Chapter Text
In a few days it would officially be 2 months since Waystar Royco was sold to Gojo. More importantly, at least to Stewy, it would be two months since Kendall Roy had been living in his apartment.
It’s not like he was counting the days or anything, he just was painfully aware of the one month, twenty three days and four hours that had passed since he’d had any time alone in his apartment. He didn’t mind Kendall crashing, or moving in, or whatever the hell it was that he was really doing. It was the fact that he was hiding from the rest of the world and eating all of Stewy’s food that was a little worrying.
He tried to drop some hints. “Why don’t you go on a run today?” “There’s a really good movie in theaters right now, you should go watch it! “. At some point Stewy even considered telling Ken his sister was giving birth; he insisted that he was never going to talk to her ever again, but Stewy was pretty certain that the moment that baby started popping his weird little red head out Kendall would be at the hospital, yelling at some poor underpaid nurse to get better quality sheets for his sister. Either way, he ultimately decided that was a little too mean even for him. Kendall had already had his fair share of humiliation for at least a couple years, so he opted for just telling him in a tactful and gentle way.
“You need to get out of the house like- right now. Yesterday, actually”
“You’re kicking me out?” Stewy couldn’t decide whether to feel annoyed at Kendall’s incredulousness or feel bad that he would actually believe he was kicking him out, so he chose to feel neither and held on to his mild annoyance.
“No, asshole, for a while. Aren’t you fucking bored or something? You spend all day here waiting for me to come back. You’re like a needy puppy, but puppies are cute and little and you’re 40 and are getting breadcrumbs all over my favorite sweatshirt”
Stewy had considered the conversation pretty successful and as he rode back home in the back of his car the next day he kept wondering if it could really be that simple. If Kendall really would do something that easily after just asking him once. Maybe he did go out in the morning, maybe he didn’t and he was just planning on telling him he did, maybe he’d wait for Stewy to be home to leave so he had proof.
What he didn’t expect, for some reason, was to get home to an empty apartment. Which was, of course, exactly what happened. After the first minute of surprise it didn’t really matter where Kendall was anymore, as Stewy was just excited to get the house to himself for a bit. It’s not like he didn’t enjoy the company or the increase in the number of blowjobs he was getting, but after living by himself for so long, alone time was a necessity.
The first thing he did was read his book in silence without an episode of survivor playing in the background. What was Ken’s obsession with that show anyway? The same thing happened in every season and he’d already watched like three thousand of them, so it wasn’t even tense anymore.
Stewy realized that after getting distracted by his own thoughts on survivor and Kendall’s TV watching habits while reading, he only got through half a chapter of “Atonement” before he was hungry and in need for some dinner. He admitted defeat and dropped the book on the coffee table.
The kitchen was the next stop in the “No Kendall around” train, Stewy had seen those videos of new moms hiding in the closet to eat snacks without having to share with their kids. At the time the concept had been funny and maybe a little over exaggerated, but now he could see it as the sad and deeply relatable truth that it was. Kendall had a sixth sense that told him when and where someone was opening food around the house and had apparently made it his life mission to sprint to wherever that might be and demand to have a bite.
Stewy prepared himself a gigantic sandwich and started eating it standing in the middle of the kitchen while staring at the wall. He could admit when his eagerness got the best of him. He was taking another concerningly big bite when he happened to glance at the watch on the oven and saw what time it was. How was it already 8 PM? Where the hell was Kendall? Did he have dinner yet?
Only once he had finished his sandwich he allowed himself to go back to the living room to check his phone, no texts. He sat on the sofa, which suddenly felt pretty big and spacious, and forced himself to not think about what the fuck Kendall could possibly be doing. He wasn’t just waiting around for him to come back because he missed him. He actually had reasons to be worried, didn’t he? Less than two months ago he’d had to drag the guy away from the railing on The Hudson by the arm and now he was missing in action. The tight feeling in his chest wasn’t just him being crazy, it was well justified.
Stewy unmuted the words “Kendall Roy” on twitter and looked them up, he guessed if he was actually dead in the river someone would already have posted a picture of it by now, that was good. Either way anxiety was still eating away at him and he was way too young to be getting wrinkles for worrying about Kendall fucking Roy, so he picked up his phone again and started looking through his contact list to call him. He was about to press the little green call button when his Iphone buzzed and a little notification popped up at the top of the screen.
He opened it quicker than he’d ever admit to and stared at the text silently for in between 30 seconds and 15 minutes, he wasn’t quite sure. “Are you fucking- Is this-?” He read the text again and, to his surprise, it hadn’t magically changed and turned into something slightly more normal. It still was a millennial style selfie of Kendall and Naomi Pierce sitting in a nicely decorated terrace with the caption “Playing monopoly, will be home late” followed by a thumbs up emoji at the end.
Stewy felt relieved. He felt secondhand embarrassment looking at the picture. He felt stupid for worrying so much. He felt a little jealous even if he wouldn’t admit it. He would be feeling a lot more if he knew how much more terrorizing the duo had in stock for him.
By late, apparently Kendall meant the next day, because it was 8 AM and Stewy was having his morning coffee on the couch when he saw him enter through the door. He started walking toward the sofa and Stewy couldn’t help but wonder what Ken was going to say. Maybe he’d try to explain himself? Give excuses for spending the night out? An announcement that he was moving out? He couldn’t think of anything else, but it didn’t feel likely. Kendall hadn’t been monogamous a day in his life and Stewy honestly couldn’t be bothered to care. There still was a look in Kendall’s face that made him think there was something bothering him.
Kendall grabbed Stewy’s coffee cup from his hand, not even bothering to ask anymore. He took a quick sip, his brow still furrowed with worry, and looked at Stewy. “I’ve worked in business all my life. I’m a Harvard graduate in economics. How the fuck can I lose three Monopoly games in a row?”