, it was a strict one: he would get out of bed, check his phone for messages, and go straight to exercise without eating —his trainer told him years ago that he could burn calories faster that way— and, after finishing his workout, he would shower. Then, and only then, he would step into the kitchen and eat something full of sugar for breakfast. It wasn’t like the existence of sugarless donuts hadn’t occurred to him, he had even tried eating some before, but it just wasn't the same and he considered himself a man of traditions; he liked his sweets sweetened with actual sugar, his feet sockless when wearing shoes, doing coke on his lunch break, and stupidly obsess over his best friend.
"Hey…" He finds Kendall at his usual spot, standing in the middle of the kitchen drinking black, sugarless coffee while looking at his phone. His hair had a salt pepper look to it now, the passage of time getting to him too. He had seemingly given up on dyeing it since his buzz cut.
This tradition was more recent, but each day he would get out of the shower and go to find Kendall having breakfast already, a poached egg with asparagus, and he would say, "Seriously? That's disgusting, Ken, do you ever eat anything with flavor?"
Kendall doesn't even bother turning to look at him today, just keeps sipping from his cup, unperturbed.
"Uh— it's called eating healthy, dude, maybe you should try it."
Stewy walks up to him and hugs him from behind, something which was also becoming part of his morning routine.
He finds comfort in the embrace, as he rests his head on Kendall's shoulder, his nose digging into the nape of his neck.
Kendall always has the same immediate reaction, melting into it, a life long deprived of physical contact had him starving for it, and Stewy was so willing to give it.
"Uh-huh…" he mumbles against Kendall's skin, not paying any mind to the previous jab.
"Maybe you don't care about your health…" Kendall tilts his head to the side, humming, content while Stewy plants soft kisses down his neck. "But— uh… eating donuts every day is not good for you."
Stewy huffs amused, his sudden puff of breath hitting Kendall’s skin, causing some goosebumps to appear.
"Fuck you, dude, you smoke and you'll never see me complaining."
He smiles, letting go of Kendall who takes it as his cue to spin around and look at him. His eyes are already half-lidded and his mouth curves into an easy smile. Stewy recognizes its meaning instantly, and feels his skin warm right away when Kendall puts a hand on his waist, his eyes skimming over Stewy's body.
"Uh… what if I just fuck you and you're late for work? You think maybe exploiting the capitalistic system could wait for another hour? or would anyone notice?"
Stewy lets himself bask in the closeness for a few more seconds, before deciding to put an end to it.
"My back account would," he says, detangling himself from the embrace.
It was an absurd notion, that any one of them would stay home instead of going to work today of all days, so Kendall just sighs in defeat and goes to sit down with his healthy breakfast plate and sugarless coffee at the table; Stewy follows closely with a donut in his hand, watching him with raised eyebrows.
You wouldn't be able to tell something was off with Kendall that morning if you didn't know him very well. Thankfully, Stewy had a doctorate in Kendall-related stuff: he would look at his phone non-stop, jitter his legs under the table, and just generally wouldn't standstill. A normal person would bite their nails , he lamented, even if he found that habit kind of disgusting.
“So, how’re the acquisitions for the new portfolio going, are you getting anything juicy?” Kendall asks, looking over at his mug of coffee.
“Um…” Stewy tilts his head to the side, pondering about how much he trusts Kendall with delicate information without really knowing what’s going on inside his head today. “Well, we’re still discussing it, you know? Just the usual bullshit.” He bites into his donut and then, with his mouth full, mumbles, “Why, what's on your mind?”
“Nothing…” Kendall shakes his head, and then looks at his phone screen, while still picking around on his plate, not really eating. “I’m just thinking… uh, give me your read on this, but I was thinking about buying some— uh, tech business, with strong streaming platforms, maybe Norlinx, or… I don’t know.” He looks back at Stewy, making eye contact for a brief second. “It just makes sense. From an economic standpoint, getting some subscription base models added to Waystar, it would make the board happy, maybe it could boost the price for the next stock evaluation. It’s a good idea, right?”
“Uh-huh, yeah. It could be good, shareholders love consistent income." He licks his finger to clean off the sugar stuck to them. "Have you talked about this with Sandi ?”
That seems to give Kendall some pause.
“No, uh, I— well, I was going to float the idea around today, so…” Kendall shrugs.
“It's a good idea, Ken, you should do it.” He replies, nodding.
Maybe this will calm down his nerves now , Stewy thinks, because who knows what else could be wrong with him today. But Kendall just stabs at one of his boiled eggs, averting Stewy's gaze, looking down at the table once again; his leg slightly jittering under it. There's just silence then, for a while.
"It's Roman's birthday next week, remember?" Kendall asks him, his tone not giving much away while skimming through his phone notifications.
Stewy hums in acknowledgment but keeps eating, forcing him to elaborate.
"And… uh— you're coming, right?" He looks at him, putting the phone aside. "Because this is important, Shiv's also gonna be there and—"
"Ugh!" Stewy lets his head fall to the side, trying to convey how annoying he finds everything about this. "I thought you weren't into the…'' he gestures at him with his eyebrows, "...going public stuff."
"What?" Kendall frowns. "No, I'm cool. Dude, why uh—, why would you say that?"
Stewy purses his lips, trying to look pensive. "It's just the general, I'm not gay whole thing that you have going on…"
"Uh— no, we already talked about this, I'm— I'm cool, like why would I care? My dad isn't even around so— it's whatever."
"Ok, sure, you already said that," replies Stewy with ease.
"I am cool with it, Stew, I just don't see why—" Kendall looks intently at him, and then scoffs. "I don't see a reason to go around announcing it, that's all. My family already knows so…"
"Ok."
They stare at each other, both trying to gauge the other one's reaction; it was a game they both knew pretty well, as they had been practicing it since they were ten. Not that Stewy was into any kind of mind games these days, this was just his self-preservation instincts acting up, it wasn't the first time Kendall had become increasingly nervous about any kind of public attention on them as a couple so it was a fair question, from his point of view.
"But—uh— are you coming with me?" Kendall tries again, looking through his notifications. "I mean, you haven't really seen Rome or Shiv for months so… It'll be a good opportunity, right?"
Stewy sighs, defeated. "Yes, you want me there, I'll go."
"Good." Kendall smiles, a genuine and relieved smile, and then finally puts his phone aside and starts eating.
Oh my fucking God, was he really nervous about that?
It hadn’t always worked out great, he could acknowledge that much, their various attempts at integrating Stewy into the Roy family. He had known them for years and always made a point as to not stand too close to their affairs in fear of getting punched in the brawl that was their fucked up family life. They had also been, historically, the reason for most of their fights.
The first time he had met a member of Kendall's family he was ten years old. He had just transferred into Buckley some months ago, after moving to New York, and for some unknown reason, had felt compelled to walk over to Kendall’s desk on his first day at school.
They became friends right after that, because friendships were easy to establish at that age and didn’t require much effort. That was one aspect of childhood that Stewy had missed since he grew up; that , and how eager Kendall seemed back then for his attention. They had been an unlikely pair, the both of them; Stewy, easy-going, and cool-tempered; Kendall, awkward and uptight, but there has been something growing between them, even back then, though still innocent and childlike. It came sometimes in the form of an impulse Stewy would get to kiss his cheek every time he looked dejected, or start rumors about any of their classmates when they were mean to Kendall.
So maybe they were becoming best friends or something like that at the time, and the next step, they thought, was to hang out after school; like everyone else did. And at Kendall's insistence, they had decided to spend the afternoon at the Roy’s house.
Stewy was feeling unusually restless on their way there, sitting with Kendall in the back of one of his black, family’s SUVs, his gaze moving back and forth between the window, watching the classic residential buildings of the district roll one after the other, and Kendall’s fidgeting hands at his sides. He squirmed a little on his seat, feeling a bit fidgety himself. For a moment, when their knees touched by accident, he wasn’t too sure if he was nervous about the house itself, or something else entirely he couldn’t understand yet.
No, it must be the house , he reassured himself.
It was a penthouse over at the fifth avenue, full of sturdy mahogany furniture, classic pieces of art as decor, and bookshelves full of books he could not yet read even the title of very well.
He wasn’t particularly impressed by it, having grown up around wealth himself; his family was already rich when his grandparents had left Iran in their forties, and his father managed some pharmaceutical fund, “it’s anticrisis,” he would say, “Everyone needs medicine, the state of the economy doesn't stop people from having to buy it.” He was a practical man of few words, sweet but very set in his own ways and values. For him, family and morals were first, always, he carried himself in that old businessmen's way those who had peaked in the sixties did, sedentary, looking with suspicion at corporate raiders, and being the living impersonation of the motto: always preserve company traditions.
His mother, also a working woman, which was kind of unheard of from a married woman of a certain level of wealth at the time, was an academic who liked to shut herself off in her room from time to time, but always seemed to have time to read a book to Stewy at night.
So just the opposite of Kendall's parents, as he would later find out.
When they first set foot into the Roy’s penthouse, Stewy was kind of taken aback for a moment as the house staff hurried up to take care of their coats. But Kendall gave over his puffy black winter jacket with such casualty, it seemed to come like second nature to him. He strolled towards the stairs, Stewy following close by, trying not to stare too much at the extravagant wooden railing, his eyes skimming through the room, nearly jumping when he saw someone was watching them, leaning over the threshold to the next room.
"Hey! Kenny!" He called to them.
He was tall and thin, noticeably older than them, college-aged maybe, wearing a thick grey sweater covering his white shirt, and a long plastered maroon scarf hanging loosely around his neck.
"Hi, Connor," replied Kendall courtly, stopping by the bottom of the stairs with Stewy, interrupted in the middle of their way to his room.
Stewy felt watched, Connors's eyes locking into him. He had become familiar with it by then, the feeling of being pinned down with suspicious glances by people he had just met, but never allowed himself to dwell on it for too long. He just looked back at him, unperturbed, like he didn’t understand what it could mean, which was his go-to strategy, while internally panicking, thinking he was going to get kicked out.
The silent interaction only went on for a second, before Connor just smiled amicably at him, in what seemed like a completely sincere way, and said, turning to look at Kendall, "I see you brought a friend, good for you, bud! I’m so glad you made a new friend, Kenny.”
"Yeah." He saw Kendall fidgeting with the sleeve of his school uniform's blazer.
"Dad isn't coming until next week so, it's fine—"
"I know, Connor, Jesus!" Kendall interrupted him, and then, before Stewy could even figure out the meaning of the encounter, he had grabbed him by his wrist and was pulling him upstairs, nearly crashing into a lady from the house staff with the sudden movement.
"Was that your brother?" Stewy asked him once they were alone.
"Yeah, something like that." He shrugged.
Kendall's bedroom was big and full of toys; a small TV with a console; a stack of piled CDs next to a player; a book neatly set on the night table, and three different colored pairs of Jordans sitting under a big wooden closet.
He threw himself into his bed, falling back like a brick as Stewy watched him; hands inside the pockets of his light brown school trousers.
"So what do you want to do?" He asked, biting his lip, taking a step towards the bed.
"Uh… I don't— I don't know, we could listen to music." Kendall craned his head on the bed to look at him. "What… What kind of music do you like? I have everything."
As they sat on the floor of Kendall's room listening to a Wu-Tang album, Stewy let his head rest on Kendall's shoulder, he didn’t have an explanation as to why, it just felt like something he wanted to do at that time. Kendall went still, not even moving to change the music. He let the whole album play out, and when it finally ended, Stewy was the one to pull away first, turning to look at Kendall then, seeing how badly his hands were trembling as he reached out to the stereo to turn it off.
He didn't meet anyone else that day, not Roman, because he was only six years old at the time, and Kendall avoided him because he was annoying, neither Shiv, who was a toddler, but most surprisingly not Caroline or Logan.
Stewy didn't understand a lot of things back then, but he was a very perceptive child, enough to notice how weird the Roy's family unit was; the lack of parental figures, and the way Kendall would talk about Connor like he wasn't actually there.
His first encounter with Logan came a year after that, and it was such a shit show; it had left a bitter taste in his mouth he couldn’t really wash out. He decided not to tell his parents about it and didn't talk much with Kendall for the following week in class. But it wasn't Kendall's fault, he had concluded after a few days, Logan was the actual problem, and he wasn’t going to let him stop Stewy from still being friends with Kendall.
They didn't bump into each other often, thankfully, with Logan coming in and out of Kendall's life throughout his preteen years, never spending too much time at home. The shadow of his presence, however, loomed over Kendall at every turn; whenever he walked into a room, Kendall would suddenly tense, stand straight up, shoulders pushed back, like a child fearing being scolded for holding an improper posture.
Even when they were in college and far away from his father's sphere of influence, Kendall would get a call every now and then, and that would be enough to set him off. He distinctly remembers this one day; they were in their senior year at that time, Stewy had taken a different class schedule than Kendall that year, having fallen asleep in enough 8 am classes, and was spending the morning at their off-campus apartment with Kendall, who was immersed in writing something; leaning over his notebook; sitting by the kitchen table; skipping one of his classes, something that was very rare for him.
Stewy ran a hand through Kendall's hair from the back and grinned, “What’s that?”
“Uh… nothing.” Kendall shrugged, pausing a moment in his writing. “My father just has…- like, this Waystar event tonight, and wants me to speak in it.” He tapped his pen repeatedly over the table.
Stewy put a hand over his shoulder, feeling the muscles in Kendall's back. He had been a bit leaner back then, even if he still kept up a strict exercise routine now in his forties.
"Wow, that sounds like fun.” He commented with a flat affection.
Kendall huffed and leaned back a little into his touch. “Yeah, I know, but I’m…” he shook his head. “Listen, can I run this by you?”
Stewy humored him, like he always did, taking a chair to sit next to him, his head leaning over his hand for support, his right elbow propped on the table. It was just the boring, standard, Waystar thing he already knew by heart. He paid attention to Kendall anyway.
It had begun to dawn on him, the closer they got to graduation, how Kendall only seemed to revert to the person he was before college in so many ways. And Stewy blamed his new upcoming Waystar internship.
“So uh—? what do you think?” Kendall’s fingers kept playing with the edge of the sheet of paper.
“It’s fine." He blinked and suppressed a yawn. "It’s just a speech dude.”
Kendall shook his head again, turning back to look at the paper in his hands.
Stewy rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean, it’s a corporate speech, it’s boring… clean… what else do you want me to say?” He covered Kendall’s hand with his own, stopping him from picking at the sheet. “Hey, come on, you will do good, Ken.”
Kendall stared at him for a moment before just barely smiling.
“You think so?”
“Sure.” He kissed his forehead, stepping up from the chair again. "Are you going to ask me to accompany you?"
"Would you? Uh, like— would you come?" Kendall looked up at Stewy, a silent plea written on his face.
"I'll think about it…"
The last time he had gone to visit the Roys had been two years ago, when his relationship with Kendall was still something new and uncharted. Something more than friends. On a delicate balance fueled by hormones and old repressed feelings. It hadn't done much good, that particular trip to the Roy's summer house. Kendall had brought him there as a friend, but maybe they hadn't been too careful, or Logan's word had cut particularly close to home on some blind stab at his son. Because the next thing he knew, Kendall was batting his hands away and minimizing their time spent alone. Worst spring break vacations ever. With Kendall giving him the cold shoulder, the only thing he could do was watch Shiv and Roman bicker at the table, as Logan stared at him with a smug smile on his face.
Logan, who of course, had pretended not to even remember his name. Stewy didn't find it hard to come up with a list of reasons for this particular animosity towards him but wasn't too sure which exact combination of those had made Logan hate him.
They had recovered from that, he and Kendall, spending another two years alone in college had done its trick. They were happy, back then, at least Stewy was, from what he can recall. But happiness makes you complacent.
That’s when Logan called.
When he came back from class that afternoon, he found their living room wrecked; the TV cracked on the floor; the coffee table upside down; cushions thrown all over the room; Kendall standing in the middle, his fists tight by his sides, scowling at the mess.
“Dude, oh my god… What is this?” Stewy asked, shaking his head in confusion, his surprise coming through with an edge of amusement.
Kendall strolled towards him without even acknowledging his presence, pushing past him, trying to get to the door.
“I'm going to the event.”
“What, like, now?” Stewy squinted his eyes. “There’s still time—”
“Whatever,” he said curtly. Not looking at Stewy.
“Ok… sure. So do you want me to come?”
“No, this is like uh— a family thing. So it’s better if you stay.”
Stewy scoffed at the unexpected answer. “Wasn't it a Waystar event?” He tried to search for his eyes, but Kendall kept evading him.
“Yeah, but my family is going to be there, so…”
“I don’t have to go if you don't want me to. Not like I was dying to watch a bunch of old white dudes, who play badly at golf, chat for three hours…” he extended out his arm to touch Kendall's shoulder. “I just thought that you—”
Kendall immediately flinched, pulling back. “Don’t.”
The sternest of his tone seemed to have startled the both of them. Kendall's eyes shot up to meet his, wide open in surprise, before he quickly collected himself, ducked his head again, and pushed right past Stewy. Their shoulders brushed against each other but there was no warmth to be found in that touch.
“Don’t wait for me tonight.” He stated, leaving no room to argue, and closed the door behind him.
“Yeah, great. Fuck you too… spoiled fucking prick."
Stewy should have kept himself cynical, should have assumed that things weren't ever going to work out between them back then. What had he been expecting? Living as bachelors together, forever, with Kendall in the same apartment until he could gather the courage to stand up to Logan? Yeah, no, that wasn't happening.
So coming back to the topic at hand, the Roy’s, you could never end up not getting fucked by them if you stayed long enough.
He could see then how he might have made the wrong choice by getting in with Sandy and paying Waystar’s debt off. It had been a miscalculated error on his part, ego may have played a big part in it. He thought it would be easy; get a significant stake in the company and then sell it once Sandy had humiliated Logan. That seemed satisfying enough, from his point of view, and it would put a lot of money directly into his pockets, so just a win-win situation all around.
Things are never that easy. Somewhere along the way, it got muddy; with the bear hug, Kendall’s betrayal, and the humiliation that came with it. So finally, after thirty years of history together, he has decided he was done with Kendall. Whatever feelings he held before were completely gone. Dead. He was moving on.
He didn’t go to Kendall’s birthday party for his fortieth birthday; he didn’t call him when Logan told him they were buying Gojo, even if he knew that was Kendall's idea, and he definitely wasn’t thinking about him anymore.
Then Kendall came back from Italy, and every effort Stewy had put into building a wall between them to shut him out, was rendered useless when he found Kendall on the front steps of his house, waiting for him, smoking a cigarette while not wearing a coat in the middle of a chilly New York night.
But that story doesn’t concern the rest of the Roys as much as the next one, the moment that changed the next two years of his life.
It was late at night when he had gotten that call. It wasn’t exactly the one he had been expecting, as he sat on the puffy living room rug in his apartment, a box full of photos from high school to college he had asked his mother to send him over. He had been feeling kind of melancholic at the time, finishing off a glass of wine while he looked through the last box. There weren’t many pictures there, he should have taken more.
He had been quietly lamenting that fact, wondering how Kendall used to look like at twenty-four —when he wore his hair a little longer and sported a light stubble— because he couldn't find any clear photo of that specific year, when his phone rang. He frowned as he tried to look where he had put it earlier, finding it underneath his Berkeley high school yearbook, which had been discarded to the side a while ago. Its pages still opened on a particular entry.
He blinked the haziness away from his eyes as he read the caller ID, “Shiv Roy”. He sighed and hoped to be sober enough for it.
When the call ended and his car had finally arrived for him, he concluded, he actually was too sober for it, if anything, as he sat texting Sandi while on his way to Romans' apartment, and did a line of coke over his phone, when his driver told him they were almost there.
He checked his reflection on the elevator mirror on his way up, combed back his hair using his hand, making sure it was flawless, dusted off his brown suede Tom Ford jacket, and then glanced at his watch. It was silly, being this nervous, but there was a high probability of Kendall being there too.
Not like it was a social visit anyways. When the elevator doors opened again he put on his usual cool attitude and swaggered towards the apartment.
There they were, the classic Roy trio; Shiv standing up, looking at Roman who was sitting over the headrest of his couch, arguing with her about something. Kendall stood back, looking through the big windows that oversaw the city, hands on his hips, dressed up in a simple brown t-shirt, his head bald, just like the last time he had seen him. He still remembered how it felt when he ran his hands through it.
“...well I don’t fucking want to get into it, Rome. Do I ask you about Tabitha?”
Stewy took a step into the room, and couldn’t help it as his eyes skimmed past Roman and Shiv to settle on Kendall. He had expected him to look a little better than last time, for some reason, but he didn’t seem all that different.
“Fuck you, yes , you do, all the fucking time. It was a simple question Shiv, don’t go all fucking… Terminator on me, Jeez...”
Kendall turned back from the window, catching his eyes, and slightly opened his mouth. There was a huge unsalvageable distance between them, one on each side of the room, too much space for them to talk. Not that talking could do any good at that point. They had already tried that one. And Kendall had left his apartment.
Still, he held his gaze as time seemed to pass at a different speed around them. Kendall took a step then, turning his body fully towards him. He took another step inside too.
“Stewy, thanks for coming, we know it's late.” Shiv's voice caught him by surprise.
He blinked, and quickly recovered, coming back to his usual self, as he tilted his head to look in her direction.
“Hm-hm, well, if you call me at 12 pm on a Wednesday night to tell me there’s an acquisition going on, and that we’re getting a historic DOJ fine, excuse me if I lose my fucking sleep over it. So… what the fuck is going on?”
“Our dad fucked us, that’s what’s going on.” She said all matter of factly.
Roman rubbed a hand through his face, pushing his hair back, and turned his head in another direction.
“That’s great Shiv, but how do I fit in this incestuous family orgy? Hm?” He pointedly did not look at Kendall.
Roman crossed and then uncrossed his legs, maniac energy pouring off of him. “Matson’s acquiring Waystar, not even a merger of equals, more like a shark biting into a… seal or whatever those things eat.”
Stewy cursed under his breath. “I knew you were going to fuck us over somehow. Why, did I, fucking, know it?” He kept his voice light because shouting wasn't his thing. Having to think about all of this was enough of a headache already.
Shiv immediately went in for the kill, with a pitch she had clearly been rehearsing. “Listen, we can still stop this, the Waystar acquisition at least. We go hard, the three of us, with you and Sandi, and other major shareholders, we push dad out, because he’s old, and clearly not in his fucking right mind since the stroke, right?” She pointed between her and her siblings. “We can vouch for that.”
“Yeah…” Roman rubbed his ear. “We’re sticking together in this… you need our help, we need your help. So we fucking team up, we’re so solid on our end.” He looked at Shiv as he finished talking, another rehearsed point.
Stewy raised his eyebrows at them.
“You’re solid? Oh, sure.” He smiled, nodding. It would be amusing if it wasn’t at his expense. “And how’s this going to work exactly?”
“Well, we uh—” Kendall spoke from the other side of the room. Stewy’s eyes immediately went to him and his stare softened without him meaning to. “We lost our veto power in the holding company, so there’s nothing we can do about the other firms under our family umbrella, but uh— we can—," he took a few steps towards them, getting closer to the center of the room. “We can salvage Waystar, that’s the big one, with parks, and ATN and cruises, but we’ll probably lose a third of all of our overseas operations. Probably other chunky assets.”
Two days ago Kendall had been in his apartment, in his bed, confessing vehicular manslaughter, kissing him, begging to be forgiven. The image came to his mind, sharp and clear, of Kendall sleeping beside him in bed, wearing his t-shirt.
He blinked out of it, coming back to his current predicament, and turned his head back in Shiv’s direction, crossing his arms over his chest. He had to be discreet about it, Kendall would suffer like three consecutive strokes, if anyone found out about whatever was going on between them, he thought. Though who knows what that could even be.
“Great, I extend my sympathies for you guys or something. But I really don’t see it.”
Shiv scoffed. “What don't you see? You and Sandi are getting kicked off the board, Matson is going to remake it as he pleases, you too are going to lose fucking control.”
He clicked his tongue. “Well… that’s fine, I can sell my shares, our price will be Gojo's and their stock is worth more than Waystar at the time so…”
Kendall took another step, standing right behind Shiv, looking more focused on the argument at hand then. “His stock is worth just over twenty dollars more than ours.”
“Yeah,” Roman got up from the couch and stretched his back. “And, the guy can fucking tank it with a single like… tweet. I don’t know, one day he’s tripping balls and he posts that Jews are destroying the West and what are you going to do about that then?”
Stewy spun his head around to look at Roman, his brows furrowing. “What?”
He just shrugged as a response.
This was just a classic Roy shitshow.
“You have a better chance if you stick with us,” Kendall spoke, his voice leveled, business-like. When their eyes wet again he lowered his head. “But— I’m not really impartial here so uh—, yeah, it’s your own choice.”
Shiv looked between them, but if she noticed anything weird she didn’t show it on her face. “Stewy, this is the right move, it’s in your best interest to align yourself with us, we’re prepared to give you, and Sandi, more control.”
He rolled his eyes. “Oh, more control on the board, hm? What is this? A deja-vu?”
“We’ll give Sandi the chairman position.” Shiv sounded completely sure of herself as he said it, Stewy could have almost believed she meant it.
Roman stopped in his tracks. “Pf… what? Fuck off Shiv. Says who?”
“ We , we say it, Rome,” She said, not taking her eyes off of Stewy. “It’s a fair deal.”
He bit his lip, thinking about it, he wondered, what you could call someone who got burned three times in a row by the same people? Because stupid didn’t even begin to cover it.
He opened his mouth, about to respond when Sandi walked into the apartment, her lips pursed in a tight smile that didn’t meet her eyes. She nodded at him before turning his attention to the rest of them.
“Sandi, hi, great to see you.” Shiv pushed a strand of her hair back, tucked it behind her ear, and passed him by to get closer to her, Roman following close by.
He lost track of the conversation happening behind his back at that point, already bored by having to listen to the same pitch again. He tapped his fingers over the back of Roman’s couch, looking for something to do as he felt Kendall approaching. He wasn’t very sure, for a second, if Kendall was going to speak to him or just go past him to join the main group, but then felt the weight of his gaze focusing on him, out of the corner of his eyes.
“Hey… thanks, uh— thanks for coming, dude…”
Kendall stopped right beside him, not leaving much of a distance, the smell of his familiar, citric, and rosemary-scented cologne filled Stewy's nostrils. It was a shame his sheets didn't smell of it after two days had gone by.
He shrugged, trying to look uninterested. “Yeah, sure.”
“Listen I— I know it’s not ideal, but I figured you should know… in case you wanted to act on it now or…”
“Hm-hm, right .” He leaned against the back of the couch, turning his body towards Kendall. And then, out of nowhere his mouth seemed to outrun his brain as he said, “I broke up with my boyfriend.”
It came out sounding too self-assured, like he had been thinking his words through for some time, and was actually sure about what he was saying, instead of like he had accidentally blurted it out, which was fine by him.
Something crossed Kendall's gaze, what exactly, was too hard to tell, there was some surprise there, mixed in with maybe hope, or sadness.
“Ok… uh— you— uh— did I—?”
“I didn’t do it for you.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “But since we’re coming clean today, I just thought I should mention it.”
Kendall wet his lips and nodded, ducking his head to the side, barely repressing a small, amused grin. “Sure, yeah.”
“Again, this has nothing to do with you, Ken, or with what happened the other day.”
Three hours after that conversation he was at Kendall’s awfully minimalistic and colorless apartment, bent over on his ugly geometric white couch, getting thoroughly fucked by him.
Kendall was kissing his back, his hands roaming all over Stewy’s body, gripping possessively at his waist, and he wouldn’t stop insisting he flipped over. He was saying wanted to see Stewy’s face or something like that. He couldn’t really register it, while Kendall kept pounding at his prostate with his dick with laser-like precision. Fuck. He ended up coming all over the couch, which did give him some satisfaction as his mind began to wonder what the fuck was he even doing.
It had been later on that same day, when the first rays of the morning sun were making their way into the bedroom through the open windows, and Kendall was kissing his shoulders distractedly as he hovered over Stewy on the bed, that he had finally said what he had meant to, five hours ago. “This doesn’t mean anything. You know that, right?”
Kendall hummed and kissed his way down his arm. “Yeah, sure, I know.”
Stewy sighed and rubbed his free hand over Kendall's buzz cut, feeling the slight prickling sensation against the palm of his hand. If the day had come when he couldn’t even tell a convincing enough lie to fool Kendall, it meant he was probably fucked.
“I just wanted to get it out of my system, if we’re going to be working together.”
Kendall looked up at him, there was a spark in his eyes Stewy hadn’t seen in over a decade as pushed himself up. “Uh-huh, sure.”
He kissed him then, and Stewy pulled him closer by his waist, keeping him right there.
It was a slow process to even get back to trusting each other as friends, so Stewy wouldn’t even dare to put a name to what was going on between them, certainly not dating. He was being very cautious to have a foot out the door at any given moment, having already been disappointed by Kendall enough times.
It’s nothing serious, he would tell himself as he decidedly did not think about how he hadn’t slept around with anyone else since. He was determined not to get emotionally attached again, which was kind of ironic considering he had never gotten over Kendall in the first place if he was being honest.
That’s probably the reason why he had decided to throw all caution to the wind, yet again, and stopped the Gojo deal from coming to fruition, aligning himself with Sandi, and the other Roy siblings. Stupidest thing he had ever done, probably.
It was hard to tell if he had done it just out of a sense of petty revenge against Logan, or if he had been thinking with his dick at the time, because Kendall kept fucking him stupid every night the week before on every horizontal surface available in his apartment. But whatever it was, Stewy had found himself elbows deep into last year's company revenue, and spending too many hours trying to come up with a plan to fix the fucking money hole that had been ever-growing for a while.
They went through everything, spitballing about management changes, gutting parts of Waystar and selling them off, like cruises and parks, buying other smaller media endeavors, just floating around every idea they could think of.
Honestly, he was fucking tired, the only respite he got out of it all was that Logan seemed to disappear for a few months after the successful coup. But he had to put up with Roman and Shiv's fights almost daily, and Kendall had started spending too many nights over at his office, so he wasn’t even getting fucked then.
It was getting late that night again, not many people remained at Waystar’s building at that hour, just a few security guards here and there, and some other poor bastards that were working until late.
He remembers it clearly, even now, how he stepped out of the elevator to a dimly lit upper floor; dark except for the only bright light coming out of Kendall’s office. He walked over to it, a delivery food bag in his hand, not making a sound as the carpeted floor cushioned his steps.
There he was, his poor bastard, slumped over in his office chair, looking at his computer screen, thick binders on top of other thick binders filling the rest of the space on the table, barely sparing a look in his direction and a quick, “Hey.”
Stewy closed the wide crystal door behind him and leaned against it. "You know… I always had this fantasy…" he bit his lip. "You, Waystar’s CEO, working in your office, me, bending over your desk… I wouldn't be opposed to that notion tonight…"
Kendall laughed halfheartedly, his hair had started to grow back after the buzz cut, and Stewy’s chest ached with the desire to run his hands through it again.
"Ok, sure… I'm not the CEO yet anyway." Such a Kendall thing to say, always getting caught up in the small, less relevant details. He would have found it endearing if it wasn’t so frustrating.
He pushed himself off the door, walking over to Kendall, picking up some of the binders and putting them away, over the black leather office couch.
“What? It’s not like anyone would notice…”
Kendall scoffed and narrowed his eyes at his computer screen.“Uh-huh, sure, except for the cameras and the security guards…”
Stewy rolled his eyes, “I bought this at the fanciest poke place I found, so enjoy.” He dumped the take-out bag without any elegance on the table and pulled up a chair to sit beside him.
"Thanks, Stew," said Kendall, turning to look back at him. "This never fucking ends…" he sighed.
"Uh-huh, so, how bad is it?" He opened up the takeout food container and unwrapped the single-use wooden fork that came with it. “Are you regretting not taking the Chairman position now? Hm? It’s less work.”
It was already 9 pm and Stewy would have liked to believe that he could have been doing anything more interesting with his night than fetching food for Kendall and sitting beside him while he sulked in his office after working hours. Maybe he could be out with his friends now, or fucking someone else. He had a bunch of unread DMs waiting for him after all. But the reality was, he usually drank a glass of whiskey, and then did a skincare routine while scrolling through social media, sitting alone on his couch most nights.
Kendall shook his head. "Uh— well the stock wasn’t great, to begin with, but it seems to have stabilized this month. What I’m worried about is the quarterly earnings report for next week, and how the market is going to react… with me as the temporary CEO. I think we’re undervalued, huge legacy brand, blue-chip company, it will correct itself. But uh… what’s your read?”
Kendall looked tired, he wasn’t even wearing a tie, just a plain white shirt, some light stubble had begun to make an appearance on his face, and Stewy followed its trail back to Kendall’s neck, watching his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed, then kept wandering down to his chest. He wondered if, underneath his neatly bottomed-up shirt, there were still marks left on his pale freckled skin from a few days ago, that Stewy had pretended not to leave on purpose.
He nodded along as he munched into his food, trying to get his thoughts back on track. “Well, the view seems to be, we’re going to crash and burn, our COO is a sex pest, and stock will go down if we add Shiv to the board because she’s a woman, and so is Sandi, so some hedge funds are going to short our stock.” He pointed his fork over at Kendall, signaling for him to eat as well. “Oh, and people on Twitter are posting about buying put options of Waystar as well, so, yeah…”
“Uh— um… well, fuck them, they will lose their money then.”
“Yeah, funny how it is, the third coup in one year period, and word on the street is we’re unstable and risky?” He wrinkled his nose. “No way… unbelievable, right?”
“Uh-huh, yeah, well—”
“It’s like, you’re pretty fucking lucky you’re literally too big to fail, Ken, but don’t overplay your hand—”
“No, I know. Ok, Stew? I’m going to start making moves, now, uh— with Shiv and Rome, we’re pivoting away from just right-wing news in a ten-year plan. We have been thinking about buying some comic book rights, to… to boost our media production branch, maybe parks… raise again our price before thinking about any other acquisition plan.”
Stewy watched him closely, it didn’t sit well with him, the way his stomach flipped over at the sudden nostalgia. He remembered Kendall laying on his lap at their apartment in college, high on something, making plans with Stewy about how they would fix Waystar together like it was a game. There they were again, those feelings he thought he had buried a long time ago.
What a stupid thing to dwell on.
He put on his best nondescript face and said, “Well, good, because you’re costing me money here, Ken.”
Kendall exhaled, the tense line his shoulders were forming before seemed to relax.
“I know, yeah…” He looked at Stewy then, his expression hard to decipher, as put a hand over his knee. Its heat seeped through the thin cloth of his trousers. “Thanks, for— for trusting me, Stew.”
Stewy looked at the hand, and then back at Kendall's face, not used to him initiating any kind of casual contact, least of all in the office, even if no one was around to see. He raised his eyebrows casually at him, trying to seem unfazed by it while feeling the pleasant burn of each of Kendall's fingers pressing into his leg.
"Yeah, I didn't do it to help you, Ken. I just figured I could get richer if we stayed in control of the company and I got to sell you for parts."
Kendall's lips curled into a smile like he refused to buy into Stewy’s whole act."Sure."
He moved his hand up Stewy’s tight and squeezed, his gaze completely focused on his mouth, as if he was waiting for his permission. He did that sometimes, like he was unsure if Stewy really did want him; other times he was casual and demanding, like fucking Stewy over his couch was just a given.
Stewy pretended not to feel a tug in his heart, but being terminally stupid for Kendall, he leaned forward. His lips were almost touching, and he could feel Kendall’s breath ghosting against them, could almost taste him as he watched Kendall’s tongue dart out to wet his own lips; they were damp and warm, inviting as always, he had a thing for biting into them and then licking them better. Fuck, he hadn’t been alone with Kendall in a room for three days, and the idea of kissing him was making him hard already.
Kendall brushed his nose against him, tilting his head a little to the side. “Uh… There’s another thing I wanted to ask you…” he murmured.
“Uh-huh, I’ll just say no, preveniently.” He furrowed his brows, his nose drawing a pattern over Kendall’s light freckles on his cheek.
“I’ve been talking with my dad… lately. Yeah, it's just— he’s been feeling worse… healthwise. He invited me for dinner— like a— uh— a family dinner. I don’t know, maybe the spirit of Christmas past visited him, or he couldn’t get a new baby on the line in time, something like that…”
It was like high school all over again, like college, like every other time.
Stewy pulled back instantly, retreating into his previous position, his body language guarded again, the moment completely shattered.
“Good luck with that.” He shook his head, looking at his food as he tried to stab a particularly rebellious piece of salmon with his fork.
“I mean, do you— do you want to come? with me?”
Stewy turned to stare at him and blinked slowly. “Do I want to have dinner with your dad? No, Ken, I do not.” He felt the warmth of Kendall’s hand still resting upon his knee and knew then that he was probably about to make a really stupid decision yet again.
The food suddenly left a bitter taste in his mouth. Why did he always do these things? Ending up getting dragged into Kendall's fights with his dad. Like at Shiv's wedding. He already had enough of those, the last thing he needed was Logan pretending to forget his name again while Kendall repeated he was just that friend from school. He should have bought a cheap bottle of liquor at the 7-Eleven he saw on his way to the office.
"You should come, it's just a dinner, Stew, not a fucking, uh— slaughterhouse. Three hours and we're out." Alarm bells went off in Stewy’s head.
“Ok. Just what exactly do you think we’re doing here, Ken?” He narrowed his eyes. “Why are you inviting me to hang out with your family now?”
“Uh— you— you know why…” he squeezed his thigh again, and Stewy closed his eyes as if the touch burned him.
“No, actually, I don’t think I do. Please tell me why I’m getting invited to your family dinner, are you also calling Sandi Jr? Hm? Maybe even Sandy, with the wheelchair and all, I bet they have a lot to talk about—”
“I love you,” Kendall said, hijacking his whole spill.
It definitely stopped him in his tracks. He could feel his heartbeat against his throat, and a hot warm prickling feeling spreading out on his face.
“I just thought that uh— yeah, that you should know… going forward.” Kendall looked completely at ease as he said it, or as much as Kendall could ever achieve. “Listen, you don’t have to say it back.”
Stewy eyes shot up to gaze into his, his stomach flipping over. Not even making an attempt to answer.
“But I—” Kendall shrugged. “I just can’t see a reason not to say it anymore. I have already wasted enough time so— I don’t know. I want to take you to my, probably, last family dinner with my dad, and I want to just live my fucking life, so… do you—, uh— are you coming?”
Stewy blinked, opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it again. Like a fish out of water.
“You should probably say something about that last part…” Kendall smiled, but he could tell it wasn’t sincere this time around.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he ran a hand through his hair. “Ken, are you serious right now?”
Kendall nodded, emphatically, a little flustered. “Yeah— yes, I love you, I mean that's— it’s pretty fucking obvious, right? From my point of view.” He took his hand off Stewy’s leg, leaving the cold to take its place. “I know I have been an asshole, so I get it if you don't want to—”
“I’ll go to your family dinner.”
Kendall looked at him, watching for some kind of tell that in the end, he wasn't able to find.
“Ok,” he finally answered.
Stewy swallowed a thick lump of tangled feelings down his throat. “Yeah.”
They stared at each other, in complete silence, Stewy bit his lip, his heartbeat too quick for a resting stance. Kendall placed his hand over his leg again as he went back to looking at the computer screen, casually switching to talking about Waystar as if nothing had transpired. Stewy struggled to follow along as his chest burned, but the feeling of Kendall’s hand against his knee anchored him in place.
Things got better then, especially after Logan’s death. They got much worse before that of course, but without the constant presence of Logan in their life, the family dynamic became something more manageable.
Roman’s birthday didn’t seem all that terrible to him. He liked Kendall’s siblings enough, he had watched them grow after all, but usually preferred to keep to himself and avoid them as much as he could. That had kept things peaceful for the last year.
It was such a pity then, that Stewy was about to do something that could completely ruin everything between them.
March 2nd, thirteen days until Roman’s birthday.
His clock says it’s 10 am when he checks it when his car pulls into the Maesbury’s offices garage. He had been working there for ten years now, as one of the executives behind the global HOP for portfolio management, and didn’t have any real desire to climb higher on the corporate ladder, if he wanted that he would have already gotten it now by his forties.
He liked the money, he liked making deals come through and he liked bitching with his coworkers and other Wallstreet guys over the last stock market closure; feeling like the smartest man in the room every time his predictions came true and he made a fuck ton of money on them. It’s just the way that he is, his temperament had never really changed through the years. In high school, he liked to do the bare minimum and still get an A, just because of the rush it gave him, he was the kind of kid who could rank in the upper quarter of best students each year without even appearing to break a sweat. Just about the opposite of Kendall who, even if he had been an undeniably bright straight-A kid, always had to try twice as hard as he actually needed to in order to succeed.
Confidence was what Kendall lacked and Stewy exuded, he walked up to the teachers and cozied up with them, easily made friends with the other students with his unbothered always cool attitude, and learned quickly in college how to make rich men like him enough to give him a job, and trust him with their money.
From his point of view, it all came down to his natural charm, and his ability to let racist remarks easily slide off of him during the nineties and early two thousand. Once you got by that, it was fairly easy to get old white guys to part with their money. Not that Stewy was a conman or anything like that, he was good, he offered results, by the time he was in his late twenties he managed a seventy million fund, with some friends as his partners, because of his brilliant track record.
The market is a volatile thing nonetheless, so money was always bound to be lost. There had been a particularly bad endeavor they had gotten themself involved in, during the early two thousand, where things had gone south somehow. They fumbled it, sold when they should have held for another year, and held when they should have sold, and just like that his fund had lost more than twenty percent of their investment money. While his friends were panicking over telling their clients, and the prospect of them divesting their money, Stewy’s real creative genius had shone through. He cut back on their fund budget and took enough money out of the business to entertain their clients, finding out that, taking them to expensive restaurants, and other superfluous preferential treatments, was a sure-fire way to keep them content. That way they managed to avoid what had been their worst crisis at the time.
Spending money also came easy to him, but he did it in a joyous way, unlike his father who had always been obsessed with not overindulging on shallow expenses, which the family yacht apparently wasn't on of, and Kendall who spent money with the same kind of joy and thought one puts into just continuing to breathe. Stewy liked nothing better than sipping from a three thousand bottle of whiskey, lounging in the pool of his greek villa, trying every expensive, fancy new restaurant he could find, and, when he was younger, partying every night into the wee hours without having to give his account a second look.
So he relished being rich is the thing, he had fought hard for it. Well, at least harder than Kendall, and he was restless. He liked having fun and had a nihilistic approach to business, one of his early mentors had told him, “the minute you establish anything it starts to decay,” and he had taken it to heart. Corporate raiders, like he was, were then just the inevitable outcome.
He wouldn’t call his job now exactly fun , but if you could exclude the endless weekly meetings, and some other boring details now and then, it was pretty close to perfect for him. That’s why he looks happy today as he strolls into the Maysburry office building at ease, designer sunglasses on his face, obscuring his eyes, a tailored wool suit that fits his body like a glove, and a tie, as the reception staff let him in through the employee door without needing to use his e-card for access.
"Si— sir..?" He hears someone call behind him, and turns around in the hall, stopping before the elevator, to find what he gathers are two young juniors who work at the firm that he had maybe seen a couple of times around.
He raises his eyebrows and looks at them, annoyed.
"Uh… well, we're just—" one of them says.
"We needed some feedback on our risk prospects." the young woman finishes off for him, her ponytail moving along as she nods.
"What?" Stewy furrows his brows, "Don't bother me with that. Oh my god. Just go find Barbara." with that he turns around and takes the elevator to his office.
"Good morning! Big thing today, closing the Max-Stream deal, word is, I’m the man of the hour," Jared greets him cheerfully, as he sees Stewy stepping into the upper floor.
He was an older guy, pleasant enough, they shared the same unbothered and hedonistic lookout for life, and Stewy had taken a liking to him almost immediately when they had met years ago. It wasn’t what he would call “ a close friend”, he had few of those, but he found his presence fun enough. It was hard to find someone in his late-fifties who liked to party twice as hard as the younger guys, the kind of man who utterly refused to grow up, and whose wifes never turned thirty-five.
Stewy smiles at him, pleased, and pats him on the shoulder as a friendly gesture. "Well, well, well… I guess you didn't die at Josh's bachelor party last week, that's a surprise." he grins.
His colleague laughs in good humor. "Yeah, don’t tell my wife about it."
Stewy furrows his brows, feigning to take offense at the mere suggestion.
"Wouldn't do that to the man of the hour."
They start walking towards their offices, through the open workspace, and then up the glass stairs. The two interns Stewy met at the door following closely behind him, trying very hard to interrupt their conversation, but being ignored at every turn.
Jared looks at his phone screen, checking his emails and making a face at whatever he reads.
"So speaking of wives, how are things with the Roy family?"
Stewy shrugs and fixes his blazer. "You know; still filthy rich, still spoiled, still at Waystar."
"Sir… sir?" One of the interns calls weakly behind them, but no one turns around.
"Yeah," Jared chuckles amused, "I saw Waystar last Friday's closure and the stock has gone up since the last two years, still not like it was… I don't know, five years ago? But not that bad."
"Uh-huh, I know, it just took a lot of stock buyback, and getting rid of some park assets… they were driving the firm into the ground, making fucking petty based business decisions."
Jared nods as they keep walking, "Logan was kind of a dead weight at that point, I heard."
"Yeah… literally now," Stewy smiles, a little too pleased with himself. "Let's hope they can manage to not mess it up this time around."
He stops, leaning into the glass door to his office, holding into its smooth, metallic, angular handle; Jared stops too to respond.
"What? The three Roy kids and a Furness basically steering the ship? I definitely want to see how things look ten years from now."
"It's fine, Kendall's solid, he can do it." Stewy almost cringes as soon as those words leave his mouth because it was kind of a lie. When has Kendall ever been solid in the first place?
Love really must make you blind sometimes.
He smiles at Jared before entering his glass-walled office, and sits down on his computer, opening his mail, the door opens again and he stares at it annoyed, thinking it was the interns again. But out the other side comes his assistant, "Stewy, just a reminder that the Sandis still wanted to meet tomorrow regarding some investments."
"Yeah, great." He says while looking over his emails.
"I'll tell Sandi jr. to come in at twelve tomorrow, if that's ok?"
"Uh-huh…" he dismisses her, immersed in reading over one of the stock buys agreements they had sent him.
She goes to exit but then pauses, turning her head to look over at Stewy. "Ah… there are some… people at your office door?"
"Oh my god," he mouths, as he rubs a hand through his eyes. "Sure, whatever, let them come in. I love being watched while I read over legal agreements by Bert and Ernie over there."
He didn’t like having people under him he held any kind of responsibility for, house staff, sure, chauffeur, cooks… sure, all of that was fine. But training people was something he found a bit too close to parenting than what he was comfortable with. He had enough on his plate already and didn’t have scotch at hand at the moment to swallow down his nerves like he did whenever Kendall’s kids came over.
He scrolled down his screen, skimming through some stock purchase agreement, reading over the price, reviewing the risks, without getting very deep into it, just as a formality, before sending it. When something catches his eyes.
"Um… what the fuck,” he mumbles, frowning. “Who wrote this SPA?"
"We— we did sir," says one of the juniors that were now in his office, watching him with a certain level of apprehension.
Stewy looks up from his screen, his eyes narrowing. "Yeah? And how are we supposed to cover our asses in case of a breach of contract? Hm? We just late the state law fuck us?"
The junior team members exchange a quick look between each other, a petrified look on their faces. The guy clears his throat, adjusting his grip on the binder he’s carrying in his hands. His cheap suit wrinkles at the elbows. He looks every bit the recently graduated guy from economics that he is, with his slicked-back hair and overly stiff posture.
"Ah— um— well…"
"You forgot to finish the warranty agreement. Why are you giving this to me without a previous revision?" Stewy sighs. "Where's Barbara? Isn't she the one that usually babysits you?" Tilts his head to the side.
"Yeah, but— she…" he looks over at his college. "she died… sir."
"Um… what? When?"
"Like… a— a month ago, I believe," says the girl.
February, when he had been dragged by Kendall and his siblings to Spain in some new bid to buy up some production company from Europe, in order to recoup a bit of Waystar’s overseas western operations. Fuck. Why did he always have to get himself into the whole Waystar thing even after exiting the firm?
Stewy opens his mouth, then closes it. "Ok, great, listen, why don't you guys go looking for Jared? Or literally anyone else who will mentor you? Just not me." He smiles, before turning his gaze back to his screen. "Thank you."
They hesitate in the doorway for a moment before leaving, and Stewy could almost exhale in relief.
He is many things, but a parent or mentor material isn’t one of them. For fuck sake, he almost jumped in his seat every time he heard Kendall’s kids' voices in the apartment on the weekends.
Admittedly, he was getting better at it, he had just discovered that thinking about them as tiny adults you shouldn’t swear around helped. If they had survived Roman as an uncle for all these years, there was no way he could do worse, was what he liked to tell himself.
His phone begins vibrating over his glass office desk, and he frowns as he reads Kendall’s name on the caller ID. The only reason he would call instead of text him was an emergency. He freezes in his chair, worrying for a second about what it could be, but then immediately calms down, as he remembers the kind of inconsequential stuff Kendall considers emergency worthy sometimes and picks up his phone.
“Stew, I need your reading on this.”
He rolls his eyes. He fucking knew it.
“Nice to see you’re having a good day at work too, babe…” He says, looking through some stock information on his computer screen, distracted.
“Hey, I’m serious here, dude. Do you think Norlinx is undervalued? Because uh— I’m about to propose a possible acquisition to the inner circle and part of the major shareholders so…”
Kendall has that fake self-assured voice he uses when he’s stressed out and Stewy hums as a response, typing their ticker symbol on his keyboard to check their price.
“I guess? They’re barely trading at ten times their earnings after the scandal…”
“Yeah, other similar stocks are trading at thirty times that right now.”
Sometimes he had the feeling that Kendall only called to hear his own voice. Some things never did change, when they were kids he would beg Stewy to tell him what were his answers on a test just to interrupt and go on to tell him his own. Then in college, he would ask him for feedback just to disregard every negative critique he made.
Stewy opens up another tab, skimming over the news. He skips the ones about the imminent global economic collapse. “Ok, So… pretty, fucking, undervalued then.”
“That’s why I’m asking. They’re still being fined by the EU, and uh— it could be quite a significant amount of money, or it could be fine to buy right now.”
“Well…” he squints his eyes, looking over some numbers. He knows of a few ways to make Kendall shut up, but none of those worked over the phone. “If you’re asking me about my take on European fines, I don't know, dude, they could get pretty fucking high. But some changes in management could appease them.”
"Right, yeah. Ok, uh— that's what I thought."
He opens his mouth, ready to end the admittedly one-sided conversation, but then thinks better of it.
"Actually, Ken, I have something to ask you… did Barbara die?"
That seems to catch him by surprise because he takes a few seconds to respond. "Yeah, uh-huh, I think so—, I told Jess to send some flowers on… on our behalf, to— to her family."
"What? Why didn't I know about this? Now I'm having to stroll around with a pair of ducklings following me… and don’t get me started on—"
"Dude.” Kendall cuts him off in a slightly dry tone. “I'm busy, tell me about it when you get home."
“Well, ok, fuck you then… you know I’m also busy, right? Ken?”
“Yeah, raiding other companies, and shorting stock against failing businesses…” he can almost hear Kendall grinning at the other side of the line, smug.
Stewy clicks his tongue, annoyed. "Whatever, I’m on the acquisition board now, if you ever listened…"
“Come on, I was only joking, Stew… I’ll see you at dinner, ok?”
“Yeah, sure.”
He hangs up, letting his phone fall over his desk with a thud, irritation prickling his skin. It’s hard not to remember the bear hug debacle sometimes.
There’s a knock on his door then, Jared and other associates enter his office, their hunched—over body language reads to Stewy like a bad sign.
"We bring some bad news."
"Ok?" he quirks his eyebrow at them
"So, the LBO of Stream-Max is dead in the water."
"Fuck… great, that's… awesome." He rubs a hand through his eyes. "Why? This is fucking with our portfolio prospects, dude."
"Well, Barbara was the one in charge of the negotiations, and now that she's dead—,” he makes a face. “I don't know, I guess it's been lost in translation."
The new supposed star acquisition of their new portfolio is down and they barely have a month left before having to give their private partners full disclosure of their yearly plan.
"Fuck me…"
Jared nods. "I'll leave that to your boyfriend,” he deadpans. “We're having a meeting with the team in ten minutes, we need to brainstorm something else."
"Great, I love team meetings." He sighs.
So maybe he’s pissed, because of Kendall, and the portfolio, and having to attend a two-hour-long meeting right before lunch, and the birthday thing, as he sits on his chair, playing with a candy bar wrapper over the table, ruminating through everything that had happened that day in his mind, indifferent over the stressed discussion going on around him.
"Stewy?" His boss's voice pulls him back to the present.
He glances at her, twirling the plastic wrapper between his fingers. "Me? Ok, Well…" he puts it down. "If we really need a strong UI, and streaming network, I'll say…," he tilts his head. “Maybe go for Norlinx, they’re heavily undervalued right now. But Waystar is already thinking about acquiring them, so we should probably hurry up and decide if we want to make a move."
His colleagues exchange glances between each other, expressing different stances from doubt to agreement, while the head of acquisition keeps her eyes on him.
"Dalia?" She asks without turning to look.
"It could work, it— it does fit with our portfolio."
Jared clears his throat. "We could use it as a way to strengthen our other services' online presence. Cut their own tech divisions, cost reduction, just a whole overhaul."
They all pause, it's likely going to be a five-year agreement, and there are a lot of things to consider, so it makes sense to think it through.
His boss gets up from her chair. "Ok, good job, get on with it then."
They all scutter out of the room, picking up their documents, Stewy gets up from his chair, walking over to the door, the weight of what he had just proposed starting to settle on him.
"Isn't your boyfriend going to flip out if you steal the Haugs company from just under his nose?" Jared asks with an amused grin on his face.
Stewy shrugs, feigning ambivalence. "It's just business, he won't take it personally." He lies.
“Well, you’re the man of the hour now, Hosseini.” He claps him on the back. “Let's see if you can make it come through. Let's call the Haugs.”
Stewy’s phone rings in his pocket as he walks down the stairs to his office. He grabs it, expecting some client or associate trying to contact him, and then barely represses an annoyed sigh as he reads the caller's ID.
Fucking Roman Roy.
Whatever it was that he wanted, Stewy was sure couldn’t be any good. Roman only called him when he needed his help with something, and that something had mostly to do with Waystar, or on some rare occasions, with Kendall. He loved him anyway, in the same way, one loves an annoying little brother that’s dead set on stealing his toys, but doesn’t delude himself over the transactional relationship the Roys tended to have with everyone around them.
It really always comes back to Waystar, even now, that Logan isn't around anymore.
That thought gives him pause. There was no way Roman knew he had just proposed stealing Norlinx away from them half an hour ago.
He furrowed his brows, no , that didn’t make any sense, it was just the paranoia speaking. Kendall must be rubbing off on him lately.
"Hey dickwit, having fun ruining the planet?" Roman greets him at the other end of the line.
Stewy strolls towards the exit of the building, looking over at the sky for a second, dark grey clouds had started covering the dull blue New York sky, the sun barely shining through as he opens the door to the black tinted windowed car that was waiting for him on the street.
"Hey… Rome. How's the workplace harassment lawsuit going? Remind me again…" he asks, straightening his navy blue wool jacket over his shirt as he sits down in the car.
"There's no lawsuit, asshole, we dropped the guy— it's whatever, we solved it." He can almost hear Roman messing with his hair through the call.
"Uh-huh."
"Yeah, I'm an awesome COO, and everyone loves me and wants to fuck me." Roman resumes. "So… Do you want to have lunch?"
That confirms it, he definitely wanted something, because Roman never fucking goes out to eat for pleasure. Stewy knows it well enough, he had watched him ask for the most dressed down, blandest kind of salad they had in enough restaurants already; to end up eating only half of it anyways. It reminded him of Kendall in a way, but it didn’t at the same time. Whatever Roman’s deal was, it was definitely something else.
Stewy hisses, faining regret. "Actually, I have work to do, dude. So… I don't think I'll be able to make it, sorry," he lies easily.
"What work? We all know you sit around and masturbate over the stock market… Ugh! Yeah, short that stock…." The sound of Roman mimicking some kind of orgasm makes him roll his eyes.
"Yeah, Rome, you might be projecting, bro."
"Whatever, just come for lunch, asshole. You're like my… I don’t know—, like my brother-in-law or whatever now, so just come."
Stewy sighs, that’s kind of a low blow, pulling the family card.
"Ok," he tells him, annoyed.
"Great— You pick the place, just send me the fucking— the address or whatever," Roman says before hanging up.
They end up at a Japanese, fusion cuisine kind of place, Stewy had been wanting to go back to for a while anyway. They served this great fucking fish selection on the menu that he was kind of in love with. It was a small restaurant, two hundred dollars a menu, barely a dozen black, stainless steel stools spread out around an u-shaped bar in the middle, where the cooks served you the food directly.
He could tell Roman really hated it by the way he squirmed on his seat and complained about sitting too close to other normos; Couldn’t they just have gone to a normal restaurant with actual individual fucking tabes? He had asked him. But Stewy just shrugged as they waited for the food to be served.
“So, here’s the thing, Kendall wants to buy Norlinx, and Shiv’s kind of on the fence about it…” Roman explains to him as if he really needed to be caught up to date with every little argument the Roys were having that week.
“Uh-huh.”
“Me?” He pointed at himself. “I’m a fucking visionary, I say go for the online competition, buy Otter Media, they have a bunch of clickbaity, hipster news sites that would fit in with Waystar. So we fucking eat them up. It makes sense, right?”
Stewy tilts his head to the side and blinks slowly while pining Roman down with his gaze.
“Kendall’s being a little bitch about it... like always.” Roman wrinkles his nose. “So… what’s your take?”
"My take…” he turns to look at the cook, who silently places their first course in front of them in the bar, and smiles tightly in her direction. He lowers his voice. “Roman, I can't begin to tell you how completely uninterested I am in your new form of family therapy you guys had come up with this week. Hash it out between you three and leave me out of it."
“Ugh, come on, don't be so… uptight about it, I’m asking you because you’re like…” he points over at Stewy, moving his hand around. “... king fucking corporate raider, and like doing drugs with this other Wallstreet assholes. So, come on, what's the word in the street?”
“Word in the street…” Stewy mumbles, as he bites into the food on his plate, whatever it was, it tasted amazing. “Hm…. They have a thirty billion dollar evaluation…” he says with his mouth full.
Roman nudges his own food a little with the fork, a funny look on his face. “What…? For that shitty website? Ugh…” He stabs at it and the crunchy sound it produces makes him recoil a little. “Seems like a fucking stretch to me.”
"Yeah, I know.” Stewy nods. “But it's mostly tied to some real estate investments, other chunky assets, and big money injections from an equity firm he got his hands into, somehow."
Roman seems to perk up at that.
"So it's an over-inflated price, we pop that guy's fucking balloon and he falls flat into the… fucking ground."
"Probably. The stock could go much lower if the right people looked into it."
"And… we're going to do that right ?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Stewy smiles at him, his eyes narrowing, a little amused. "Rome, why don’t you just let the adults handle the situation, ok?"
"Yeah, ok.” he looks over at his plate before immediately turning to stare at Stewy again. “Fuck you. This is like… quid pro quo and all that bullshit, you're family now."
Again with the family angle.
Stewy rolls his eyes in response. "Roman, don't try to rope me into this, I'm doing great on my own, thank you. I don't want anything to do with your disaster of a family company. Do it yourself, stir up some shit on ATM, then buy them when the stock falls, see how fast the SEC can fuck your ass."
"Whatever, it's not even our company anymore, it's the fucking Sandi's with tits, and the rest of the board company, ugh…"
"Well, yeah, that makes sense. I already told this to Kendall, and I'm telling you now, it's not going to stay in family control forever. You have no kids to pass it on to. And don't say Iverson because that's not going to happen. So just fucking let it go, you're already stupid rich, go invest in some movie studio o whatever you want to actually do. This is just another fucking ego fight between you three again…"
Roman finally bites into his food and immediately flags down a cook and asks them for a glass of whisky or whatever strong-flavored liquor they had.
“So… you’re not going to help me?” He scratches his ear distractedly.
Stewy stares at him, disbelief written on his face as he shakes his head. “You know Rome, I actually charge for consultations.”
Roman snorts at that.
“Yeah… like you need any more money…” he pauses as a member of staff at the restaurant places a glass of scotch next to him. "Why does it matter? You're like filthy rich now. You sold off your Waystar stock back at a premium to the Sandi's."
Stewy shrugs, amused, and tugs his wool jacket straight. "I think I can get even fucking richer, bro." He grins.
“Well, ok then, uncle Scrooge-tewy. ” Roman gestures around with his hands dramatically, making him chuckle.
They manage to steer away from the topic for a while as they finish their second menu course. Roman surprisingly eats most of the food on his plate, then they get to the desserts, which Roman unsurprisingly pushes away, disinterested. When they exit the restaurant Roman has returned to the previous Waystar topic.
“...and Kendall’s going to be like all fucking neurotic and depressed if he doesn’t manage to nail that deal with Norlix, he’s like fucking obsessed with it.” He tells Stewy as they walk to their respective cars, shrugging on a jacket as he gets into his black SUV, closing the door after himself.
Stewy watches him leave, his hands inside his pocket as he looks up into the sky. It looks even grayer, with clouds covering it now. He wonders if it’s really going to start raining.
March 3rd, twelve days until Roman’s birthday.
He gets home later than expected that night. He usually doesn’t go out much on his own nowadays, at least not since he had started to morph into this disgustingly domestic new version of himself, who would rather stay at home with Kendall, and make out while watching a movie on their couch, than party. He wasn’t in his late twenties anymore, at that time he thought of himself as just another hedonistic asshole, drinking, and doing drugs, and fucking, and getting rich. Everything but thinking about that small hole that had been growing in his heart since childhood.
Now he didn't really party, and when he went out for drinks, he checked his phone for Kendall's text messages every fifteen minutes out of boredom.
But he had gone out that night anyway. It was a work-related matter, getting some other Wall Street guys drunk enough to feed him information. An old trick, but one that still worked. He just had to keep the stupidly expensive flow of vodka coming, while being inconspicuous enough to conceal his own lack of drunkness. The last thing he wanted was to get home, stumbling like a teenager after his first night out to find Kendall waiting for him.
That was the crux of the matter at the end of the day, Kendall Roy, it was always him, just a constant in his life he couldn't get rid of, even when he thought he wanted to. So now the ever-growing hole in his heart was being mended back to health somehow, maybe it was just the right time.
He takes off his shoes as he enters the apartment, shrugging off his coat, now down to his black polo shirt, already starting to feel a little too warm because of the thermostat.
"Hey." Kendall was sitting on the couch, reading something on his tablet, with a glass of whiskey half full by the table. "Did you have dinner already?"
Stewy watches him, taking in how tender the dim light coming from the floor lamp was making him look. He’s wearing that simple brown t-shirt Stewy had always found especially soft, and his grey hairs, which he hadn't bothered to dye black again, were shining brighter in the light. It all makes Stewy feel a bit sentimental.
"Yeah… kind of got caught up on something," he says, but Kendall seems enthralled by his reading, not looking up to see him getting closer. “Sorry I didn't text you before." he bows down to kiss Kendall's forehead.
"Uh— It's fine, don't worry about it." He puts the tablet down and rubs his eyes. "I lost track of time reading this... I'm digging into the classics now."
Stewy picks up Kendall's glass from the table and downs the rest of the whisky. "Did you finish all of the Shakespeare stuff already?"
He offers his right arm to Kendall, extending his hand outwards to him, but he outright ignores it and instead pulls himself up from the couch to his feet without any help. Well, so much for chivalry.
"Uh… yeah, dude, two weeks ago, keep up."
Stewy snorts, amused at the audacity Kendall has for always feeling hurt whenever he forgets something insignificant.
"Wow, You're having so much fun in your free time now," he deadpans, and places the glass of whiskey, now just half-melted ice, back on the coffee table. "It must be so nice to have a sugar daddy working for you." He kisses Kendall then, with his arms circling his waist. It's slow and sweet, and he tastes like the whisky that he had just downed a second ago.
It's oddly sweet, coming back home to Kendall, getting to kiss him, something that he thought he would never get.
Their lips part and Kendall looks dazed for a moment before huffing and replying,"Hey, fuck you, I'm still working, and— uh— you were the one insisting that I had to take it slow if I took the CEO role, and try to delegate in other people more so—"
"It was just a joke, babe." He kisses his cheek, pressing his lips over a small group of freckles, before looking at him again. Fuck, why does he feel like he got lucky? Kendall's just looking at him annoyed now and Stewy can't stop making heart eyes at him. "You know I love you and your boring fucking books." He kisses him again, a small peck on the lips this time. "And I do want you to take it slow."
Kendall sighs and relaxes again then. "Rome sent a box of muffins, and a note, something about his birthday. I think he's just being—, um… passive-aggressive about it now, because I almost forgot last year." Stewy runs a hand through his hair, keeping the other firmly anchored in his waist. “But he also called me later to say, don't come if you don't want to, it's whatever, I don't care , so go figure.” He shrugs.
"Not showing up would be rude."
A dry sarcastic laugh comes out of Kendall's throat. He looks up at Stewy, smug. "Uh-huh, sure. You didn't come to my birthday party two years ago."
Stewy rolls his eyes, letting his hand slide off Kendall’s waist.
"Yeah, and I bet it was miserable without me."
"It was," says Kendall, his tone suddenly turning more serious.
"I was trying to make a point," he dismisses. The memory of those years still stings a bit. Even if he has Kendall now by his side, he doesn't relish the opportunity to talk about it. "Hey, it's late, and I’m fucking beat, dude, so... sleep? Please?" He grabs into Kendall's t-shirt and pulls him playfully towards their bedroom.
Kendall smiles, letting himself be tugged along. "Um… Yeah, I was waiting for you."
It was a routine by now, Stewy would change out of his day-to-day clothes and get into bed with Kendall, hugging him from behind. It was more comfortable that way, neither of them moved much throughout the night, and the heat radiating off of Kendall's body had become a necessary comfort to sleep well each night, like a good pillow or an expensive mattress.
Most people would find it strange, sleeping better with someone else by your side. Another human body that tossed and turned all night in an already cramped space next to you; who suffocated you with their heat and made noises while you were trying to sleep. He couldn't blame the couples that, in the end, found it impossible to sleep together and ended up buying a second bed.
Not like Kendall would ever think about sleeping separately, he didn't care about any of those things, he just wanted human contact, someone to hold him at night, and comfort him when he was having a bad day. He was never too picky about it; his bedmate could snore like an old car engine and he wouldn't even complain.
Now, Stewy, on the other hand, that was a more complicated topic. He wasn't one to sacrifice his sleep or comfort for another person, so when it came to this particular arrangement he didn't do it just for Kendall.
It was hard for him to come to terms with, and he wouldn't usually acknowledge it out loud, but the fact was, he slept better with Kendall near him. He came up with a lengthy explanation as to why some years ago, just so he could rationalize his feelings on the matter. It went like this; he had been pavlovian conditioned into it as a kid, completely against his will, something outside of his control, really.
It's difficult to pinpoint exactly when it all had begun, maybe when they were nine, and Stewy started spending the night over at the Roy's household. There wasn't much supervision, most of the adults present at the house were just service people. "My mom went to England to visit her family or whatever," Kendall would excuse her, or, "Dad's out on a business trip, we're expanding to Europe."
So he kept Kendall company and they had fun together, they played board games; watched TV; listened to music; they would even record themselves singing on some old cassettes they found laying around Caroline's studio. But usually just before they went to sleep, they would lay on Kendall's bed with a night lamp on, throw the blanket over their heads and start reading some books.
That was how it started, the inciting incident, one night, both of them were a little too tired but neither wanted to admit to it, and they just fell asleep while reading under the covers. He remembers one of the Roy's assistants waking them up the next day, knocking on the door, to let them know breakfast was ready.
They didn't really talk about it, their social instincts while still in development, were sharp enough to recognize it as something too awkward to discuss. But that didn't stop them from making it into some kind of secret ritual, in which they would share a bed every night Stewy stayed over, from then on. It was half of the fun, being able to just fall asleep together after watching a movie or reading in bed, without any need to say goodbye and leave for one of the guest's rooms.
The worst threat to their secret nightly ritual was Kendall's little brother, as he always insisted on hanging out with them. It annoyed him to no end, if they were watching a movie Roman didn't like, he would throw a fit over it, and if they weren't paying attention to him he would break something or start a fight. Getting rid of him was another kind of hell. "Roman, if you're going to be such a baby you should go play with Shiv" Kendall would say before kicking him out of the room, or "Shouldn't you be asleep already? Go to your room you're so annoying." But Roman always took those as a declaration of war and acted accordingly. The best strategy, they found out one night, was telling him to play hide and seek with them and just leaving him there hiding, never bothering to look out for him.
Those were good times, just thinking about it made him feel nostalgic for the old Roy family house. Maybe even some tenderness towards Roman.
He would go to Kendall's house every Friday and play baseball together on the weekends, sometimes call him on a Sunday to go watch a movie together he just saw the trailer for on TV. But just the two of them. It's not like they had a friend group, Stewy would hang out with other kids on his own, and he would joke and laugh along with them in class, but whenever Kendall tagged along he was ignored. Like he was an inconvenience that could be wished away with their silence. Stewy didn't get it, sure Kendall was awkward and arrogant, and he had a bit of a stammer, but he was a sweet kid. Even if you had to look closely for it.
Other kids would hug each other in the locker room, pat each other on the back after a good game, but Kendall would just stand there in a corner, hoping no one would notice him, and whenever Stewy touched his arm to get his attention or put a hand on his shoulder, just because, he would tense up a bit, and never reciprocated.
Kendall wasn't outwardly expressive like that. Though he did remember everything Stewy told him about his family or of his favorite tv show at the time and would flaunt it in conversations. It was his own way of showing care without saying it explicitly. Kendall's words were always deliberately chosen; he wouldn't let himself state his feelings right in the open. You would be lucky to hear him say, "I love you." He caught him saying it just once, to his mother, and she just smiled awkwardly and replied "Ok."
"What if you lived here?" Asked Kendall one night, while they were lying on the bed listening to music. And he found it sweet even if a bit odd.
"I can't dude, I have my own family."
"Yeah, sure, but… uh— you— you could still see them!"
"Ken, what the hell?" He laughed, amused at the conviction in Kendall’s words.
"We have the money, and you wouldn't like, need anything, and you could be here every night."
Even at such a young age, Stewy's temperament was still the same, so he reacted like he always did when Kendall proposed one of his crazy plans. Trying to steer him away from the topic at hand, instead of giving him a negative answer. It was a rudimentary technique at that point, but he would perfect it through the years.
"Did something happen?"
"Um… No, nothing?" Kendall slumped his head on the pillow, defeated. "I just— I feel really—'' he could feel him struggling to find the right words, and then just give up in the middle of it "...I'm bored, it's annoying." He sighed. "I— uh— I've been having some trouble sleeping. But when you're here it's different, so if I sleep better with you, I don't see why I have to be the one suffering. So, uh— just move here."
Stewy did like sleeping with him, but unlike Kendall, he was content with just being on his own. He didn't need that kind of company or validation, and if he did, he could probably just try to talk to his parents.
"When we're older maybe." He saw Kendall already pouting, and had a weird impulse to touch his face, to soothe him somehow, but repressed it.
He didn't remember how he made Kendall drop the issue that night, but knowing him as well as he does now, years later, he knows Kendall probably didn't forget about it, and probably ruminated on it for at least another week.
What he could remember, however, was why they had stopped doing it.
During their teen years, other people started hanging out around Kendall, now in an ideal age to properly grasp the kind of money and influence that he had. And Kendall liked the attention, was getting cockier and more arrogant, trying to act like the rest of them but like he was above them at the same time; maybe he could also tell at such a young age that most of the people around him just wanted to use him.
So other boys from school started coming over to Kendall's house too. They weren't alone anymore then, and consequently, most weekends they didn't sleep together. But Stewy missed it, he didn't want to look too closely as to why, but he missed just falling asleep next to Kendall. Every Friday after school, all of the boys in their friend group would go to Kendall's house to hang out. Except for this particular day, when no one seemed available. No one, but Stewy.
It was weird at the beginning, being left to spend the night alone after so much time, and even when they did the same activities as always, Stewy could feel that something was off. They would listen to music, but Kendall wouldn't stop fidgeting; they would play video games, but Kendall would tense up every time Stewy leaned over to his side of the couch to tell him something.
"Dude, we should try to get into your dad's booze stash." He gave Kendall a conspiratorial look, a wicked smile on his face, just to find Kendall staring back at him already, somehow transfixed. Before immediately trying to collect himself, even if Stewy could see him turning slightly red in the cheeks.
"Uh, yeah, sure, dude."
Kendall drank more than he did but seemed to relax, and even though the awkwardness was still there no one dared address it. It was like a storm slowly brewing through the night. But he wasn't going to ask if Kendall wasn't going to tell.
They stayed up drinking and watching horror movies, something they did from time to time, enjoying the thrill of it as teenagers. It was the perfect movie genre because even if it turned out to be a yawn fest, they could still have a good time making fun of it. The movie that particular night wasn't bad, but Stewys had turned to making jokes about it to relax the weird tension around them, and Kendall easily followed his lead.
He took off his sweater at one point, slightly revealing his abdomen in the process, feeling the cool air of the room against his skin. Kendall choked on his drink but turned his head around as Stewy looked at him bemused.
"Dude, It's a fucking sauna in here," he said while flopping down on the couch next to Kendall again, to continue watching the movie. His head fell back against the headrest.
Kendall's gaze skimmed down his body, before rearranging his sitting position, his back facing Stewy now. Stewy frowned, confused, but didn't comment on it.
An hour went by and the movie finally ended, he yawned and stretched like a cat over the couch.
" Fuuuck bro, I'm so tired"
"Yeah… uh, me too," said Kendall.
"Let's go to bed."
For a second he could feel Kendall freeze beside him on the couch, before quickly managing to recover from whatever came over him. "Uh-huh, yeah, sure. I'll leave you to it," he said, making an effort to get up from the couch.
"Wait, leave? dude—" Stewy chuckled confused. "Where are you going?" And it was a stupid question really, Stewy should have known by then, that they didn’t talk about this. But he was feeling desperate in a way, trying to hold on to Kendall, or maybe just a part of his childhood that was slipping away from his grasp.
"To my own room, Stew," he said curtly. "Wha… What were you expecting, dude? I— it's, uh, weird to share a room."
Stewy huffed. "Ken, come on—"
"I'm not— I’m not into that ," he spat.
And then he just left.
Well, Stewy knew how to take a hint, and he was also a very spiteful person, so he left early the next morning; got ready before Kendall had even woken up, and went downstairs to have breakfast without him. When Kendall finally met him in the kitchen, he was fully dressed and waiting for his car to come to pick him up.
Kendall looked confused for a moment.
"Something came up right? With your family?" He asked.
"Sure," replied Stewy.
But it wasn't enough, it was like an open wound that refused to heal for some reason. He couldn't put his finger down as to why he felt that way yet, at that time in his life. So he spent the following months keeping a distance from his former best friend.
He didn't make it obvious enough as to be called out on it, but he could see Kendall's face fall each time he told him he couldn't meet him that week again, for the fourth time that month. "Oh, sorry dude I already made plans with Cameron", "Yeah, dude, I— I already promised Paula that I would take her on a date so…", "My parents want to go skiing this week, so maybe next month?"
But it wasn't just that, Stewys was petty enough that after every game of baseball in the locker room, he would go to the rest of the boys on the team and put a hand on their shoulder, or give them a friendly hug while clapping each other on the back, congratulating everyone after a game, and Kendall would just stare at him, silently waiting his turn. Stewy would keep a close eye on him in those moments, watch how he expected the same closeness as the rest, but in the last moment, he would just turn to him and say, "Good game bro," and then just leave.
Kendall's whole demeanor always changed after that.
It upset him after a while, seeing Kendall look like a kicked puppy every time he did it, and his own wound wasn't healing any better. So he stopped, and things more or less returned to the previous normality. But never fully like it was before, the weight of something left unsaid, and that fateful night, hanging over them at every turn.
Stewy still thought about it then, even if a year had gone by. They would party at some of their friend's houses and usually stayed the night after getting drunk, and he would lay awake on the couch, in some other guy's living room, the whole house dead silent, everyone else asleep already, and he would think about Kendall. He would try to remember what it was like, sleeping together, the comfort it brought to him, and wondered to himself if Kendall ever laid awake, like he did, thinking of back then too.
But he was probably asleep already, having one of those alcohol-induced comatose dreams.
When their sophomore year in high school arrived, the breach between them had not healed, but the distance had eventually turned cold instead of hot. They stayed apart without much effort, Stewy had met other people, and Kendall had more friends. His attitude had also changed, he acted then like he had to prove something to the world more often than not, and he would disappear sporadically, just read or study for weeks. it was a pattern, he would dismiss everyone one day and then come back the next, as if nothing had happened.
Sometimes, though not many, Kendall would hang out with their old baseball group, but it was obvious to anyone who cared enough to see it, that his head wasn't really there. He just stayed close by while they all partied, his presence more similar to a ghost haunting them than a friend.
It wasn't until they got to college and decided to share an apartment that things got better between them again. They had both gotten admitted into Harvard, so it just made sense to move in together, since even throughout the distance, they were still childhood friends.
That's how they ended up reconnecting, in six months they had spent more time together than in the last two years. They took most classes together; chose to do every group assignment together; did drugs together; played drinking games while watching movies until three am on a weekday, and then took stimulants to stay awake and study the next day, together. And when the hangover finally set over them, and every muscle in their body ached, they would settle down on the couch with a blanket and kept each other company.
It felt like before, when they were kids, but even better, whatever was between them at that time, but stronger. The bond that tied him to Kendall still had a firm hold over him. And he allowed himself to think about stuff he had buried years ago. There was some heavy longing hidden deep beneath his soul, concealed by the veneer of time, and Kendall was like an archeologist trying to dig it all out until it left him feeling empty and shaken.
The worst part was, or maybe his only solace, that he could also see something in Kendall's gaze. Sometimes when he caught Kendall looking over at him, he could almost see some certain kind of feeling passing through his eyes, but it was always very fleeting, like a flicker of the light, and then it would be gone. He could never get enough of a glimpse of it to name it.
It only got worse, for example, this one day they were playing a drinking game, again, being bored by the TV broadcasting schedule, but also not wanting to go out or study.
They were having fun, vodka shots being emptied and refilled again and again, sitting close on the couch, Stewy's hand touching Kendall casually from time to time, his palm resting on Kendall’s shoulders, on Kendall’s arm, on Kendall’s leg. His stomach tied, twisted into a pleasant knot, he was getting drunk and high on just his own brain chemistry.
He felt emboldened then and placed his head on Kendall's shoulder like it just fell there on its own, relaxing once Kendall didn't seem to comment on it. That should have been it, just Stewy doing something to feel ashamed over the next morning, but still with some plausible deniability.
But then Kendall grinned, a goofy smile on his face, and said, "Dude."
"What?"
Kendall's hands went to Stewy's hair, his fingers dipping beneath its strands, he felt something akin to a hot pang in his stomach. "Why… uh— why did you start straightening your hair?"
"I don't, I just style it differently." He fought the urge to close his eyes.
"Uh-huh, doesn't look as curly to me anymore."
Feeling lost he gazed up at Kendall's face from his shoulder, who was still caressing his hair. Maybe he was just drunk and didn't really know what he was doing, but he looked enthralled by it.
Stewy’s own hand twitched on his lap, wanting to thread his fingers in Kendall's short hair too.
"Ken—" he glimpsed into Kendall's eyes and saw his own feelings reflected there. His heart ached in a way he had never felt before.
But then Kendall stood up, and the moment ended as soon as it had begun.
He rubbed his face. "Fuck, dude, uh— I really need to smoke. Wanna go out?"
Stewy told himself that he didn't care, that maybe he had just imagined it, but Kendall acted off for the rest of the week, skittish, almost jumping every time Stewys walked into the same room of the house he was in. It was affecting him more than he cared to admit, this thing with Kendall.
Then, one night, things changed again. They had agreed to go together to a house party, and Stewy had waited for Kendall for almost an hour, and he hadn't shown up yet. He knew then, that his night would be kind of ruined by this.
Kendall did arrive, eventually, even if an hour too late, and worst of all, with some unknown girl.
"Hey! Stew! What's up, dude? Have you met Ana?" He asked when he spotted him at the party, after at least fifteen minutes of meandering around looking for drinks and greeting other people.
"Nop." A fake pleasant smile plastered on his face. It was such a Kendall thing to do, to just leave him hanging with no explanation, only to then show up as if nothing had happened.
"Hi! I just met Kendall yesterday so.." she laughed. Kendall just stood beside her, smiling. It pissed him off for some reason. "I'm kind of nervous, sorry—"
"Yeah, whatever, see you around," he said while getting away from them. He didn’t want to give them enough time to try to convince him to stay, not taking any chances.
Well, if Kendall was going to leave him for a chick he had just met, two could play that game. Fuck him, honestly, he was the one getting all weird with Stewy the other day, touching his hair, saying bizarre things. So he decided to completely ignore him for the rest of the party, like he was having so much fun with everyone else there, that he completely forgot about Kendall's existence.
It was just an act, of course, the truth is he spent the night keeping an eye on Kendall from afar while chatting with other people. Watching him get drunker and drunker, and make a fool of himself, at one point even trying to rap some Beastie Boys track while everyone else around him laughed and cheered him on awkwardly.
The next time he checked on Kendall again his date was gone, and his intoxication levels were worrying, so Stewy decided to walk over to him, playing it cool.
"Well, well, well… seems like your Juliet just left you hanging, bro."
"Fuck off," said Kendall annoyed.
"Hey, don't get angry with me. I'm not the one who's been drinking like a seaman on shore leave, man."
"Well, maybe I wouldn't have been drinking as— as mu—much, if you hadn't abandoned me, fu—fuck you. We were supposed to come to the party together, d—dude."
"Didn't want to distract you from your date."
Kendall laughed then, a little hysterically which was worrying. "Y—you… ugh! Fucking unbelievable."
"Ok, I'm taking you home," he said, pulling Kendall by the arm.
It was an easy task, easier than he had expected when Kendall didn't put up much of a fight, and just followed him obediently, without any complaint. By the time they got home, Kendall was stumbling a bit, still looking drunk, so just because Stewy didn't feel like having him die in his sleep puking or something equally as pathetic, he made him drink some water, and go piss before going to sleep.
When Kendall finally came out of the bathroom he looked a bit soberer, definitely safe from any alcohol poisoning by that point.
"Shit," he laughed, and put a hand over his eyes, like he was covering them from the apartment light, coming from the ceiling. "How did we get home?"
Well, probably still really drunk.
"Come on, let's get you to bed," said Stewy, trying to get Kendall to walk relying on him for support, not trusting his sense of balance at that moment.
They got to Kendall's room and he basically threw himself into bed, his hoodie hiking up his body in the process, exposing his skin. Stewy stared down at him a second too long without realizing.
The plan had been easy enough up to that point; get Kendall on the bed, then leave for his own room. And he was going to leave, he really was, but he shouldn't have wasted his precious time making sure he was finally sleeping before making his exit, because that gave Kendall the opportunity to mess with him again.
"Stay," he said, and that made Stewy pause, again just for a second, but enough to let Kendall get a hold of his sleeve.
Everything smelled of him suddenly, and Stewy felt weak against it, so he just tried to stand his ground, like he was training to survive an attack from a wild animal. Not making any sudden moves. After all, He didn't know if he could fend off the next bite.
"Sleep here." That was just unfair.
He stayed still, and Kendall decided then to change tactics, quickly taking hold of his wrist, like Stewy was going to be able to run away from him if he couldn't get a proper grasp.
If only he knew.
"You hate me," said Kendall, and Stewy felt all the fight suddenly being punched out of him.
"I don't hate you, Ken." He sighed, surrendering, and started getting into bed with him. Kendall's grasp slightly loosened, but never let go.
A bitter laugh, almost like a scoff. "Uh-huh, sure."
"It's not that," he said once he was lying in bed beside him, making sure to throw in a sheet to cover both of their bodies with his free hand.
He could see then that Kendall was already nodding off to sleep. He looked so peaceful when he was this relaxed, just like when they were kids, and he would curl up beside him in bed.
Stewy felt a heavyweight settle in his stomach then.
"You wouldn't understand," he said into the night; Kendall was already asleep.
He woke up the next day feeling like he went to bed at 10 pm the previous night and had never in his life even tasted alcohol, no hangover so to speak of. Before this incident, he had started thinking about his good nights of rest next to Kendall as just a figment of his imagination. Maybe some kind of over-exaggerated memory exalted by nostalgia at best. But here he was, waking up face to face with Kendall, feeling like a whole new person.
He watched him sleeping for a while, chest moving with each breath, its rhythm soothing, his eyes close, looking as content as he ever was back when they were kids. How this was going to affect their newly found peace, though, he didn't know.
He moved his arm away from Kendall's grasp, who was still light holding onto him.
"Morning..." said Kendall, waking up from the slight rattle, his voice deep and sleepy made something awaken in Stewy. He had a sudden urge to get out of there before Kendall could notice it.
"Fuck, dude… I can't believe I fell asleep here." He tried forcing himself to laugh but it came out breathless. "So… I’m going to get breakfast." He got out of bed, as fast as he could without seeming like he was trying to run away from him. Which he was.
Kendall made a noncommittal sound and resumed sleep, while Stewy retired to masturbate in his own room.
If this was any other time in their life, they would have probably done as they had been doing up until that point, acting as if nothing had happened, keeping their distance. But it was different this time, something in the air, static electricity filling the space between them. So the opposite thing happened, and they started to spend even more time together and got even more comfortable with their physical closeness.
Of course that meant sleeping together again, just for comfort, it was more convenient in some way, they told each other, and every night they each slept on their assigned side of the bed, their backs touching.
Then Stewy started waking up with his arms around Kendall, his body heat seeping into him, his smell strong over the silk pillow sheaths. The first time it happened, it made Stewy so hard, so fast he got dizzy with it. He always disentangled himself and left before Kendall could notice. But knew he was bound to find out, sooner or later.
One morning Stewy went to take his arms off of Kendall's side when he heard him say with a deep strained voice, "It's ok."
He placed his arm back on Kendall's body, then, after a pause, feeling bolder he laid a warm and possessive hand flat over his waist, just to hear the sob that escaped out of Kendall, he pulled him closer but didn't take it any further than that. They just stood there lying against each other, Kendall's back to his chest, and he was certain Kendall could feel his heartbeat, probably even hear it. It was humiliating, but also exhilarating in the same way.
Then it escalated, it started the same as it always did, with obscure flirting innuendos hidden behind friendly banter.
That night in particular Stewy was already laying in bed. The light coming through the bathroom's semi-open door illuminated the bedroom. He could hear Kendall, rummaging through the drawers while brushing his teeth. "That's why I told you to take English 101 back at the beginning…" he was saying. Stewy hummed, distracted. "...You wouldn't be making these mistakes, dude." The sound of him spitting into the sink, then the faucet running.
Kendall turned off the bathroom light and crawled into bed. The room stayed dimly lit, some brightness from the outside coming through their windows, making it so he could still perfectly see Kendall in the shallow darkness, O h! The many blessings of light pollution in the city.
Stewy blinked slowly, then turned his head lazily to the side, looking over at him while sitting against the headboard. "Well, maybe you shouldn't be trying to copy off my essays then."
Kendall scoffed. "I'm just saying. I know your whole stick is doing the bare minimum and getting into the Dean's list."
"You sound almost annoyed by it," he mused.
"Are you kidding?" Kendall looked offended. "Listen, one day it's going to bite you in the ass dude, you can't run shit with that attitude."
"Well, maybe I don't want to run shit, Ken. I'm just a pirate, I come for the bounty."
He nudges Kendall’s feet with his own, letting their legs press one against the other.
Kendall doesn’t even flinch. "Pirates actually run uh— a ship, dude."
"Well, fuck it, I'm just a free agent then, I do my own thing."
"And what's the point?"
Stewy furrows his brows, looking at him smugly.
"Money."
Kendall scoffed. "Yeah, ok, apart from that. Don't you want to— to do something, make a mark on the world?"
"Why? So my grandchildren can look out from their flying cars and marvel at my greatness?" He mocked, an amused inflection to his words, without any real bite. "Oh, look over there, that gigantic building covering the sun was built by Stewy Hosseini! Fuck that, bro. Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe not everyone wants to be just like their dad? Hm?"
Kendall shook his head. "Mock it if you want, you asshole. But at least I have a purpose in life… or whatever."
Stewy smiled wickedly and put his hand over Kendall's thigh, feeling its heat seep through the cloth of his grey sweatpants.
Kendall's gaze followed his every move.
"Oh, I have a purpose, Ken."
"So? What is it?" He looked up, back at Stewy's face then.
"I don't know, get enough money to buy the world, or maybe just a couple of islands off of the Pacific, whichever comes first."
Kendall seemed to ponder on it, before adding, "Buying the world sounds counterproductive, since you would need to run it, and you're a lazy known piece of shit," he sneered, thinking he did something, smiling at Stewy mischievously.
"That's fine, I'll just let you run it since you seem so eager to do it."
Kendall's demeanor changed then, the arrogant smile being wiped off his face. "Me?" He lets out a hollow laugh "Really?"
"Yeah, dude, you read a lot, and even care about stuff other than your own ass from time to time, so I could definitely see you pulling off some kind of enlightened despotism thing."
"Uh-huh," replied Kendall, apparently unamused.
They looked at each other without saying anything, and Stewy moved his thumb back and forth, caressing Kendall's thigh, who seemed completely pleased with it for once instead of jittery. It was a nice rare moment of peace between them.
That's why Stewy couldn't figure out for the life of him, why he decided to say what he said at that moment.
"Does business talk get you off?"
"What?" Kendall's gaze refocused on him, gaining clarity again.
"I mean, you just seem kind of keyed up right now, dude." He fucked up, he thought, he fucked up and Kendall was going to punch him in the face.
But instead of that Kendall kept his cool demeanor. "Yeah, like, uh— like you're one to talk."
Stewy's eyes skimmed him over, and he bit his lip, Kendall's gaze immediately following the movement intently.
"But do you, actually?" he asked, reminiscing of what he said before "Do you actually care?" He let his head fall to the side, dangerously close to Kendall's shoulder.
Kendall scowled. "What is it to you?"
"What is it to me?" He feigned a laugh, and it came out sounding wrong. He shook his head and reincorporated himself on the bed, taking his shirt off.
"What are you doing?" Snapped Kendall, unsettled by the action somehow.
"Getting comfortable dude, you're too warm, you suffocate me every night." It wasn't far from the truth. He disentangled himself from the shirt and threw it over the corner of the room.
Kendall gave him a glance over, if he didn't know him any better he would have thought he looked annoyed. But he could see something predatory in his gaze. He squinted his eyes at Stewy like he was considering something, before just sneering and saying, "Now you're just baiting me."
"Oh, is that what I'm doing? Hm…?" Stewy feigned innocence. His hand back on Kendall's thigh, slowly creeping upwards.
He felt Kendall’s thigh muscles tense up beneath his hand.
"Just— Don't play with fire."
"Is that a threat?" He asked, biting his lip.
Kendall scoffed. "More like a warning"
Fuck, that was hot, he thought and felt hot liquid lust settling low on his stomach.
"Tell me more about it," he laid down and pulled Kendall down beside him.
Charged silence between them, the next words said could probably fry them alive.
"I could do more than tell you," Kendall seemed kind of delirious then.
" Fuck , Ken," he said breathlessly.
They fell asleep somehow after that. Nothing else was said or done that night.
The next time he woke up, it must have been very early morning, and Kendall's lips were pressing softly against the back of his neck, peppering small kisses through his skin. He suddenly couldn't breathe. He thought he was going to burst into flames for a second because his whole body was burning, just like the night before. Each small kiss that Kendall placed, was leaving goosebumps at its trail. Stewy shivered and it was so unlike him.
He didn't say anything, mostly because he couldn't, when he opened his mouth no intelligible sound came out. Just a pathetic whine. His chest hurt, in a pleasant way, and Kendall's smell was all around him, encompassing him, it felt like he was being strangled.
"Ken—," he pleaded. It was the only thing that managed to come out of him.
"Stew…"Kendall answered right back, and then laid another kiss on his back, he shivered at the contact and a small gasp escaped his lips. It was everything he ever wanted in a way, and that terrified him. "You, uh— fuck, dude. You smell so good."
Stewy felt light-headed, probably because all of his blood had gone south at that moment.
"Uh-huh…" he agreed with as much coherence as he could muster.
He knew something like this was going to happen sooner or later, what he didn't anticipate was that it would be this embarrassing for him, it was kind of pathetic. It's not like he was a virgin anymore, far from it, but he could never before understand how some people's brains just seemed to turn into puddles when they fucked. Stewy always remained cool and collected, like he always did in every situation. But now Kendall was completely demolishing him from just a few kisses against his neck and some dirty talk if you could even call it that.
"I want to suck your dick," said Kendall, his voice sounding huskier, while his hands skimmed down his torso. Stewy sobbed.
This was a crisis, his best friend, that idiot awkward kid with a stutter was about to make him come in his pants without being touched. Years worth of sexual tension left him strung out.
" Fuck ," he gasped, like the sound was being punched out of him.
"Yeah, that," replied Kendall smugly, finally getting his hand inside Stewy's sweatpants. He gripped his dick experimentally, pausing for a moment like he forgot what he was supposed to do with it, but then started a slow and torturous rhythm.
He could feel Kendall's erection now, rubbing against his leg, his breath against him as he panted in his ear. Maybe he could span around to face Kendall and kiss him, hold him close, look into his eyes as he made Kendall come. He turned around then and felt Kendall's breath gosht against his lips. Neither of them getting any closer. This was a bad idea, he wasn't sure about Kendall's feelings, aside from the fact that he was horny right now, that he could attest to. Stewy was probably just the next person available, convenient. Kendall liked that, having someone at his disposal. He wasn't so sure about his own feelings either, this was dangerous territory.
He wetted his lips, they really were practically touching, he could almost taste him already, it would be so easy to just let go and not have to wonder about how Kendall's lips would feel against his anymore. He could make this work, he could show Kendall how much he cared, how much he wanted him.
He couldn't.
"Weren't you going to suck my dick, bro?" He said turning his head to the other side, and he could feel Kendall nod.
He closed his eyes as Kendall moved between his legs, in the end, he couldn't even look.
They didn't kiss until much later, and they kept sleeping together, on and off. They had something for a while, and then they didn't, it was difficult to tell, but Stewy thought some of that may have been his own fault.
But it came to a definite stop when Kendall came to his apartment one day to party, they were older then. He had a big dopey smile on his face, grinning from ear to ear, and said, "Yo! Dude, you won't believe this, I— I just met this girl, her name is Rava..." And that was certainly Stewy's fault. But that's also another story.
March 4th, eleven days until Roman’s birthday.
He had already finished his daily routine, thirty minutes of HIIT on the treadmill, and since it was Wednesday, he didn't have to do any of the additional weight exercises his trainer had insisted on.
It wasn’t something that came easily to him, the alarm clock would go off and he would stay in bed for ten more minutes, cuddling with Kendall, while gathering enough energy. "Five more minutes," he would slur against the nape of Kendall's neck when he knew a particularly grueling exercise session awaited him. Streaming something on the treadmill screen helped, but it was still tedious. He kept doing it anyway, because he liked the endorphin rush that came right after, and being able to eat something with extra carbohydrates at lunch.
Kendall on the other hand was like a fucking robot, he got up without much issue and did his weird workout routine exercises. "Stew… I've got to get started, or I'll be late," he chided him some mornings when he was being especially lazy in bed. And then he would go run for a mile without even blinking. He was that way with food too, whenever Stewy had tried to take him out to try some new restaurant, Kendall would just sit and pick at his plate like he wasn't even enjoying it.
"You weird fucking robot-boy," Stewy mocked him.
If it wasn't for the sex, and the drug addiction, Stewy would have thought that Kendall had already transcended any physical need, achieved a total separation between the body and the mind, and was just moving through life in the way a cyborg would.
Stewy could hear the shower already running when he got to the bathroom and smiled to himself while taking off his clothes and throwing them to the floor, watching the silhouette of a naked Kendall at the other side of the glass.
"Are you going to come in or— uh, what?" Kendall asked, turning around to look at him, water streaming down his body, some droplets clinging to his skin before commencing a slow descent down his mostly defined ab muscles.
"Can't I admire the view now?" He replied easily.
Kendall scoffed and then turned away from him again, like he thought Stewy was just playing a joke on him. "Sure."
Stewy chucked to himself then, because no matter how many years they had been fucking around with each other, Kendall would never believe that he actually found him hot as fuck. So he just entered the shower and got under the spray, closing his eyes as he let his head fall backward, simply basking in the comfy feeling.
Kendall was on him almost instantly, his hands wandering through his hair, and then cupping his face between them like he was something precious. "Hey," he says, trying to get his attention.
Stewy opens his eyes, slowly blinking the droplets of water away from his eyelashes. When his vision clears, he finds Kendall smiling at him radiantly. It's almost too much in a way, having all of Kendall Roy's attention concentrated on you. His heart leaps.
"You're invading my private shower time, dude." He stares at Kendall with feigned disinterest, not really knowing how to deal with the attention at the moment.
"Uh-huh, well it's my apartment so— I think I'm in my right to shower, if anything you're the one intruding" and he keeps the same easy smile on his face, seemingly completely unfazed from Stewy's attempt at dampening the mood.
"Oh, no," he says dramatically, his eyebrows going up for emphasis. "And what, exactly, do you do to intruders? uh?" He asks, settling his hands on Kendall's waist, caressing his sides on the way there.
Like on cue Kendall kisses him, heatedly, dragging his bottom lip between his teeth when they finally break apart. Stewy tries to chase after him, but Kendall’s hands still cupping his face prevent any movement.
"I, uh— I don't think it's fair that you look like this considering all the bullshit you get into your body on a daily basis," Kendall says, his gaze skimming over Stewys naked body.
"Yeah, tell me more about it." In a strung-out voice, still trying to tug Kendall towards him again. Fuck, he really needed to make out with him right now.
Kendall laughs then, a little breathless, and goes directly to his neck, licking and sucking like he was trying to drink the water directly from his skin. Stewy hums content and nudges his own leg in between Kendall's trying to pull him even closer. Their naked skin, a little slippery now, touches under the water spray, he could melt into the embrace if it wasn’t for Kendall’s sharp bites on his neck keeping him grounded.
That gave him a sudden burst of clarity that got through the fog in his mind, for a brief second. "Ken, I'm not wearing—," he whines feeling Kendall sucking at his pulse point, "...not wearing… a turtleneck today, dude…." He distantly realizes that it probably didn't make much sense.
But Kendall seems to get it anyway, because he slides down along his body, peppering his skin with kisses and small bites. Looking engrossed in the task at hand.
Stewy's head thuds against the shower screen, his hands going over to Kendall's hair as he watches him start to kneel before him. "Ken," he sighs, pleased, as he feels Kendall kiss his way down his lower abdomen.
He hears a phone ringing in the periphery, the sound barely making its way through the noise of cascading water. Kendall freezes but then springs up from his kneeling position.
"Ken…" he warns him, even if his voice still sounds a little breathless because he knows what's coming next.
Kendall makes a face. "It might be important."
"Oh my god, Kendall. For real?" He sighs annoyed.
"Just give me a sec."
He gets out of the shower then, and Stewy watches him leave, the water feels colder now, while Kendall awkwardly wraps a towel around his lower body, before fishing out his phone from somewhere in the bathroom, answering the call.
"Yeah? Uh-huh, ok— sure, but that doesn't mean anything—. No, I talked to him just yesterday. Well yes, I was fucking positive about the Norlinx thing. Ok, I'll be there." He hangs up the phone and then turns to look at Stewy. "Um… I need to go fix something," and he has the decency to try to look apologetic about it.
"Yeah, yeah… go do your thing, Ken. I'll just find someone else to fuck me." He turns to face the streaming water, resuming his shower.
"Dude…" protests Kendall, offended, probably sporting a frown.
"I was just kidding, babe." His voice sweet, but mocking.
Kendall doesn't move for a few more beats, and Stewy almost expects him to say something, or maybe to ask him for his take on the problem, but instead of that, he just leaves after a while.
That should be kind of a relief.
"Don't leave without eating breakfast, asshole," Stewy yells after him from the shower, because he knows Kendall does that sometimes when he's in a hurry, and then doesn't eat until dinner.
It’s kind of funny, in a way, that he and Kendall both are going into work that morning with opposing agendas, an irony only Stewy is privy to. But some things are not about feelings, some things are just about work, and should be left at that. He has to look after his own interests.
It’s a pity then, that Kendall is not going to see things that way when he finds out.
His assistant catches him as he’s about to enter his office, he can see through the glass that the rest of the acquisition team is already waiting for him there.
“Stewy, you… you have a call.” She sounds hesitant as she continues. “I told him that you were in a meeting because I wasn’t too sure what you would—”
Stewy turns around, crossing his arms over his chest.
“A call? From who?”
“Um… well, that’s the weird part, from the CEO of Otter Media–”
“The what?” Stewy furrows his brows, as he remembers broaching the issue with the drunk Wall Street guys yesterday, when he went out. “What did he want?”
“Something ah— I just—, He left a message, but I’m not sure if I should repeat it.”
“If you should repeat it ? What have I done to that guy? I never even talked to him. So… what did he say exactly?” He gestures around with his right hand, encouraging her to elaborate.
His assistant hums, filing in the silence, as she looks over the notes on her phone. “Just that you and the Roys should stop trying to, fuck with him , and ah— something about… going public with your private information on his news website, about your relationship with Kendall and some other things he has on him.”
Stewy raises his eyebrows unimpressed, it’s not the first time someone has threatened to expose him or something akin to that. Blackmail mostly slides off of him, and he’s unconcerned about Kendall’s PR, that’s already a lost cause.
Making his relationship with Kendall public, like that’s some kind of interesting news anyone would care about.
“Oh, well, I’m fucking scared. I wouldn't want to get a guy that walks everywhere barefoot angry with me. If he calls again you can tell him, very politely, that he can suck my dick, and… that I really, don’t fucking care.” He opens his office door, the rest of the team turning in his direction. “Just… you know, in your own words.”
She purses her lips and nods while typing away on her phone. “Sure, yeah, got it.”
He lets his office door close behind him. “Well, well, shall we begin?” he asks, watching the rest of his colleagues settle on his office couch and chairs.
There’s a lot of legal and economic stuff to be discussed before attempting to call the Haug’s again about taking a minority stake in the company; they still seem on the fence about it, apparently considering Waystar’s offer for the buyout. They have to make a quick compelling plan to push the balance in their favor. Which is likely going to take the rest of the morning.
“Yeah, well…” Stewy says while eating from his take-out container. “Waystar is going to try and stuff money down their throats until it comes out their assholes, so we better get on it.”
He watches his colleagues, all of them eating except for the two new junior team members that are putting something together in the back, typing away on their laptops.
Jared hums in agreement with his previous statement.
“We can pay for their new house in Costa Rica too, I’ve been talking with the number guys, and we can offer them more than enough fucking money.”
Another one of his colleagues agrees.
“Yeah, we could already make the CEO an offer, so they know we’re pursuing them and taking it seriously.”
There are some murmurs in the room, and Stewy can’t help but wonder what exactly is team Kendall putting together at the same time.
Someone snorts, the argument still going on around him. “Uff, sweet-talking already? What are we.. like, the corporate equivalent of sending them dick pics? Are we promising to make love to them as we look into their eyes? Because this is a risky move without an NDA ready on the table.”
Jared nods along with it.
“I hate saying this— but Mark maybe into something, we need our legal department on this, a full declaration of intentions, the NDA, everything, they need to know we’re not playing around.”
Mark turns to look at Stewy then.
“You know Kendall, what are they planning? Did he tell you anything?”
Stewy narrows his eyes, and can’t help but feel offended for some reason.
“Yeah, you know that would be confidential insider information?” Stewy points between them with his finger. “So I'm just going to pretend like I didn’t just hear that—”
“Ok, sure… Jesus…”
Everything starts going faster then, and in two hours they have almost everything ready, and Stewy finds himself calling the Haug family to make them an offering. Jared claps him in the back wishing him luck. He’s certain he doesn’t need it anyway.
Everyone stays quiet around him, watching him like hawks as he turns the speakerphone on in the call.
“Look, you’re not going to lose your firm, I know there's someone out there betting on you already, but we’re offering to inject some liquid cash into your company, it stays in family control, total freedom, we just suggest some changes, we offer our advice, in exchange for voting power.” Stewy retells smoothly.
The stern voice of the founder and CEO comes through the speaker.“We can get freedom? I don't really think freedom is getting a Maesbury run board.”
Stewy snorts. “Well… with all due respect sir, you’re not being real here. If you sell now you won’t even be selling at your intrinsic value, you have so much potential right now for growth, and the market is severely undervaluing your worth. You would be losing money in the long run.”
There's a pause on the other end, and everyone in the room stays still in anticipation. Stewy bites his lips.
“So what are you proposing?”
“We get in, you become part of our portfolio for five years, minority stake but hands-off, but we get our managers and accountants on board to help, then we sell you back part of our shares, or exchange them for other assets, and the company is back in your full family control. Except, its stock exchange value will be at thirty times your earnings.”
“Ok. We’re willing to meet with you tonight.”
It should be a victory, he should be celebrating, and though he does feel elated as he hangs the phone, and everyone else is chatting around in the room, animated, he feels a bit empty.
“Good job,” Jared tells him, as he gets up from the office couch he had sat on for the last five hours.
Stewy shrugs as the rest of the team scatter out of the room to get back to work on the deal.
He returns home with a sinking feeling, looking forward to spending at least five minutes alone before having to go back out to that meeting. Just a breather, it was an easy operation anyway, not like he should be worrying. He should probably say something to Kendall now, right? Since they were together? Total transparency.
He went up the building in the elevator, hoping for a glass of scotch and some alone time before deciding how he was going to break the news to Kendall, but stopped short at the door to his apartment, hearing voices inside.
Shit, so he wasn't alone. He curses under his breath, just his fucking luck, he thinks, before reaching for the door handle and entering the apartment.
He identifies now that the voice he heard at the other side was Kendall’s, his back turned to Stewy, completely unaware of his presence there.
"We already offered them four billion and some stake in the company, uh… what else does he want?"
The room was full of people he recognized sitting on their living room couch. Some of them he could identify by name, like Frank, or Jess, and some others were new confidants of Kendall he hadn't cared enough to meet. He fucking hated when Kendall brought his work to their apartment, he hadn’t bothered redecorating the whole thing to seem more like an actual home only for him to turn it back into an office space.
But there he was anyway, barking orders at everyone around him, his hands resting on his hips while he looked out the big windows, surveying the city from the top.
"...just, fuck it, tell the CEO that if he wants a blowjob I can do that too—”
“I sure hope not,” Stewy interrupts him, raising his eyebrows, bewildered.
Kendall turns around instantly, alarmed, clearly not having noticed his presence before. He can see a brief look of embarrassment, or fear, cross his face before he suppresses it, probably leftover from his upbringing. Stewy gives him a reassuring and amused smile in return.
“Um…” Kendall looks around them, at his team and assistants, who immediately get the memo, and make themselves scarce. He advances towards Stewy then, a nervous smile playing on his lips "Hey, Stew, what are you— what are you doing here?”
“Well, I live here, Ken,” he says while reaching for Kendall's blazer and slightly pulling at it, adjusting it better for his frame, almost a second-hand instinct now. “Since you begged me to move in here six months ago.”
“A year ago.” Kendall finds it important enough to clarify, his smile now softening into something more genuine.
“A year? Really? Fuck, dude, I’m getting old.” He lets go of Kendall's blazer.
"Um... so, why are you here so early?"
He assesses for a second the possibility of telling Kendall everything that's going on, but then just shrugs. “Came to change before this afternoon,” he starts walking out of the living room and towards his walk-in closet, a million thoughts going through his brain.
Kendall follows after him, checking his phone while giving him monotone answers as Stewy continues with the idle chatter, looking for another shirt in his closet. The more time he delays saying what's actually on his mind, the worst is going to be, he determines.
"Oh my god, maybe I am getting old. I'm feeling so tired from just this morning.” Now is really the best moment to say it, right before their meeting. But what's the alternative? Hey, babe, I think it's in my best interest to fuck your family. "Ken, you have to promise me if my knees start to crack every time I sit down you'll euthanize me."
Kendall pauses and looks up from his phone. "Uh… yeah, sure. So I'm having trouble with the Haug's accepting the offer, you're friends with their son, right? So, could you maybe, like, check the temperature, uh.... talk to them before I make another offer. I want them to sit down with us."
He could probably also tell him about the other weird message he had gotten that morning, the blackmail stuff. But again decides against it, the last thing he wants is for Kendall to get more on edge with some, more than likely, empty threats.
"What? Dude… with the pompous asshole who wouldn't stop correcting my pronunciation of the name of the wine while I was ordering?" He takes off his dress shirt and puts it away on a shelf.
"Yeah, that one. Will you?"
Stewy sighs.
“Ken, you know I don’t work for Waystar, right? You can’t just trust me with these things…” he pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers, feeling a headache approaching.
“Sure, but, will you talk to him?”
Kendall doesn’t relent, it’s like he can never see the wall until it hits him.
Stewy huffs, because it’s kind of funny. Though maybe Kendall would disagree about that if he knew.
"Yeah, sure. I love the guy, obviously."
He’s already going to see the guy anyways today. What a shitshow.
"Uh-huh, obviously, yeah," Kendall says, walking up to him and taking Stewy's hand between his own, caressing its back with his thumb, before meeting his eyes. There’s an apologetic look on his face now. "Thanks, I'll— uh, I’ll make it up to you." He clarifies, just in case the nonverbal cue was lost.
Stewy detaches his hand from Kendall's grasp. "Yeah, well… have you considered other options?"
Kendall blinks, confused, and furrows his brows. “Uh— why? Have you been talking with Shiv and Rome?”
“I just think there may be other options out there, in case this one doesn’t work.”
“Yeah, well, this is my plan A, this could be big for us, so I’m going to make it happen.” He cradles Stewy's face with his hands, and smiles, one of his soft and private smiles. “Trust me, I can do it, everything’s going to work out, ok? Stop fucking worrying about me, Stew.”
Kendall presses their lips together in a gesture full of fondness, unexpectedly sweet coming from him. Stewy looks at him a bit stunned as he pulls back.
“Yeah, ok…”
He feels Kendall lay a soft kiss against his cheek and watches him leave the room, getting back to work.
Everything is going to be fine, no need to worry.
This fucking sucks, he thought as he checked his phone again for any missing calls, there were still none. He sipped from his cocktail, then placed it back down on the table, the music so loud it created ripples in the liquid.
"So hear me out dude, I am a known Nostradamus of business, Ok? You know that, we all know that." one of his friends shouted over the noise. "Myspace, out, fucking toast, Facebook is the next big thing now, obviously, just give it a few years before it goes public."
"Ok… Yeah, thanks for the insight bro" Stewy replied without paying much attention. The heat in California must have been really getting to him at the time because he felt like he was suffocating for a second.
He thinks of Kendall back home in their shared apartment, and wonders how things are going to play out between them now that they have finished their BAs. Who knows what could be going on inside Kendall’s head since he left a few days ago. He hadn’t called yet. Probably because of their last fight, just before Stewy caught his plane.
It had left him with a bitter taste in his mouth.
"And you'll say, but Paul, the Chinese just started making their move on the market, how can you be so sure?" He patted Stewy on the shoulder, probably because he was drunk, and sipped again from his cocktail like he needed some hydration before he could continue his speech.
"Hey, you guys want to try this?" Said someone else coming over. "I got it before the party, it's supposed to be like a Hollywood luxury coke, premium shit."
He snorted a few lines, because it was better than listening to his friend's ramblings and then checked his phone again. Still nothing.
It was a classic LA party, in some mansion on the hills, they wasted an hour just getting there, it was full of celebrities, other rich assholes who didn't do shit for a living, and people wanting to become either of those things.
Their dress style was all over the place, as was the mansion's decor, the servers were walking around, full-body paint with just a swimsuit on, with trays full of colorful shots and other drinks, something that looked like porn but might have been just and art project was playing on a big screen, it was all tryhard very tacky.
He watched one of the waiters, a girl painted like someone had attempted to replicate a Mondrian over her skin, an expensive bottle of whiskey in her hands, carrying it while walking up to a group of men to serve them. They laughed and groped her ass, leaving a handprint behind, of smeared paint. She didn't even flinch, like it was all part of the performance for the night.
“So my girl wants me to move in with her.” He heard one of his friends say, catching his attention.
“Oh! fuck bro, that girl really has you on a leash, ah?” Paul laughed, throwing his head back. “And what did you say?”
“I don't know." He shrugged. “How can you tell that you're making the right decision? I like her, I like being with her, but…” he shook his head. “Maybe it's me, I’m being too distant.”
Stewy rolled his eyes, he would rather talk about some new tech business than relationship problems tonight.
“Ok. No more margaritas for you, bro. You’re kind of bringing everyone down, no offense.” Intervened Stewy, taking his cocktail away.
“Dude! Last fucking time I try to open up to you assholes…”
Stewy chuckled and sipped from his drink, the coke already making him feel a little better, the party seemed like less of a torture while high. He missed New York nonetheless, but not because he particularly liked it.
His phone rang then. Stewy jumped in his seat on the couch and quickly excused himself, leaving in search of a more quiet place. There weren't many of those, so after looking around for a bit, he found himself stepping out of the house into the night, the noise of the party less overwhelming there. He leaned over the railing, watching the nature below him, exuberant trees and bushes that sprung out in the middle of the desertic land before him. Some leaves shimmered with the exterior house lights, glowing orange, he could see the city from there, just some vague distant light points in the night that let him pretend he was back home.
"Hey," said Kendall on the other side, his voice had a soft quality to it.
"Hey…" Stewy replied.
He heard some wind rustling the leaves close by and slid his hand down the white-painted, metal rail, smooth and cool against his skin, calming his nerves.
“So, um… So, you're still not coming back to New York?”
“I have some business here, I already told you.”
“Uh, ok.”
There’s a pause then, like both of them are expecting the other one to elaborate, or are perhaps too unsure about what to say next.
Finally Stewy relents, feeling impatient. “Is that why you called?”
“N— no.” he heard some shifting in the background, like Kendall readjusting his grip on the phone. “I just wanted to hear your voice.”
He sighed and his heart flustered. "Uh-huh, Is this your way of saying you miss me, Ken?"
Kendall huffed an amused breath at the other side of the line. "Maybe." He could almost feel the gears turning in Kendall's head, a change in his mood, less tense then, his tone lighter when he said, "So, uh— Where are you right now?"
"At a party.”
"In LA? So how is it?” He could hear what sounded like Kendall yawning. “Is it full of tabloid celebrities?”
"Yeah, I guess.” He looked back to the party and smiled. The wind disturbed his perfectly combed back hairstyle.“Honestly, they have terrible food here, everything is room temperature or a weird sugarless concoction. This fucking people…"
Kendall laughed. "I bet you're eating it anyway."
"Yeah, well, I had to try it so I could judge it. What’s sugar ever done to them, anyway? I eat it every day and I look great."
“Yeah, you do…” Kendall trailed off for a second, his voice soft like he was deep in thought, but then continued in his usual tone, “Uh, I mean, you chug Adderall like you’re a second World War soldier on duty, dude.”
Stewy wrinkled his nose. “So does everyone else here, asshole. You should move to LA, you probably share their tasteless fucking bland food preferences.”
There was a pause at the other end, then he heard a dry humorless laugh. “Yeah, I wish uh— I just wish you were here, man.”
Stewy grinned and bit his lip, the wind was starting to pick up. He heard some screaming and giggling coming from the pool, as two girls were trying to catch a floaty that was being blown away.
He returned home two days after that, nervous energy pouring off of him, it was exciting, coming back. For no reason, in particular, he told himself. Not like he was elated to see his boyfriend again.
Boyfriend , now, that was a word, he wasn't too sure he could say it out loud but it did cross his mind from time to time. There were certain things preventing him from doing so, like Kendall's whole family, but in particular his homophobic dad, or the fact that they had never told each other their feelings. It was obvious enough, Stewy had thought at first, but then he paused and pondered on it, they lived together, so clearly Kendall enjoyed spending most of the time with him, and there was certain domesticity to it, sure, but beyond that, he even doubted his own feelings.
"What a tedious fucking flight. My mom says hello by the way." Said Stewy while entering their apartment.
Kendall was reading on the couch, his right leg was jittering lightly, and there was another book open on the coffee table. The moment he saw Stewy entering the room, he stopped and got up as if he was being moved by a resort.
Stewy took note of it in the back of his mind but didn't comment on it. He went straight to the kitchen, feeling hungry after the terrible airline food he couldn't even force himself to eat, and the fatless sugarless breakfast they had served him that morning. Coming home really was a blessing after that.
"Ken, do you know if we still have any pancake mix leftover from last time?" He shouted after him.
The house was the perfect temperature, thanks to their thermostat, and the air wasn't too humid. He felt the cool tiles of the kitchen floor against his bare feet when he opened the fridge, and vaguely remembered his mom telling him not to do so when he was a kid for some reason.
"Or something to eat, anything, I'm not picky." which was kind of a lie.
He bent backward, looking over the side of the fridge door, and found Kendall standing awkwardly there.
"Yeah, uh— just, I got you a cake the other day from a bakery, but I thought that you were coming yesterday so— uh—, I don't know if it's still edible. It's like in the fridge somewhere."
"It’s a two-day fridge cake, Ken, of course, it's edible," Stewy hummed and went straight to the white package on the top shelf. "Oh my god… red velvet." He looked back at Kendall amused, as he placed the cake on the kitchen counter. "You really went with a safe choice," he chuckled.
It was cute, that he had gone out of his way to buy him something, he wanted to kiss him, but there was no hurry to it, now that he was finally home it could wait until he finished eating.
"Well, I don't know, you also complained the last time about the chocolate one, so whatever." Kendall stayed still, not getting any closer, while Stewy rummaged around in the kitchen drawers looking for a fork. "They don't really taste that different, same texture, it's just uh… fucking sugar on top of more sugar."
"What?" Stewy stabbed his fork into the red velvet slice he had served himself. "How do they taste the same, are you crazy?" He spoke with his mouth full.
"Well, I don't know dude, it's— it's just food," he shrugged, then cleared his throat before taking a step closer, his shoulders forming a tense line. "So how did it go? Did you get the investors for the fund? It was a good deal."
"I got a soft yes, and a few phone numbers, I'll just mail them the details. Probably get the lawyers to hurry up with the written agreement. Paul's been getting along with some Silicon Valley guys… he says if we get some equity in now, they might go public in like a five period and we would get fucking ugly rich with it."
"Yeah, lawyers can be a pain in the ass. So what? Are you going to go back—?" Kendall crossed his arms over his chest "To… to California then? Are you thinking of buying in?"
"Uh-huh, yeah, I guess, maybe…" Stewy licked the fork and hummed, it was a good red velvet, he had to give him that. "How was your week, did you do anything interesting? or did you just sit around with a thumb up your ass and read?"
Kendall deviated his eyes off to the side, looking at nothing in particular. "Yeah, that's basically what I did." Keeping his arms crossed over his chest.
His usual body language wasn't adding up to Stewy.
"Is something wrong, bro?" He asked, leaving his empty plate on the counter and walking up to Kendall.
"Um… uh, no," Kendall said, but his eyes were skimming through everything but Stewy's face.
Stewy raised his eyebrows."Ok, bullshit. Ken. You know that when you lie to me you look down and start blinking like a spy dictating Morse code. So come on, tell me."
"Uh— um… yeah, well— " he rubbed his temple, then smiled awkwardly. "It's embarrassing…"
"More embarrassing than when you caused a stock crush in that business we were managing because you decided to appear on TV and fucked it up" Stewy walked up to Kendall until their chests were almost touching. "Or more embarrassing than when you hired a guy to play guitar for that girl you had a crush on in high school, while you sang?" He lowered his voice, their eyelashes almost touching, it didn't make sense to speak up when they were so close he could just whisper against Kendall's lips. "Because that was really, fucking, embarrassing," he said, getting even closer with each word.
He put his hand on Kendall's cheek and felt him lean into it a little. But Stewy just smiled before pulling away, settling his hand against the cold countertop instead of Kendall's warm cheek.
It was easy to play with him, make him wait a little longer, and watch him squirm. As a punishment for not telling him about whatever this was.
"N—no," said Kendall, who barely recovered from chasing after him. "I just had trouble sleeping again, when you left."
"I was gone for just a week," he chuckled. "You're so spoiled." He bit his lip, trying not to look by affected by Kendall's confession. "I feel like I'm spoiling you."
Kendall put one hand on his own hip and drummed the other one's fingers against the countertop. "Uh-huh, yeah, well, I'm the one who just bought you cake, so…"
"Two-days-fridge-cake red velvet."
Kendall scoffed impatiently."Whatever, just fucking—" he crashed his lips into Stewy's then, catching him by surprise.
He ran a hand through Stewy's perfectly trimmed beard and kissed him with a desperation that seemed out of place. Stewy let him set the pace, going along with it, waiting for Kendall to pull away first.
"Ok…" Stewy giggled a bit, giddy at Kendall's awkward display of affection. "Where is this coming from?"
"I— I've been thinking about you," he said while kissing his neck. "Let me suck you off… please"
Stewy bit off a moan. "Well, if you ask so nicely…"
Kendall knelt in front of him immediately, almost stumbling into the position, getting into what seemed like a fight with Stewy's belt, trying to take it off. Stewy found it kind of endearing as he swept a hand through Kendall's hair, smiling down at him.
"Ken, chill, we have all night—" his voice wavered as Kendall pressed his hand against his dick through his underwear, almost fully erect by then just from the anticipation.
"I want you now." He replied in a low voice, not looking up into Stewy's eyes.
When Kendall finally got his dick free of any clothes, he quickly wrapped his mouth around it. It felt warm and slick against his dick, as Kendall began sucking its head lightly, before attempting to go deeper, not wasting a moment. It had an aggressive edge to it that Stewy could let himself be convinced it was just plain old passion, and Kendall was in one of his weirdly enthusiastic moods.
Kendall kept going at it, sucking as if his life depended on how quickly he could make Stewy come. He could feel his tongue licking everywhere at the same time, as Kendall’s head bobbed under him. He was about to say something, really, but then Kendall tried to deep throat him, for the first time, and he couldn't fucking speak as he listened to the choking sounds he was making against his dick. It was kind of hard to even think that way, with Kendall Roy kneeling before him just seeming so eager to suck him off.
Stewy groaned and let his head fall back, feeling overwhelmed, but then as quickly as it had started, it was over. Kendall got up from his knees again, looking utterly disheveled, gasping for air, his lips reddened, as he stared straight into Stewy's eyes with clear confidence.
"Fuck me," he commanded.
Stewy's heart skipped a beat, and for a second he didn't even know what to do, wasn’t even sure if he had understood correctly. He grabbed Kendall’s face with both hands, lightly squeezing his cheeks as he leaned to kiss him gently on the lips.
That was something they hadn't considered as a possibility since their first year fucking around when Kendall bought a butt plug as a "gag gif", and then tried to use it as a "way of showing Stewy how easy it actually was", before suffering a panic attack and bolting to the bathroom, closing himself in for at least three hours. They didn't talk about it.
So if Kendall was asking, he thought, It must mean something now.
"Ok, yeah," he whispered before kissing him again. "We can do whatever you want, Ken. I'll make it good." He couldn't stop the earnest tone in his voice, wasn't even sure if he wanted to, so he just kissed him a few more times to settle it.
He guided Kendall to their bedroom, his hands never pulling away from his body, and taking some breaks on their trip to the bed just to kiss him on the cheek. Kendall just let himself be manhandled, first into the bedroom, and then on top of the mattress. He didn't protest, just looked at Stewy with half-lidded eyes and a bit of apprehension.
Stewy stripped himself off quickly, throwing his clothes to the floor, before undressing Kendall with more care, leaving his clothes mostly folded on the nearest chair. Kendall barely helped, just kind of laid there awkwardly, his face difficult to decipher.
"We don't have to do it this way, you know?" Stewy breathed, his voice impossibly tender.
"I— I want to. Stop fucking asking" Kendall grabbed into his shoulder blades. "I've been thinking about it. Just… come on"
Stewy pressed his lips softly to Kendall's temple "Ok, yeah… fuck, ok."
After a moment of hesitation, he went looking for lube, rummaging through his nightstand until he found it. Kendall played in bed and gripped the sheets, tense, managing to relax once Stewy came back to his side, letting go of his tight grasp.
Stewy kneeled before him, carefully studying Kendall's dick, fully erect waiting for him, as he pondered over his next move. He paused, before licking at its head inquisitively, it seemed like a good enough place to get started. Kendall moaned under him and thudded his head to the side on the pillow because Stewy was just that good. That's exactly what he needed, for Kendall to relax into it.
Had he been thinking about it all week, while he was gone? Is this what he was nervous about? Stewy wondered.
It must be , he decided. It was kind of a big step for Kendall after all, and Stewy had to play his part, make it good for him. It felt like the most important thing in the world at that time. His chest ached at the intimacy of the moment, at the level of trust Kendall was showing him, feeling overwhelmed. He took a breath, thinking about his next step, about what Kendall actually needed from him.
The first thing was just to get Kendall more comfortable for him to stop clenching all of his muscles, before thinking about trying anything new. He settled between Kendall's legs on the bed, carefully nudging them farther apart, taking a moment just to watch him, seeing him for the first time in such a vulnerable position. He grabbed into Kendall’s thigh and felt him slightly tremble under his hands.
“It’s ok, Ken, I’ve got you.”
He started tonguing at his dick lazily and sucking only in brief intervals, Kendall’s dick pulsed at the attention, his previously tense muscles slowly turning into jelly in Stewy's expert hands. They were getting somewhere but with all of Kendall's squirming and groaning appreciatively, he almost forgot what he was supposed to do, losing track of time.
"N— not like this, I'm— hmf! Jesus fuck, Stew…!" Kendall rasped.
Stewy pulled back and smiled, a little dazed. Better, he thought, pleased.
He coated his fingers with lube, his tongue darting out to wet his lips in concentration, as he dragged them to Kendall's ass. He pressed his index finger against his entrance, without applying any pressure, just as a way of telegraphing his intentions. Kendall hissed at the unexpected coolness against his sensitive skin, fisting his hands at his sides over the covers.
Stewy kissed the interior of his thigh soothingly, but then hesitated again, and looked up at Kendall's face, searching for confirmation, who was just laying there slack-jawed, not even looking back at him. He furrowed his brows, failing to find anything in Kendall’s eyes to indicate any change of mind on his part, but also lacking any sign of reassurance at the same time.
He knew it was a bad idea to ask again and keep pressing him for answers, so he just pushed his index finger into him, slowly, shallow at first, stopping to massage his inner walls before daring to go deeper.
Kendall whined, but Stewy wasn't too sure if that was a good or a bad sign, so he said, "Yeah, Ken, just give me a second, it'll be good I promise."
"Can't you just fuck me already?" He complained in a strained voice.
Stewy didn't even flinch, used by then to Kendall's weird moods and impatience. So he worked another finger in, slowly opening him up, without any hurry. He was taking them so good, and hopefully not trying to hide any discomfort. Stewy took extra care anyways, waiting until he felt him sufficiently relaxed, to get his mouth back again on Kendall's dick, just as a good measure.
Kendall gasped and bucked his hips up, driving his dick further into Stewy's mouth who just hummed around it, and took it without any protest. Fuck, this was so hot, there was no way he was actually going to be able to last once he got inside of him. He felt too warm and tight.
Stewy started to drive his fingers in with a purpose then, thrusting them in at a harder rhythm, feeling them slide slick and with more ease against Kendall's inner walls, pressing with intent to find some specific point.
"Oh, fuck!" sobbed Kendall.
"Yeah, Ken that's better," he rasped, his throat a little sore at that moment, getting another finger inside of Kendall. Fuck, he was losing his mind, it felt like he was the one getting wreaked.
He could probably just make him come like this if he found the right spot to press in with his fingers, and then have Kendall coming down his throat, moaning with just that.
"Stew, Stew…" it was as close to pleading as Kendall was ever going to get.
Stewy collected himself, and pulled his fingers out carefully, hearing Kendall's sigh. He watched him for a second, heaving, sprawled on the bed, a kind of lost look in his eye, before deciding to climb up the bed to kiss him. It was supposed to be just a sweet reassuring kiss, but Kendall responded, turning it more demanding like he needed even more from him.
After a while, Stewy broke away, both of them panting. "Ok, come here, turn around."
Kendall obeyed him without protest, his body a mere ragdoll on Stewy's hands letting himself be moved around. Getting on all fours on the bed obediently.
Stewy kissed his back tenderly before rearranging himself between his parted legs, Kendall looked so good from his point of view at the moment, bending over for him, vulnerable. He couldn't help but slide his hands, which were gripping Kendall's waist, up his sides in a slow caress, and thought that he felt him shiver under him for a moment.
"Dude…" Kendall complained, but his voice sounded raspier than before.
Stewy took some mercy on him, and guided his dick where it was needed, slowly pressing inside Kendall who didn't even make a sound. He closed his eyes, trying not to dwell too much on how hot and slick Kendall felt on his dick as he kept pushing in with care until he was buried deep inside of him.
The room was silent except for Kendall's panting. Stewy exhaled shakily and stood still, letting both of them adjust for a moment, before starting to move. His thrusts were nice and deep, but without any real force behind them, just the methodical roll of his hips, and after a while, Kendall got impatient, groaning and pushing his hips back against Stewy's thrust making him halter a little and mess up.
"Ok," Stewy gasped, understanding what Kendall was trying to tell him, and getting a better hold on his hips as he began to thrust into him in earnest.
It wasn't rough, that's not the way he played, he just angled to find the best point of contact for maximum pleasure and went to town with it, as calculated a move as any other in his life. He felt his control slip nonetheless, hearing Kendall's soft moans muffled against the bedsheets. It was almost too much, being inside of him, too intimate.
"Fuck, Ken, your so tight," he moaned, overwhelmed. "You're gonna make me lose it." He said before picking up the rhythm, now somehow uncoordinated and clumsy, unlike before. Kendall pushed his ass back against him, and Stewy's hands went to his dick, feeling him whine and melt against it back into the bed.
"Yeah… baby that's it…" he babbled without much thought, and that seemed to do it because Kendall made some kind of choked-off sound and came all over his hand, every muscle in his body tensing. Stewy followed after him almost immediately, finishing inside of Kendall and gasping for air, his temple thudding against Kendall's back.
Time stopped for a second, and he felt dizzy, his heart was beating erratically, but he could barely distinguish it from Kendall's heartbeat, loud enough for him to hear.
Stewy sighed, completely relaxed as he pulled out and fell in bed behind Kendall, his hands never leaving his body even for a second. He drew him closer to him, cuddling in bed while his breathing calmed and his heart slowed down. It was cozy, like coming home after a long day of work, a familiar warmness spread through his body.
With his forehead resting against the nape of Kendall's neck, he breathed in deeply, and rubbed his cheek over Kendall's skin, closing his eyes, feeling mellow; Kendall's heart beating beneath his hand, a lulling rhythm.
A thought came to his head then; a realization hitting him like a train, I love you, it can't be anything else, I love you since we were kids and you always got picked last to form a team; I love you since in fifth grade you cried in my arms and said you felt lonely when I wasn't around. I love you because you always give me your dessert when we eat together; I love you because you listen to me, even when it doesn't seem like you actually are; I love you because you're my best friend.
He felt himself choking up, his eyes stung and he feared that if he opened them, tears would come out flowing freely down his cheeks. "Kendall…" he whispered.
"I'm— uh… my dad, he offered me a leadership position, in Shanghai."
There's a certain kind of cold, when the temperature it's low enough, that makes you feel like you are slowly burning alive. It spread through his body at that time, going up to his legs, and through his stomach, gripping his heart. When the frostbite settles, he heard once on TV, the best course of action is to amputate the extremity.
His arms were still around Kendall, but they felt stiff and numb like they were chiseled from a piece of ice.
"What?" He sniffed.
"I— he— he called me the other day, to have dinner and— well, he offered me… the— the role."
Stewy laughed hollowly because honestly, it was funny; he was just the butt of the joke this time, so he was finding it hard to truly appreciate the humor behind it, that's all.
"And you're…" he swallowed a lump down his throat. "And you're telling me now?"
Kendall didn't answer, and Stewy had the sinking feeling that it was going to be like this between them forever from then on.
"Yeah, I— I didn't think it was appropriate before."
" Appropriate ?" He sneered, and now instead of freezing it was just a feeling of revulsion. He wanted to puke, so he suddenly let go of Kendall and reincorporated. "Well, you could have told me over the phone, or when I got home, not— not this." He shook his head, his voice getting lower with each word that came out of his mouth.
Kendall’s back was still turned towards him, he stayed as still as a statue, and didn't even flinch when Stewy pulled away. "I— I just thought it was a good idea so we could talk about it…" he heard him swallow, "... more relaxed"
His ears ringed.
"What?" Stewy said under his breath, trying not to sound like he was hyperventilating. "I'm not a fucking toy, Kendall. What the hell is wrong with you?" He got out of bed then, the need to get out of there was too strong.
Kendall bolted to look at him, finally deciding to move.
"That's not what I said— Ok. Uh… This is— this is not going as I envisioned it."
"Oh? Uh-huh, you envisioned it … " Stewy put his hand on his hips and felt his skin, realizing how naked he was. Shame was not a feeling he usually experienced, but he turned to pick up his clothes hurriedly from the floor anyways. Kendall mimicked him, getting up from the mattress and putting on his boxers.
"This doesn't mean it's the end… of anything, it's— it's probably a year aboard, two at most."
"Yeah, Ken, in fucking Asia." He scoffed, offended by Kendall's placating tone.
They stared at each other, and Stewy could see some sadness in his eyes, but it was buried deep beneath something else.
Kendall licked his lips, nervous."Ok, so I'll— I'll visit, and we can call, dude, like…"
"Sure," he nodded, fully clothed by then, and turned his back on Kendall, trying to decide what to do next, wondering if he should leave, or if he was feeling pathetic enough, try to convince him. He paused, turned around again to look at him, and then said, "Yeah, and why at fucking Shanghai, uh? Ken? Have you stopped to think about it?"
Kendall wavered, "It's— uh, it's just a good opportunity, to see how— how I can manage a branch of the company on my own."
"No, Ken." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "That's a lie and you know it. You think he's going to, what? Just retire and hand over the company to you? No, that's never going to happen."
"Well, he's been teaching me and uh— wants me to go to Asia so I can learn to better develop my skills, so I can, Yeah, I can finally take over"
"Are you kidding me now?" Stewy frowned, feeling personally offended at the naivete of such a statement. "He's never going to give you the company on a silver platter, he's playing you, Ken. Like he always does. You think you're riding the bike but your dad’s still holding on to the seat, and he's never going to let go, dude." He tried to emote as well as he could his feelings, leaving them out in the open for Kendall to pick up on. He needed him to face the facts, and to see where he was coming from.
“Ok, so what do I tell him? Uh, no dad, actually, you can shove your great leadership position up your ass because I uh— I'm having too much fun here fucking my best friend, taking it up the ass every day like uh— like it's a fucking gay porno?"
The apartment was dead quiet, the heating system hummed in the distance, but he could still feel his hands freezing.
Stewy looked down, feeling his mouth open and close without making a sound, his mind racing. He looked back at Kendall then, and said, "Is that what this is?"
Kendall tensed up, his gaze alert. "No— Ok— maybe, but, fuck… you're really fucking me up, Stew."
" I'm fucking you up?"
"Yes, you're uh—, twisting— twisting all my words. I've been thinking about this, ok? And I think it could be a good opportunity to streamline our relationship, it will change, because of the distance. But we had just finished our BAs, anyways, so… it's more like uh— like a paradigm shift, but we still have this synergy, and—"
“You're saying words that don't even mean anything right now.” Stewy sighed and then had a realization. He squinted his eyes, "Wait, Kendall, are you pitching me right now? Really?" He asked incredulously. "Is that what this is? Because I’m not fucking impressed."
Kendall lowers his head then. "I'm being reasonable, Stewy"
"So what's next on your to-do list? Uh? Get married, have children? Run for the white house? Get a dog?"
"Well, I—, uh— that depends." he watched Kendall rub his temple.
He was stupid to have thought that anything else could come out of their relationship, it was just a faze. A stupid college mistake, barely a stain in Kendall's life.
Stewy nodded to himself, making up his mind at that moment, and sighed before turning his back to Kendall and saying "Yeah, I think I'm out."
"Hey, wait come on, man." he saw Kendall chase after him to the door "Stew, this isn't— I'm not saying— ok, look—"
"No, Ken, you look, don't fucking come at me with this bullshit, because, dude, I'm over it.” His voice had gone soft but still matter of factly “I'm done, not going to play second fiddle to your father of all people. So just go to Shanghai, fuck a bunch of ex-pats execs like you, find a nice lawyer girl to get married to and have children with her, I'm out."
Kendall barely flinched, like he was used to it.
"You don't really mean that."
"Yeah, Ken. I'm fucking tired of you, really, it's not even fun anymore so…"
"Fuck you." Kendall snapped, and Stewy felt a thrill of satisfaction at making him express any kind of emotion at least.
"Uh-huh, yeah, ok, take care," he said before exiting through the door, never turning to look back.
He called a cab, and even if he felt like he was about to die, he at least had the decency to wait until he got into his hotel room to crumble to the floor. He didn't get any missing calls that night.
When he finally went back to the apartment, two days later, he found half of everything missing; he opened the fridge and the cake was still there but it had spoiled, mold covered the last slice Stewy had taken from it, what a waste , he thought, as he sat down on the floor and looked at the empty bookshelves, and cried.
March 6th, nine days until Roman’s birthday.
The Haug’s sign the initial legal documents, it's not a done deal yet, but it’s pretty close to it. Stewy smiles as both team representatives shake hands before parting their separate ways. His team at Maesbury opens up a bottle of champagne in the office, pouring glasses for everyone, celebrating their victory, getting drunk, and making plans to continue the night elsewhere.
He feels distracted as he watches the city through the windows out the corner of his eye, it looks like it’s drizzling out there. He sips from his glass, and the alcohol leaves a bitter taste on his tongue, while talking with Jared and the new junior guy. They seem happy, and Stewy wishes he could also feel as carefree as them now.
“Are you coming too… sir? We’re going to a club to celebrate.” the new hire asks him, slightly flustered, already two glasses in.
Stewy shakes his head, and Jared scoffs.
“Come on! Live a little! We just saved the fund from having to write to our investors hundreds of pathetic emails about how sorry we are we didn’t get good dividends this semester. We’re celebrating tonight. Look, even Chris is drunk already,” he says pointing at the junior guy in the firm, who doesn't look even a bit offended by it. “You have to stay, this new generation over here are just snowflakes and lightweights.”
Stewy snorts, then down the rest of his glass. “No… I don’t think so, I have to get up early tomorrow anyway, and my skin wouldn't look this good if I didn’t put on my eight hours of sleep.”
Jared laughs, and Chris still looks at him, beaming, as the celebration goes on around them.
When he exits the building he realizes that the rain had started to pick up.
Stewy sighs as he gets in the car and slumps his head against the headrest. He did what he had to do, Kendall would understand it, eventually. They are at a good point right now, it had only taken them a few decades to get there, but now they're finally in a stable relationship, so there's just no way that Stewy's economic decisions are going to fuck them up.
Right?
The car breezes by traffic and water splashes against the windows every time they drive through a puddle, leaving some water droplets behind, stuck to the glass. Nighttime had already started to set, other car's headlights danced in traffic, their image just distorted smudges of light when seen through the dripping water covering the window to his right.
Kendall's probably waiting for him to get home, he seemed nervous that morning, with the buyout, and Stewy can't help but worry about his moods, since he could be crowned king for making bad decisions under pressure, and he hadn’t answered the text Stewy had sent to him two hours ago. There was this time when they were kids that he somehow forgot about an exam, which was weird enough in itself, considering Kendall was the biggest nerd ever, and in order to be sent home and retake it the next week he made himself puke somehow. It was a whole ordeal, Stewy was really worried for a second that he might be ill, and offered to get him to the infirmary, but as soon as they were alone Kendall winked at him and said "I'm like uh— a fucking genius."
Then there was the time when he fucked a girl Logan had sent him on a blind date with, just to prove that he wasn't gay, but that's a whole thing on its own, too much to unpack on his way home from work.
The thing was, Kendall could be unpredictable; Stewy didn't expect him to cheat on him now, or worst of all, puke in the carpets he had chosen for their home and were impossible to clean, but feared some kind of terrible business decision incoming, or Kendall trying to get a hold of his past dealer. Now, that would be a nightmare.
Stewy gets out of the car and into the building, some droplets of rain clinging into his hair in the short walk there. He hates getting his hair wet, it always looks like you either didn't bother blow-drying it after the shower or just sweat, and both options irked him. He thinks about Kendall, probably warm and dry, wrapped in a comfy sweater, waiting for him at home, possibly, hopefully, still one year sober.
God Dammit, it wasn't his fault. He had to look out for his own interest every once in a while, he hadn’t gotten where he was in the first place by sucking Kendall’s dick off. He had his own thing going on. He repeats those words in his own head, like a mantra his trying to buy into, as he enters their apartment.
He stops at the threshold, a bit stunned.
Finding Kendall sitting on the couch, his back hunched over, his head down, Rava sitting by his side, her body language clearly spelling tense. They both turn to look over at him, noticing his presence.
Stewy’s mouth opens slightly, surprise barely hidden in his face, he manages to cover it up with some effort just in time. He is chill, he’s a cool boyfriend, it’s not like this bothers him, at all.
"Sorry, am I interrupting something?" He smiles, pleasantly.
Kendall doesn't seem fazed, he just rubs his temples, deep in thought. "Stew, I was just talking with Rava about—"
"Yeah, but I was about to leave anyway." She interrupted.
"Rava… ok, this is what I was trying to say before…" sounding almost exasperated.
There isn't really a reason for him to feel bothered by this, except, maybe Kendall could have warned him or something. But it’s fine.
"No, don't worry about me, I'm not even here.” He opens up his arms, palms up, in a shrug. "Not like this is my house or anything." He smiles as he walks out of the living room, leaving them both behind.
It’s already late, and he’s hungry, so it’s easy pretending like they aren't right there as he
goes to the kitchen, a goal set in his mind. Not that he cares about Kendall inviting his ex-wife over, or whatever. He flings the fridge door open, which rattles a little on its hinges, and drums his fingers against the countertop while looking for his precooked diner that their home service lady always left for them.
There’s some lingering sadness within him, even if he would prefer to just call it resentment, not towards Rava specifically, he doesn't really mind her that much, it’s not her fault that her unexpected presence at the house dug out some bad memories for him.
It was an ongoing issue anyways, this thing with Rava, he knew they still fought about him being a permanent presence in Sophie and Iverson's life since he moved into Kendall’s apartment, still, he doesn't blame her, he wouldn’t trust himself to parent anyone either. In fact, he thought, that probably made her a good mom, so he had to respect that. Kendall did make a good decision, marrying her, seeing his track record he could have chosen to have kids with someone like, let's say, Naomi Pierce, or some other past girlfriend who was just as emotionally distant and detached from reality as Kendall was some times. Those imaginary kids wouldn’t even have a chance. Rava wasn’t like that, she always seemed like a nice person, stable, warm, all of those things an adult was supposed to be.
So, yeah, it was good that Kendall had not chosen him in the past, just the smart thing to do. Better this way.
He heats his food, and serves himself a glass of red Rioja wine, the sound of chatter in the other room barely manages to break through the hum of the microwave, he distinguishes Kendall's voice but doesn't catch anything else. Then he hears a light click, the door closing, and Rava is gone.
Stewy was sitting over at the VIP section of some club in Ibiza. The Mediterranean heat clung to his skin in a pleasant way, he felt a special fondness for it, since the warmness and humidity reminded him of his childhood family vacations in Greece during summer. He was content, resting lazily on a soft-as-sin sofa. Oscillating colored lights blinked through the room, the music reverberated dully in the background, some girls were throwing stupidity expensive champagne over themselves, and he drank some fruity sugary charged alcohol that could really fuck him up if he wasn't too careful about it.
Some guy came into the room, and his friends cheered. It was some DJ, they told him, so he came out of his stupor to say something akin to, "Wow! Man of the hour! Congratulations dude", "Yeah that was really sick". He was good at that, feigning interest, unlike Kendall who couldn't, or didn't care, to hide his own lack of care sometimes.
That thought put a sour taste in his mouth that even his fancy fruity cocktails couldn't wash away. Fucking Kendall Roy, he thought. It was the reason he was here, in a way. Everything had gone to shit almost a year ago, and they hadn't talked much since then, he heard Kendall had come back from Shanghai, but he hadn't bothered calling. In fact, the only time they had seen each other was a particular day when Kendall had come with some friends over to his apartment and informed him that he had a girlfriend now. So they weren't together anymore, Stewy and him, obviously. Whose fault it was this time, was hard to tell.
But it wasn't actually, he thought, it had been unambiguously his fault, maybe he shouldn’t have been so harsh back then and told Kendall to basically get married and go fuck himself. They probably could still have something now, not like pushing Kendall had ever worked before. Whatever, the reasons behind it didn't matter, he was the one who put an end to it after all. And now he was in Ibiza getting drunk, and Kendall was in New York with Rava.
One of his friends asked for another round, and Stewy sighed knowing it was probably going to get charged on his tab. That asshole had lost half of his fortune betting on the dot com bubble some years ago and was now leeching off of everyone else. It's not like Stewy didn't warn him not to invest in TheGlob.com, but whatever he kept him around, even then, out of some kind of misguided nostalgia for their teenage years.
That must be it, what he felt for Kendall, nostalgia, because what else could it be? The asshole only gave him migraines. He sat by the table with everyone else and did a line of coke. He felt slightly better.
It would fall apart, that relationship with Rava, because it was bound to; Kendall wasn't exactly known for being in a long-term relationship, something always scared the girl away, or made him cut her off, and that something was either the drugs or his father. His longest relationship to this day had been probably with Stewy, and even that had come to an end in part because of those two things.
He missed him though, he excused himself from the group and exited the club. When he opened the door, a humid coastal night breeze hit his face, cooling him down, the club’s music faded behind him at the other side of the door. He could then clearly hear the ocean in the distance.
In his periphery, other drunk rich people walked down the street, their laughs echoing through the alleyways, as they passed through, from club to club. It was that part of town, the one only tourists visited. The buildings lined up the street one after the other, with different names but mostly indistinguishable, their neon lights lightened their entrance in vibrant colors he felt were dull. He had found it easier to get lost in them before, but that night he was just filled with angst.
He disliked the feeling, really, he was a hedonist at heart, easy-going, his mood mostly mild. Kendall probably did like it, he thought, the angst, rejoiced in it even, and that had been another part of the problem.
"Stew?"
He turned around in a haze, at the exit of the nearest club was his ex-boyfriend, smoking. Just his luck.
He smiled because fakeness now came easily to him "Fancy meeting you here…"
Kendall acknowledged it with a meaningless laugh "Uh… Yeah, dude."
His eyes narrowed as he watched him smoke, it felt like too much of a coincidence.
"Are you stalking me?"
"What?" Kendall scowled and then looked away "Why would—? Whatever." He rubbed his face and then took another drag of his cigarette.
It probably wasn't his fault, to begin with anyway, the so-called breakup, it was Kendall who dropped a bomb on him and basically made clear that there wasn't a real place for Stewy in his life moving forward. So blaming himself was just stupid. If anything it was also Logan’s fault.
There was some laughter in the distance, other tourists, the breeze blew over some crushed cans that were laying around on the sidewalk.
"Crazy fucking world, dude, can't even smoke inside buildings in Europe now." He tried for a light, casual conversation. Neither of them looked at each other.
"You can still do coke though."
"Sure."
The silence hanged heavy over them. Stewy grated his feet over the sidewalk, listening to the noise the gravel made scraping over the paving stone. Looking enthralled as the small pebbles scattered about. And then did so again, and the gravel also scraped the sole of his shoe.
"Are you— uh, are you like, with Cameron and the guys?" Kendall asked suddenly, and Stewy looked over at him, only to find him already looking right back in his direction.
"Yeah, some of them." He stopped his feet.
"Cool." Kendall took a drag of his cigarette and then exhaled. "You know— uh, you know he lost like three mils over the dot com bubble. What a fucking idiot."
Stewy laughed then for real and surprised even himself. "Fuck, I know dude. Didn't you also invest in some of those though?"
"No, uh— well, I did, but pulled out in time. Decided to bet against them."
"Oh! Really? Did daddy tell you to?"
"Uh-huh, yeah, fuck off, and you don't know shit, how dare you, etcetera…" Kendall deadpanned in good humor.
"Ok, fair enough. What are you doing here then?"
Kendall shrugged. "The same as everyone else, cruising through life, trying to— trying to find my way, holding my fate in contempt, something like that."
"Yeah, I just thought everyone came here to fuck other dudes, but I guess we've been hanging out with different crowds." Kendall looked aggravated then, like that statement personally offended him.
"Is that why you came over here?" His tone was suddenly serious.
"What is it to you?" Stewy replied easily, a mere echo of past words said between them.
Kendall seemed to ponder over it, and then threw what was left of his cigarette to the ground and sighed. "Look, dude, we don't, uh— we don't need to be this way about it, you're my best friend. Always will be."
"Yeah…" he said, and then whispered mostly to himself, "Don't I know that."
"Want to go and see the beach at night? I can get like, uh, a bottle of wine and we can sit in the sand."
Stewy bit off a snarky remark about how romantic that sounded. "Yeah, sure, man."
So they got drunk on the beach, the wine sweet enough for Stewy's taste, as they passed the bottle around while listening to the sound of the waves heating the coast, drowning out any other noise. They were in their own little bubble, completely safe from the noise of the street they had been in before, no one else around them.
Stewy felt fidgety, it was weird not being able to touch Kendall, he ached to put his hands on him, just a simple caress, a warm embrace, a head resting on his shoulder. He used to do that, and Kendall would look down at him sometimes, and kiss his forehead.
But Kendall just looked on, into the gloomy unlit sea in the distance, as he drank from the bottle.
"Yeah, uh, so Roman has a new girlfriend."
Stewy snorted.
"Because that always ends up so well... He should just give up and live like a monk." He chuckled and let his head fall to the side looking at Kendall, who smiled openly "Remember Chloe? He fucking traumatized her, bro. Honestly, that's on me for playing cupid… but it was kind of amusing." He drew shapeless shapes with his finger in the sand. "Their own fault really, you shouldn't be waiting around for your boyfriend to whip his dick out and try to rub one out in your back, for a month to get some. There are plenty of other available dicks around."
"Did you fuck anyone?" Kendall asked out of the blue, his tone unreadable, same flat intonation as if he was asking him about his next investment.
Stewy stopped his fingers completely from moving in the sand, his body stilled. "What, like— here? or since we broke up?" He tried to sound unconcerned.
"Here, since… during."
A strained laugh escaped his throat then "Oh! Ken, that's rich." He took the almost empty wine bottle from Kendall’s hands and drank what was left of it.
"But did you?"
"Whatever. Yes, if you want to know."
"During?" Asked Kendall, his voice sounding slightly on edge.
Stewy rolled his eyes "Fuck off, after ."
Kendall had never trusted him in any way, and at the same time trusted him way too much. It was contradictory, every time he needed something he found Stewy suddenly very trustworthy, but every other time he regarded him with a certain level of suspicion. Where was he even getting off now asking him this, he didn't know.
They had been together, sure, but there was never an explicit monogamous arrangement, mostly because it hadn't even been a relationship arrangement. It was just something that they did since college, and maybe it turned kind of sentimental in the last year. Stewy didn't have much to say in his defense, it was nice coming home to someone, it brought comfort to him, seeing Kendall's shoes at the entrance of their apartment, seeing his coat hanging in the rack, hearing him muse about the future of the economy, and making hypothetical business plans together while playing footsies on the sofa.
That was all kind of a lie. But he had found it slightly more helpful to downplay it in his own mind than to deal with the truth.
The waves hit the coast one after another, a great booming sound with each crash, then dissolving into just a weak hiss. He could see lights blinking on the horizon, red, green, yellow lights, boats still sailing at his hour.
"But did you like me better? or… did you— did you think about me?"
"Kendall." He warned.
"Because I've been thinking—"
"Kendall, shut up." His voice cracked, he turned around to look at Kendall but didn't find him staring back.
Lying to himself did not always work. Sometimes, pretending that he hadn’t been lovesick for Kendall for most of his life didn’t make him feel any better.
"I love Rava—"
Stewy snorted but didn't interrupt him this time.
"But I just can't stop thinking, that, uh, I— I— a—also lo—"
"Don't say it. Please not now, not like this," he begged earnestly and felt a hot pang of shame because of it.
Kendall turned to look at him, and Stewy felt his eyes burning with tears unused as their eyes met. Kendall paused, then reached out to him with his hand, and threaded his fingers through Stewy's black hair strands... Stewy closed his eyes involuntarily, as Kendall caressed his hair. His heart beating erratically, like every time Kendall initiated physical contact.
"Dude…" he said softly, just a whisper, and tried to open his eyes again, fighting the urge to let go. It had been a while since Kendall had touched him.
"I— I can't choose another path, Stew." Kendall looked enthralled as he brought his hand up to Stewy's cheek and started descending in a slow caress.
"Yes, you can." It came out breathless.
"Yeah… but not really." His hand stopped then, halfway through Stewy's chest "But say the word and I'll fuck everything up again."
"Until the next time, right?"
"Yeah, probably." They look at each other's eyes, and he only found sincerity and sadness in Kendall's gaze. Resigned to his fate.
Kendall had to be like his dad, a married man with kids, a smart wife by his side, but only better, no cheating, actually being a loving father. Then, he could finally fulfill the long-awaited prophecy and become the golden child he was always groomed to be, just like Logan, but better.
Stewy knew all that but still wanted to be selfish, to just make him stay. Sure, it was just delaying the inevitable, one last hurrah before he would find some nice business girl to settle down with again. He craved it anyway, even if it was pointless he wanted to ruin him completely until there was nothing else for Rava left. He would probably stay if he did, even if just for a while longer, it would be easy.
Stewy shook his head, pondering his next move, then put his hand over Kendall's one on his chest, slotting their fingers together, letting himself feel Kendall’s warmth seeping through them. He was very familiar with that part of him, the soft skin of his hands reflecting the privilege of his upbringing, and how mellow he felt when Kendall touched his body. He held onto it, for what felt like an eternity, and then, slowly pulled Kendall's hand away from his chest and released it. The night breeze felt colder on every spot of his skin they had touched, but good at the same time, like it was soothing a burn.
"I'll see you around, dude," Stewy said plainly, keeping his voice tightly controlled, and got up from the sand.
"Yeah, sure." Kendall nodded, then turned his back on him.
Stewy walked away, and the spot he left on the sand behind him started to be erased by the breeze.
They didn't see each other for a couple of months after that, which was probably for the best, but Stewy couldn't help but feel some kind of anguish about it, even if he was the one to probably end it again.
It bothered him, every day, it didn't matter where he was or what he was doing he would get this nagging feeling on the back of his head. "I wonder what Kendall's doing right now?" And that must be what they call an intrusive thought, he guessed.
They remained friends, thankfully, nursing their relationship back to health the good old way they knew how to: never talking about anything, and pretending that nothing had happened. So it didn't really faze him when he got a text from Kendall.
"Meet me for coffee? I'll send directions." But it was obvious he wanted something from him again, because when did he ever get in touch those days if not for that?
Stewy didn't usually mind, Kendall calling him and asking about investments, or looking for advice on his upcoming semester plan for next year at Waystar before showing it to Logan. It was just the usual trials of their friendship; he was always willing to lend a friendly ear, and Kendall needed someone to validate his insecurities.
So they sat at a small table, in a coffee shop near the financial district, perfectly noisy and mundane. Stewy was enjoying the food, and maybe even the company, before having to return to work.
"You're my best friend and I need your advice, Ok? But nothing gets out from here. I don't need my family to know yet. So, uh— no leaks."
"Oh my god, what have you done this time to the Waystar Asian division, bro?" Stewy chuckled, and took a bite off of his chocolate-covered croissant, humming content. "Dude, this is fucking great, you should try it," he said with his mouth still full.
Kendall didn't seem to pay him any mind. "No, it's not about Waystar, listen— it's, um… it's personal, I guess."
So the business talk he didn't mind, he even welcomed it, it was just expected from Kendall, but the personal talk, now, that he feared, Roy related stuff that gave him headaches. One of these days , he tended to dismay, this nightmare scenario was going to happen: Kendall would tell him that Logan accidentally killed an employee and was asking him to bury the corpse or something, and he would show up to meet Stewy already fully covered in mud.
"Ok" he replied mildly, swallowing his bite and licking off his fingers.
And then, out of nowhere, Kendall reached into his coat pocket and took out a small jewelry box. He opened it up, showing the ring to Stewy.
His stomach twisted in an unpleasant way at the sight of it. He huffed a breath, feeling a little numb for a second, not really connected to reality like he was someone else looking in.
"So…? What do you think?" Asked Kendall, nervous, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. He closed the box again, quickly shoving it back into his pocket, bringing Stewy back to the current moment.
He was supposed to tell Kendall how beautiful it looked, reassure him about how much Rava was going to love it. But it felt like a stab to the gut. Like he was supposed to bleed out all over his expensive suit and ask him about the wedding, all while Kendall smiled.
"Yeah, it's great, dude." He said, trying to be dismissive.
"I mean, we uh— we already discussed and she said yes. But it wasn't— uh, it wasn't really a proposal so I'm just trying to make it perfect."
"I don't see the point to it, but whatever makes you happy man." He tried to smooth over the bite in his words with his nonchalant tone, but Kendall's face fell a bit anyway.
"I just want to do good, dude. I'm not… You know I haven't been the best boyfriend, and she's fucking amazing, Stew." he feels like someone was poking at his still bleeding wound.
"Sure," he said while putting more sugar into his coffee, seemingly more preoccupied with mixing it than with the conversation. He couldn't take it right now, he needed to collect himself, he needed time to come up with the perfect computer-simulated standard friendly response, and not speak his actual feelings.
"I— I mean, she said yes, who else is going to put up with me? uh?" Kendall joked, a self—deprecating smile on his face.
Me , Stewy wanted to say, I've been doing it all my life and I would gladly do it for as long as it takes, I would hold you every night, and soothe over your wounds, and then I would fuck you just how I know you like it. Because I know you better than anyone ever will. And I would never share you with anyone ever again .
"Yeah, it's either that or getting a cat I guess," he said instead.
Kendall made him the best man like he obviously would, and of course, he went to the ceremony and tried to play it cool. He didn't care about this, he told himself, it was just another stupid and meaningless wedding. He would watch Kendall say his vows, and then he would watch him break them through the course of the year. Let him play happy family until Rava gave up on him or Kendall shoved her away because of his family. He had watched this happen before.
This couldn't last, he was sure of it.
So when he arrived at the reception, he brought a nice stylish navy blue suit and a cool nonchalant attitude. He was here to mingle with other powerful people and to catch up with all the friends that Kendall had invited, he could take advantage of it like that. A Roy event is always a good place for gossip.
There were waiters parading around the reception, carrying trays with glasses of champagne. Stewy could really use a drink, but the nearest waiter seemed to be on a mission not to step too close to him. He rolled his eyes internally and excused himself from the conversation at hand with Paul and his other friends from college that were also attending the wedding. The truth is, he didn’t want to move too far away because he had this foolish thought that he could avoid Kendall for most of the night. He figured Kendall would be busy enough with his other guests and family, or at least, he hoped so. Stewy didn’t want to spend any more time than what was necessary with him.
The waiter offered him a glass of champagne as he saw him approaching and Stewy smiled fakely as he took it. He surveyed the room, sipping from his glass, watching Shiv chat with one of the guys Kendall had met in Shanghai. He had overheard them talking about politics two hours before and had decided to steer clear from them. There was also Roman, on the other side of the room, trying to fit in with some other group of executives, he had been complaining all night about some stupid children's movie they were producing at the Waystar’s studio in LA. That was another conversation he didn’t want to be a part of. He had had enough of the Roy's for that night when two hours ago he had gone to the bathroom and Connor had cornered him to inform him about the impending water crisis.
He snorted, good luck with those three, Rava , he thought. But what should have been a relief instead made him feel a little empty inside.
“Hey! Stewy!” He heard Rava’s voice calling him from behind, sounding cheerful. He cursed under his breath before turning around to face her with a sly grin on his face. “Have you met my cousins, Eva and Felix? He just started this new fund…”
Stewy looked around, seeing a small group of people surrendering Rava, her family, he gathered. Kendall was also by her side, but he avoided looking at him.
Rava’s cousin smiled at him, and he felt distressed at the idea that they were trying to make small talk.
“Yeah, we invest mostly in tech manufacturing companies… hardware and all that…”
For fuck sake.
Stewy kept the smile on his face. “Hm—hmm, great, probably a good investment, how much money are you managing?”
“Well, not much, just 300 mils…” he said a little sheepishly. “And what do you do?”
“Me?” Stewy smirked. “Oh, I just naked short companies into bankruptcy.”
They all paused for a moment, before laughing, probably trying to assess if he meant it as a joke or not. He didn’t. And Kendall didn’t laugh.
Rava’s female cousin shook her head. "And I’m just a therapist, so I’m kind of out of my depth here…" she joked.
Stewy head turned in her direction, raising his eyebrows at her, their eyes met and she smiled back at him.
"Hm… I don’t know, it sounds like a very important job here to me…” he lied easily. “One day Rava is going to need someone to help her deal with this asshole." He pointed at Kendall without even sparing him a look and heard him huff.
She laughed, kind of charmed. It was easy, impressing someone he didn't have to interact with for more than ten minutes. Any more time and he would start talking about investment plans for his portfolio, which most people didn't find as compelling.
"Hey, no flirting with the best man at my wedding reception," Rava admonished her in a joking manner.
"I didn't say anything," she complained, mockingly offended.
Rava sighed.
"I could see it in your eyes…"
That's when Stewy made the mistake of glancing at Kendall.
He was looking at Rava but it was more than that, looking didn't do it justice. Stewy could see the fondness in his gaze, and the ease in his smile. He recognized that look, but he had never seen it in public before. It felt like something had just pierced his heart.
He had definitely lost him this time, he thought, somewhere along those years, he had fucked up. He should have taken Kendall up on his offer in Ibiza that day.
".... Um… come on Stewy has already enough on his plate, I saw him talking to Connor earlier." Kendall intervened, and the mere detachedness in which he said his name made him shudder internally. Like the knife was being twisted deeper into his heart.
"Yeah, anyway… so, I'll see you around." He touched Kendall's shoulder, a small gesture that meant something to him. "Have fun, guys, congratulations."
He caught another waiter that was walking by and snatched a glass of champagne before swallowing in one swig and depositing it back on the trail.
Kendall tagged along, he could hear his steps behind him as he quickly chased after him into the bathroom, dodging the crowd. Because even at this wedding reception, or maybe especially because of it, he wouldn't stop asking Stewy for more coke at every turn of the night.
They entered the stall, white porcelain and fancy wooden cabinets, far away from the usual bathroom bar they tended to frequent. Stewy sat down on top of the toilet without even acknowledging him.
"Uh… everything is going fucking great right, dude?" Kendall was jittery, Stewy recognized.
"Sure." He shrugged, before snorting a line on top of his iPhone, avoiding his eyes.
"I just, uh— I really want it to be fucking— uh… fucking memorable."
"Yeah, sure." He offered the coke to Kendall, who accepted it eagerly.
That should have been the end of it, Kendall should have left after getting what he wanted out of Stewy for the night, until he needed his next hit at least. No need to do any kind of small talk. He didn't need to hear how perfect he wanted the wedding to be for his bride.
But then Kendall asked, in a strangely concerned voice. "Hey, everything ok?"
"Yeah, great," he replied, trying for a nonchalant tone and barely succeeding.
"Uh—uhu, sure." Kendall clasped his hand on Stewy’s shoulder, and it was such an unexpected touch coming from him that it almost made him recoil. "I need you here with me, dude." He could feel Kendall’s handprint burning into his skin, even through the suit.
He committed it to memory. Something he could come back to years from that moment in order to feel something. Just in case he forgot what it was to have loved Kendall.
"I am here, Ken.'' It came out sounding too earnest. Kendall must have noticed because his gaze softened for a second.
I couldn't leave even if I wanted to , he wanted to say.
"Uh, sure I— yeah, thanks, bro." He paused. "It does mean a lot, to me."
They looked at each other for a moment that felt like an eternity, Stewy searching for something in Kendall’s eyes, anything, but too much time had gone by since they last were together, and he wasn't too sure about what he was seeing in them.
"Forget about what Rava said earlier. You can flirt with her cousin. I won't get mad, you should try to have some fun, dude. It's my fucking wedding!" Kendall smiled. He took his hand off Stewy’s shoulder, leaving the cold to take its place.
The ceremony was beautiful, as it ought to be with the kind of money Kendall was spending on it. Kendall said his vows and it felt too rehearsed, like he was giving a press release. But Rava didn't seem to mind. It went without any major incident, just the classic Roy bullshit and secret meetings. But it didn’t dampen the mood. Stewy didn’t go to look for Rava’s cousin. Or for anybody else for that matter.
Everyone had already finished eating and was mingling around, most of them already drunk and on the dance floor. But Stewy's glass of wine stayed half full for the rest of the night. He just sat at his table, surrounded by old friends. They were joking around, chatting loudly over the music, while he played distractedly with one of the flowers he had picked from the table center, not paying attention to the conversation. And watched Kendall and Rava dance.
Kendall looked euphoric, he was smiling openly, his hands around Ravas waist, embracing her, looking at her like she hung the moon for him, just being in love and welcoming everyone else to witness it, out in the open.
He had a vision then, like the opposite of a Deja vu: of Kendall with salt pepper hair, and some more aging signs around his eyes and the corner of his mouth. He had seen every last one of them pop up throughout the years. They're holding hands, their expensive golden wedding rings twinkling in the sunlight. Stewy kisses him then, and Kendall smiles. They were in their apartment together, Stewy had probably decorated it, because Kendall had shit boring taste, and there was a cat, maybe even a kid. Roman and Shiv were coming to have dinner later that night. It was so real, that he felt like he could reach out and touch Kendall for a second. But he couldn’t.
It was just a mirage of a possible future they had already scrambled, and he saw it disappear just in front of his eyes.
Kendall kissed Rava on the dance floor, and said something to her, she laughed, delighted, both of them beaming. But Stewy couldn't hear a thing because of the ringing in his ears, or maybe it was just the loud music, he felt like he might puke.
March 6th, still nine days until Roman’s birthday.
Kendall was sitting on the bed, his back against their padded headboard, both of them scrolling through their phones. It must look comfortable and domestic from the outside. Maybe Kendall is actually feeling at ease at the moment, who knows, but Stewy feels unsettled.
"I tried talking to Rava, uh, about you. But she's not convinced, dude, even after two years… I mean I’m trying to be open with her, trying to be like uh— a fucking pro at co-parenting.” Kendall shakes his head. “The kids are happy, I think…" he says without looking over at the other side of the bed. When Stewy doesn't answer he keeps going, "And, I think she's probably thinking about marrying that guy, what’s his name? Gary or something?" He rubs a hand through his hair distractedly "The last time I went to visit her apartment to get the kids, there were some wedding locations open in her browser. So, open and shut case, right?"
Why do you care? Stewy wants to ask, but he ends up just humming along in acknowledgment.
Things had been turning in his head all week, the present, the past, probably even the future. He was here with Kendall today, but at the same time he wasn't, all he could think about was their past problems, and the imminent Norlinx betrayal Kendall was bound to find out about soon enough. It had dredged up some old feelings, all of this reflecting and remembering. Some good, some unpleasant.
It wasn't like he thought Kendall would actually go back to Rava, because that was an absolutely ridiculous notion, not a real possibility. But the sadness it brought out of him was really all the same. Rejection, fear of being replaced. He held his place in Kendall's life as a point of contentment, and he reserved a well-deserved pride in it.
"Hey, what's on your mind tonight?" asks Kendall, good humor in his voice, not much of an agenda behind it.
When Stewy doesn't answer him right away, he looks over at him and then nudges his legs with his feet.
"Nothing." says Stewy unfazed, still scrolling down his timeline, his tone the perfect example of neutrality.
"You seem quiet," Kendall remarks, but then goes back to his own phone again.
Stewy wonders if he was the second-best option after all. The only consistent presence in Kendall's life, besides his own family. Anyone else would have probably left by now, and Kendall surely knows it. It could be just one of those things old people do when they feel lonely, coupled with whoever is left behind after a divorce.
"I mean you're usually more— uh, talkative."
Without looking over at him, Kendall tries to nudge his own foot between Stewy's ankles and starts to pull his legs apart playfully. Stewy moves his own feet further away in response.
"Well, I'm sorry I'm not being as amusing today," He says, and then, because he feels petty enough adds, "Your feet are cold, stop."
Kendall scowls, like he's confused by his reaction, and gets up from the bed, leaving the room. Stewy sighs then, fuck, he knows he's being an asshole and there's no reason for him to be angry at Kendall when he is the one that has actually done something this time, but can't help it. So here he is fucking it up again. So much for transparency.
But Kendall comes back to the bedroom after a few minutes. Stewy hears him walking around the bed, and then sees him place a glass of water and an ounce of chocolate on Stewy’s nightstand.
He reincorporates himself, confused, propping himself up on his elbow. "What's this?"
"Um… water? I don't know, just what you usually take when you start having headaches." He stays on his feet, watching Stewy attentively.
"And the chocolate?" Stewy raises his eyebrows.
"I— uh, I thought you would like it." he shrugs.
Stewy huffs a breath, amused, feeling warmness spread through his chest, but doesn't find the right words to say.
"Hey," Kendall crouches down, trying to get to his current height. Then does something very un-Kendall-like, and touches his forearm, rubbing circles in it with his thumb. It rattles him a bit, every time Kendall initiates contact. But he tries to cover it up quickly. "Um… did I read the room wrong? Is this more like— uh, like a whisky mood?"
" A whisky mood ," he echoes, some humor seeping into his voice.
"So… is it not?"
Kendall gets up on his feet and goes to lay down again on his side of the bed, seemingly letting it go.
Stewy doesn't reply.
It's not a usual occurrence for him, not knowing what to say, but he finds himself in that exact situation now nonetheless. It's probably because he feels slightly embarrassed about his own feelings, his rational mind mercilessly judging him, are you fucking kidding me, dude? Are you still jealous of Kendall marrying Rava? Seriously? But It doesn't do much to change his actual mental state, so it quickly turns into frustration.
He doesn't want to talk about it, it's the thing.
They stay in silence for some minutes; Stewy on his phone trying to seem undisturbed, knowing Kendall's watching him closely. He opens Twitter, trying to distract himself, and finds his feed painfully boring. The sound of his tapping every few seconds, doom-scrolling further down, fills the room, no sound from Kendall's end. He rolls his eyes, irritated, and keeps going down his timeline, not pausing at all now, not even paying attention to what he's supposed to be reading. But still, he doesn't want to talk to Kendall about whatever's going through his mind.
It does get to him at the end, so he drops his phone and then turns to look at Kendall, annoyed, feeling his stare from the other side of the bed focusing on him.
"Is it wrong if I find it hot when uh— when you look at me like that?" Says Kendall catching him off guard.
Stewy’s brows furrow, his previous annoyance dissipating in favor of newly-found curiosity.
"Like what?"
"Like I just proposed— I don't know, the worst business move ever, but you still love me."
Stewy sighs.
"I do love you," he says softly, because Kendall always manages to brute force himself through his emotional barriers without even knowing what he was doing.
"Uh-huh, yeah, obviously, dude, you're here." He chuckles to himself and then touches Stewy's hair. "And that white streak, I mean uh— it does fucking help with the look."
"Hm… I know, you won the fucking jackpot with me. You're so lucky you got me, you know?" He jokes because it makes him feel better when he downplays stuff.
"Yeah, I do," Kendall leans closer, and brushes his lips against Stewy's, tentatively, waiting to see if his touch is more welcome now. Then seems to ponder on something as he pulls away. "Is this…” He huffs a breath, and when Stewy looks at him again there’s a bewildered look on his face. “...is this because of Rava?"
Fuck.
"Um… No, Ken. Are you nuts?" He tries to deflect, while reaching for the chocolate Kendall left on his nightstand, eating it in order to keep his mouth busy.
"Ok, because, it would be crazy thinking that I— uh, what? That we would ever go back together? After— after five fucking years separated?"
Stewy gestures dramatically. "Well, you loved her enough to marry her and to have kids, so— it's whatever…" he shrugs.
Kendall laughs, finding some amusement at his expense. "Dude, I would never have pictured you as the insecure type."
"Fuck you," he cuts in, offended.
Kendall just smiles, ever so patient, which is not something that he would normally say in the same breath as his name.
"Uh— ok, I love you," he states plainly like it's just an obvious fact, and it's starting to get through Stewy's defenses now. "You want me to marry you? I'll fucking do it."
It's one of the most idiotic responses he has ever heard, which means a lot coming for someone who has known Kendall Roy for more than half his life. His heartbeat quickens anyways at the mere idea.
"Shut up," he says under his breath, before lunging forward into Kendall's lap, who yelps, surprised at the sudden turn of events.
It doesn't make Stewy hesitate though, he crashes his lips into Kendall's into a forceful kiss, who just takes it, hums into it even, letting Stewy set the pace, placing his hand on Stewy's thigh bracketing his lap.
"I'm done being an idiot, Stew," Kendall says against his lips when he finally lets him go.
"Oh my god… Kendall, shut up, I swear." He kisses him again, this time harder, deeper, like he's trying to pour into him all of his frustrations, and heartache.
Kendall's hands travel up his body, coming to rest on his waist, as some kind of reassurance. Then, with patience, he tries to turn the kiss into something slower and romantic, like he's trying to appease Stewy.
"You kind of want that. Don't you?" Kendall muses as his hands keep slowly sliding up, inside Stewy's old Harvard t-shirt. He feels helpless about it, his skin hot against Kendall's touch, a knot working its way up from his stomach to his throat. He wants to protest Kendall's words but ultimately doesn't. "Fucking, uh, putting a ring on my finger to show how you own me," he muses. Stewy finds it difficult to read into his true feelings behind it, but Kendall doesn't sound accusatory, least of all when he has that self-gratified smirk on his face.
"I'll actually go and masturbate in the bathroom if you don't stop," he says as he knowingly grazes his ass against Kendall's erection, trying to get a reaction out of him.
"Jesus, Stew!" Kendall laughs breathlessly, letting his head hang forward, his forehead rubbing against Stewy's shoulder.
"What?"
"Nothing, you're so— fucking hot," he says looking up at him again.
"Good," Stewy smiles then, satisfied, and decides to take his shirt off. "So fuck me like you mean it."
Kendall seems to take in his words for a second before plunging into him in bed, hovering over Stewy, and making quick work of his pants. He pauses then, still fully clothed, to skim his gaze up and down his body before deciding to settle on Stewy's eyes yet again.
"I almost kissed you on my wedding night, you know?" He pitches his voice lower.
That peaks Stewy's curiosity, or maybe just strokes his ego a bit, but he doesn't want to unravel it, fearing something very earnest and sentimental is going to be said. The fact that he wants to hear it so badly scares him.
Kendall's hands work their way up to his neck, before slowly descending, rubbing in circles against Stewy's naked body, warm caresses alternating between light and firm touches, his eyes never leaving Stewy's own, like he was carefully studying him. It leaves a hot trail down his body, creating goosebumps in its wake, he shivers, feeling overwhelmed, and bucks his hips.
"Come on," he whines, and has the decency to feel a little ashamed about it.
"I'm getting there." Kendall keeps his voice steady, unperturbed, then miraculously puts a hand on his cock. Stewy groans in response, muttering something like " finally " under his breath. "You looked good, in that blue suit." he shakes his head, probably reminiscing about it, and chuckles. "I— I wanted to fucking kiss you when I saw you. Just put my hands all over you."
Kendall's hand feels warm and perfect on his dick, he had always been good at giving handjobs, or maybe Stewy had always been too far gone for him.
"Fuck Ken." His breath hitches and he tries to collect himself. "Wha— what else?"
Kendall smiles down at him, satisfied, "I just thought about uh— your lips. They're so fucking soft, dude."
"Uh-huh."
The tip of Kendall’s finger caresses his bottom lip, and his tongue darts out to lick at it playfully.
"You always drive me fucking crazy when you kiss me." Kendall pumps his hand at a faster rhythm, applying the right amount of pressure he knows Stewy likes to it.
Stewy lets his jaw hang a little loose, only letting through some breathy sounds, as his fingers play with the cotton sheets between them.
"Pass me the lube," orders Kendall all of the sudden, interrupting his fun.
He groans in frustration but does as he's told anyway, reaching for the nightstands and throwing it at Kendall without much strength behind him. This silver spoon asshole could never get things himself. He slumps back into the mattress, taking advantage of the break to close his eyes, and tries to relax again, willing his heart into beating at a normal rate.
He hears the squirt of the lube bottle and almost recoils when he feels the cool liquid touch his hot skin, only Kendall's hand on his dick again stopping him from squirming on the bed. He sighs, then eases back into it.
"If you had actually hooked up with someone at my wedding It would— uh, It would've probably fucked my night up, dude." Kendall gets his first finger inside him easily enough, and Stewy hears himself moaning softly, slowly melting into Kendall's hands, keeping his eyes closed, trying not to lose it.
"Yeah, I just wanted you," he confesses half out of his mind already while Kendall continues fingering him.
"Really?" Kendall sounds almost surprised, his carefully collected facade from the last minutes almost slipping away. He huffs."You would have been so easy dude, I should have taken you to the bathroom and fucked you against the wall in that blue suit."
Kendall's thumb caresses the head of his cock sweeping off all the precome Stewy must have been leaking already. He makes a choked-out sound and bucks against Kendall's fingers wanting more.
"Come on, don't tease me, Ken." He tries to sound unaffected but it comes out wrong, breathless, needy.
He hears Kendall exhale slowly. "Yeah, fuck , ok." He almost sounds pained.
Stewy hears the rustling of clothes being thrown out and then Kendall's lips are on his. He opens up immediately and feels a tongue slip into his mouth, so he grabs hold of Kendall's short hair and returns the kiss with even more intensity. It's just a mess, his hands are everywhere on Kendall's body, and the kiss is sloppy, and he finds himself surging a little just to chase after Kendall's lips when he starts to slowly pull away.
"Fucking look at you…" Kendall rasps in appreciation. "You're really pent up now," he whispers against his lips, then bites down gently on them. Stewy finds himself a wanton mess, needing more. He's about to reply when Kendall continues, "I bet you would fucking beg for it."
He feels another pang of lust then, a sharp stab in his gut. "Fuck," he groans while grabbing into Kendall's hair. "Just— come on, babe."
Kendall nods against his temple and Stewy relaxes slightly. They kiss again, tenderly this time, before Kendall tries to rearrange his position between Stewy's legs, pulling his thighs apart, and elevating his right leg on his shoulder. He places a small kiss on the back of his knee, a casual gesture of sweetness Stewy had grown used to by now, before slowly pushing in, his hands grabbing into Stewy's thighs for leverage.
Kendall groans then, all semblance of his previous collected appearance disappearing completely.
Stewy's hands go to his back immediately as he looks up at him through half-lidded eyes.
"Ken," he gasps, and rearranges his legs so that they hold Kendall steady just where he wants him to be.
Kendall picks up a rhythm after the slight pause and takes his hand off Stewy's thigh to support his weight on his arm, before kissing him again. It's a messy kiss this time, sloppy and uncoordinated, but it feels fucking amazing to Stewy anyways.
"Fuck… you feel so good on my dick." Kendall seems utterly lost now too, leaving behind any shamble of coherence by this point. Stewy takes it as a compliment, and moves his hips at a matching pace. "So fucking good," Kendall rasps under his breath.
He digs his finger into Kendall's back as a response and bites his lips, feeling already too close. Goddammit, he's not in his teen years anymore, he should be better than this, he needs to get a grip.
Kendall's rhythm comes to a halt, as if reading his mind, before restarting again, but at a slower now. Stewy whines involuntarily and thinks distantly that he should be ashamed of it, but this time falls short of a reason why.
"Can't believe it took us so long," Kendall says, and his voice sounds gravelly deep. He fucks into Stewy slowly, annoyingly slow even, leaving a trail of kisses down his neck. It feels like he wants to torture him for some reason, from Stewy's point of view. "Did you… did you think about me too?"
The question takes a second to sink in.
"You know I did" his voice comes out strained, that annoyance he was trying to convey barely making its way through.
"Yeah?" Kendall must feel satisfied with the answer then because the next thing he does is grab into Stewy's waist, while putting another hand over his shoulder, starting up a new brute and unyielding pace.
Stewy moans, throwing his head back against the pillow, he's so close, and he knows Kendall is too. He can feel it in the way he pauses every now and then, in his breathing pattern, and in the way he can feel his cock throbbing inside of him. He wants the moment to last longer. "Fuck yeah… yes please," he can hear himself babbling.
"You're so close," Kendall heaves, and it's obvious he's restraining himself. Stewy knows Kendall hates coming first, something about his psychological need to please, even though he also doesn't like to keep going for a long time after Stewy has come because he feels guilty then, like he's just using Stewy's body.
He knows him too well, his quirks, his kinks, and his usual tells. He has watched him grow, and not really change, through the years. He loves him, he really does, and it's kind of depressing, in a way he had never before been able to put his finger on.
Kendall kisses him then, his instincts probably telling him that Stewy was getting distracted, and he suddenly feels very aware of himself, feeling his manicured nails digging into Kendall's back, probably leaving a mark for tomorrow, his hair completely disheveled, and his body withing beneath Kendall’s, who keeps fucking into him relentlessly, hitting the right spot every time, holding him down; he looks so fucking hot.
"I love you," mumbles Kendall.
It's too much, he barely gets a hand on his dick before he starts coming, a choked-off moan making its way past his lips, probably Kendall's name. It doesn't really register in his mind.
He hears Kendall groan, letting up the pace, grabbing harder into his waist, steadily and deliberately fucking him through his orgasm. Like that’s the most important thing in the world right now. When he finally feels Stewy relax again, he picks up the rhythm again. Faster this time, looking for his own release, he grabs Stewy's face, as carefully as he can manage at the moment, and kisses him again, open mouthly. He feels Kendall coming then, softly moaning against his lips, and tries to swallow every single sound with his mouth, keeping the kiss going.
Kendall's head hangs loosely against his shoulder, and the room is now silent except for the sound of their heavy breathing.
" Fuuuck, " Stewy exhales, exhausted, the chemicals in his brain making him feel blissful. His head is in full shut down now. No more thoughts, only a light pleasant buzz in his brain.
He feels Kendall pulling out then with a hiss, before almost being suffocated by his weight falling on top of him. He doesn't protest, just puts his arm around Kendall's shoulders, basking in the closeness.
Kendall starts kissing his neck, then his shoulders, and every part of him that was conveniently available to him at the moment.
"Was that… was it good?" He asks him, still panting.
Stewy hums and rubs his back distractedly. "You know it was."
He hears Kendall chuckling against his shoulder. "You're such a sap, dude."
"Yeah, Ken I'm a sap."
March 7th, eight days until Roman’s birthday.
They have the kids coming over, any minute now, and Stewy’s pacing around the living room, looking at his phone calendar, trying to organize the following week, seven days left until signing the deal with Norlinx. There’s a message from his assistant, “I’m rescheduling again with Otter media CEO for next week, but he doesn't seem happy.” He rolls his eyes at that, how dramatic.
Kendall walks up to him, his face smooth, recently shaven barely a minute ago.
"Hey, Rava's dropping the kids off in five."
"Uh-huh," Stewy says distractedly.
"You good?" Kendall's probably still concerned with his anxiousness around the kids, seeing how he was so reluctant to meet them at the beginning, and how he usually starts pacing around the house one hour before they arrive.
"Yeah, babe, it's fine. They're cool kids, I'm cool."
Kendall frowns and looks at him, trying to actually assess his feelings, Stewy guesses.
"Ok, because we can— uh, talk about it or whatever." Kendall proposes, and then checks him again for any tells of discomfort, but seems satisfied with what he finds when Stewy just raises his eyebrow at him, so he just nods and says. "Cool."
Stewy grins, a thought crossing his mind.
"I can still fuck you tonight, right? if you keep quiet?" He deadpans.
"You're such an asshole," Kendall admonishes him in good humor while walking toward the elevator.
Stewy smiles, pleased with the response, and trails behind him. It's been an easy couple of days, just the two of them, no tension whatsoever. He would be excused from not thinking, or at least not wanting to think about the immediate doom about to fall when things are this perfect.
Out of the elevator comes Rava with the kids, they hug Kendall, one after the other, as a greeting, and Kendall hugs them back, beaming. It's cute, and he hates that thought, so he bites his lip trying to repress a smile while utterly failing.
Rava is telling Kendall something, while he just furrows his brows and nods tightly muttering in agreeance from time to time, before passing a backpack on to him. "... I'll come to pick them up Sunday morning, Iverson has been spending too much time on his iPad so I'm worried, remember the screen times rules ok?"
"Jesus… I can handle it, ok? I— I do this almost every week, Rava."
"Yeah, I know." She looks at the kids then. "So, see you in two days, ok? Have fun, text me if you need anything." She rubs their shoulders, before turning back to the elevator.
Kendall seems tense, something on his mind. Then out of nowhere, he says, "Yeah so, Stewy's here so…" he says pointing at him with his thumb, trying to make her notice his presence.
"Ah… Yeah sorry, I—'' she laughs awkwardly. "Hi, Stewy, I was just in a hurry, so I'm leaving now, sorry." She smiles as the kids shuffle into the apartment. "Bye Sophie, Bye Iverson '' She shouts after them before getting back into the elevator again.
"So that went well…" says Stewy in a hushed tone. "Real smooth, babe"
Kendall sighs and shakes his head turning to look at him. "She doesn't- she's not trying to be an asshole."
"Oh, yeah, sure." Stewy nods emphatically.
He doesn't hold any heat against Rava, never really did, but isn't oblivious to the way she sees him either. He might deserve it if he's being honest anyway.
They have dinner together, the four of them. Stewy gets Sophie to open up a little and tell him about her hobbies and school. Kendall smiles, thrilled with it. And Stewy only had to download TikTok, and send her videos from time to time, for them to start bonding over. It wasn't a big sacrifice, he reflects, teenagers are easy if you don't really, actually have to parent them much. That's Rava stuff.
" Do you know him? " Because Sophie sometimes texts him pictures of famous influencers, trying to get some juicy gossip out of him. It all started when Stewy had let her know he was friends with a bunch of people who worked PR in LA. "Yeah, he's such an asshole IRL, blew all his money on expensive cars, he's so done." He replied once, " Ugh!!!! I knew it, " she then sent a bunch of emojis he couldn't even begin to make sense out of.
So now they're kind of close, Stewy likes to think of himself as a cool uncle, if only because he doesn't want to think of himself as a stepparent. Talking to her comes easily to him, but Kendall still struggles. He tries to get him included in their conversation, even though he trips every time with his words. Stewy finds it endearing, watching him stumble his way into trying to relate to his kids, it's such a classic Kendall charm for him.
Everyone seems at ease on the table this night. They finish dinner without any drama, Iverson doesn't complain about the food and actually eats it instead of picking at his plate in disgust, like last week, probably because they tried ordering something different today. He didn't like the texture, he had said last time they had dinner together. Stewy recognizes the same behavior in Kendall but doesn't dwell much on that thought. When they all finish eating Iverson says he wants to watch some new mainstream movie release, and Sophie agrees.
Stewy goes to the fridge looking for ice for his gin, while Kendall slumps on the couch, a glass of soda in his hands; still fearing drinking so casually in front of the children, and Iverson scrolls down the streaming service menu looking for the movie. When Stewy comes back to the living room he finds Sophie tip-toeing around the couch, behind his father.
“So, Dad, I wanted to go to this concert with some friends…” She trails off, nervous.
“Uh-huh,” Kendall says distractedly. “Want me to get you guys on the VIP list?”
Stewy watches their interaction with intent but tries to pantomime disinterest, taking his phone out from his pockets, like he isn't paying them any mind. All because he isn't sure how Kendall’s going to handle it.
“No… it was just— is it alright if I go?”
Kendall looks back at her then, seeing her bite her lip, restless, then looks over at Stewy who catches his eyes behind her. He doesn't need Kendall to spell it out to him, he knows he's looking for reassurance of some kind, so he sighs and advances toward her, pocketing his phone again.
“Soph, we both know if you’re asking your dad, it's because your mom already said no,” he says, putting a hand on her shoulder.
Sophi looks up at him, a stubborn teenager pout on her face. Kendall frowns, probably wondering if he should feel offended, but Stewy just shrugs and goes to sit beside him on the couch.
“She doesn't get it, dad, I really want to hang out with my friends, It’s going to be our first concert.”
“Hey, your mom and I, we’re a team, ok? So if she says no, there’s a reason.”
“Yeah,” she whispers, defeated.
“But uh, I’ll— I’ll talk to her.”
“Really?” She perks up and gives him a quick hug, then leaves for her room, running down the hall.
“Hey, we're going to watch the movie in ten minutes!” Shouts Kendall after her.
Stewy smiles and sips from his drink satisfied.“Good catch,” Kendall whispers close to his ear, and he just shrugs in acknowledgment.
They all watch the movie, and then, after Kendall sends the kids to bed, he goes to serve himself a glass of whisky, Stewy steadfast on his side; there’s barely any sound in the house, except for the low hum of the appliances and the thermostat, now noticeable in the silence. They sit down on the couch together and joke around in hushed tones about their old college buddies' mid-life crisis Instagram pictures, kissing from time to time without any hurry.
He wakes up the next day before Kendall, and goes straight to the treadmill, checking his phone for something to watch in the meantime, when a certain message he hadn't seen before in his notifications, alerts him, his assistant had sent him a link to some article, with an attached message "They published it."
He sighs and opens it, it directs him to the Verified Twitter, one of those clickbait pop culture-focused Otter Media news pages, with an article embedded on the tweet, the headline reads: "Kendall Roy and his long life affair with drugs, sex, and bad decisions," and then follows, "From fucking one of his major shareholders to drunken property damage, and paying homeless men for their silence."
Yeah, this was bad, Kendall was not going to like this.
"What the fuck?" He flinches as he hears Kendall shouting from another room "No, why wasn't I informed of this? No, fuck him. This is bullshit."
He exits the room and pads into the living room, looking to assess the current situation, finding Sophie and Iverson sitting by the table, side by side, their body posture somewhat tense, the laptop in front of them discarded as they now look at some specific point of the house. Stewy follows the direction of their gaze and finds Kendall’s closed office door.
He nods to himself and distantly wonders what Rava would do.
"Hey, you guys had breakfast already?" He tries with a fake light tone.
"No we were… waiting for dad," answered Sophie, confusion coming through her voice, her hand pointed in the direction of Kendall's office as an explanation.
Stewy sighs, and bites his lip. "Yeah… I don't know about that," he says, turning away from the door, now looking at the children in front of him instead, and taps his fingers over the table. "Ok, so… how about we get something to eat at that coffee shop Sophie liked?"
Sophie beames at him then. "The one with the milkshake jars?" She asks excitedly.
Stewy raises his eyebrow and nods. One down , he thinks, but Iverson was still looking over at Kendall's office door.
"Is it bad?" asks Iverson.
"Honestly, dude? I don't know." His body tenses up just as he finishes saying it, already regretting it. He probably should have lied but didn't really think it through enough.
Iverson just nods, considering something. "Can I bring the tablet over?"
Stewy exhales, relieved. "Sure, whatever you want, it's only the three of us."
So they get in the car and end up having breakfast at a place that’s probably going to fuck Stewy’s calorie counts for the day, but whatever, it was fine. They stay there for a while, sitting down, the three of them by the table closest to the big window, where you could see the street from, with two unfinished caramel milkshakes that were too big for the kids discarded to the side. Stewy has his sunglasses on, because the morning sun bothered him at this hour, rotating his phone between his fingers, while Sophie, who was sitting beside him, showed him her Instagram feed, pointing at the makeup tutorials she had been trying to pull off but not yet succeeding, and Iverson intervening to change the topic a few times. It was all very pleasant, at least now that they were away from home.
He couldn't help but let his mind wander to Kendall, his insecurities always got the worse of him, there was nothing worse for his mental health than attention from other people honestly. Fucking Roman and especially fuck that Otter Media CEO.
If he makes my stupid asshole of a boyfriend relapse I'm taking him down for every sad little penny he's worth. Stewy thinks.
"... And this is the girl Iverson likes, we saw her at Mason's birthday last time—" he catches Sophie telling him.
"Soph, shut up! You're such a liar" Iverson complains.
"No, you." She teases.
Stewy lets his head fall back, a light thud against the wall behind him, as the kids continue to argue.
What was Kendall even doing now? He was starting to regret ever leaving him alone.
He opens his Twitter feed, and already finds replicate clickbait articles of the original one. He skims through them, not really looking at the comments, and among them finds one with the title "What Kendall Roy being gay means for America." It makes him groan internally in annoyance. Yeah, time to go home.
When they finally get back, the apartment is in complete silence, only disturbed by the kids chattering as they entered it. He lets them go to their rooms without any warning about screen time or whatever, and takes off his sunglasses, leaving them by the entrance selves, closing the door behind him with a click.
He adjusts his blazer with one hand, and begins his way deeper into their home.
"Ken?" He calls, but doesn’t need to look very hard before finding him, sitting on the living room couch, reading something on his phone while shaking his head.
"Ken…" he sighs.
"This is fucking weird, Stew." Kendall stands still on the couch, just looking at his phone screen. "Historically, when someone publishes this kind of bullshit articles is in one of our magazines." He squints his eyes over at the screen, maybe offended at something, Stewy guesses. "Yeah, this is just absurd, and…
Stewy pads over to him, carefully, as if not to spook him.
"Yeah," he concedes. "What are you thinking?"
Kendall turns to look at him "Honestly?" He scoffs. "That… uh, I guess I'm kind of glad my dad isn't around to see it."
"Yeah…" Stewy lets himself fall next to Kendall on the couch. "This would have probably killed him if he was still here…"
"Not funny dude."
"Sorry, touchy subject…" he exhales, because he isn’t going to fight about Logan now of all times.
Stewy doesn't know how to act in these kinds of situations, no one ever gave him any hints about how to support your chronically insecure boyfriend when someone publishes an exposé about him. He supposes starting with, this is probably your brother's fault , is not going to help.
"I'm— well, we're trending topic," Kendall says in a tone he can’t identify as either good or bad.
"Uh… fuck." he breathes, putting his hand on Kendall’s shoulder in sympathy.
"Yeah, but, have you read the comments?"
"Nop."
"No one's talking about the drug thing, or every other uh— you know, incident. Just— just the gay part."
Stewy narrows his eyes, carefully considering the exact implications of it. "And that 's…?"
Kendall shrugs, then smiles a little too pleased with himself. "It's not a bad thing. PR is saying that if I play this right I might be the new Shiv, you know, the good sibling," Kendall nods to himself.
"If you play it right…?" Stewy furrows his eyebrows, then tilts his head to the side. "Ken, please don't do anything stupid, I'm begging you."
"Hey, no, come on," he says and there is a hysterical edge to his voice now. "This is good. We have to call the kids, sit them down."
Stewy looks taken aback. "And tell them what? They already know that we f—" he cuts himself off at the last minute, realizing that children are probably around "...that we're together."
"Uh-huh, yes, but— come on, dude." Kendall pats him on the thigh and springs up from the couch, marching out of the room.
They end up having a family sit down, the four of them in the living room. It's the most awkward thing Stewy has ever participated in, according to him. Sophie and Iverson listen while Kendall tries to explain to them how their relationship is public now and how that might affect them, before going on a cringe-inducing speech about homophobia that makes Stewy want to groan. Where was this even coming from? Because, honestly, he might have never heard Kendall say the word homophobi c this many times before.
Then the phone calls start coming in, Connor calls to be supportive, and Kendall stands all proud, looking through the window while talking on speakerphone, hands on his hips, grinning. Roman calls no long after that, but it's to laugh at him. Shiv also calls, but it doesn't sound like it's related to the article.
He ends up reading his own social media feed in the end, and it’s ridiculous; photos of Kendall looking all prim and proper in his business expensive suits with a ridiculous blush filter over it, kitten ears, and something he doesn't understand about, "yassification of corporate America,” Sophie might know , he thinks. Then finds some paparazzi's photos of the two of them together, and wonders where did they even get those, before realizing that the press followed Kendall a lot post-Logan's funeral. There are people arguing that Kendall is still a terrible person, and a detailed list going around, of his past mistakes over a long Twitter thread that he already knows firsthand, honestly, he could even add a few more to it. "Daily reminder that someone can be LBGTQ and still a capitalistic parasite." And he can't really argue with that one.
The worst part is his notification alerts going wild, everyone seems to want to get in contact with him today, friends he hadn't talked to in years are suddenly texting him, some are more discreet in their ultimate pursuit of the gossip, they write things like: "hey! Bro, how are you?" but others are more direct, writing things like: "WTF! are you fucking Kendall? dude? Since when?" What a fucking day, really.
By dinner time things seem a bit more settled, Sophie and Iverson don't look rattled at all, as they continue to argue about some teen-related drama that Stewy tuns out of, but that's a good sign. They're eating a pizza tonight because Sophie wanted to, and it's one of the few foods Iverson actually likes. Stewy smiles, and then shakes his head, as Kendall starts telling his kids a story from their high school years, before realizing that it ends in underage drinking, and attempting to switch to another anecdote.
He’s starting to finally relax for the first time today when the ringing of his phone over the table nearly makes him jump. He checks the for caller, and curses under his breath.
"Hey," says Kendall, grabbing his arm. "Is there something wrong, dude?"
"No… it's just my mom."
He excuses himself from the table, even if the kids were barely paying any attention to him, before scuttering into the office room.
Ok, the last trial for the day, and then it's almost Sunday. No possible way this goes wrong. He closes himself into the office, and opens up the window, keeping it slightly ajar.
"Mom?" He finally answers the phone "I thought you were with dad visiting the cousins in Turkey? What's the hour difference again?"
"Yes, I'm with your aunt right now. She showed me the news, you know?. Sadegh, why is your personal life being published now?" She sounded stern, but then again she usually did.
"Mom…" he sighs, already fearing for the worst and mentally preparing himself."It's nothing, don't worry about it. So how's the weather there in Izmir?"
"Don't change the subject. It is one thing that you appear on TV talking about business, that's perfectly fine, but this is just tabloid gossip." She clicks her tongue. "Talking about your relationship with Kendall…"
"Hey, ok, look," he intervenes. "It's not like I chose to appear on it, and Kendall… well, it is what it is mom," he rubs his temple, feeling suddenly irritated, "and I already told you last year that we were together, so if you don't like it—"
"That's not what I said, you know we support you and your life choices, Kendall is family now."
He paused, feeling the fight drain out of him.
"Then why do you sound so… mad?" There’s relief in his voice despite the confusion.
"I am not, I'm just speaking like I usually do. But I don't like all this public attention. Why do you children always insist on making everything public?"
"Oh my god, mom, really—"
"When your cousin uploaded the yacht picture to Instagram, with all those naked girls? Hm? Your father still brings it up to this day."
"Yeah, mom, I know," he sighs.
The door clicks open, coming slightly ajar, there's an almost too quiet knock against it, Kendall's in the threshold, quietly asking for permission to get inside. Stewy raises his eyebrow in question.
"Is everything ok?" Kendall whispers.
Stewy nods and continues the conversation. "Yeah, hey I'm sorry for not coming over this year, I had something to take care of at home. But… How's everyone there?”
His mother sighs. "We found everyone in good health here, don't worry. But your family is not getting any younger, it will be good for you to visit from time to time, your nephew is already three, and when's the last time you visited him? Hm? And do not say that you sent him a present for his birthday because we taught you better than that." He mumbles a weak excuse in response and his mother goes on, "We will probably leave for California in a few days. Want me to put your father on the phone?"
"No." He says suddenly. "Mom, I'm— don't worry I have to go actually—"
"Ok, I'll put him on the phone now."
"Wait, I— Hey… Hi, Dad."
Kendall must read something in his body language, or maybe it's just that he has only known a terrible family life and toxic relationships because he takes hold of Stewy's free hand between his own while looking down. Probably misinterpreting Stewy's reluctance to speak to his father for something other than mere awkwardness.
He sees the gesture for what it is, though, Kendall actually trying to support him, in his own weird and quiet way. He smiles lightly, squeezing Kendall's hand back, before letting go of it in order to embrace him, his free arm enveloping Kendall’s back, pulling him closer.
It was a sweet gesture, coming from Kendall, someone else wouldn't appreciate its meaning, he rarely made big displays of affection, it was always in the small details.
Feeling marginally better now, his previously tense muscles relax, and soon enough, he finds himself kind of tuning out from his conversation with his dad. "Uh—huh, yeah, is your knee still bothering you—?" He kisses Kendall's cheek, softly, without making any sound. "Great—, uh—huh. Yeah, sure, dad, ok, I love you too, bye."
"Is— is it bad?" Asks Kendall, genuinely confused.
"Nah," Stewy smiles, pocketing his phone. "It's fine. But I guess I'm going to have to fly to LA at some point next week."
"You, uh— you want me to go?"
"Oh? Are you offering?"
"Yeah, sure, it's your— it's your family, dude, I already know them, but I just figured, uh, I never actually, like— met them again ."
"Look at you, wanting to re-meet my family," he tries to tease him, but his voice is probably too telling of his true feelings. "How romantic."
Kendall scoffs. "So?"
"Well…" Stewy bites his lip. "I'm not uninterested…" he says before kissing him sweetly, his other hand coming up to caress Kendall’s cheek.
As they break apart from the kiss he keeps holding him close, not wanting to move yet. The tip of their noses presses together, as they stand in the middle of the room, just listening to the sound of traffic coming through the open window, because really, there isn't much that needs to be said at the moment.
When Rava turns up to pick up the kids the next day she hadn't even read the article.
March 11th, five days until Roman’s birthday.
Stewy wasn't exactly a light sleeper, but he finds himself in a liminal space between awakeness and sleep for most of the night. The movement of Kendall thrashing around in bed nagging at the back of his mind, filtrating into his dreams, making him unconsciously restless.
When he finally gets woken up by a sudden movement, and a kick to his calf. He groans, trying to blink his sleep away, eyelids heavy and sight yet unfocused. He finds Kendall already incorporated on the bed, heaving.
"Hey, hey, Ken, what's… what's wrong?" He slurs with a gravelly voice, his throat dry.
"I— I don't know I was drowning—"
Stewy rubs his eyes, already resigned to not sleeping much tonight. It happens from time to time, some nights Kendall just has these nightmares, since he stopped drinking heavily before going to bed, and Stewy has to calm him down somehow.
"Ok…" he says with caution, and carefully stretches his arms out like one does when attempting to pet a wild animal. He puts an experimental hand on Kendall's shoulder trying not to startle him, but feels his muscles tensing for a moment. "It's just a dream, babe, you're fine," he whispers, trying to soothe him, even if he knows that's not really the issue here.
Kendall stares at him then, unshed tears in his eyes, looking utterly distraught. "Something grabbed me, and I was fighting to get to the surface again, and then— then I just gave up."
"Come here," he says while trying to maneuver Kendall closer.
He can hear him quietly sniffing already, he always got a runny nose when he cried, he remembers when Kendall cost them a game of baseball in seventh grade, and cried against his shoulder in the locker room when everyone else from their team had already left. When he got home his t-shirt was fully covered in snot. It’s not much better now, just like when they were kids, it makes Stewy feel all weird and protective.
"It's ok" he presses a soft kiss against Kendall’s pliant lips, and then he sees a single tear rolling down his cheek, before wiping it away with his thumb.
"I left him there, Stew," he whispers, as Stewy rubs comforting circles on his back. "And— and dad, he didn't even care, I thought— I thought he had forgiven me because he loved me, but he just—"
Stewy shushes him lightly.
"Breath, babe, come on, you're in a bad headspace right now." He kisses his cheek tenderly, and Kendall exhales shakily, resting his head against Stewy's shoulder. "That's it," he says while petting his head and it almost feels like he is cuddling a scared rabbit.
"I'm a bad person," Kendall mumbles softly against his neck.
"We all are Ken," he kisses his forehead. "It doesn't make a difference to me."
They fall into an easy silence after that, and, at least Stewy, manages to sleep for a few more hours, keeping Kendall close, feeling his chest rise and fall at a steady pace; listening to his light breathing through his nose; their legs entangling together, keeping his feet warm in bed.
When he wakes up again at almost ten o clock, Kendall's still nestled against his body, but obviously awake. There's no telling if he even actually slept, or if he had one of those nights when you just slip in and out of consciousness without any real rest. Stewy kisses the top of his head, content to just stay in bed holding him for a while longer, feeling lazy that morning.
"You have that boring fundraising political dinner this evening, remember?" He says softly, close to Kendall's ear.
Kendall makes a sound, almost like a groan. "Not in the mood today, dude..."
"I know, Ken." He sighs, and kisses his head again, knowing Kendall's in one of his kind of depressive moods now, even if the medication had really mellowed out his temper for the most part. "But it will be fun, because I'm going with you and I'm so fucking fun to be around, and I'll sit right beside you and bitch through the whole thing about their boring speeches, and the bland food catering… because it’s probably just unfrozen and left at room temperature."
He feels Kendall smiling against his skin. "Yeah? You're coming?"
"Hm-hm, can't leave my, gay lover Kendall Roy, alone in public after that article…"
Kendall seems to come back to life instantly, his mood changing. He lifts his head up from Stewy's chest to look at him, his eyes twinkling with bad intentions.
Stewy sighs. "What now?"
"I— I forgot about that, yeah, fuck, you're right, what would Twitter say, uh?" He smiles dopey. "I— I'm like— uh, like a fucking gay icon now."
Stewy raises his eyebrows at him."Well… I wouldn't go that far, Ken…"
"Come on, Shiv and Rome are also going to be there and we need to be out the door by four," he said slipping out of Stewy's embrace.
"Oh, now you're in a hurry, hm??"
The Kendall being gay news is still big on social media, but Stewy knows that the news cycle for this kind of thing is short-lived nowadays, either because of people’s dwindling attention spans or the imminent collapse of humanity producing crisis after crisis seemingly every other day, clogging up every news page.
It was almost like a Waystar’s PR miracle that barely anyone was talking about the homeless man's forehead tattoo, and what the fuck was that even about in the first place?
For them to make an appearance in public together now was a good idea, Karolina was telling them on their way to the fundraiser, Kendall’s phone on speaker mode during the whole call, nodding along to her, getting a little too enthusiastic with his own idea proposals while Stewy frowns, worrying that he was going to get dragged into whatever it was they would come up with. It's a short drive, thankfully.
Kendall exists the car first, grabbing Stewy by the hand, ushering him to walk to the entrance past the paparazzi that were staying on the other side of the security cordon. Some of them call Kendall’s name as they spot him, and he smiles a little smug in response without turning back to acknowledge them.
"Should we give them something?" He whispers in Stewy’s ear.
"Like what?" Stewy furrows his brows. "Are you going to blow me in front of all those old white politicians?" He bites his lip provocatively in what’s obviously meant to be a mocking manner.
Kendall rolls his eyes, not looking at him as they keep walking. "Uh… no?"
"See? Now I'm disappointed."
"Jesus, can't you just—?" Kendall stops in his tracks and turns to look at him, clearly a little annoyed, Stewy taking the opportunity to kiss him, humming against his mouth, flashes going off in the distance.
It’s a chaste and familiar kiss, all things considered, with Kendall being too stunned at getting caught off guard to respond. But it still makes him feel somehow giddy, maybe it's just because of the simple familiar pleasure of the soft press of his lips against Stewy’s or maybe it's the fact that there’s nothing to hide anymore.
Nothing, except for the Norlinx betrayal.
He quickly pushes the thought away, as he pulls back from the kiss.
"Satisfied?"
"Uh… yeah." Kendall looks dumbstruck then and Stewy has to tug on his hand to get him moving again.
Once they get inside is just the usual boring atmosphere one expects to find in this kind of places, a bunch of WASPs chatting while drinking some middle-of-the-road wine, numbered tables assigned to each of them for later on the back, some of the older guys already sitting, waiters passing through the crowd with trays full of food.
"Am I seeing shrimp over there? Oh, this is going to be good, what's the next thing? One of those fake caviar canapés served over a warm piece of toast?”
He jokes around just to watch Kendall snort in amusement and smile, and for a second, thinks this might be a good moment to just drop the bomb on him, something like: so listen, that company you wanted to buy, and have deposited all of your hopes into? Well, I might have stolen it from you and taken it private. But thinks better of it once he spots Roman and Shiv, hunkering down in a corner, talking to each other in hushed tones.
Yeah, so maybe not the place, or the moment , he concludes as he lets go of Kendall’s hand, leaving him to walk towards them. Because he knows they’re probably planning something that has to do with Wastar, and definitely not because he’s been trying to wriggle himself out of coming clean with Kendall for almost an entire week.
No, he just has other matters to attend to, work-related stuff, money-related stuff, and there were people here he needed to, how they say it nowadays, network with. That’s what he does, he was born rich, something he’s incredibly thankful for, but he wasn’t Kendall Roy's level of rich, certainly not Kendall Roy's level of privilege. Maybe if he keeps going he can get there soon enough, where his family before him couldn't reach.
He disappears into the party until hours later, when the boring speech part begins, but so does the dinner party.
They all end up sitting on their assigned table a few hours later for dinner, and Stewy has to put up with all the Waystar talk anyways.
Shiv looks at her brothers, shrugging slightly.
"I mean things could get pretty bleak with the board if we don't adquiere a tech company ASAP."
Kendall shakes his head.
"Ok, uh, I hear you, but we can handle the Norlinx thing."
"Yeah, but…" Shiv made a face that to him reads like disbelief. "Just in case it doesn't work out we need another plan."
"Uh, well, Shiv, I disagree, but, sure, I get your concerns… what about that other company Roman wanted to buy?"
Roman scoffs, and rubs his ear. "Ah… yeah, you mean the ones with the kink for humiliating us that have been cranking up the old click bait articles about us?"
Stewy watches as Shiv puts on her classic annoyed face, like she's about to say something that shouldn't even need saying because of how obvious it was.
"Their market cap value is still way too high so…"
Kendall frowns. "Uh-huh, I agree that's super sketchy, that's why we're going with the Norlinx plan in the first place-"
"Well…" Roman interrupts him. "It seems to me like you actually don't have a plan with them, and they fucking hate you and don't want to sell."
"Uh, no, fuck you."
"But I've been looking into the Otter media staff this week already, cause I'm a fucking great COO…" Roman raises his eyebrows watching for his siblings' reactions before continuing. “I actually went out on the streets and met the people involved in the company, so I had some beers with his banker, that totally wants to fuck me by the way—” Shiv rolls her eyes, and crosses her arms over her chest “...and he told me that there might be some irregularities going on at the firm. So that's some leaverege for us to exploit."
"Are you sure of that?" Shiv asks, in her best serious businesswoman impersonation.
"Yeah, Shiv, I'm fucking sure of that. They are a great fucking option to buy, they have the click bait and the tits and the guns and the… videos about drunk college guys like, jumping into a jelly filled swimming pool that go viral. They have the online presence that we need."
They pause for a moment, Stewy watches as Shiv turns to look at Kendall, looking for his support on this.
“Uh—huh, both could be good, they have the infrastructure already in place, some good fuckin uh— developed Ux, good user databases, and aren't big enough to cause us to death spiral if something goes wrong…” Kendall nods while speaking, in a self shootheing manner. “The thing is… we need them to sell.”
Shiv shakes her head and one or her hair strands comes loose from behind her ear. "I don't know, the Otter media things sounds like too many fucking irregularities to me, but we can't even make our fucking move if they don't budge on their non selling position."
“Stewy,” Kendall calls his attention, and he looks back at him while playing with the edges of his napkin over the table. “What’s your read on this, could we— could we get a soft yes from either of them?”
Stewy bites his lip and tilts his head to the side, pondering the question over. “Well, I'll be honest, babe. You're the CEO, and you’re seen as kind of a liability now, so people don't really want to do business with you. As opposed to before, when people didn't want to be associated with you, because you were Hitler."
"Uh-huh, Yeah." Kendall looks at him with open annoyance. "Thanks for the read, dude," he says in a flat affectation.
"No problem, dude, " Stewy smiles at him knowingly.
“Ok, so what are we going to do about the… Otter Media thing?” asks Roman, looking over at Shiv.
“Maybe we could look into it,” She finally replies.
“Great, we’re gonna fuck them.” Roman punches Shiv's shoulder lightly as a friendly gesture, and she rolls her eyes amused.
The three of them smiled at each other, with Shiv slightly shaking his head while the same private smile played on her lips.
“Aw… you guys make such a cute little team.” Stewy mocks them fondly.
“No, no team. These two dipshits have me and Gerri taking care of everything while they… fuck around,” complains Roman pointing at his two siblings.
Kendall is the only one that seems to take the bait, like he doesn't know after so many years that he's just trying to get a rise out of him.
“Jesus… Rome, I’m taking care of other fucking stuff at Waystar too, there's still a lot that needs fixing, ok?”
“Yes …” he over enunciates, “but you’re also going home at closing hours and we’re having to eat dinner there most days so…”
“So?” Kendall shrugs. “I have other priorities, I want to go home, and do other stuff other than work—”
Stewy frowns and wrinkles his nose in disbelief. As if Kendall didn’t get home most days to still read over files on his tablet. Not that he minded Kendall’s reading, but he preferred when it was some actual book and not detailed corporate road maps for the next year.
"That's because you're all…" Roman furrows his brows and shakes his hands around, dramatically gesturing for something. "...Stewy pussy whipped.”
"Yeah, well, I'm fucking happy Rome, what— what's wrong with that?"
"Oh? Really?" Stewy teases him amused, not taking any of his words at face value.
But Kendall turns his head to look at him, completely unfazed.
"Yeah." He nods, tightly.
Stewy squints his eyes, searching for some sign of mockery in Kendall's expression, but when he doesn't find any, he relaxes and settles for covering Kendall's hand with his own on the table.
"Ugh! Disgusting. I'm going to need therapy." Roman whines. "Shiv, are you seriously seeing this?"
"Uh-huh, yeah," she shrugs, seemingly indifferent.
"Fuck you…" says Kendall without any bite turning and looking over at Roman annoyed.
Stewy ducks his head, attempting to hide his pleased smile and bites his lip.
He has to admit, reductantly, that he was having fun that night, hanging out with the Roys could be messy sometimes; most times, but that's just because he usually doesn’t enjoy the company of the bunch of clowns that followed them around. Well, now that he thinks about it, he’s probably part of their inner circle too. Fuck.
It’s just another one of those sacrifices one has to make to be with Kendall Roy he supposes and finds in the end, that he doesn’t mind it as much as he did before. Even without Logan’s influence things are still, what Kendall's therapist had called, a toxic and dysfunctional family environment . To Stewy it looked pretty peaceful, all things considered. They were still assholes, rich, and spoiled, but he wasn’t going to throw stones from his glasshouse. He was self-aware enough.
The after-dinner party went by easily, Kendall was doing his thing, calling his siblings for secret meetings and all that bullshit, so he went out to the open balcony on the rooftop to get away from the noise for a while. There were some tables with a spread of food there, and a waiter still serving alcohol by a small bar. Barely anyone else was out there, even if the weather wasn’t that bad at that time of the year, just some small groups scattered about, drinking and chatting quietly amongst themselves.
Stewy got a canapé from the tray, just because, and leaned over the crystal railings to look at the city beneath him while eating it in one bite. Ugh, it’s kind of warm now, that's disgusting, he thinks, and takes out his phone to look over at Twitter, imminently finding in his feed some short clickbait articles with his first public photo kissing Kendall, just a few hours ago. He chuckles to himself, recognizing Kendall’s confused expression on the pictures, but not bothering to dig into the comments. He would have never imagined the day when a photo like that would be published about them without it turning sour.
Things really had changed, he muses, playing with the canapé toothpick between his teeth.
He hears then, the distinctive sound of women's stilettos coming up behind him and pauses, wondering if this was some kind of ambush.
Shiv comes to stand beside him in front of the railing, and their eyes met as she gestured to the cigarette between his fingers, Stewy shakes his head, and She lights it up, pressing it between her lips before taking a drag.
"Did you come here looking for investors? Because you know… donations usually go the other way around." She smiles at him, but it doesn't reach her eyes.
"What? Shiv… that would be soliciting, that's illegal, girl." He teases back talking around the toothpick still in his mouth. She scowls at him in response. "I just happened to know that some of these guys are major shareholders in a business I have a stake in, so I'm just checking in."
“Yeah, ok, sure. Good to know.”
She brings the cigarette to her lips again, her eyes watching Stewy in a way that’s starting to get under his skin. He goes back to his phone, waiting for her to speak first.
Eventually, she puts out her cigarette and breaks the uncomfortable silence that had settled between them. “Hey, can I ask you something?”
“Uh-huh.” He keeps his eyes on his phone skimming through some unanswered messages.
“So… what’s with this…? you know…?” She gestures at him with her hands. “This thing with my brother?”
“The… thing …?” he locks his phone, putting it away in his pocket. “Oh! you mean the thing where we live together, and his kids come on the weekends to hang out with us?” He smiles tightly back at her.
“Sure, yeah. But, I mean, It’s just… I didn't think this was for real. I mean it’s you , and Kendall. ” She laughs halfheartedly. “Weren’t you like… the best man at his wedding?”
“Yeah, that’s so romantic don't you think?”
Shiv scoffs and tucks a strand of his short straight hair behind her ear. “I just didn’t think, you know? That you would actually settle down. Together. I’ve seen Ken bring girlfriends home for years, and it always seems fine at the beginning before the other shoe drops. It’s all transactional, everyone wants something out of Ken.” She smiles at him and shrugs with one shoulder. “But he’s clean now, and you’re out of Waystar, so what's your angle here?”
“Ok, I see you.” He nods, dumping the toothpick he had been playing with on the floor. “You’re doing this whole, protective sibling bullshit act, but it’s kind of late now…”
“No—” she cuts him off. “I mean, really, I’m just not getting it—”
“What’s there to get, Shiv?” He sighs. “I fucking love your asshole of a brother. Yes, he is maniac sometimes, yes, he’s a prick—”
“Uh… uh, wait, love? Really?” She furrows her brows in disbelief and sways her head to the side, some of her strands of hair coming loose from behind her ear. “Aren’t half of your Instagram posts pictures of you on the beach with different women in bikinis?”
“No, actually, I only post food pictures now—”
“Sure, yeah.”
“Shiv, what’s with the third degree?” He rolls his eyes. “What do you want me to say, dude? Is it really that weird?” Just as he says it he can feel some anger bubbling up, fucking Roy’s and their doublespeak, and their untrusting nature. “It’s this because I’m a guy? Like… your brother’s coke butt-buddy who can’t be taken seriously?”
Shiv looks appalled for a second, but it’s hard to tell if she actually feels that way or not.
“ No , Stewy, come on, you know that’s not— it’s not that… I’m not my father.” She laughs nervously and narrows her eyes on him. “I’m just trying to make sense of things, with the news coming out and everything, because it’s a little weird, don't you think?”
“We didn’t plant that news, Shiv, that’s ridiculous—”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t hurt, right? Kendall, I mean… he loves playing the saint, always wanting to have the better story and trying to sway the public opinion in his favor… he's fucking obsessed with that.”
Stewy laughs, and shakes his head, amused despite himself. “You and Ken…” he bites his lip. “Shiv, you’re both so fucking alike.”
“Uh… no we’re not, fuck off.” She scoffs.
“Yeah, it’s true, well, minus the drug addiction, but the rumor goes, you're getting divorced now, wasn’t Kendall the same age? When he…?” He tries to mimic a split-up with his hands.
“Fuck you,” Shiv bites back, now visibly rattled, as she turns around to leave. “I guess you and Kendall really deserve each other.”
Stewy exhales a laugh and shakes his head, knowing he probably just participated in some twisted Roy family bonding activity.
The noises coming from the traffic below calm down, and the sky looks slightly orange in the distance, the perpetually lit nightlights not letting it ever get to full darkness. Keeping the stars at bay. If he smoked, he figures it would be a good time to light up a cigarette.
"I'll see you soon." Stewy was already putting his coat on, his body turning in the direction of the door, thinking of exiting Kendall's apartment.
It's not like he was running away, or that he disliked spending time with Kendall, he had been friends with him for more than thirty years after all. He just appreciated his solitude. It wasn't anything exceptional, he didn't sleepover at his last girlfriend's house either, just once or twice, and when he fucked someone at his own apartment and they tried to pull the old, "well… I guess it's kind of late now," card, he would just shrug and reply, "yeah, don't worry I'll call you a car."
So considering that, staying for two days a week at Kendall's house was, in fact, the exception . He didn't like the idea of sharing a house and hadn't done so before, well, at least not since Kendall, but he was twenty-five at the time, and they lived together for almost six years, and fuck, maybe he was running away from something.
"Dude, Really…? I— uh… I thought you were staying," said Kendall, with a small smile that didn't get to reach his eyes playing on his lips. He got in Stewy’s line of sight; arms crossed in front of his chest, like he always did whenever he felt let down.
But Stewy didn't back down, just regarded him with a certain level of practiced indifference.
"Nop," he replied easily enough.
"Um… well, sure, but— text me, or something. Next week. We could have dinner. Right?"
"Sure," Stewy smiled at him, trying to appear reassuring, because he wasn't trying to get into a fight, just about the opposite, really.
So he grabbed at Kendall's sweater, pulling him close and kissing him thoroughly before leaving.
They were doing just fine, they had been in this stable relationship for a year now and he wasn't going to do any sudden movement to sink it, nor was he just going to go with the flow of Kendall's wishes, because that could only end badly.
Besides, his house looked better, more lived-in, slightly less bland, minimalist, or devoid of color; unlike those ostentatious apartments that his fellow rich peers had. His mother had taught him well growing up. "This looks like an industrial restaurant kitchen, does my house look like a Macdonald's kitchen to you?" She had asked the interior designers that were remodeling their house years ago, offended by the mere suggestions. So he would rather sleep in his own apartment than anywhere else. Really.
He texted Kendall about meeting for dinner on Wednesday and spent the rest of the week busy. A natural kind of busy, he wasn't trying to work more hours than normal, it was just a coincidence that he liked two different projects and asked to take them on personally at the same time. That was just the kind of passion he felt for balancing equity and debt capital, and how much was going to be needed in each case. He just loved reflecting on debt and collateral.
Well, that was actually the heart of the problem if he was thinking about it. Love, now that was a word he would throw around casually every day, "I love you," he would tell his dealer in the past, every time he brought him his favorite stuff; "Oh my god, I love this," to the muffins he picked up on Mondays from a local bakery; "I love you, bro," he said every time he was about to tell his friends something they didn't want to hear. He even said it to his last girlfriend.
It was true, he did love them, it was a sentiment that came easily to him. It was a detached way of loving maybe if he was really comparing it with the muffin incident. So that's why he didn't say it to Kendall, the sentiment carried an actual weight with him. It felt kind of ironic in a way, and he wondered if anyone had ever even said that to Kendall before, maybe Rava, he guessed. His siblings from time to time.
What was there to gain by saying it out loud right now? He thought. Honestly, he wasn't even sure if there was ever a good time to say that kind of thing for the first time; it was already implied in his every action anyway. It would be just embarrassing for both of them if he said it. No telling how Kendall would react either, he was like a strong river current, eroding everything in his course, and Stewy was barely hanging by a slippery rock as it was. So who could blame him for not wanting to make any sudden movements?
He went out a few nights that week, with his friends like he usually did, his heart wasn't really in it, partying was beginning to turn into a chore those days. That's why he went home earlier that day in particular, he felt so drained that he just opened the door to his house, threw his blazer over the sofa, and then just slumped there, closing his eyes for a bit, his head resting against the headboard.
It was quiet, his apartment, even if it was more aesthetically pleasing. Loneliness invaded it nonetheless; hanging heavy in the air, weighing him down, but being light enough to get in between his Egyptian cotton sheets every night.
His hands itched towards his phone, maybe Kendall was still awake then, it was only midnight after all. But, stopped himself short of reaching out, he was afraid of making it into a habit again, sleeping together most nights, and besides, Kendall's kids were coming over that Friday and he tended to stay clear of the place those weeks. So now he was alone, in his own apartment and it was getting cold.
He got up from the couch, having resigned himself to pouring a glass of scotch and getting on with his skincare routine for the night when his phone rang. He reached into his pocket and frowned, seeing Kendall’s name on the screen.
"Ken," he said into the phone, keeping his tone neutral, unsure as to what to expect. Was this some kind of late-night booty call?
"He's in the hospital."
Stewy narrowed his eyes, trying to make sense of it.
"What? Who's in the hospital?"
"My dad. Roman just called me it's… it—" Kendall's voice came clear through the other side of the line, sounding a bit wound up.
"Wait, just— tell me what the fuck happened."
"I don't know, the brain. or— or— or— the lungs I don't know—, but— uh, it's—," he could hear Kendall swallow at the other end.
Shit, this could turn bad easily, he thought. The last major crisis his relationship with Kendall had endured at that time was surviving a family dinner with Logan.
"Ok, ok." He runs a hand through his hair. "So are you going to the hospital right now? Are your siblings there already?"
"Yes, they— uh, we're on our way." Said Kendall, and Stewy bit his lip, waiting for him to say something else."Can you— I would—" he paused again thinking through his next words. "Uh… can you make it?"
He held his breath for a second before replying. "Sure, sure, Ken, just pass me the address, I'll be there."
Kendall exhaled, some tension leaving his voice then, "ok I lov— just— uh... I'll— I'll see you there."
When he got to the hospital, it was 1 am and a familiar feeling of tiredness was already there, making its way through his body in anticipation. He had to mentally prepare before exiting the car, not being too sure about what he was about to encounter there. Whatever it was, it wasn't going to be easy with all the family there, they didn’t have the best track record when it came to dealing with emotional issues. Maybe Kendall would be fine, he was clean and going to therapy, and had been doing better for the last year. It made him feel proud, but he would never have admitted to it at that time.
He found Marzia as soon as he exited the elevator into the last hospital floor, it was very quiet there, and she nursed a plastic cup of coffee between her hands, watching him out the corner of her eyes.
"Marzia," he greeted, leaning over to cordially kiss her cheek. "How are things in there?" He keeps his voice lowered.
"They don't look good, but you know, it is natural. We get old and we die, it is part of life."
Stewy put a hand on her forearm and nodded. "I'm sorry."
She looks up at him, a tight smile playing on her lips.
"Don't worry about me, I'm a strong woman. You came for Kendall. You should probably go."
He nodded again, dropping his hand "Yes… take care."
"Toi aussi." She walked past him, her heels clicking against the floor with each step as she got into the elevator.
Stewy took a deep breath, looking at the corridor before him. So it was decided then, no more way to run but straight ahead into whatever situation was going on over there. He hated hospitals, had always avoided them since he was a teen, they made him uncomfortable, he figured one could be excused for not wanting to look death in the eyes.
He wasn't the kind of person one would call when they're in the hospital anyway, everyone knew that if you were looking for a reliable person to watch over you when you were down, Stewy wasn’t that person. His colleagues knew, he made sure of that, his friends knew, all of his ex-boyfriends and girlfriends certainly knew, even his own family knew. Everyone except for Kendall.
He only had himself to blame for that, as much as he would complain and drag his feet he always ended up helping him out, there was some kind of protective instinct he had developed only for him. When they were kids, every time he saw a bruise on Kendall’s arm he would kiss it better as soon as they were alone, not asking any questions, and in college, he would wrap Kendall between his arms whenever he had one of his breakdowns over approaching exams or something his father had said. So that would explain how he found himself in the hospital that night.
The corridor extended before him as he walked towards the room, a few nurses crossing his path, it was even quieter there, he could even hear Kendall’s voice, talking softly on the phone, somewhere in the vicinity, just quiet enough so that he was able to catch some words but not any full sentences. It was hard to gauge his mood going by just that, Kendall tended to keep his emotions well hidden beneath the veneer of corporate cordiality. Why he had developed such a soft spot for someone that acted like that, he didn't know.
"Hey, Ken" he called for his attention as he turned the corner, finding him standing in the middle of the hall.
Kendall's head turned in his direction, his eyes widening slightly in surprise, as if he still wasn’t expecting Stewy's presence there after all, and quickly said his goodbyes as he hung up the phone.
"Hey," he walked over to him, in slow quiet steps, and reached out with his arms, hugging him, supporting his forehead against Stewys shoulder.
Stewy stiffened for a second, not expecting the awkward embrace, and patted him lightly on the back a few times. Kendall didn't pull back.
"How is your dad?" He asked, even if it wasn’t Logan the one he was worried about.
Kendall scoffed, his warm puff of breath seeped through Stewy’s jacket."Well, yeah, It's— it's not looking good."
He didn’t want to dwell on how he felt about that.
"Is everyone else here too?"
"Yeah," Kendall sniffed, straightening himself and breaking away from the hug, his arms hung loosely at his side. "They're— uh, in another room." he looked to his side, at a closed hospital door, seeming nervous about going inside.
Stewy felt it then, that same protective instinct Kendall always awakened in him. He really did just have the saddest face.
"Hey… hey, Ken," he said softly, cradling Kendall's face between his hands. "We don't have to go in right now, you know, we could wait another five minutes here."
"No, it's— it's fine." Kendall tried to shake his head lightly against his hands, his brows pinched together.
Well, he wasn't going to argue with Kendall about that.
Stewy let go of him and followed his lead into the feared room, immediately realizing the reason for Kendall's apprehension when he heard the voices of the other Roy's, arguing.
It was quite a scene, with Roman sitting on a chair, his knees against his chest, his feet stepping on its upholstery; Shiv on the sofa, arms crossed over her chest, Willa beside her, looking at her phone but trying to be discreet about it, and Connor by her side, looking like he was about to also lose his nerves.
He sighed. "Shiv, please, just leave him alone, is it really the time now?"
"What? I was just asking a question," she protested.
They barely spared a look in their direction as he and Kendall walked into the room, and he decided to stick close to the door as Kendall advanced deeper into the room, forming some kind of circle with the rest of his siblings.
"Uh, so listen, I talked to Frank, he’s on his way." Said Kendall, pocketing his phone inside his coat.
Roman turned to look at him then, his face wrinkled in annoyance.
"What? Come on! That rat! I don't fucking want him here, and neither would dad."
"Uh… Well, Rome he was— he was dad fucking friend for forty years, so I think he would actually want him here."
Stewy stayed back, not wanting to come in between that discussion, seeing Shiv already shaking her head and pursing her lips.
"Oh, so we know what dad wants now? His brain has been fried for who knows how many years now…" intervened Shiv, and then defended herself when her brothers looked at her with inscrutable expressions on their faces. "What? We can't really pretend like we actually know what he wants . He could be anyone else the next time he wakes up, maybe he starts freaking out about the dead cat again."
Kendall frowned, looking between her and Roman.
"What cat?"
"Shiv can you, like… stop being a bitch for like a minute?" Roman bit back, tousling his hair to the sides with his hands.
"I think Kenny is right," Connor said from the couch. "Dad is old and we need to prepare for that."
"Uh, no, that's not—, that's not what I said at all, Connor." Kendall cut in, but Connor didn't seem to pay him any mind as he went on.
"In fact, have any of you chumps called uncle Ewan? He lives in Canada and he probably would like to say goodbye to his brother."
Roman snorted a laugh.
"Yeah, good idea Conn, if dad sees him here he could actually recover just out of sheer spite," he joked.
"I'm going to call our uncle," said Connor, getting up already set on a mission and running away from the rest of them, as he tended to do. "You keep the peace nowhere, Stewy," he said passing him on his way to the door, Wila following after him, giving Stewy a sympathetic smile as she scurried away.
"Yeah… I don't know about that." Stewy mumbled under his breath, already hearing Roman complaining.
"So… what? Anyone else we can bring here too?" He points at Kendall. "Maybe you want to call fucking… I don't know, mom? The onion? Maybe bring a bunch of clowns here, fit all of them into a tiny car and watch them exit?"
Kendall stood his ground, not seeming very dejected yet, and Stewy felt a little bit proud of him at the moment.
"Uh, no… Rome, I'm just trying to be thorough, ok? Maybe— maybe dad… maybe Connor's right." He licked his lips, nervous. "He is old, ok?"
"No, Kendall, really, just… not this right now," interrupted Shiv. "If you talk about Dad dying right now I'll just leave and go to look for Tom."
"What?” He shrugged defensively. “I'm not saying that it's what I want to happen, ok? I'm just trying to be realistic here, Shiv. Didn't you listen just ten minutes ago? the doctors told us not to be optimistic—"
"Yeah, well, the doctors always say that, Kendall."
"...And I'm trying to do what's best for the family—"
Roman slumps his head against the wall behind him, sitting on his chair.
"Oh, here it comes again, Kendall with his big brother bullshit.."
"...And we have to consider— uh, what's— what's going to happen with dad's assets, the rest of the holding company, our real estate properties… prepare to fight Marzia for all of it, and probably mom and her husband because they're going to try and fuck us at every turn…"
"Yeah, that's it, I'm leaving. I'm going out to find Tom," said Shiv getting up, also walking past Stewy to get out of the room.
There was a silence then, Kendall fisted his hands at his sides before releasing them again as Roman watched him from the chair and shook his head.
"Great, asshole, that was as smooth as… fucking a dog on roller skates. Now, what?"
"I'm just saying we need to stick together through this, and— uh— fighting and taking out our traumas against each other is not going to help, ok? I'm worried for dad, we all are. But we need… we need to deal with it, like—"
"Uhg! please, don't come at me with your therapy mumbo-jumbo: uh— look at me, uh— I'm Kendall uh— I'm such a good person now ," he said in a mocking, fake deep voice. "Like go to the fucking shrink and start taking the pills, Jesus, no one fucking cares."
There was a silent pause then as Kendall opened his mouth but then didn't actually try to fight back, his posture slightly hunched over. Stewy furrowed his brows, feeling angry on his behalf for some reason.
"Hey, Rome, buddy, why don't you just shut up for a minute, ok? Just fuck off or whatever."
Kendall spun around to look at him in a sudden movement, surprised for some reason Stewy couldn’t really pin down.
"Great! Now, you got your boyfriend defending you." Roman lamented, getting up from the chair in a dramatic fashion. "It's not fair, I didn't bring anyone to defend my honor, that's like two versus one, ugh—" he whined exiting the room.
The door closed behind him with a click and Stewy sighed relieved as the room fell into a calming silence, the air conditioner of the hospital humming. filling in for their voices. He looked back in Kendall's direction who seemed a bit flustered.
“This is going to give me a migraine." Said Stewy while rubbing at his temples, his finger digging in as he applied some pressure to it.
"Yeah, uh— you—" Kendall cleared his throat before continuing "yeah, thanks for— for coming," a nervous smile was playing on his lips.
Then before Stewy could even reply, he walked over to him and pressed a soft kiss on his cheek, looking sheepish as he backed away.
"I have to talk to Shiv," said Kendall.
Stewy squinted his eyes at him, trying to decipher what his actual feelings were at the moment.
"Yeah, I'll be by the vending machine if you need me."
Later that night, while Stewy was filling up his hospital coffee with sugar in order to make it tolerable, he watched in the distance as Shiv and Tom argued in hushed tones, and wondered if Logan was actually going to manage to recover from this one, and if not, how where things going to change then.
Logan didn’t get better, the next day the doctor had basically told them that he was brain dead, or something like that, Stewy really didn’t like hospitals so he tried not to pay too much attention, or at least not to retain the information in his head, it was the kind of thing that if you thought too much about could give you an existential crisis, and he wasn’t looking forward to it. But then the doctor had dropped a bomb on them, leaving the decision of when to pull the plug in their hands. All hell broke loose at that moment, Kendall shouted, Roman lost his temper, Shiv barely managed to keep her cool while Connor tried to be the reasonable one, Marcia's name crossed their lips more than once with vicious venom, the same went on for their mother, and stepfather and Logan's assistant, and just on and on, dragging practically everyone into it.
Stewy hanged back with Wila and Tom, who looked on with the same level of apprehension as him. Though probably each for different reasons.
He went home with Kendall that day, who had been so fucking angry for the last four hours, that Stewy didn't really dare to say anything first to him at that moment, unsure of what his reaction could be. But the second they had gotten in the car together, Kendall took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and slumped against his side, his body pressing against Stewy’s, warm and pliant. Now that they're alone he just looked sad and lost. Stewy pulled him closer, throwing his arm around Kendall's shoulder, embracing him, letting him cry against his body, shushing him, and kissing his cheeks.
The movement of the car as it swung through traffic and the quiet murmur of the engine running lulled them into a quiet kind of melancholy. Stewy looked distantly through the window, watching the lights go by, his thumb caressing Kendall's shoulder, moving back and forth.
When they got to Kendall's apartment, Stewy made them shower to get the hospital smell out of their skin before going to bed. But in reality, he just wanted Kendall to try and relax beneath the warm cascade of water, because he has observed through the year that it tended to have a therapeutic effect on him.
Stewy blow-dried his hair, and combed it right after, while Kendall methodically scrubbed himself down with a towel. When they got to bed the moods seemed a bit lighter, or at least Kendall had stopped sobbing, a sad defeated look had settled on his face, which made Stewy put a hand on his cheek, and pull him closer in bed.
"Ken, you need to sleep," he murmured.
"Yeah— I—" Kendall sighed. "I don't know what—, what's going to come out if I close my eyes, right now. Like— he was there on the bed, but—, but he wasn't actually…", he trailed off, shaking his head lightly against the pillow.
"Yeah, I know…" Stewy whispers, feeling a tug at his heart, and dives deep beneath the surface looking for an old memory. "My grandpa died when I was twelve, remember? We were in eighth grade." Kendall nods, and he continues, "Well… he lived with my parents since my grandma passed away. before I was born… I don't know uh…" he sighed, something he hadn't thought about in a while, trying to put his story in order.
"Ok, so, I had never met him until I was like seven because he went back to Iran to take care of… family that got left behind…" he slid a hand through Kendall's hair, coming to rest behind his ears. "Then the travels restrictions came, and he couldn't return to the US until the late eighties, we barely even got a letter from him, and we were like… fucking ugly pharmaceutical investment kind of rich but couldn't get him back. I guess we weren’t rich enough to compensate our—." He shook his head. "So anyways, the restrictions got lifted, and we sent our private jet to get him. We're waiting on the landing, and out he comes, an eighty-year-old man striding towards us like his knees didn't hurt or something, and he hugs my dad, kisses him on the cheek, and then looks over at me and nods, gives my dad this… look and the first thing he says: you better have taught him Farsi," he chuckled light, and Kendall exhaled through his nose, amused.
"At the beginning things were good, he took me around to meet people… I guess making up for the time he wasn't there. Then, I don't know, it's… the little things. He starts calling me by the wrong name, he mistakes dad for his brother, he stops getting out of bed in the mornings. And I didn't even want to look, I stopped coming into his side of the house, and I would get in fights with my parents because they thought I was being disrespectful. Maybe I was. But it's not like he would have recognized me… and yeah, well, one day, he just…. He died. I had visited him with my mom in the hospital the day before and, dude, he looked— he looked like he wasn't even there, I thought, that can't be the man I saw step out of the plane … Yeah, I don't know where I was going with this story." He scoffed, but didn't say anything else.
"I didn't know that," said Kendall, his voice raspier after not saying much for a while.
Stewy shrugged, "I don't even know why I told you that just now. I'm sorry, I thought I was going somewhere with it…"
"No, it's… yeah, it's ok, I get it." Kendall interrupted him, looking over at him like he was seeing him for the first time.
"You do?" He raised his eyebrows, skeptical.
"Sure," Kendall answered him, an intense look in his eye. "It's about— uh— trying to reconcile two different images of a person in your mind, and not being able to."
He thinks of all the different versions of Kendall, he has met through the years, watching him grow old.
"I guess…" Stewy exhaled. "Come on, go to sleep, I'll stay." He whispered, and Kendall finally closed his eyes.
When they wake up the next morning, it's late, not too late for Stewy, but definitely for Kendall and the strict schedule, he ruled his life by. He had eventually managed to get him up, but it had taken him half an hour just to pull him out of bed on the first day, so he had resigned himself by then to spend the rest of the morning sitting around in Kendall's kitchen island, working from home, checking emails while watching him call his lawyer, his siblings, then the PR department of Waystar, and then his siblings again. He was keeping busy, which Stewy had pegged as a good thing, until at 9 pm, when Kendall had laid down on the living room chaise longue, socks on stepping over the white upholstery, and started reading the news.
"Ok, this is fucking bullshit, like who the fuck publishes something like this? We can fucking kill them with a lawsuit. Jess, tell the lawyers to archive this article I'm sending you over…" Kendall was barking into the phone.
Stewy got up from his chair, leaving his drink back at the table, dragging his feet all over the living room floor, and taking Kendall's phone away.
"Hey! What the fuck, dude? No. I was—"
"Chill, Ken, you need to stop fucking reading Twitter." He said as softly as he could manage.
"Uh, no, fuck off."
Stewy raised his eyebrow at him in defiance and put the phone to his ear. "Hi, Jess…? Ok, can you fucking ignore my boyfriend until tomorrow? Seriously, block his number. Yeah, thanks."
Kendall furrowed his brows but didn't complain, at least not verbally.
"There you go…" Stewy sighed before throwing the phone back at Kendall, "...and don't fucking open social media. I swear Ken, don't make me parental control your ass."
They looked at each other for a few seconds, invested in some kind of silent duel waiting for who would yield first. When Kendall just scoffed and looked away he took it as a win, small victories and all that. So he sat by his side, their legs pressing against each other, as they watched a game on TV because he found that easier than trying to communicate his worries to Kendall.
He had stayed sober for almost a year by then, and Stewy, who had seen him fail every time before, could spot his usual patterns from a mile away. The depression, the mood swings, the anxiety, the sudden bursts of productivity, preceded by periods of doing nothing. He wasn't planning on sitting around to watch Kendall trigger himself into using again.
But he also wasn't even close to a therapist or whatever, and if he stayed for too much longer than needed, his skin would start to itch with some familiar old forgotten feeling trying to crawl up his body. It was too much like the last time, almost twenty years ago, when Stewy realized the depth of his actual feelings for Kendall. Like the last time, he had let his walls down and gotten his heart broken.
The next morning they woke up earlier, and Kendall got out of bed without much of a fight. He also didn't yell at anyone over the phone and just sat close to Stewy while he worked on his laptop, annoying him at every turn.
"What, uh…? They claim that’s their revenue?” He scoffed, “Really? No, I don't think it's adding up, that evaluation can't be right, have you looked into it? It looks to me like they subtracted interest or taxes or… some other bullshit from their EBITDA. Yeah, not worth it." Kendall said, looking over at his screen. "You shouldn't invest in them."
"Ken…" he clicked his tongue and stared at him through narrowed eyes.
Kendall shrugged, before continuing to drink his black espresso coffee, and at least he hadn’t looked at the news that morning. So by Stewy's account that was another win.
By the third day, he was confident enough in Kendall's mental state to start preparing for his exit.
He woke up that morning with his right arm thrown over Kendall’s side, he had developed a kind of pathological need to fall asleep while touching him, which he would never admit to. It felt good, like he could spend right there, all day. Almost too good, a nagging thought came to his mind then, leaving a bitter taste on his mouth, he had to leave that same morning.
Maybe it’s embarrassing then, that the first thing he did after that realization, was to slide a little bit closer in bed to Kendall, digging his nose against the nape of his neck and inhaling, still with the plausible deniability of being asleep.
He opened his eyes, slowly, and the first thing he could see was the splatter of freckles that adorned Kendall’s shoulders, wanting to kiss each one of them. He thought that maybe he should try doing that before leaving, for as long as it took. Then do it twice just in case he had skipped a few the first time around.
"Morning…" he muttered after a while.
"Hey," said Kendall, he didn't sound as wound up as he had three days ago and was scrolling through his messages.
He was always on his phone first thing in the morning, that was new, something for Stewy to get used to. He had spent too many years reminiscing about their college days, when Kendall took a book to bed, and it seemed weird to him, almost irreconcilable, that such a small but significant thing had changed. Lots of other things had changed. Stewy closed his eyes again. Kendall had taken him to have dinner with his father as his boyfriend, even if it wasn’t explicitly said, and that also felt significant. Something the young version of Kendall that lived off in his memories and dreams would never have done.
He felt Kendall’s body turning beneath his arm and opened his eyes to meet his gaze. There was a smile on Kendall’s face and his eyes wrinkled a little as he did so, it was almost too genuine.
Stewy regarded him with suspicion. “What?”
Kendall shook his head, and threaded his fingers on Stewy's hair, pulling him closer to press their lips together.
“Nothing…” He slid his hand down to his cheek, caressing his perfectly trimmed beard. “You just— uh, you look so fuckin good on my bed.” He kissed him again, taking his time slowly licking into his mouth. Stewy let out a whine, his hand holding into Kendall’s waist, wanting to keep him just right there.
He was so stupid for him, always had been, and it never led to good outcomes. But it was hard to think straight and stick by his previous decision when Kendall was being so soft, kissing him, and being uncharacteristically sweet. Maybe he could be convinced to stay.
Then the low buzz of Kendall’s phone broke them apart. He turned his back toward Stewy as he reached into his nightstand for the phone. Stewy stayed put for a while, just watching him fold back into his usual Kendall self.
They got up after that, the phone call putting an early start to their morning. Kendall definitely seemed awake by then, especially after the call, and was going on, and on about his family, sitting on the edge of the bed while he watched Stewy struggling to get dressed.
"So there's the funeral, and then the meeting over the inheritance. That's going to be a fucking shit show, dude." Kendall scoffed lightly, probably overwhelmed by everything going on at the time.
Stewy bottomed up his pants and looked at his watch. "Uh-huh, I really don't envy you right now."
"Yeah," Kendall looked up at him wearily, his voice then tight. "Right, so, my mom is also coming… with her husband. Yeah, I don't think this is going to be easy."
He could feel Kendall's eyes on him as he donned on his dark polo shirt, and checked his hair in the bedroom mirror, rearranging his usual put-together hairstyle, using his hand to comb back a few rebellious hair strands. Not much left to do but get his jacket on, then.
"So, listen, Ken… it's been three days and I have this thing tomorrow—" Stewy told him, turning back to look at him apologetically.
"You're leaving, yeah, sure." It was hard to read into his tone but Stewy gathered it wasn't good by the way his whole expression seemed to close off.
"Well, yeah, I have my own house… what's the issue here, dude?"
"Nothing," Kendall answered dryly. "It just—, it seems like you think I'm going to, uh, flip off and kick you out one day if you stay long enough."
"Well, maybe I have reasons to think that," he replied curtly. Kendall averted his gaze, probably because even if he pretended not to most of the time, he still remembered their break-up years ago.
"Ken, come on…" he sighed, not wanting to leave with a bad taste in his mouth. "I don't want to fight."
"Yeah…"
Stewy bit his lip, a little anxious, and took a moment to watch Kendall closely; sitting over the bed, looking at him with sad eyes; his old grey Harvard t-shirt on, giving Stewy a dose of comfortable nostalgia. He was certain then, that he had to get a move on before he could start to second guess his decision.
"You will call me, right? If something goes wrong this weekend?" He asked in an attempt at a soothing voice, taking a few steps closer to the bed, resting his right hand on Kendall's shoulder.
"Uh-huh, yeah… yeah, sure, dude."
"Good," he nodded and leaned down to kiss Kendall on the cheek, "I'll see you next week," was the last thing Stewy told him before leaving.
It didn't sit well with him at the time, not really, even if he tried to convince himself that the opposite was true. There was a knot in his throat as he turned around to say goodbye at the door and Kendall didn't answer. But still, he let himself be convinced that it was the right thing to do.
It wasn't.
Ok, so the thing was that Stewy was his boyfriend, not his babysitter, it's not like he had to accompany him to every family gathering like he was taking the dog on a walk. But he found that with Kendall those lines tended to get blurred; he needed Stewy to be everything sometimes, and at that precise moment he probably just needed him. To be honest, it may have been callous on Stewy's part to leave him to grieve on his own, but he lacked the emotional understanding and experience to know what exactly he should do on such an occasion.
He tried to keep his cool, nonetheless, taking care not to pressure Kendall with too many messages over the next few days, he knew he was busy, and everyone in the whole world was probably blowing up his phone. So he kept to himself, went to work every day, stayed until late, and watched whatever sport they were streaming on TV at the time with a glass of red wine in hand. He could wait.
Every time his phone got a new notification alert, he jumped a little in his seat, but it was never from Kendall. Fuck . Well, fine, he had already double, triple, and quadruple texted him, so a fifth message wouldn't make much of a difference.
A week had almost passed by then, and he pondered over calling Shiv or Rome, but thought the better of it and settled for asking Sandi when he casually made his way over to Wasyatar one morning. Because if someone knew where the fuck were the Roy's right now it should be her, considering they were supposed to run the thing together
"I'm not too sure… they were fighting an inheritance battle over in Scotland, I believe. Roman called in to say he was going to come to the office tomorrow so they'll be here soon enough." She told him, and he just nodded. "Sorry, what did you say you wanted to discuss?"
So they were at Dundee. That made some sense. And Kendall wasn't alone, he was still with his family there, he had been with them for a whole week then, so how bad could it be? Pretty terrible actually.
Stewy tried calling the next night, twice, as he got home. He had been thinking about it all day at work, but when he didn't get any answers he just thought, fuck it, and called his car to take him to Kendall's apartment. The doorman ushered him into the building without question, and he called the elevator, trying not to think about Kendall's pool incident a year ago, preparing for the worst.
When he opened Kendall’s apartment's door everything hit him all at once, the turned off lights, the overwhelming smell of weed in the air, the remains of what might have been coke scattered over the coffee table in the living room, and a pair of discarded empty whiskey bottles.
He cursed to himself, a sinking feeling in his stomach, dread feeling his body, as he advanced deeper into the house, his heartbeat quickening as he spotted a dim light coming from Kendall's bedroom.
There he found him sitting on his bed, over the light-colored covers, his back against the headboard, the night lamp turned on, a half-empty bottle of brandy in his right hand.
Their eyes met and Kendall furrowed his brows in confusion as Stewy tried to find his voice.
"Kendall," he breathed, but too many questions assaulted his mind at the same time and he could only ask, "What the fuck?" As he rubbed his temples in frustration.
"Stew, dude…" Kendall laughed then, a little maniac. "What are you doing here, buddy?" He tilted his head slightly, playing with his fingers over the rim of the bottle. "Wait, how long have you been here ? I might be drunk… and high."
"Kendall, just— is this why you didn't answer my messages yesterday? I thought you were with Roman."
Maybe he too was losing his mind a little at the time, because, what the fuck. Was this in part his fault? His body felt a little numb at the thought.
"I was with Roman… I was with Shiv, I was— I was singing karaoke somewhere… wait, I don't know, that might have been two days ago. I've been going full nut—nut." Kendall slurred as he took a swing from his bottle.
"Yeah, no more drinking for you tonight," Stewy sighed, reaching over, trying to get the bottle from him.
Kendall pulled back his arm, keeping him from being able to take it away.
"What—? Uh— are you like the fun police now, bro? Booo!"
"Really? Ken?" He asked in disbelief, crossing his arms over his chest, his navy blue blazer wrinkled with the movement.
"Hey, it's what I do. I'm officially off business, I'm just going to be an addict now, full time." He laughed."Wait, let me call Shiv, she needs to know this."
Yeah, none of that sounded right to Stewy. If there was a time to do anything he realized, it was then, Kendall was death-spiraling, and he didn't want to think back about the last time that happened when he was in Italy, and he wanted to remember Shiv's wedding even less.
"Ok, that's it," he said, taking off his blazer and throwing it to the nearest chair, before doing the same with his shoes.
Stewy had always been the enabler, because he had never known how to deal with Kendall's moods otherwise, and had always felt like he was doing right by him because if Stewy didn't give it to him someone else would because Kendall only wanted to hang out with him if there were drugs involved for some years. Because he was an idiot and had been in love with his best friend for years.
"What are you doing?" Asked Kendall, sounding slightly soberer.
"Taking some responsibilities here, since one of us has to." He strode over to Kendall again and snatched the bottle away while he was still too stunned to react quickly enough.
"Hey!" Kendall protested immediately.
"Now, get up, I'm taking you to the bathroom," Stewy said in a plain voice, extending his arm over to Kendall who stared at it with suspicion.
"Why?" He frowned.
"Because it's been a while since you last drank this much, and I know exactly the weird face you make when you are about to puke. So, come on," he nodded towards his arm, and Kendall, after some hesitation on his part, gripped into his forearm, pulling himself up to his feet. "That's it…" Stewy muttered.
He left Kendall in the bathroom, the door stayed open so he could hear what was going on inside. He had seen Kendall have enough episodes in the bath already and leaving him completely unsupervised at the moment didn’t sit right with him. So he kept an ear out for him while he cleaned up the room from any drug or alcohol he could find lying around, throwing it all in the trash. He felt like one of those mothers from reality TV that cleaned up their teenage kid's bedrooms while shouting at them. Kendall was such a fucking prim and obsessively tidy kind of person that it always scared the shit out of Stewy when he saw him spiring down into complete disorder.
When he finally got back to the bedroom he lingered on the bathroom’s threshold, watching as Kendall finished brushing his teeth. Seeing him spit into the sink and then let the water run, his hands resting upon the white porcelain edges of the sink as is body hunched over, leaning into it.
"Better?" Stewy asked him.
Kendall just shrugged as a response, looking at his own reflection in the mirror, probably seeing something he didn't like.
He stumbled a little as he stepped out of his bathroom, but Stewy caught his quickly enough, not letting him fall. He draped his arm around Kendall’s waist but he didn’t even protest, just leaned back into it, letting Stewy support his weight as he guided him back to the bed, settling him down on the mattress and pulling the covers over him.
He looked at Kendall then, and bit his lip, before getting into bed beside him.
"What are you doing?" Kendall scoffed, not even looking at him. "I thought you didn't like staying over too often."
That stung a little.
"And I thought you stopped taking drugs," Stewy replied, the passive aggressiveness coming through on instinct as a defense mechanism.
Kendall scoffed, not too offended. "Yeah, I don't think I can ever do that. Pretty sure now about that… pretty sure now… " his voice carried a lightness to it that almost sounded like hysteria, and that scared him.
Stewy sighed, "Have you called your therapist?"
Kendall's mood immediately dampened. "What? No— no, fuck that." He shook his head vehemently. "I'm done with therapy, not taking any pills with disturbing side effects."
"Yeah? You sure, bro? Because it looks like you could use some therapy right now."
"Fuck you," Kendall mumbled, "I was in a good mood, and you're spoiling it, dude."
"Didn't look like a good mood to me." He rolled his eyes.
"Fuck off. Coming to my apartment because… just—, uh— I wasn't answering your calls." Kendall laughed hollowly, "like you uh— like you cared."
"I care, Kendall," he told him in no uncertain terms, keeping his tone plain. "I thought we already established that. This isn't even a new way of self-destruction dude, I have already seen this before, so it already lost its appeal."
Kendall held his gaze for a while, searching for something before his eyes just softened. He swallowed audibly, and looked down at his hands, laying over the bed cover.
"I just… I— I don't know what you want me to tell you."
Stewy shrugged.
"Just tell me what you're thinking about."
"I— uh— I don't know… about— about my siblings, about me, about… my dad."
"Uh-huh, keep going…"
Kendall scoffed, but then went silent again, and slumped his head back against the pillow. He kept his eyes open, watching his bedroom ceiling, lost in thought.
It was always difficult making Kendall say things that actually had any meaning to them, certain words didn't even make an appearance in his vocabulary. He could be frustrating like that sometimes, the whole family, really, they were like an ever-burning supernova, slowly consuming themselves in complete silence, it was a fruitless endeavor to try not to get your self burn after standing close to them for a while.
Kendall opened his mouth then, but closed it again, like the words he wanted to say had lodged into his throat somehow. Stewy just watched him in silence, waiting until he was ready.
"He was uh— a good dad, you know? Not always, but… sometimes. But uh, I think— I think it would have been easier if he hadn't been good at all." He paused then, and for a second Stewy thought, he wasn't going to say anything else. "He loved me, in his own way. But… his brain was— It was deteriorating." He nodded while saying it, reassuring himself. "He— there are things that he did, he wouldn't have done before— just the uh, just the wrong kind of things."
"Yeah, Ken."
He watched Kendall as he spoke, and remembered how he used to beam as kids every time Logan told him, "Good job, kiddo," how he had come with a smug smile on his face in seventh grade one day, telling him his dad had taken him to work one afternoon and said to the other executives, "Kendall's a really smart kid, maybe he will take over after me, who knows?" But other days he would stay all quiet and meek, and Stewy would see a bruise on his arm or two in the locker room as they undressed.
"He fucked all of us up and… spoiled us, it's just— he would be good, sometimes, then awful…" he shook his head. "It's— it's hard to love someone, how are you even supposed to act? You know, the right way about it?" He picked with his fingers at the edge of the bed cover, like he was trying to undo the sewing. "I— I have some trouble… re— recognizing when— when someone actually does… love me. So I—" he trailed off like he didn't dare to finish the thought.
"I love you." Stewy blurted out.
Kendall's head bolted in his direction, looking at him like he was seeing him for the first time.
It's the first time he ever said it, Stewy recognized, even after all those years, but not the first time he had thought about it.
"You… uh, you…" Kendall furrowed his brows and tried to focus his gaze on Stewy's with some difficulty.
He was looking at him intently like he was trying so hard to unearth something, but for the first time Stewy didn't even bother trying to hide it, and just laid his feelings out in the open, bare, plain, and uncomplicated.
"Ok," said Kendall then, even though he still looked a bit skeptical.
"So, because I love you…" Stewy said it again and noticed how it rolled easily off his tongue that time around. "You're going to call your therapist, or a psychiatrist, or whoever, I don't care, and you’re going to tell them what you just told me now, and take, your fucking, pills."
"Stew, come on…"
"No, Ken, just think about it, ok? Ask for an evaluation or whatever, let them dig around in your brain for a bit. Just— please?"
Kendall opened his mouth, like he was about to protest, but then closed it again, and averted his eyes, seeming to think better of it.
"Um… it might— that might take a while." His voice sounded on edge, like he was expecting to be told off by him.
"Cool. Because I think I'm going to stay for a while."
Kendall stretched his hand, his eyes Stewy’s every move while doing so, searching for any sign of rejection, before finally daring to cover Stewy's hand with his own.
"Because you… because you…"
"Because I love you, yes . Come on, now you're just fishing for compliments," he said, feigning offense.
Kendall's eyes seemed to widen for a second. "No! I—" but then relaxed once he realized Stewy was just teasing him. He snorted. "Fuck off." A tentative smile appeared on his lips.
"Nah, I don't think so," Stewy said, pulling Kendall closer to him.
Kendall's head came to rest over his shoulder, his nose slightly digging into Stewy's neck. He breathed deeply and then relaxed against him.
"Bro, If you puke on my shirt, I swear…" Stewy said, shaking his head.
Kendall mumbled something against his body before starting to doze off, his left hand resting on top of Stewy's heart.
When he woke up the next day, he immediately realized that Kendall was actually pretending to still be asleep on top of him, because he was already too familiar with his breathing patterns.
He kept calm because he actually was for the first time in years. It was out there now, he had accepted it, he was in love with Kendall Roy and there was nothing to be done about it. He didn’t feel like fighting it anymore, so he just stayed there, laying on the bed, tracing the shell of Kendall's ear with his thumb.
"You feeling ok?"
Kendall hummed but buried his face farther into him.
"You looked rough yesterday.” Stewy’s fingers kept caressing him at the same relaxed, steady pace.
Kendall turned his head then to glare up at him.
"Yeah…" he rasped, and his left hand, Stewy noticed, was still resting over his heart.
The silence around them felt easier than it had before, even if he could still feel Kendall thinking too much about it. He sighed, it was going to take longer than he had thought, but he had the time.
"I'm going to write to my assistant. I'm taking the month off, I think I need some personal time."
"Why?" Asked Kendall wearily, his body tensing up.
"Because you're a mess, bro," he replied easily enough.
"Are…. Are you going to stay?"
Stewy felt a bit annoyed because he wasn’t the most patient of men. "Didn't I just tell you that yesterday?"
"I— I— I don't know, uh, you— you said a lot of things." He awkwardly tried to shrug from his position.
Stewy scoffed "No, Ken, you said a lot of things, I just said that I love you, and that I'm staying"
He could almost swear he felt Kendall's heart halter for a second before continuing on an uneven rhythm, and then he just breathed deeply before completely melting on top of him.
"Are you going to call your therapist?"
"Yeah, I'll uh—, yeah, just whatever you want me to do," he babbled against Stewy's collarbone.
Stewy's heart beat at a steady and soothing rhythm under Kendall's hand, the sheets were soft and their bodies huddled with a pleasant warmth as they pressed together. They stayed just like that, in silence, because there was nothing else left to be said, and everything else could wait.
March 13th, two days until Roman’s birthday
It's late at night. The TV is on, playing in the background, lighting up the room, but mostly forgotten for now as they sit, eating out of take-out containers on the couch. They had agreed to watch a docuseries Kendall insisted was going to be fun. Sure, whatever, Stewy wasn't going to complain, he had been the one to propose they should order some Indian food for tonight, and stayed in in the first place.
He tears the naan bread to better dip it into the sauce and Kendall mimics him, watching as he bites into it, his eyes staying focused on Stewy instead of the big TV screen, waiting for him to eat first.
"...uh, I think like… Francesca was also part of that cult. We could make it into a game, if she appears in the documentary we have to take a shot or something… you remember her, right?"
"Hm… not really?" Stewy says, swallowing.
Kendall dips his bread again into the yogurt sauce.
"Uh, yeah, she went to that other high school for girls… I saw her years ago at a party, and I thought there was a connection there but, uh, she started talking about this organization , saying I should come over one day and meet up with her and her friends."
"Oh god…" Stewy snorts, biting his lip to repress an actual chuckle from coming out. "You almost got recruited into a cult because you wanted to score. That's so fucking funny, Ken."
"Uh… no, I didn't, dude. Because you have to be fucking stupid, to fall for that bullshit. You see those cult leader types coming from a mile away."
Stewy raises his eyebrows. "Oh, That's a spicy take coming from someone who stayed for forty years in Logan Roy's inner circle."
"Fuck off." Kendall turns around to watch the TV screen again, instead of Stewy, and gives a small bite to his naan bread.
"No, come on… it's ok, the first step is acceptance." He reaches out with his hand to rest it over Kendall's thigh, who keeps ignoring him. "I'm kidding…"
A licensed psychologist appears on screen, talking about the effects cult isolation can have on people, the interview still going on as they eat. Stewy licks his fingers clean of sauce and leans in to kiss Kendall on the cheek, who pushes him away halfheartedly, wiping a hand over his face.
"Dude, stop, you're getting sauce all over me."
"Want me to lick it off?" Stewy winks at him teasingly.
Kendall scoffs. "My kids are more mature than you."
"I bet they are…"
He won’t ever admit to it, but he finds himself completely at ease when it's just the two of them at home together. It’s so disgustingly domestic that his past self would roll his eyes at him. Maybe he has grown up after all. What an awful kind of thought to have , he cringes internally.
At least they weren’t thinking about work. That lasts until barely an hour into the series when Kendall gets a text, which seems to prompt him to get his iPad and start reading some documents. Waystar-related stuff again, Stewy presumes. He gets kind of bored then, tuning out of the episode too, idly scrolling through his social media feed on his phone. Even without much interaction between them it feels cozy and relaxing in a way.
The second episode had already ended when Kendall finally puts away his tablet and gets comfortable on the couch again, lying his head on Stewy's lap. His eyes back on the screen, frowning as he listens to another victim talk over some stock footage. Stewy lets his free hand rest over Kendall's head without even thinking, his fingers digging into his hair, massaging.
"I don't think I'm getting this," Kendall says after a while.
Stewy hums.
"That's because you've been doing work instead of watching."
"Yeah… uh, maybe. Can you rewind thirty minutes?"
As much as he would like to just say no, he knows that somehow, he always ends up doing just what Kendall wants, even if only because he hates how he looks like a kicked dog every time he doesn't.
Once, in college, he told Kendall he wasn't going to go to one of Waystar's events Kendall had begged Stewy to come with him. Just because he didn't feel like wasting a Saturday night with the Roy family, and all the headaches that tended to entail. But Kendall had acted like he just ripped out his heart or something when he, as he had already made clear, didn't show up. So Stewy then wasted his entire Saturday morning calling Kendall to try to make it up to him, knocking on his bedroom door with coke in his pocket, and a bottle of wine in hand; the way he knew how to apologize to him at that age.
When he finally opened up the door, Stewy had served them both a glass of wine, as he sat beside him on the bed."So... are we good now, dude?"
"Uh-huh, sure, whatever," replied Kendall dismissively, even when it was obvious that he still felt hurt.
Now, years after all that, Stewy had finally come to understand that it was always the little things with Kendall. He needed constant emotional support and reassurance, and if he somehow felt dismissed over anything, no matter how insignificant, he would get that sad face of his, and close off. Which complicated things, because being insulted seemed to be kind of his twisted love language sometimes.
Logan really had fucked them all up.
He caresses Kendall’s jaw with the back of his hand, now in a pensive mood, feeling his light stubble grazing against his soft skin. He would fucking miss this if Kendall actually kicked him out of the apartment because of the acquisition betrayal.
There’s no way he would, it was kind of an absurd thought. Kendall did not push people out by force, just emotionally stonewalled them until they left of their own volition when he felt hurt by them.
It's just money, it's just business, it's nothing personal, he reminds himself, for what seems like the fifties time that week.
"Hey, I just realized, uh, dude, it's midnight and we're home again," says Kendall, sounding amused.
"Yeah, Ken, I have noticed." He replies in a soft voice, his thumb caressing Kendall’s cheek, back and forth.
"No, but, I— I mean... We. Just settling down watching Netflix? No going out to party, or taking any kind of illegal substance…" he cranes his head back in Stewy's lap so he can look at him. "We are so domestic now, right?" He smiles dopey.
"Talk for yourself.” Stewy rolls his eyes. "I'm still going out and having fun. You don't want to know the kind of things that I get up to…"
"Oh? Yeah?" Kendall scoffs, amused, not buying into Stewy's dismissive posturing. "When was the last time you went out partying?"
"Three weeks ago."
Kendall shakes his head. "Stew, that was Josh's bachelor's party, I was also there." Then lets his head slump back into Stewy's lap, his eyes on the gigantic TV screen again. "And what was the last time you flirted with someone? That wasn't me," he adds quickly, just in case Stewy tries to outsmart him.
"Oh, all the time,” he teases, “on Instagram, right now, I have all these secret girlfriends you don't know about.” And feels the pull of Kendall’s cheek against his thigh, smiling.
“Uh-huh…”
The conversation stills for a moment and Stewy thinks he might have finally saved himself from the embarrassment of having to admit what bland and fucking happy his non-married domestic life is, but then Kendall says, "What about Sophie and Iverson?"
"What about them?" He asks a little too quickly, the question catching him off guard.
"Didn't you propose we take them skiing next month to Europe?" He scoffs. "And also went with them to have breakfast? Like— like on your own, dude?"
"Hm… I don't know what you're talking about. But I would never date a single dad," he deadpans, putting his hand over Kendall's mouth to prevent him from saying anything else, just as a good measure, and feels him laughing against the palm of his hand. "You are so… Not getting a blowjob tonight, Ken."
It’s blissful, he smiles, and commits this image of them together to memory, just in case things actually do go wrong.