Archive of Our Own

He doesn’t remember too much about the flight home. But he does remember that, for the first time in what felt like forever, he didn’t feel alone.  

He remembers Roman sitting across from him, unusually subdued, his iPad tossed onto the seat next to him, which he neglected in favor of staring out of the window with his nails in his mouth. His legs were splayed in what looked like a bizarrely uncomfortable position, in Kendall’s opinion, yet it must’ve been comfortable to him. They hadn’t spoken once since they’d boarded. Not in a way that worried Kendall – even if, sometimes, he looks into his brother’s eyes and can’t identify to a single emotion behind them.

If Roman was feeling anything like Kendall was right now, he was probably going through the four stages of grief. Then going through them again. And again.    

Shiv had been somewhere to the back of the plane, whispering with Tom. Even from his seat near the front exit, Kendall could hear the acidity in her hushed tones, which, admittedly, he got a bit of a kick out of. Tom’s snivelling responses were murmured and defensive. At the memory of what had happened to them only hours earlier, Kendall’s fists clawed into the plush armrests. His jaw jutted out. His blood pressure rose and rose until eventually – ah, there it was – the ringing in his ears he’d become accustomed to, when all hell broke loose in his emotions, came loud and clear.

He’d have liked nothing better than to stride down the gangway and put a hole straight through that parasitic prick’s face. He’d have left his stupid country-bumpkin features splayed right across the carpet. Afraid he’d actually go through with it if he didn’t do something, Kendall picked up his headphones and turned the volume up high. Aphex Twin – no words, just noise. He was sick of words.

Words: they had cost them everything.

Rava and the kids had opted to stay a little longer out in Tuscany to make, as Rava said, a “real vacation” out of it. Before he left for the airport, Kendall had hugged Sophie so tightly she squeaked. He’d brushed Iverson’s hair out of his eyes.     

‘I love you both,’ Kendall said, wanting to measure up before them like he’d never done before. He held their gaze with magnanimous effort. He would not cry, he would not cry. ‘You know that, right?’

They both smiled uncomfortably and nodded, returning the sentiment, and Kendall hoped it was because of their adolescence - affection is embarrassing when you’re going through puberty - and not because they didn’t believe him.

‘They know it,’ Rava smiled – pacifying, as usual. But he needed to hear it.

*

Logan stayed behind, too. He was somewhere in the Mediterranean, probably on a yacht or a rooftop or underneath a fucking bridge, discussing the buying process with Mattsson. Kendall feels his absence on the plane like that of a great king who’d heaved off to bed, leaving the scullery maids to speak freely.

But the scullery maids had only ever known his presence. Now the time had finally come to talk, all that echoed around the chambers was silence, silence.

*

It’s a ten-hour flight, and they land at seven p.m. Kendall expects to feel terrible – he knows the deadliness of jet lag from his Shanghai days - but they’d been served half-decent food on board, and, coupled with the icy shower he had to cleanse the grime of failure and white-hot rage off him, he’s actually feeling pretty good. Physically.

He wonders idly, as they descend the steps off the plane one by one, if it’s anything to do with the new alliance his siblings have formed.

The cars are waiting for them on the runway. Shiv practically falls into hers, slamming the door with a force that can’t be accidental. Tom withers for a moment, his features pained, then follows suit, as uncertain as Kendall has ever seen him. The car pulls off, almost silent. Fucking hybrids.  

Roman’s about to get into his when Kendall reaches him and tugs on his arm. ‘Hey.’ His voice is croaky with disuse. ‘Uh. So. We should probably talk. About everything that just happened.’

Roman’s pulled on a pair of aviators, even though dusk is falling, and the lights on the runway aren’t even that bright. He purses his lips. ‘Uh-huh. Not gonna lie to you, dude, I kinda just wanna go home and eat inadvisable amounts of pho. Then I’ll probably fap myself into a stupor and pass out on my cummy eighteen-hundred-dollar bed sheets.’

Kendall gives a repressed smirk. ‘Right. But tomorrow. You, me, Shiv. We need to discuss next steps.’

Roman gave a flagrant, airy wave which Kendall translated as Sure, fine.

‘Let Shiv know. We’ll meet without her, uh, darling husband in tow. Somewhere he won’t step foot, preferably.’ Kendall taps a message to Jess on his phone telling her he’s landed, he’s fine, and can she free up his two o’clock for tomorrow.

Roman taps the roof of the car. ‘Are the Giants playing tomorrow? I feel like he’d burst into flames if he stepped into a football stadium, like a fuckin’ vampire John Waters. We could eat M&Ms up in the box and talk about how shitty his hair is.’

Jess texts back almost instantly. Done and done.

Roman gets in the car, and then rolls down the window. ‘Hey, asshole,’ he says. ‘Why don’t you tell Shiv? When the revolution comes, I won’t be your dirty little maid. I’m going to be a feral warlord with a pick axe. I hope you know that.’

Kendall said, shortly. ‘Just tell her. I’ve got, uh, somewhere to be right now.’

Roman pulls an Okay, whatever expression and gives a final little wave of departure. The car peels down the tarmac. It’s been raining, and the sheets of water glisten under the fluorescents.

Kendall lifts a hand as it disappears into the distance. Then he gets into his own car.

*

The apartment is bare. Dark. Kendall doesn’t turn the light on, but leaves his suitcase in the middle of the hallway and kicks off his Gucci sneakers (Naomi had told him they were cool, that they were what all the kids were wearing. Kendall feels like a kid when he wears them, alright. A lame kid with too-white shoes his mommy picked out special for him).

He lays down on his bed and breathes very slowly from his diaphragm, like they taught him and every other slack-jawed sweatshirt-donned degenerate in rehab. His mind is restless, the way it always is after a long journey – flickering between tired and wired.

Thinking about Naomi makes Kendall feel queasy. The short, sharp conversation they’d had over the phone after his party had basically confirmed that she was done with his shit, for good. In a way, he’s relieved – they were both, ultimately, nothing but bad influences on one another – but in the cool light of dusk it just feels like another failed relationship tacked to his cork board of failed relationships. Including one failed marriage.

God. He rubs his temples and tries hard to push the conversation out of his mind. It’s no use.

I can’t keep doing this. Kendall. Are you listening? I’m sorry.

I’m listening, Nome, I just don’t understand what it is you’re actually saying to me right now. I’m fuckin’ – I’m about to leave the house to go to my mother’s goddamn wedding. Right? My flight is in, like, three hours, so.

I know. I know. But I don’t want to leave it any longer. You need to know.

Uh-huh.

I’m not...I’m...

OK, alright. Just take a moment. Jesus. Stop crying. It’s OK.

I’m sorry.

Uh-huh.

I’m not...right. For you. Someone else is. But it’s not me. Someone who gets you a little better. Who can help you when you’re like that. Not ‘like that,’ just – I kinda freaked out at your party. Look – I’m the fuck-up. OK? Me. And two fuck-ups can’t be together. It never works. And I think it’s delusional that we think it won’t end in some fucking car crash.

Uh-huh.

Don’t be like that.

I haven’t. Said anything.

I know you’re hurting. I didn’t wanna do this now. Your mom’s wedding...

Kendall snorts. She’s seen me worse.

We can be friends.

He knows without a shadow of a doubt that he does not want to be friends. Uh-huh.

The memory is more awkward than it is painful. Her sobs that ricocheted down the line; Kendall’s curtness that he couldn’t withhold, no mater how badly he was hurting. He can’t help but feel it was the party that had been the tipping point.

All too painful to think about.

He never did find the gift wrapping with the rabbits on it.

*

The idea to go to Carl’s came to him on the plane - while they were approximately 35,000 feet above the west coast of Portugal - and once he’d thought of it, he couldn’t rid himself of it.

Carl’s was a gay bar near Broadway. Kendall can’t exactly recall who first took him to the place – he has a fuzzy memory of a bachelor party that somehow ended with the group tripping through the doorway, drunk and high and definitely insufferable, the groom some friend-of-a-friend of Kendall's who clearly couldn’t patch together enough ultra-hetero assholes to make a group large enough without Kendall tagging along.

Kendall was as much of a fish out of water in Carl’s as his buddies, but their chortling and bug-eye reactions didn’t quite sit right for him. He forced out some laughter and tried to look as disgusted at the seven-feet-tall drag queens as they did, but one afternoon not a week later, he found himself walking through the doors once more - this time alone.

Unused to other such establishments, Kendall had little to compare it to, but Carl’s was not what he’d imagined a gay bar to be. It just felt like...some regular place he might head to after a long day at Waystar. It had the same slightly sticky flooring, shiny gin bottles and bitchy waitresses as any other neighbourhood hangout in Manhattan. If one were to be really eagle-eyed, the framed photographs of various icons that hung on the wall – Madonna, Elton, Bowie, Marsha – gave away something of its political slant. And the music was, of course, absolutely stellar (Kendall sometimes struggled to keep his love of Rihanna a secret. Here, he didn’t have to resist the urge to nod his head to Disturbia). But apart from the clientele, there was really no other telling.

'Well, honey,' the spiky-haired bartender said drily, when Kendall relayed these thoughts to him over a triple whiskey. 'Don’t forget you’re in New York. All the bars here are, to some level, gay bars.'

All in all, Kendall had dropped into Carl’s about five times in as many years. He could never really predict when he’d have the urge to go, but it tended to be after some major stressor: a meeting he’d fucked up, maybe, or a fight with Rava. He’d sit in contemplation over an old fashioned, letting people who had absolutely no idea who he was tut and fuss over him, the sounds of Kylie Minogue twinkling around him. That was it, he decided, when he lay in bed that night with the furniture in his room spinning all around him ever so slightly. That must be it, why he went there. The affection. God only knew he wasn’t getting it anywhere else. 

It made sense, then, he felt like going there tonight.

He shrugs off his sweatpants and t-shirt in lieu of his best black jeans and black t-shirt. With the Gucci sneakers, of course. Then, stopping before he headed out the door, he decides he looks too much like an asshole CEO of a tech startup, and throws on a paisley sports jacket.

He tells nobody about his visits, but part of him wonders if he should inform his security detail. What if he was mugged on the way home? What if his drink were spiked? But then: the chance was always there, that this would lead back to his father. And, truth be told, he’d rather be mugged down an alleyway while he was defenseless and alone than have Logan know his whereabouts during these sparing, vulnerable moments.

He takes a cab. The driver listens to talk radio on which people argue loudly about whether or not caring about immigration levels is racist or not. One of the presenters cites a Waystar-employed journalist’s article that claimed the white population was being replaced by other races in America. Kendall looks out of the window and tries to think very hard about nothing.

There’s a security guard at Carl’s. Kendall goes to open the door, but the guy says, ‘Hold it.’

‘You’re gonna ID me, man?’ Kendall says, incredulous. ‘I’m fuckin’ forty years old.’

Truth be told, he’s sweating. He counts on the fact that the patrons indoors don’t recognise him – he’s pretty sure if he said a word like ‘merger’ aloud in there, he’d turn every last one of them into pumpkins and mice – but he forgot about security guards. Big, mean security guards who probably do nothing all night but scroll on their phones when there’s nobody to manhandle, who’ve probably seen his face in cruel memes and on the cover of news articles their buddies retweet.

Please, God, Kendall thinks as this guy screws his eyes up and scans his face. Then he remembers he doesn’t believe, and never has.

(Kendall also eyes up his arm muscles, strapped underneath a black, short-sleeved shirt. They’re huge. Inordinately so.

Not my type, Kendall thinks briefly, the thought as quick and hot as a flame flicker. Then he crushes that thought under the heel of his shoe. Hates himself for a moment, then lets the hatred go with a resigned sigh. It’s the same kind of hatred he has for his children on the odd occasion, a brief flare of loathing when they accidentally say something cutting, or don’t care when he’s around.)

(Hey... Logan said, softly. Once, and a thousand times. Are you queer?)

These milliseconds finally pass and the security guy nods at Kendall. ‘Good enough, I guess.’

Kendall frowns. What does that mean? Rather than look a gift horse in the mouth, he barrels inside.

Carl’s is in chaos.

Kendall’s stood amidst a harem of hippies. Fully-grown adults with flower crowns and kaftans. A man walks past him holding a martini above everyone’s heads, who, if it weren’t for his defiant and broad New Jersey accent, Kendall might have mistaken for the real Jimi Hendrix. In the corner, a very short Cher makes out with a shaven-headed girl with a Sergeant Pepper jacket on.

‘Jesus.’ Kendall feels like the first time someone gave him acid.

Then he sees the banner on the wall. 1960’s NIGHT!!! With a bunch of accompanying poorly-painted flowers.

So much for Carl’s being low-key. Kendall’s kind of irritated – he was looking for a quiet drink and a long sulk – but he’s too amused by the spectacle people are making of themselves to be truly mad. Elbowing past someone he’s pretty sure is dressed as Madonna - the wrong costume by two decades - he makes a beeline for the bar. 

It’s the spiky-haired guy who told Kendall every bar in New York was a gay bar. Kendall doesn’t have to shout above the din: the guy nods and starts making his usual. Small miracles.

Kendall checks his phone while he’s waiting for the old fashioned to arrive. One text from Shiv:

Speak tomorrow. Roman too.

Kendall pays for the old fashioned and sips it, throwing the evil eye at a guy who muscles in too close to order a Smirnoff Ice. He can feel Shiv’s anger radiating through the screen, and the relief he feels that it’s not at him, for the first time in a long time, is so palpable he grins into the glass.                 He’s upset at his father – of course he is – but, for now, he’s suddenly thrilled.

‘Hey, buddy.’ Kendall leans forward and addresses the spiky-haired bartender. ‘Lemme get you one. What’re you drinking?’

‘We can’t drink on shift, dude,’ Spiky-Hair says drolly, but accepts Kendall’s dollar bills.

‘Have it afterwards,’ Kendall says jovially.

Things seem a lot better. The stupid sixties costumes don’t look so stupid all of a sudden. A group of Spocks dance fervently to a Ru Paul song. Don’t see that every day, Kendall thinks. He’s out of his own body for a change. He’s the closest thing to happy he’s been in...months. Maybe years.

Then, from across the bar, he sees something that catches his eye. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Dark facial hair, perfectly sculpted across a square jaw he knew only too well.

Kendall shakes himself for a second. He must be drunk. From two sips.

Kendall squints and looks harder at the individual he mistook for Stewy Hosseini.

The man turns from his conversation with a fat guy dressed as Fred Jones and looks right at Kendall.

It’s Stewy, Kendall thinks. Then he stares back into the glass. It’s still mostly full, the amber liquid pungent with the smell of whisky. Did Spiky-Hair roofie this fucking thing?

A moment later – though he’s absolutely certain he’s hallucinating - he sneaks another glance. Nobody’s there.

Thank God. He was imagining things. Kendall puts the points of his thumb and index finger in each closed eye. Remembers being so high once that he was convinced his dealer, Marlon, was a direct descendent of Jesus, put on Earth to kill Kendall before he could become heir to an evil conglomerate. That had been a rough Tuesday night.

He downs the old fashioned and waves for another one. Looks at his phone and tries very hard not to check Twitter: his name, specifically. There’s a whole lot of loathing out there for him, which he pretends to ironically appreciate and get, but also a fair chunk of strange, almost unbearable adulation from those who think he’s this heroic bastion of sainthood and fourth-wave feminism. He scrunches his nose a little at these kinds of posts.

‘Hey, man, the sixties called,’ Stewy Hosseini says, at his elbow. ‘They said, “Why are you dressed like it’s 2007 and also you drive a Range Rover.”’

Kendall jumps so hard he almost drops the refilled glass. He feels an embarrassment so acute it’s almost physically painful. (Once, when he was about fifteen, one of their maids walked in on him as he was jerking off in his bedroom, and he yelled at her – partly out of anger, but mostly at his own humiliation. It was years before he stopped tearing strips off himself out of embarrassment, and he hadn’t felt so overly exposed since.)

Until now. He felt like a teenage boy again, caught doing something disgusting.

And then he notices Stewy isn’t dressed in his usual blade-sharp suit and tie, but in floral beach shorts and a kaftan, tied loosely at the waist. His chest hair is mostly visible. On top of his head sits a pair of red heart-shaped sunglasses.

Kendall’s temporary aphasia isn’t more powerful than his curiosity. ‘And, uh, what are you supposed to fuckin’ be?’

Stewy’s holding a lollipop that he gives a long, sardonic suck. ‘I’m Lolita, bitch.’

Kendall laughs uncertainly, then looks around. Nobody’s staring at either of them, but he’s suddenly paranoid.

‘You’re not really here,’ he says. ‘Right? Like, I’m high. This isn’t really happening.’

Stewy leans in close to Kendall, right up to his face, and Kendall get a huge whiff of the aftershave on his clothes. Stewy smells spectacular, as usual.

‘Hmm,’ Stewy ponders, his breathy voice dripping with irony, as usual. ‘Let’s see. Your pupils look normal. And your words are perfectly clear. Well, as clear as your voice fuckin’ gets, anyway, you monotonous troll-doll.’ He steps back. ‘Looks like I must really be here.’

Kendall blinks and sets his glass down. He doesn’t quite know where to begin, so he starts with, ‘OK, first off...I didn’t know it was a sixties night.’

Stewy doesn’t dignify this with an answer, for which Kendall can’t blame him.

‘And, uh...Carl’s, Stew? You know about this place?’

Something flickers behind Stewy’s dead shark-eyes. ‘Kendall...’ He says slowly. ‘I know you’re not deliberately forgetting what we did in college.’

A harsh shot of irritation flows through Kendall. Not Stewy being patronising like this, as if he’d ever had the balls to bring up what they’d done in college in the past fifteen fuckin’ years.  

Well, alright: now Stewy was owning it. Owning who he was, which was...what? “Not straight,” was all Kendall could to the conclusion of. He dated tall, willowy women who were sometimes models and sometimes not, but perhaps all of that was just posturing. After all, he’d once Blu-Tacked a piece of paper onto his wardrobe in their third year charting how many men he’d fucked. Kendall blew him that night, just so he’d be the first line on the tally.

Well. Not just because of that.

Kendall says defensively, his face hot, for some reason, ‘Well, uh. Listen. I just come here for some peace and quiet sometimes, so.’

A Rod Stewart song starts, resulting in the group of Spocks in the corner yelling in delight. The bar begins to heave even more, culminating in Jimi Hendrix shoving his credit card right past Kendall’s face to pay for another round of shots.

‘Pretty peaceful place,’ Stewy comments lightly.

Kendall can’t help but stare at the dark triangle of exposed chest hair as Stewy waves over the bartender. There’s something both equally sexy and ridiculous about the outfit he’s wearing: it shouldn’t work, but it softens the sharpness he always associates with his best friend. The floral shorts are also just a shade too short. Stewy’s thighs, which Kendall can’t remember the last time he saw, are on full display. He doesn’t skip leg day, it seemed.

Armed now with a vodka and Diet Coke, Stewy pins Kendall with his gaze. ‘Alright, so, here’s what’s going to happen. We’re either going to talk about this,’ he indicates the pair of them, and the establishment they’re in. ‘Or we’re going to talk about the firm. Specifically the fact that your father is selling the family silver and exactly what that means for me. Specifically also the fact that Mattsson is a fucking lunatic who can plummet stock with a single Tweet. Which, spoiler alert, he really likes to do.’

Kendall looks at Stewy and thinks about telling him everything. About how his brother-in-law sold him down the river. About the power he and his siblings have lost. He doesn’t know. Nobody’s told him yet.

‘Who’re you here with?’ Kendall asks faintly, thinking.

Stewy shrugs. ‘Nobody. Well, I came with this couple I’m friends with, Suzanna and Amelie, but they’ve long since fucked off somewhere else.’ He sips his drink. ‘Nice hair, by the way. Or lack thereof. Suits you.’ There’s a note of sincerity to his voice.

Kendall rakes a hand over his shaven head, having forgotten he’d even done it. ‘Thanks.’

He realised he would honestly rather peel himself off the bottom of another swimming pool than talk to Stewy about business right now. The bar is loud, his drink is strong, and every second that ticks by is a second that Kendall notices something else about Stewy that he finds unforgivably hot.

This second, it’s his impossibly dark eyes, which don’t flit around the room like so many other people’s he knows. They stay on him, hold him in one spot.

‘Sure, alright. We’d better talk about us.’ Kendall’s almost having to shout now. ‘Not the right place for shop talk. Too loud. Plus I can’t take you seriously in that outfit, dude.’

‘Ouch,’ Stewy says, but his expression softens, his eyes half-lidded. ‘Maybe we’d better go somewhere more private, then.’

Kendall’s stomach does backflips. He’s suddenly so aroused he almost shivers. Before he can answer, though, a man in a remarkably good Gomez Addams costume slides in between the narrow space between the pair of them. His back is against Kendall, who is almost shunted from his bar stool in the process.

‘So...’ Purrs fake Gomez Addams, his costume spoiled by the bejewelled iPhone case he clutches in a vice, ‘who’re you supposed to be, handsome?’

Stewy looks mostly impassive at this intruder, but his eyebrows shoot up appreciatively. ‘Don’t you recognise a temptress when you see one?’

Kendall’s filled with a sudden, unexpected aggravation that makes him so tempted to kick this asshole in the shins with his stupid shiny Gucci sneakers that he almost holds onto his legs to stop him from doing it. Unconsciously, one hand curls into a fist; the veins on one side of his neck stick out.

Breathe. Like they taught you in rehab.

‘You’re a little too tall for Lolita,’ Faux-mez Addams was saying, resting a few fingers ever so gently on Stewy’s shoulder. ‘Wouldn’t you say? But I like a tall man...’

Stewy’s eyes flit to Kendall, over the shoulder of the intruder. Kendall takes his cue.

‘Hey, buddy.’ Kendall stands and no-so-gently slaps the guy on his back, in an imitation of good-naturedness. ‘Uh.’ His mind is a wasp’s nest of arousal and annoyance: it’s hard to come across as intimidating when all you can think about is someone’s tongue in your mouth. ‘We’re together. I mean, he’s here with me. So. Might wanna back off. Ciao,’ he adds, for finality.

Faux-mez Addams stares down at Kendall for a few beats, then says, ‘Do I know you?’

The two old fashioneds have instilled some remarkable confidence in Kendall, who ducks this accusation easily. ‘Yeah, you do. I was your step-father for a couple of years, but your dad was too demanding for me. And he gave terrible head.’

Stewy guffaws behind the guy, a real belly laugh that’s so painfully good to hear that a big, goofy grin breaks out across Kendall’s face.

Gomez flounces off with a mutter under his breath, and, without further hesitation, Stewy drags Kendall by the hand and takes him through the crowd of dancing Carl’s regulars.

‘There’s no smoking area here,’ Stewy informs him. His grip is tight on Kendall’s hand, strong and warm. Kendall’s losing focus on anything that isn’t that, which feels pathetic and needy, but he can’t help it.

‘So it’ll have to be...our old favourite.’ He’s led Kendall to the bathrooms, which are several individual cubicles, rather than a separate men’s and a women’s. He opens the door to one.

Kendall looks furtively around, but nobody’s watching them. He looks back at Stewy just a millisecond too quickly, and he swears Stewy’s trying and failing to hide some fondness in his face. Kendall looks at his ridiculous kaftan and floral board shorts once again, before manhandling him into the cubicle in a flurry of limbs.

Stewy pins Kendall to the cubicle door, a shit-eating grin covering his face, and Kendall’s feverishly throwing off his nice paisley sports jacket, so hungry for this distraction, ready to get down and dirty in, of all places, the bathroom of a gay club--

--(Hey... Logan whispers, in his dreams sometimes, but mostly in his waking nightmares, Are you queer?)—

--(Afterwards he’ll say to Stewy, Remember college? ‘Cus that was kind of like college, and Stewy’ll probably smoke a cigarette and say Whatever do you mean, Kendall Roy? I took a vow of chastity until my third year, and Kendall will snort and say OK, let me rephrase that: remember third year of college? And Stewy will laugh hard because of course he does – that’s when they finally met for real, for the first time, bodies twining together like poison ivy, just as malicious, just as potent)—

--until Stewy ruins everything by producing the small, clear bag from his pocket. The shit-eating grin suddenly takes on a new meaning.

‘Am I, or am I not, God?’ Stewy says, the coke in the packet dancing before Kendall’s eyes. ‘Y’know, I’m not trying to be a bad influence, or anything...’

Kendall loses track of what he’s saying. He can only think about the fact that he’s got a raging hard on right now, and also the fact that his two thousand dollar jacket is on the floor of a disgusting men’s toilet in the most bitch-ass, basic gay bar in New York.

He’s revolted with everything and himself all at once.

‘...and my dealer, Wayne, was out of town. You know, the one who dated my cousin.’ Stewy’s shuffling past Kendall now and fishing a credit card from his wallet, headed for the sink. ‘So I said—’

‘Stewy,’ Kendall says suddenly.

‘What?’

‘I don’t wanna do coke.’

‘OK. You don’t have to.’

He watches as Stewy does a line on the sink, then tilts his head back, blinking rapidly. It’s a scene he’s witnessed a thousand times, but – thank God – no longer feels that itchy feeling he used to get. He won’t be relapsing again. That much is for certain.

‘So,’ Stewy says, the only clue that he’s just ingested a couple of grams coming from the brightness of his eyes. ‘What do you want to do?’

Kendall swallows. He has the agonising feeling his face must show his true emotions, clear as day: the want that felt like it seeped from his very pores, and then his shame at that very fact—

(“Hey...”)

--And Stewy just stands impassively watching, waiting, somehow choosing now to be his moment of divine patience.

Kendall says, hoarse, ‘Aren’t you at least going to ask why I came to Carl’s?’

‘Alright.’ Stewy’s talking to him like he talks to Sophie and Iverson. ‘Why did you come to Carl’s?’

The question is too sudden and real, even though Kendall just asked him to ask it. Kendall exhales deeply and says, finally, ‘Because. I hoped.’ The walls are pressing in on them both in this stupid bathroom and Kendall can hardly breathe. ‘I’d see you here. Because I fuckin’ – I never see you anymore.’

A moment passes, one thousand tonnes in weight. Stewy looks as sage as a monk. Eventually, softly: ‘You see me all the time, Ken.’

‘No, I don’t,’ Kendall says, bitingly. ‘I don’t. You fucking know that.’ He thinks of Josh Aaronson. ‘And I miss you. I miss talking fuckin’ business together. I miss when we didn’t talk about fuckin’ business. When we’d –’ He breaks off. He wanted to say shoot the shit; he also wanted to say make out. But that would be the lamest, pussiest fuckin’ thing he’s ever said.

Because it was the kissing. The fucking, the naps together in the post-coital afterglow – they’d been nice, sure. But it wasn’t those things that had him with his cock in his fist at two in the morning, mind blurry with fatigue and hunger, greedy for the feel of Stewy’s tongue in his mouth. Those memories that he jerked off to never seemed to run out of fuel for his lust.

And now that object of desire was stood right in front of him, in all his glory – albeit high as a freaking kite – it seemed like too good of an opportunity to waste.

Stewy sighs and moves towards Kendall. Lithe as a cat, as always. He cups one cheek with his palm and Kendall’s face melts into his hand, head tilting, his eyelids closing. He sighs.

‘And you never said anything to me.’ Stewy murmurs. His face is mere inches from Kendall’s now. ‘All this time. You fuckin’ mute or something, buddy?’

‘I know,’ Kendall says, and though he might just be about to get what he wants, he feels deflated, like he could almost cry. The intimacy, after everything he’s been through in the last few months, feels like a balm. Stewy’s warm hand smells like his favourite peppermint soap. ‘I’m sorry. I just...I wasn’t sure if I could.’

Someone knocks at the door three times.

‘Are you finished in there?’ a man’s peevish voice calls.

‘Fuck off,’ Stewy and Kendall both reply in unison, and then the tension is broken and they’re kissing. Stewy cups Kendall’s jaw with both hands and kisses him greedily, as though he, not Kendall, was the one holding back all this time, and Kendall’s hands rove over Stewy’s neck and shoulders and then grip his hair briefly, parting his lips and sighing in relief at the sensation of Stewy’s tongue entering his mouth. He hears the sunglasses that were on his head clatter to the floor, for which he feels smug.

It feels like: finally. It feels like every bitch and back stab and goddamn Trojan horse has, in some way, been leading to this - the logical conclusion. They love each other, of course they do, and what’s the opposite of love? Certainly not hatred. The hatred that Kendall felt in his gut when Stewy never showed at his birthday party was core-deep and brutal, but it stemmed from this: his longing, not simply to be held, but understood. And Naomi was never going to be the one to understand him, not really.

Kendall tugs Stewy’s stupid kaftan over one shoulder and peppers kisses over his shoulder, inhaling his neck deeply. Peppermint soap, again. He’s fully hard now, already overwhelmed with the thrill of getting what he actually wants for what feels like the first time in forever.

Stewy lets out an almost inaudible laugh, and Kendall realises he probably thinks there’s something sort of corny about this, but that’s not his problem. Right now he’s having too much fun, all over Stewy like a limpet and unconcerned about coming up for air.

Stewy tips his neck back, exhaling. ‘God, you’re—’ His breath is ragged; the thought goes unfinished.

‘I’m what,’ Kendall says, voice muffled by his mouth on Stewy’s neck. ‘Tell me.’ He palms Stewy’s crotch and then dips a hand below his waistband, reaching for what he wants and tugging it impatiently.

Stewy smirks, the blood rushing to his cock easily. He thinks, fondly, of how meekly Kendall used to do this when they were in his dorm room together – guiltily, impossibly shy about it all. He never predicted that he’d become this: almost desperate in his desire for Stewy in a way that might turn him off, if it were any other person. He never did like the clingy types.

‘Something,’ Stewy finishes. When Kendall looks at him, his eyes are hooded, pupils blown. Stewy’s hard as a fucking rock now, and something flips in Kendall’s gut.

He glances around the bathroom and realises for the first time just how gross it is. There’s a puddle of sink water on the floor not a foot away from them. The fan doesn’t help with the strong smell of cleaning product to mask some other, less pleasant, odor.  

He realises it would be a little inconvenient, long-term, for them to fuck in this bathroom. He doesn’t think some kind of bacterial infection from his more uh, sensitive regions intermingling with however many fucking tens of millions of germs are hoarded on every square inch of this surface would be an easy thing to a) explain or b) be cured of.

‘Hey,’ Kendall says gently, and Stewy kisses him on the lips, a deep peck, before he can speak. ‘Hey,’ Kendall tries again, then laughs when Stewy kisses him again. ‘Fuckin’ - stop, wait. Let’s go back to mine. We’re better than this. I mean, we are quite literally better than this.’

‘Hmmm.’ Stewy cocks his head to one side. Kendall wants to lick his beard. Is that weird? It doesn’t feel weird, but then he’s never seen anyone else lick a person’s beard before. ‘If you say so. I mean, I’m used to silk sheets, but there’s something sorta hot about fucking in such a truly disgusting place.’

He tucks his fingers into the belt loops of Kendall’s jeans and pulls him closer. Kendall can’t take much more of this.

‘We’re going to my place,’ he says, his voice so low it rumbles. ‘Get your fucking shit together.’

Stewy raises his eyebrows, but finally complies. They’re out of the bathroom in two seconds flat. The guy who was knocking on their door tuts and rolls his eyes as he sees them practically running out of Carl’s.

*

Kendall’s bed is still crumpled from when, only hours earlier, he was lying down on it doing breathing exercises.                                                                                                                                                                           

They fall onto it, amidst a flurry of undressing – Stewy’s kaftan is discarded on the floor, though he carefully places his shoes together in the corner, likely because they cost as much as the average person’s mortgage – with Kendall so eager to get going that he keeps his socks on before Stewy laughs outright in his face. ‘Dude, c’mon. I am not going anywhere near your dick with those on.’ The socks are added to the crumpled pile.

From there, there’s a bit of an awkward moment while the balance of power is established. In Kendall’s mind, he’s always a top, with submission of any kind pertaining to weakness, but Stewy’s determined not to let him get away with keeping his cards close to his chest. He ends up on top of Kendall, gently teasing him with a hand delicately around his neck, thumb over the windpipe.

Kendall pulls his tongue out of Stewy’s throat for long enough to grumble, ‘Don’t fuckin’ think about it.’

‘What?’ Stewy says, innocently. He starts to suck on Kendall’s collarbone, intending to give him a love bite, then has a better idea. They’re both still hard, their cocks grinding against one another in sweet agony, but it seems they’re equally as interested in the foreplay enough to ignore it for the time being. ‘Hey. You got any lube stashed away in your little Bat-Pad?’

Kendall almost winces at the word. Stewy hopes he stops being a little bitch about this kind of thing sooner rather than later. ‘Um,’ he flushes. ‘Bathroom cabinet.’

Stewy returns moments later with the miniscule bottle. Kendall hasn’t moved an inch in the interim, so Stewy takes that as a sign it’s alright to put himself back on top: he straddles him, and strokes the top of his head on a whim.

‘I still can’t get used to your hair,’ Stewy says, his voice as close to reverent as Stewy gets. ‘It’s driving me fuckin’ wild. You look like a low-rate stockbroker who moonlights as a stripper. This is the closest you’re ever going to get to looking like Channing Tatum, I hope you know that.’

Kendall grins briefly, and Stewy gets to see that dorky, kind of ferrety smile he tucks away beneath his haughty veneer. It’s annoying how cute it is.

He must think Stewy intends to use the lube on himself, but understands what he’s got in mind when his hand moves downward to Kendall’s ass, the lube slick and wet on his fingers.

Kendall tenses. ‘I don’t know, Stew.’

Stewy kisses his neck to loosen him up a little. ‘You never know.’

Despite the fact they literally came here straight from a gay bar, Stewy can tell Kendall’s still in his head. He sighs into his ear. ‘Baby, if you don’t like it, that’s fine. And we can stop any time. No pressure.’

He sneaks a glance at Kendall’s face. His dark eyes are far away. Stewy resigns himself to the fact that the power balance has been well and truly decided – no biggie, he knew it as soon as he spotted Kendall over the frenetically busy bar what was about to happen in the ensuing hours – when the low voice rumbles in his ear, ‘Fine. But, uh, go easy. And you’re letting me fuck you after.’

Stewy feels a startlingly strong emotion at this, rushing upwards to the back of neck and giving him a pleasurable glow. As he gently props one of Kendall’s legs up and to the side, opening him, he wonders if it’s the L-word (God forbid) or just the thrill of, as usual, getting what he wants.

Either way, he’ll have more of where that came from, please.

The lube smells of what a sex toy company CEO thinks strawberries smell like. Kendall’s still tense, so Stewy tongue kisses him deeply to calm him, having clocked onto what he likes. His index finger enters him as gently as he can, and it rolls him just how tight Kendall is, just how trusting of Stewy he must be. Stewy could come just from this, but refrains himself, trying to focus on the task at hand.

He’s most of the way in now. He breaks away from Kendall to breathlessly ask, ‘OK?’

Kendall nods, a little tightly. ‘Uh-huh.’

‘Another?’

‘Mm-hm.’

It’s not until three fingers are inside Kendall, Stewy tentatively stroking them in and out, that Kendall grips his back in a sudden fit of pleasure. ‘Fuck, that’s – that’s good.’

Stewy’s sweating now from concentration, and the heat Kendall’s body is giving off is making him hotter by tenfold. ‘Yeah?’

‘Keep—’ Kendall stammers. ‘Keep going. Fuck.’

The sound Stewy fingering him makes is wet and obscene and goes straight to his dick. Stewy’s almost salivating at the idea of dipping his head down and sucking Kendall off at the same time. But he doesn’t want to overdo things – and, truthfully, Kendall’s usually the one who does the sucking.

After a little while of this, Kendall inhales sharply. His usual flat drawl is heightened to a frantic tone that makes Stewy feel unbearably powerful. ‘Stew, I – Stop. You need to stop or I’m going to come.’

Stewy slowly withdraws his fingers at Kendall’s request, body practically vibrating with the pleasure of making Kendall submit to him. He can’t keep the shit-eating grin off his face.

Kendall grabs the lube. ‘I’m gonna fuck you. Now. Uh, if that’s cool.’

Stewy thinks he has about eight seconds more of this before he blows his load, but tries to act cool about it. Shifting onto his stomach, ass in the air, he tries to look bored. ‘One of these days, I’ll be the one in the driver’s seat.’

‘Liar,’ Kendall smirks. ‘You’re a pillow queen.’

‘It’s ‘princess,’ moron. And who taught you that?’

‘Rava,’ Kendall said without a trace of irony. ‘She called me it once.’

Stewy laughs, hard, a laugh that comes from the stomach. ‘Jesus.’

And then it’s quiet as Kendall busies himself with the task at hand. Dipping his head between Stewy’s thighs, he nestles in and tries to remember how he used to like being eaten out. He grips his ass so hard it leaves marks on each cheek – not to hurt him on purpose, but more because, when Kendall does something, he Really Fucking Does Something - and Stewy arches his back and lets himself be pleasured, hearing Kendall’s intermittent panting and wondering to God why they hadn’t been doing this for years. Kendall’s tongue is inexpert but enthusiastic, and that’s all that really matters.

The silk sheets are fisted in Stewy’s hands. ‘I’ve got a condom if you need one,’ he mumbles, drowsy with arousal. 

‘I got it,’ Kendall says lowly, and leaves for a moment to root around in his wallet.

Finally, poised at Stewy’s entrance, he grips onto his shoulders and enters him. Stewy winces – the pleasure comes after the initial sting – and feels his cheek peppered with Kendall’s kisses, the balm to the burn.

‘God, you’re so fucking good,’ Stewy says in one singular, breathy exhale. ‘You’re so fucking good, Ken.’

Kendall doesn’t mess around - they’re both desperate for relief at this point. Once he establishes the pace, he fucks Stewy quickly, frantically. He wants to get himself off, it’s true, but more than anything he’s trying to get those sounds from Stewy he thinks about sometimes: when he’s lonely, when he’s bored, when he’s brushing his teeth and looking directly in the mirror before heading to work. The echoes of those sounds ricochet in his mind in an almost identical way to Rava’s.

He hopes Stewy’s cologne clings to the apartment walls and curtains and never leaves, even when he does.

Sliding his hands up Stewy’s abdomen, he feels the hard muscle, taught with exertion. It’s totally hairless because Stewy cares about stupid shit like that, but Kendall wistfully wishes it wasn’t. His hands slide further up and gently worry at the rings in each of his nipples. ‘Slut,’ Kendall murmurs affectionately in his ear.

He realises, then, that Stewy’s jerking himself off, steadying himself on the bed with the other hand, which just completely tips him over the edge. He comes, hard, an embarrassingly guttural noise escaping him as he does so.

Stewy follows almost right after, but he’s silent about it, which seems fitting, for some reason. Kendall withdraws slowly and peels off the condom gingerly. There’s nothing more humbling than the clean-up process.

Once his sheets have been lazily wiped and their pulse rates have slowed to a more natural rate, they lie in bed, together, stark naked.

Kendall feels as though something transformative just happened. He gazes across at Stewy by the light of his lamp. The clean edge of his beard meets the clean edge of his jaw in such a perfect way, it’s almost mathematical. Kendall wonders if he could stare at this wonder of trigonometry all night. He thinks he probably could.

Stewy yawns and stretches over to the night stand, where his phone sits, and the glow of the screen lights up his face. ‘Want a burger?’ He says. ‘I’m starving. I usually eat at Carl’s when I’m there. Try the alfredo sometime, it’s pretty good.’

Kendall blinks in disbelief, then turns to look right up at the ceiling. ‘Uh.’

He feels foolish. Perhaps this whole thing was nothing to Stewy, because right now, Kendall isn’t thinking about cheeseburgers. He’s thinking about how not ten minutes ago he just felt so physically and spiritually connected to another person he could’ve created a new universe if he wanted to.

Kendall clears his throat. ‘Sure. I’ll, uh, have a burger.’

Thirty minutes later, they’re both showered and chowing down, wrappers and napkins strewn across Stewy’s bed. He’s in some cosy sweats now, the Lolita costume long abandoned, but Kendall’s just in his t-shirt and boxers.

Kendall’s trying hard to just eat, but the burger has some weird relish on it that he doesn’t remember being in the description, and he doesn’t like it very much. He chews and stares out of the window into the cold night, and struggles to swallow. There’s a lump in his throat.

And in his stomach, too, it turns out. He abandons the burger.

Stewy’s delicately dipping fries into a thing of mayo. ‘You OK?’

Kendall says nothing. He doesn’t mean to go mute on purpose, but when he tries to find the words, nothing comes to him. Perhaps, as Rava once suggested during one of their many rows, he wasn’t raised with the linguistic equipment to express his true feelings. It’s repression all the way down with you Roys, she’d snarked, once, then spent the next week apologizing about it.

‘I’m not hungry,’ Kendall muttered. ‘And I’d better get going.’

‘You’re not staying?’ Stewy’s surprise seems sincere to Kendall, but who even fucking knows.

He wrestles with his jeans, grunting with annoyance when one leg takes an annoyingly long time to get up his calf.

Stewy touches him on the arm. Gently. ‘Hey. What are you doing?’

Kendall throws his arm off, then realises what he’s done, and freezes, holding back a wave of self-loathing.

The pair of them sit there in silence for a little while. Stewy just looks at him. Kendall’s holding back either a sob or a big shout of frustration, he can’t tell which.

Eventually, Kendall – sounding for all the world like he’s just swallowed a bag of gravel – says, ‘I want to stay.’

‘O...K.’ Stewy tries to put his hand down on Kendall again, and, when he doesn’t receive a shake-off, gently pats it. He wishes he could find it as hilarious as he should, the fact that he’s struggling to touch Kendall to comfort him when they were literally just fucking each other’s brains out, but the moment doesn’t call for hilarity. He’s growing up a little, and realises that not every single second needs a dry quip or below-the-belt insult. ‘You can. I want you to. You know that, right?’

Kendall lets this sink in. He turns to Stewy, and there might be a slightly emotive glint to his eyes. ‘I don’t know that.’

Stewy fights the urge to roll his eyes. ‘Dude. Come on. What do you want, a sonnet? My mistress’s eyes are uglier than the sun, or however it goes. There.’

Kendall coughs a laugh. ‘And what, I’m your mistress?’

Stewy gives him a coy smile.

Kendall sighs. ‘You just seemed so...’ He shrugs, still unsure of himself. But he peels his jeans off and gets back into bed all the same.

Stewy cleans the wrappers and stuff off the bed and climbs back in along with him, hoping his breath doesn’t smell too much like pickles. He tries to remind himself that he doesn’t like the clingy types, but Kendall’s insecurity is endearing all the same. Taking himself by surprise, he lays his head in the crook of his friend’s shoulder and rubs his chest gently.

‘Stay,’ Stewy says, and sounds, embarrassingly, a little hoarse. To add levity to the moment, he adds, ‘It’s not like anyone’s fuckin’ missing you.’

Kendall has the good grace to snort.

Some time later, he tells Stewy about what happened in Tuscany. Stewy listens, and doesn’t say very much – apart from to mutter a comment about his parents being “cunts of the highest order” – and squeezes his hand, tight. He doesn’t let it go until they switch positions to go to sleep.

Kendall thinks about his meeting with Shiv and Roman as he drifts off. How they’re finally a united front. How they’re honestly, finally, definitely friends again – and how they all know each other a little better now, too.

He thinks about the oncoming fight. How it won’t be easy.

But he’s not alone, now.

He’s fucking ready.