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It’s the little things, Tom finds out one morning after staring deeply into Greg’s eyes for more time that it’s socially accepted, even if the ones involved are dating.
He still has that Roy spark wherever he goes. Whenever he gets defensive, every time he tries to have any kind of power, all the times he appears out of nowhere with a new suit or a new watch –or an unnecessary and expensive as hell item, like a fucking roomba that neither of them use because Tom already hired a maid and he only says he likes it because everyone has one, so he must do too–... And Greg has that energy around him that doesn’t go away, even when he’s being the nicest person in that shitty family. Because, like it or not, he has at least a bit of Roy blood flowing inside him.
And Tom can see her in his eyes. When Greg’s feeling daring one day and on top of the world thanks to a dumb meeting that went well. When he’s focused on working and not exactly Tom, even if he’s actually working for him and doing the things Tom had told him to do. When he decides one day to watch the news instead of one of his silly little japanese cartoons that Tom always says he hates but actually adores, because Greg always smiles widely everytime one of the characters does something awesome that Tom couldn’t care less about. Whenever he grabs Tom by the chin to kiss him, caressing his cheek with his thumb, feeling the power that once was Shivs.
It’s not that Tom doesn’t like being kissed. He can swear it’s one of his favorite things to do with Greg, and can promise that he never usually thinks about his ex wife when it happens. But he sees her sometimes. In the way Greg smiles and the way he holds him while they try to fall asleep after watching a documentary none of them were paying attention to.
He’s not Shiv, of course. They aren’t at all alike and sometimes people on the internet wonder if Greg Hirsch is actually family of hers and the others. But Tom knows better than them. He knows that family better than everyone else. And he can swear that he sees, not only Shiv in Greg, but the Roys.
The magazines say so, that he’s a Roy. The news, the documents, the family tree… The damn name everyone calls him, because calling him only by Gregory would be making a deal out of him, and so using a label like ‘cousin’ first makes everything more… dehumanizing. Or creepier, actually. As if they wanted him to remember why he’s there. Who he is. The person he will always be and will never be able to escape from.
He has the same eyes and same hunger for power as them, just maybe not to the same extent or gained in the same way. But he does, he really does. Greg likes money and luxuries and buying stuff he will never need just because he can. Maybe to fill something, just like Kendall. And he used to flirt with two girls at once, something pretty Roman-like that drove Tom crazy because he had always been his least favorite of the siblings. Greg also likes talking shit about stuff he has no idea about. To seem smart, just like Connor, in a way that nobody below you can correct you out of fear and you don’t need to think much to make it work.
And he’s just like Shiv, sometimes. In the way he holds Tom’s heart, soul and body and makes him tremble and blush under his touch. In the way that Tom is completely head over heels for him, ridiculously helpless and in love, unable to get up from the place he has fallen in front of Greg. In the way that, even if he left Tom, Tom wouldn’t be able to leave him, because his soul would follow that damn last name like a golden retriever follows a bone.
Sometimes he wonders if maybe it has something to do with a fetish or something, and it for sure would be easier to accept if it was a sex thing rather than true love –which makes him weak, and it is utterly dangerous–. If he’s going to end up fucking Roman one day just because of a damn name everyone bows to. Sometimes he thinks that maybe, if Greg is half the Roy Shiv is, he will realize how pathetic Tom is. How no one ever really considered him a real part of the family, because he didn’t have the guts to earn the name. Maybe one day Greg will find someone better and will end it all for real. Or worse, he will ask for an open relationship because his status is way more important than giving Tom the right to have his heart broken quickly. Roys like painful and slow deaths, especially if they can beat up the body later after breaking it into pieces.
But it’s the little things, the ones that separate Greg from that monstrosity they dare to call a loving family in the news they control. It’s the little things that make Greg a Hirsch –and, hopefully, future Wambsgans, because Tom is a man of traditions– and not a Roy. At least not completely.
It’s the way he always holds Tom’s hand, especially in public. Not just because he feels like it, but because he’s proud of doing it. Of being able to show Tom off around, as if he was someone valuable enough to make people stare. As if Greg didn’t know he’s the one people wish to be; it’s the way he smiles between kisses, and giggles, and they sometimes have to stop because he wants to stare. Because Greg wants to cradle Tom’s face and keep looking into his eyes until they both fall asleep because they don’t need to have sex in order to prove their love. Because he sometimes gets the urge of kissing Tom’s nose without a warning, for no reason whatsoever; it’s the way Greg won’t stop telling him that he loves him. That he loves every part of Tom and everything that he has and will become. He doesn’t do it just for show or to get something out of it. He sometimes even says it when he thinks Tom is asleep, playing with his hair and leaving kisses on the back of his neck, whispering sweet nothings that mean everything to him.
It’s the way Greg makes breakfast, even when they could easily hire someone to do it for them, only and exclusively because he insists that a homemade way to start the day is the path to happiness. Because he says that Tom deserves to sleep in on Sundays after working hard, and find love in every bite of toast he takes or sip of coffee he has. He should take the cooking channel away from Greg, but his morning coffee and scrambled eggs are somehow of a necessity now rather than just a kind gesture. Tom doesn’t function well on Sundays if Greg isn’t around.
And it’s cheesy and dumb and it makes Tom roll his eyes a billion times, repeating that it’s unnecessarily domestic of Greg and that they don’t need to fall for the cliché type of couple on their honeymoon era. But he kisses his forehead anyway, lingering his fingers on Greg’s as he grabs his cup of coffee for longer than needed –blaming it on being sleepy– and realizes that he has never been able to have a cliché honeymoon era with anyone.
Shiv told him she wanted an open relationship on their wedding day and the next day he had to eat professionally cooked eggs and an omelet that tasted like heartbreak and loneliness and money. Even way before, at the start of the relationship when he thought the world of Shiv and that family, they weren’t happy. She always took and took and took, and Tom gave everything he could. And it would’ve been fine with him –for her to take everything he had– if it wasn’t because Shiv didn’t even do it. Tom gave and Shiv turned her lips up in the fakest smile to ever exist, to then toss whatever he had gifted her with an actual and real excited smirk on his face.
Greg always takes from him, and always keeps it. Safe and sound. Whether it’s his heart or soul, either afraid of breaking them accidentally or just highly enamored with them to do anything other than to stare. And Tom never expects anything back –he has learned to never do, to always give– but Greg always smiles nervously and does it. The only thing Shiv has never done, as much as she tried to fake it. Which is loving Tom. In such a totality and complete care, that Tom sometimes feels the need to give more than he should. As if he wasn’t giving enough already.
And to say the Roys can’t love would be an understatement, because Tom’s sure they do love. Maybe in their own toxic, dangerous and reckless way. But they love . They love money and power and feeling superior to everyone else, even if they’re a Roy too. Especially if they’re a Roy too.
Connor seems to be able to love Willa perfectly fine, though. And Kendall loves his kids. And Roman loves just like a little kid loves games and any kind of praise, and the people who praise him. And Shiv… Shiv loves her family, somehow. Her brothers, perhaps. But Tom isn’t a Roy, and maybe that’s the problem that started it all.
So he is sure, that way, of Greg being the weirdest most extraordinary persona in the whole world. Because he somehow made the impossible happen: To have the ambition of a Roy and the heart of a Hirsch.
He wants more and more and more and more and, still, he would never let Tom fall behind. Tom is embarrassed to think that there was a time in which they both would’ve –and already had, actually– let the other fall. In their defense, though, they were a little bit too Roy wannabes at the start and not enough Hirsch-Wambsgans.
That sounds good.
Tom Hirsch .
He smiles at the thought, and comes back to reality the moment Greg places his morning coffee on the table in front of him. He still feels like dreaming, though, and internally blames last night’s movie they decided to watch instead of sleeping at a reasonable hour.
“Something on your mind?” Greg’s voice sounds raspy, followed by a yawn. He’s tired too, Tom guesses, and he holds back the urge to grab him by his wrist and lead him to the bed so they can spend the rest of the morning under their blankets.
But they have things to do. Adult stuff. A routine. And Tom just wants to call his new assistant –which is way worse compared to Greg, although everyone is in his eyes– and blame him for everything. Tom is aware that he didn’t do anything wrong, but it still feels good to yell at someone else when he’s frustrated. It isn’t the same as yelling at Greg, but it does the work.
Tom places his hand on top of his boyfriend’s, already resting on the back of the chair. Greg is considerably taller when Tom is sitting down and he loves it, but it is embarrassing enough to not let it out. He caresses his fingers slowly and shakes his head, Greg just smiles weakly. “Anything planned for today, handsome?” And it must do something to Greg, because he doesn’t reply and decides that it’s way better to answer the question with a slow and tender peck on Tom’s lips.
He used to hate it when Greg made him feel dizzy –stupid, weak, dumb–, but now he can’t get enough of it.
Greg stays only a few millimeters away from him, their lips brushing and their coffee breaths mixing with each other. He squeezes Tom’s hand, sending shivers down his spine. In a good, calm, and exciting way. Dying from a heart attack in the hands of Greg Hirsch doesn’t sound like a bad way to go. “You? Maybe? We could watch The Crown .”
And Tom wants to say yes. He wants to grab Greg by the back of his neck and kiss him endlessly for staying next to him watching a show only Tom likes. He wants to change their Netflix users to Nero and Sporus and have matching icons with him. He wants to change all of his passwords to Greg’s birthday. He wants to tweet a thousand Jane Austen quotes and hope Greg knows it’s for him and only him, but also for the whole wide world to know. He wants to stay home and watch anything Greg wants and maybe make love after. It sounds sappy, calling sex ‘make love’ , or so Shiv said once, but Tom doesn’t think there’s another way to describe what they do than those words.
However, he has a meeting today. A dumb, stupid meeting that Tom doesn’t really know why they decided to have on a Sunday in the first place. He just squeezes Greg’s hand back and kisses his nose, starting to wonder if his boyfriend is uncomfortable from their position. Tom prioritizes kissing, though, and so he doesn’t say anything. “Although I would love it, I would like to remind you that I’m also a really important business man?” Greg raises an eyebrow, and he can only roll his eyes at that. “I have a meeting today, Gregory.”
Greg gasps slightly, confusing Tom for a bit. Because it’s as if he had just remembered something, and Tom hates being lost. Not knowing stuff. Not being able to figure out why Greg is all smiley and happy all of a sudden, just a second after being deprived of a romantic Sunday at home. He’s still close to Tom, their knees touching and making his way between his legs. Tom holds him by the waist carefully, and it just makes him smile wider. “I called your assistant, moved it to Tuesday.”
Greg leans in for another kiss, but Tom stops him, frowning. “Did you, really?” He can’t help but notice he’s starting to smile too, not really minding how he got to move it but glad his boyfriend is the one ordering people around too, now. Greg nods, and finally gets to kiss Tom, even if it is for only a second. Tom moves back a little, leaving space for him to rest his knee and get closer. Closer . So they can kiss again and again and again until Greg moves away.
“He’s so whiny.” He exclaims, letting out a laugh with a face of disgust.
Tom moves his arm around his waist completely, and feels like it’s not enough. It’s never enough. “Did you yell at him?”
Greg rolls his eyes, caressing his shoulder. “Maybe?”
“ God… ” Tom kisses him again. Deeply . And he knows Greg still has his eyes open. He takes it as a victory, catching him off guard. “ I love you. ” Tom groans satisfied.
One of the little things Greg does is to smile between kisses, and it must be the most uncomfortable thing in the world.
But Tom leans in again and again and again.
And the kisses are starting to taste like Tom Hirsch or Gregory Wambsgans instead of morning coffee.
So Tom kisses him again.