Chapter Text
Shiv gets to Kendall’s villa after a tense, quiet goodbye to Tom--fucker knows she knows it was him, but she can play the ‘fake naive’ card too, if that’s how they’re doing things. They’ll both pretend nothing happened until one of them snaps. And here she thought he’d never fit in with her family.
No one greets her at the door, but it’s unlocked, so she follows the sound of loud music out onto the back patio, where Kendall and Roman are shouting along with the Beastie Boys and flailing like possessed animals. Rome making fun of her dancing is pretty rich when he looks like an epileptic fuckin’ capucin monkey.
On the one hand, she wants to let them have the moment, but on the other, they have shit to discuss. She takes a picture and sends it to Connor, maybe to gauge his reaction to the whole situation--if he’s even heard anything. But then she remembers the intervention, and adds a quick Wish you were here! hoping that somehow fixes it.
She watches her brothers for a moment. They crash into each other a few times, but there’s no malice in it, just…the reassurance of impact. Maybe Rome never learned the difference.
They’re not necessarily the allies she’d choose in any other situation. Ken--well, fuck , right? She and Rome didn’t really have time to process that whole situation, considering it was immediately eclipsed by their personal apocalypse, but Ken’s a wreck and she feels fast-churning anxious worry in her stomach watching him. He’s a liability to them, and he’s also her big brother, and he also intentionally or unintentionally almost killed himself in the last 48 fucking hours.
She also knows that now that this has been set in motion, there’s no way he’ll back down from it. She could beg him--she could get Roman to beg him--and it wouldn’t make a fucking difference. She remembers what he told her: “If dad didn’t need me right now, I don’t exactly know what I would be for.” He needs something to be for, and she gave it to him, and she doesn’t exactly feel like she can just rip it away again.
As for Roman…without their dad pitting them against each other, maybe. Maybe they have a fighting chance. He’s weirdly good with people, for a perverted little freak, and he’s shaped up a lot. She’d been so sure going into that room that Roman would break. He’d drop to his knees in front of his god so fast his kneecaps would shatter on impact, and Logan would promise him everything, and it’d be over. But he didn’t, and fine, fuckit, she’s proud of him.
The song ends, and as they start bitching over what to play next, Shiv says “Hey!” and tries to get their attention. They both turn to look at her. Kendall smiles, a full, bright smile, and her guts drop, because he never smiles like that unless he’s fucked up. Roman gives her a middle-finger salute.
“You didn’t betray us!” Ken says, genuinely warmly, opening his arms to invite her in for a hug. She stays put and raises an eyebrow at him until he shrugs and drops his arms.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” she says, flatly.
“Well, c’mon, Shiv.” Roman shrugs his shitty little shrug. “You went home with Tom the Traitor. Turncoat Tom. Ol’ Tommy Two-Time. Um--fuck, what was I saying? Tom Wambs-personal-gains.”
“Are you high?” Shiv asks, pressing her hand to her forehead.
“Our parents just ended our lives as we knew them, so I’m allowed to get a little fuckin’ vibey, or whatever the kids say,” Roman says. “Just weed. Scout’s honor.”
“No, no, they wouldn’t let you stay in Boy Scouts, Rome, you--” Shiv says, winding up for a hit because it’s what they do, but he cuts her off, harshly.
“Stop it with the fucking jokes about me, okay? If we’re, y’know, partners and equals, which we have to be or I’m not in, then we should have. Boundaries.” Roman shrugs again, looking at the ground.
Kendall chokes down a snort, and the sound sets Shiv off laughing. Roman lecturing them about boundaries .
“Fuck off,” Roman says, waving vaguely at them. “I’m aware of the irony.”
“Speaking of boundaries, what was that with Gerri in there?” Shiv asks. “Is she gonna help us?”
“Uh, no. Maybe? I--yeah, I mean, I think I can get her, I just need a sec to find an angle she’ll go for. But I can probably do it. Maybe. I don’t know.” Roman scratches his jaw.
“You really think she’ll be willing to work with you?”
“I guess? I really don’t know, we haven’t, uh, spoken since the…” Roman swallows. “Yeah.”
“Wait, what’s going on?” Ken asks, squinting. “Why wouldn’t Gerri be willing to work with you, Roman?”
“He’s been sending her dick pics,” Shiv says, to save them all from Roman’s inevitably long, mumbling explanation. “He sent one to dad by accident.”
Ken’s face freezes for a moment, eyebrows raised to their highest point, and then it falls into a laugh, both hands pressed over his mouth. He shakes his head. “Rome, holy shit, dude, I’m so sorry but that’s--to dad ? How did you even--look, I’m sorry, it’s just--it’s kind of hilarious, uh--”
“Yeah, wasn’t really hilarious when dad was calling me a sicko pervert fag, actually,” Roman says, looking away and scratching the back of his neck. “But whatever. Ha ha. Almost got Gerri fired. Very funny."
“Obviously it didn’t,” Ken says. “So no harm done, I guess, other than the fact that she’s had to see your penis, which is a fate worse than death and something I wish I hadn’t been cursed with by being your brother.”
“You haven’t seen my dick since we were kids.”
“And thank God for that.”
“Ken, where are Iverson and Sophie?” Shiv asks, cocking her head, suddenly realizing she hasn’t asked.
“Yeah, um, Rava heard that I was--uh, that I spent time in the hospital and she wanted them to come home, so. They’re home.” Ken nods, vigorously, eyes on the ground.
Shiv bites her lip and makes quick eye contact with Roman, who’s death-glaring her, presumably for bringing up Ken’s kids. “Well, uh, it’s nice that they came out, right?”
“Yeah,” Ken says, softly. The moment hangs briefly before he snaps out of it, mania lighting him back up. He claps his hands. “Alright, so, what the fuck’s the plan? What’s the buzz? What are we doing?”
“Not talking about it tonight, I thought,” Roman says, giving Ken a faintly concerned side-eye and reaching up to squeeze his shoulder.
“We have to, Rome,” Shiv says, flicking her hair out of her face. “We just declared war on Logan fucking Roy. We can’t afford inaction.”
“Okay, fine, fuck,” Roman says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “So we…we go to sympathetic news outlets, right? And just blow our fuckin’ company-rape whistle as loud as we can?”
“If by that you mean performing a hitjob on our dad’s character, yeah,” Shiv says, sighing. “Are we all sure we can handle this?”
“Do we really have a choice?” Ken asks.
“Well, sure, but--we can stop here and maybe he won’t try to destroy us,” Shiv says, looking away from them. “If we step out in public and tell the world that Logan Roy is a sundowning monster, he’s gonna bite back."
“I don’t really have anything left to lose.” Ken smiles at Shiv with dead eyes and she feels that worried twisting again.
“Rome?” Shiv asks, turning away from Ken.
“Yeah,” Roman says, not making eye contact, going back to vigorously scratching the back of his neck raw. “Um. Yeah. Can’t say I’m psyched for it but. Might as well commit to the bit for once.”
“Okay,” Ken says. “Sick. I’ll have Comfrey find a sympathetic outlet. The Times, maybe? Post?”
“You and I can work with her,” Shiv says, and Ken nods.
“Absolutely.”
“I’ll work on Gerri,” Roman says.
“Please word that just a little better,” Shiv says, with a hint of a smile, and he rolls his eyes at her.
“Cunt.”
“Could you talk to Connor, too? We need to figure out where he is on this,” Shiv says, and Roman nods and salutes her again.
“Cool. Break? I guess?” he says.
“Break,” Ken says, smiling at Shiv and Roman. “Feels kinda good to be working together.” He nods and heads back into the house, leaving the two of them standing together, watching him.
“So we have to kill our dad and make sure Kendall doesn’t go full fuckin’ Elliott Smith,” Roman says, sighing.
“Who?” Shiv asks, and Roman rolls his eyes again.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“I’m worried about him too,” she says.
“Yeah, no shit.”
“We’ll work it out.” Her voice comes out much brighter than she expected it to, considering the mounting, crushing, monolithic anxiety building in her.
“We indeed have no choice,” Roman says, matching her fake brightness and adding an all-teeth fake smile for good measure.