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The wrong drugs in the wrong order. Always off by a second. Tom is so tired of doing the right things the wrong way. Isn’t it supposed to be his night? Usually when he does coke the world snaps into place, cold and sleek and fast. Yes , like a bullet train. But it’s not working now; he still feels sloppy and warm.
He tries to leave Greg behind in the hellish compliment tunnel, but he follows Tom out, puppyish in a way that turns his stomach.
Tom heads to another area of this vast, pointless party, hoping he can salvage the night somehow. He’s not going home early, because that would be pathetic. Greg’s still tagging along, which is fine. It’s fine. Once Tom finds a suitable place for them to stand and survey the crowd, he starts talking about that damned PR girl again, but Tom snags another flute of champagne and tunes him out. He’s barely audible over the music anyway.
The champagne isn’t enough. Tom leans forward on the tips of his toes and grabs Greg’s shoulder as leverage so he can interrupt Greg’s stumbling musings and ask, “Why don’t you get us something stronger, bud?” This close, Greg smells of musk and earth. Something smoky. He wants to make a jab about it, but that would likely be more embarrassing for him than for Greg.
Greg nods down at him, his brows furrowed. “Is whiskey good?” He leans down so Tom can hear him better, wafting over another wave of whatever scent he’s wearing.
Tom nods. “Are you wearing cologne ? Jesus, somebody’s eager.” He forces a laugh, feels like baring his teeth. “Counting on getting laid tonight, eh?”
Greg’s face falls a little, the way it always does when he realizes Tom is fucking with him. He never learns. “I’ll go, uh, fill ‘er up,” he says, curling his hand around an imaginary glass.
“Get me a double!” Tom shouts, annoyed at the deflection. Greg pursuing some pretty young thing who’ll occupy all his time sounds like a nightmare, but he can’t look away from the trainwreck. He’s going to gorge himself on every gory detail.
Greg waves a hand back at him like the muppety motherfucker he is. Long fucking limbs that go all over the place.
It’s worse once he’s alone. Out of place and uncomfortable in his skin. Possibly more coke is the way to go. Could he convince Greg to sniff some out for him? Probably, if he shares. Watching Greg do coke always feels perverse and exciting. His big doe eyes get just a fraction meaner when the selfishness he tries to hide comes to the forefront. It might be fun to see it again.
Greg is back in a flash, though. Tom’ll try this cure first. He downs his drink in two gulps while Greg watches with awe and trepidation.
“I’m gonna nurse mine,” Greg says, almost apologetically. As if Tom cares.
“Afraid of getting whiskey dick?” Tom asks. His face feels out of his control, splitting open with some hideous desperate grin.
“You got me, Tom.” Greg rolls his eyes, which is relatively daring. He takes another sip, and his wince at the burn doesn’t escape Tom’s notice.
Tom’s adolescent rage and insecurity are bubbling up into a vicious brew. Somehow Greg, a man so conflict-averse he’ll let you call him the wrong name, is at the center of it. If he doesn’t do something about it, bad things will happen. Tom just needs to let off some steam.
“You know where the cool kids would be,” Tom ventures. “If this were a real party and not just a ceremony to bear witness to your cousin’s sad decline.”
“Uh, no,” Greg says. “Where?"
“The parking garage.” Greg wrinkles his nose, like he senses that this is going somewhere he won’t like.
“No, I’m serious. Didn’t you go to prom? Debutante balls, a wedding, for Christ’s sake? If you did, you would know.”
Greg stares.
“Greg, I’m bored .” His skin feels all wrong and he wants to get away from these fucking poeple. “Can we pretend I still have youthful excesses to look forward to?”
That’s the line that works, and Greg shuffles behind him in the direction of the exit. He snags a bottle of wine from an unattended ice bucket on the way.
They wander out onto a fully empty floor. No valet service up here. Just cavernous concrete and the glittering city beyond. Tom walks to the edge of the structure and leans over the concrete barrier, setting the wine down. Up here, the air is fresher. Greg slumps down on the ground at his feet, dirtying his nice new clothes.
“You’ll ruin those pants,” Tom says, but he’s distracted by the fresh air and the glimpse of sky. Greg hums inattentively in response, like it doesn’t fucking matter what Tom says. “People will think you were out here giving blowjobs.” Even that fails to get a rise out of him; he’s getting used to that part of Waystar culture.
When Tom looks down, his stupid pink mouth is hanging open as he fumbles with his jacket sleeves; he wants to trace the shape of it, the little dip in the middle of his top lip. Tom manages to tear his eyes away when Greg looks up at him. There’s nowhere else to look, though. Greg’s face is the only place he can focus his eyes.
“Hey, did you mean that?” Tom blurts it out and cringes. He’s not nearly wasted enough for this kind of mistake. Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers.
“Mean what?”
“‘Prove it.’” Tom grits out. “You still want me to prove it?” He rubs his fingertips nervously against the barrier, feeling sick.
“I don’t believe you can , dude.” Greg says, his mouth set into a tiny smug smile. He tilts his head. “Also, I’m not sure if Comfry would be cool with something like that? If we’re on the same page, which frankly–”
Tom scoffs. Possessiveness flares up in his belly and he forgets to play it cool. “Fuck Comfry. Do you see her here right now?” Greg actually looks around, wide eyes scanning the empty cavernous structure around them.
“No, not presently. No.”
Nervous energy is gathering in Greg’s body; his hands are fidgeting and his arms and legs are suddenly drawn tight from their boozy sprawl into angular points. Spiky little Greg. He has a better haircut and pants properly designed for his long legs, complete with polished oxfords. He’s no better under pressure than he was the day Tom met him, though.
“And you’re both adults , right? For all you know she could be writhing under some hairy-chested Casanova as we speak.”
Greg’s giving him a weird look. “Well, I think she’s probably still at work right now, considering–”
“Focus, Greg. So, what, you’re saying you have no followthrough? That’s like, the most important skill in business, man.” He shakes his head.
“I– Tom, I don’t know what you want me to say here, man.” Greg bites his lip.
“I don’t want you to say anything. I’m just asking you a question. You can answer however you want.” Tom shrugs to demonstrate his apathy, and wonders how well he’s selling it.
“Okay, fuck, well, I just, I think it would be nice. Possibly educational. If you, you know, demonstrated.” Greg’s eyes are glued to the ground, which Tom finds insanely rude.
He bends down to tilt Greg's chin up, and there’s something empowering about looming over him this way, for once. Normally it’s Greg’s hesitant gargantuan frame above his own.
“Fucking look at me, huh? Buddy?”
Greg’s luminous eyes meet his. He knows what a fucking snake Greg can be but they still look totally innocent to him. He doesn’t let himself think too hard about it before smearing a thumb over his lower lip, but he is mortified once he realizes what he’s doing. Worse still, Greg sticks the tip of his pink tongue out to chase it as it moves away.
Tom slides his thumb along the sleek wet path of his tongue until it’s tucked neatly in Greg’s mouth. Greg’s eyes have taken on a peculiar glaze. He puts some suction on Tom’s thumb that makes him groan aloud. The noise breaks some spell, and they pause.
Tom hauls Greg to his feet and he goes along with it, glancing behind himself as Tom crowds him against the edge of the structure to make sure he doesn’t go tumbling to certain death. They’re seven stories up, and the wind whistles past their ears.
Tom’s got him, though. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He has Greg by the wrists, pushed up against one of the sturdy concrete beams supporting the structure. It's cold under his hands, probably colder against Greg’s back, even through the leather jacket.
This is the most he can do: hold him against a wall hundreds of feet above the sidewalk. Greg will be fine, as long as he doesn’t move around or squirm away from Tom. He’s wishing he had something else, some other tool to keep Greg tethered here. Thick chains or a rope or a fucking straightjacket.
“Are you with me, Greg?” he asks.
Greg nods. The look of concentration on his face belies his so-called educational interest in what Tom’s packing.
“Okay, then. Undo my belt.” He tries to make his voice softer, less bullying.
Greg nods, and tries to move forward. Tom realizes he still has an iron grip on his wrists.
“You have to let go of my hands,” he says. There’s clarity in horniness; Tom’s never heard a sentence come out of his mouth so smoothly.
A flush creeps up Tom's neck but he ignores it; he’s ignored worse. In the series of humiliations that is his life, this is only a minor incident. Breathing is important, and he does his best to keep his breath level as he lets go of Greg.
Very soon, Greg is going to realize his dick is already getting hard. On the most obvious level, that’s extremely embarrassing; on another, it’s a real testament to his virility and maybe kind of impressive? Yeah. This could work for him. He tilts his head back at the first clink of metal, Greg’s cold hands brushing his stomach, and looks at the ceiling. Hands clasped behind his back.
“Um, okay, Tom,” Greg says. “I guess– I guess you sure did prove me wrong.”
Greg’s awkward manner is somehow, impossibly, doing it for him; he feels powerful and impressive and appreciated .
“Could prove you more wrong,” Tom mutters, keeping his eyes trained on the swirls in the ceiling. “C’mon, get your hand on there.”
He’s not sure Greg actually will, so he can’t hide his moan when he feels pressure from a warm hand. It squeezes tight around him, but it’s not consistent enough for him to really get off on it. Tom wonders if there’s a way for him to tell if Greg has done this before, just based on his technique. Right now, he’s leaning toward no.
Greg takes his hand away when Tom’s not even close to coming.
There’s another jingling of buckles and it jerks him down out of space, out of his head where he was blissfully letting Greg fondle him without making it real. But now, Greg is getting his own dick out, bringing things back down to earth.
Tom finally looks at Greg, who is drooling into the palm of his own hand. He is about to remark on this mysterious behavior when Greg brings his slimy hand between them, and all thought is lost to the heat and glide of Greg’s own prodigious penis against his.
“Oh! Okay, there, buddy.” He bites his own lip, hard, to stop his mouth from running away without him.
Greg has a look of fierce concentration, almost anger. He says, “Please don’t.”
“Don’t what ? I’m not doing shit here, this is all you, man.” Tom gestures with his two free hands for emphasis.
Greg shakes his head, causing a stray lock to flop onto his forehead, and leans down to kiss Tom clumsily. His mouth tastes like liquor, which is a rude imposition. He never takes Tom’s advice about breath mints.
When Greg finally lets him go, Tom takes a ragged breath and says, “If I didn’t know better, I’d think that was an attempt to– fuck – shut me up.”
“It was,” Greg says, looking pained. His hand is still moving slickly between them. “Tom, please.”
“Say that again,” Tom pants. He’s going to regret this later, handing over this ammunition to his protégé who already knows how to push too many of his buttons.
“Oh. Yeah, Tom? Tom?” Greg’s hand is a blur between them, hitting this delicious rhythm of friction. “ Tooom . Uh, please fucking come, already?”
Tom wants to come, but something about the angle is off, and it’s frustrating. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself, so he reaches down to squeeze their heads together, sort of rough, the way he likes it. Finally, he feels something unspooling within himself, and he spills over their hands.
Greg continues touching him, mercilessly, and Tom has to slap his hand away. “Fuck off!”
He watches in fascination, though, as Greg strokes over himself with his spit and Tom’s cum and leans forward to blow his load on Tom’s softening dick. Unreal. He makes a sad little whine that Tom would love to mock if only it weren’t so hot.
“God, this is a fucking mess,” Tom says as soon as it starts to cool and feel dirty-gross instead of dirty-hot. “Fuck, Greg , don’t you have, like, a napkin?” This is his least sexy post-coital talk ever. It has to be, or else he’s going to say something big and stupid. He takes a step back and goes to put his hands on his hips before remembering what a mistake that would be.
Greg does not have a napkin. Instead, Tom sweeps up the mess of their semen with his already filthy hand and reaches inside Greg’s jacket to wipe it on his gaudy little printed shirt. There. A nice complement to his basic, trendy cologne.
“Ugh! Come on, Tom!” Greg whines, but he doesn’t stop him from doing it.
Tom ignores the low-hanging fruit (no, come on Greg) and says instead, “What, am I ruining your big plans for the evening? How many times can you come in one night, anyway?” He really would like to know.
There’s a sudden rush of fear and nausea gripping Tom, though. Ice in his veins, cold air on his wet dick. His hands aren’t totally clean, but he hurries to shove himself back into his pants and do his belt up. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Greg do the same. He is always fucking watching Greg. It’s pitiful.
Tom slinks away deeper into the concrete abyss to get away from him, sticking to the edge so he can at least look at the lights. The lines of his face are drawn tight, he can feel it. He tears up over nothing these days. Maybe he should get the doctor to check his T levels. If he’s ever going to have a baby with Shiv, he ought to.
Thinking about his wife doesn’t help. He runs his clean hand over his face, hugs his arms around himself.
“Are...are you okay, Tom?” Greg’s supposed principles only choose the most inconvenient of times to rear their pathetic heads.
“How many times a day are you gonna ask me that, man?” Tom says. “Fuck!” His tear ducts are overactive. It isn’t his fault his eyelashes emphasize every droplet of moisture, either. Lifting his eyes to the ceiling and blinking fast does nothing to force the tears back in; they just spill over the rims of his eyelids and pour down his face.
Greg creeps closer, and a big hand comes to rest heavily on his shoulder. Tom turns away, won’t look at him like this.
Greg stays with him as he sniffles, humiliating little noises leaving his mouth and nose.
“I’ll be back,” Greg mumbles, but Tom hopes that he’ll just leave him alone.
The sound of his shoes hitting pavement echoes throughout the structure, so it’s clear that he really isn’t leaving. He stops just behind Tom again, giving him privacy. Wine glugs noisily down his throat, and he presses the bottle to Tom's arm when he’s done. His exhale is a gust of warm air on the back of Tom's head.
He takes the bottle.
“Tom, it’s not... it can’t be that bad, can it? Whatever this is?”
Got a lot of experience comforting married men? Tom thinks nastily. The wine goes down easily, a nice floral that doesn’t challenge him in the slightest. He almost wishes for something more bitter. Heavier on the tannins, at least.
What does Greg taste like? What does the wet spot on his shirt taste like? The thought forces a shaky breath out of him. Greg’s hand is back on his shoulder, moving slowly. He jerks away when Tom’s phone starts buzzing.
It’s Shiv. Her contact picture is gorgeous: her, staring out over a blue sea. The mix of dread and desire is nothing new, but surely it’s nothing he should be feeling for his wife.
He gets a flash of this adolescent feeling he used to have, where he would wish for death over an inconvenience. I hope this fucking bus veers off a bridge so I don’t have to take the calculus test , and so on.
Well, Tom just doesn’t feel up to being Mr. Shiv Roy tonight. He’s not going to throw himself over the edge, not right now. But he can make himself unreachable for the next several hours.
He draws his arm back and flings the phone out into the street. It’s a pretty good throw, really. The phone gets some serious air before it begins its downward trajectory.
Greg makes a shocked little noise behind him. When Tom looks back at him, he’s cringing away like he thinks he might be next. They both lean over the edge to check where the phone landed, but it’s gone.
“Huh,” Tom says. “Well, let’s hope it shattered on impact.”
He takes a deep breath. He does feel better.
“Hey, you wanna go someplace else? Like, out-out?”
“Um, I’m not sure I’m following.”
“Out on the town, Greg. It’ll be fun.”
Greg hesitates. It’s painfully obvious that he’s doing some mental calculations to figure out whether or not it’s a good idea to humor Tom tonight. It hurts a little, but not so much that he doesn’t light up when Greg says yes.