Work Text:
Stewy keeps an eye out. He’s not as rich as the Roys nor as socially or politically or self important to warrant having a bodyguard or get him an in into whatever communication circles that might get him a line to Colin, but having a line to the Roys themselves is the next best thing.
”Yeah, I can add you to the 'if Kendall tries to drown himself in the Hudson' group chat," Roman says when Stewy calls him. “Colin has it set up so we’ll all get an Amber Alert if Kendall so much as takes a long bath."
The real comfort is that Stewy doesn’t think he’ll do it. Kendall is rash by nature, has never thought anything through in his life. If he was going to do something drastic, it would’ve been immediate, when everything was right at that surface, bubbling over and pouring out. It kept Stewy restless that first night. “fucking sucks dude, sorry” in a text after he’d left the building was the last and only thing Stewy’d said to him since the vote. He didn’t expect a reply and he didn’t attempt any further contact either, knowing he’d get nothing back and not knowing what else there was to say. There was an unprecedented uncertainty about this; he was in uncharted waters for the first time in a long time with Kendall. This used to be easier. Stewy was no stranger to an emotionally fraught Kendall after a Roy family fallout, but dealing with the aftermath was easier when they were kids; when Ken would be called away to speak to Logan and come back hiccuping, eyes red and puffy and wet and Stewy would squeeze his thigh while Kendall tried to regulate his breathing. In college, when Ken would take a long call from home in his room, he’d come out of the room eventually, down the hall into Stewy’s, and crawl under the covers with him to bury his face into Stewy’s hoodie until he fell asleep. It was easier. All Stewy ever had to do was be there, hesitant to do more but in too deep to do less. It got harder as they got older, as Kendall turned to more potent forms of comfort than nuzzling into Stewy’s neck, as things got a lot more real than the jittery hypotheticals being floated around 30 years ago.
He waits, unsure for what. He bugs Roman as many times as he can without compromising his cool, gets a text update of “still alive, doing fuck all” every now and then. A few weeks in he gets one that says “he’s in the Seychelles apparently.”
the islands?
yea, land surrounded on all sides by water and all that
do you think colin has a lifeguard certification?
A few months in his phone lights up with:
he’s back in new york
and again a half hour after that, with:
Kendall liked "fucking sucks dude, sorry."
Two hours later, Kendall has been buzzed up and is exiting the elevator into Stewy’s penthouse. He's wearing a hoodie and a baseball cap and there's a salt and pepper creature growing on his face.
"I should've bet money on this," Stewy says smiling. "Is this why you disappeared for months? Did you need the beard to grow out so you can look the part for the cataclysm you want people to think you’re experiencing?”
He crosses his arms when he walks over to him, keeping his hands under wraps to squander the urge to take Kendall's fuzzy jaw into his palms.
Kendall blinks at him.
"Yeah, I already did the shaved head thing, so," he says and walks past Stewy into the kitchen.
Stewy's eyes follow him as he goes and he releases his hands so they can come up to grab Kendall's shoulders and squeeze.
"No, that's smart not doing a double-feature. God, you would've looked like you wear sandals year round."
He takes a seat on one of the bar stools bracketing his kitchen island and watches Kendall search his fridge before emerging with a cold, glass water bottle.
”Like you lead seminars on how to unlock orgasmic chakras. Or the bald plus the beard plus that godawful chain you insisted on wearing? You would've looked like a Balkan jeweler. You kind of already do."
"You get one more jab at the beard then I'm cutting you off," Kendall says as he takes a drink.
Stewy watches Kendall's Adam's apple bob as he swallows and watches a few droplets get caught in the gnarly strands of hair under his lips, watches him reach up and run a hand over the beard to wipe them away before setting the bottle down on the counter. Stewy tucks his hands back under his arms.
"I think the beard's hot actually, just didn't think I'd ever see it again," Stewy says, reaching over to grab the bottle and take a sip himself.
The last time Kendall had grown out facial hair was 2007 when he and Rava brought Sophie home for the first time. He'd spent 6 months at home obsessing over her, stopped shaving, stopped going out, didn't care for business or phone calls that didn't cater to his overcompensating dedication. It was no surprise when it was short-lived, or cut short; when a few jabs from Logan turned Kendall clean-shaven in a tailored suit on a one-way jet ride to Shanghai. Logan had dressed it up as part "vital experience" for when (if) Kendall took the crown and part "I'm not asking," had sent Kendall away like he was being sent to military school to build character, with little protest from Kendall. Stewy, who's never been asked for his perspective on the matter and would never give it even under threat of life, had seen it for what it always was: another attempt of Kendall to absorb himself in something outside of his father and his company that ultimately dies as soon as the crown of Waystar gets slithered under his nose. Stewy's lived through a hundred of these attempts that Kendall never followed through; fatherhood was no different.
He can't decide if this now is different. Kendall’s here but Stewy still feels out of his depth. Months -- years really, considering Stewy's been entrenched in the very beginnings of this since almost the very beginning -- of waiting for the other shoe to drop, expecting it so surely that he wasn't even concerned for what that shoe would be, but Kendall's here and for the most part he's, relatively, fine. He’s not really, three decades of knowing Kendall makes that obvious to Stewy; he’s in a weird in between of too aloof and too on edge, reminding Stewy of the shell he'd had to deal with in Logan's apartment months ago, which had been worse and weirder than anything Kendall's emotional spectrum following catastrophic events had thrown Stewy's way before, worse than the cold shoulders and the petty threats and the maniacal rebounds. Stewy thinks that's probably what had him so (too) on board at the board meeting, Kendall giddy with ego and drunk on his illegitimate success was obnoxious but easier to stomach than whatever specter was waiting in the sidelines. Right now, there's a whisper of apparition, but relatively, it's fine. Relatively because any other time, there'd be a scramble for another shot, another chance, another angle to take over. Next moves, next steps, next assassination proceedings would be swirling a dark fog over Kendall's head and sinking Stewy into another fruitless scheme to convince Kendall to let this go but instead, Kendall is in Stewy's kitchen months after losing everything, with only a beard to show for it. Then again, Kendall's never lost everything before. There was always another way in, the crown was always still, even if barely, within reach and there was always another reason to reach for it. With Logan dead, the legacy sold to Mattson, and Tom at the helm, there's nothing left to grab at, and no reason to try.
"Still," Stewy says. "If you're going to commit to the beard you should clean it up a little, less 'Prozac' a little more 'new man'."
Kendall blinks at him again then says, with the world's smallest shit-eating grin, "Can't have anyone think I'm losing it."
Stewy watches him run a hand over his cheeks, then tilt his head up to scratch at the unkempt hairs growing on his exposed neck and the words come out of Stewy's mouth at the same time that they form in his head: "Do you want me to do it?"
____
The last time Stewy had Kendall perched at the the edge of a bathtub with a towel around his neck was senior year at univeristy. Kendall had woken up after a party neither of them could remember with gum in his hair, starkly visible and with both of them needing to present an end-of-the-year project in one of their classes that same morning. In the hour they had to spare, Stewy had sat Kendall down and taken a comb in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other and gone to work hacking at the long strands mangled in chewed up Hubba Bubba. Kendall's hair was a thick, shiny, messy thing in college, a thing Stewy loved to run his hands through to see it stick up in all directions imaginable, but it was an enemy that morning. A half hour later, Stewy had managed to get the gum out and restyle the hair into something presentable. Kendall had had to cut it short in the end anyway, and to Stewy's dismay decided to wear it short since, something about the crew cut marking his "MBA Kendall era". Stewy had had Kendall perched on the edge of a bathtub before that too, times when Kendall would be looking up and watching Stewy run through an elaborate hairstyling process to bend his curls to his will, wherein Stewy would sometimes convince Kendall to let Stewy do a little of the magic on him, use a mousse to slick the sides or a hairspray to give Kendall's hair some of the 90s signature spikes while Kendall commented and about this being "like two Alpha Phis curling each other's hair before a party" as a futile disclaimer. Other bathtub edge perching had Kendall looking down instead, at a Stewy on his knees, hair only involved because it was being gripped in a fist to maneuver a bobbing head.
Today, Kendall is 40 years old and he's watching Stewy take out a pair of scissors, an electric razor, and a tiny sleek trimmer from a black box in the cabinet beneath his sink.
"You, like, know what you're doing right?" Kendall asks.
"What, you think mine just looks like this naturally?" Stewy says, coming over and placing his tools on the ledge beside Kendall. "That's flattering actually, thank you."
"Fuck off, I know you have a guy."
"Of course I have a fucking guy," Stewy says. He stands between Kendall's knees and looks down on him. "I can do this much though."
"Uh-huh, sure. Just don't make it look like yours."
"Absolutely fucking not, are you insane?" Stewy says in genuine offense.
"I'm just saying don't like, fucking, make me look like I own a Ferrari made of gold."
"Yeah, you wish," Stewy says grabbing Kendall's chin and titling his head back further. "Now shut up or this thing will cut you."
Stewy starts with the electric razor to Kendall's throat, buzzing away the hairs to create a neat straight line below Kendall's jaw. Save for the buzz of the shaver, the bathroom stayed silent as he worked, Kendall seemingly eager to follow the 'no talking' rule. Stewy switches the razor off and moves back up with the comb, brushing it through Kendall's beard to shake away any stragglers and start trimming some unnecessarily long pieces down. Kendall is eyeing him through it all, gaze fixed on Stewy's face and Stewy doesn't meet it once, busy snipping away, quietly -- and with careful indifference -- enjoying the feeling of having Kendall's full attention. He's a few more snips in, methodically measuring out sections of hair between his fingers before he cuts, when Kendall drops his gaze to look dead on and speaks:
”You’re gloating.”
”I’m what?” Stewy mumbles against the comb he's holding in his mouth while he cuts away another measured piece of fuzz.
”You’re fucking gloating. It’s, fucking, radiating off of you in waves.”
"You want me to apologize because your facial hair makes you look like a yoga instructor at Planet Fitness while mine looks princely? 'Cause I fucking won't."
He lets himself meet Kendall's gaze when he realizes it's on him again, recognizing silently the absurdity that Kendall is actually getting at.
Stewy stops cutting to look up at the ceiling and let out a breathless laugh. "Oh my fucking god."
"I know you're happy about th-"
“Kendall!" Stewy laughs again and resumes his cutting, deciding that this conversation was in no way worth stopping for. "I voted with you.”
”I mean, this is everything you ever wanted, right? You got the Gojo deal, all that fucking money from the Gojo deal, and me out of the company.”
Stewy bites the inside of his cheek.
"You think this is how I wanted you out of the company? A graceless exit after a shitshow display of you and your crack siblings fighting for the TV remote?" Stewy says point-blank, tilting Kendall's head up so he can trim at the hairs below his chin with the razor. "You want me to gloat, I'll gloat. I wanted you to get yourself out, not take a bat to the back of your knees and get your lunch money stolen by Swedish Psycho."
Kendall starts again, but Stewy holds his chin. "Don't," he says. "This is sharp."
A moment later, he stands up straight and let's Kendall tilt his head back down, puts down the trimmer and grabs the comb and scissors again to take care of a few more details.
"You spent all that time in the Seychelles getting dressed in water wings by Colin and all you gleaned was how to bitch at me?" he asks, turning Kendall's head to the side.
"You keeping tabs on me?" Kendall mutters.
"Flattered?" Stewy asks while he snips.
"No."
"I wasn't in the Seychelles the whole time," Kendall says. "I didn't glean anything either."
"No? No egregious comeback ideas? You don't wanna buy a dozen tech start-ups in the Silicon Valley and mine data, ruin a few governments then sell the news coverage? Start a foundation, God forbid?"
"I don't wanna do anything," Kendall says to him, like Stewy hasn't known him for thirty arduous years.
"That's not fucking true," Stewy laughs.
Kendall shakes his head out of Stewy's grip, and Stewy has a protest about how sharp scissors and sudden movements would equal copious blood flow ready to go, but it dies on his tongue when Kendall drops his head onto Stewy's stomach.
Stewy has half a mind to pull him back up by his ear; unleash his unsaid protest about Kendall interrupting his work and finish this up so they can go get something to eat. Against his better judgement, which seldom wins against Kendall, he instead holds the comb and scissors in one hand which he brings to rest on Kendall's shoulder while his other hand falls into Kendall's hair and rests his fingers amongst the short strands, free of product and dye fading.
"I want it to be. I'm for fucking nothing, man. Can't do anything, don't know what to do. There's nothing. There isn't anything to do."
"Then don't do anything."
Stewy is transported to the dozen conversations he's had with Kendall on this subject in the time he's known him. A conjecture to steer Kendall into an original thought not plowed and sowed by Logan's influence only to circle back to Kendall's one, singular, unattainable desire.
"You can literally do anything, you can do nothing. You can get really into North African erotic art or spend all your time breeding silk worms or try experimental penis enlargement surgeries, literally, literally, anything or anything that amounts to nothing," Stewy told Kendall at sixteen, and twenty-two, and thirty-seven and a hundred times in between. "World's your fucking oyster."
And Kendall would laugh lightheartedly, giggle with a shake of his head like Stewy was being so, so silly. "Dude, I don't want the fucking oyster. I want the company, legacy."
Kendall never figured out that legacies come in good and bad colors, that anyone laying around on a Thursday afternoon could fruitfully and amusingly kill 20 minutes diving into the Kendall Roy Wikipedia page.
Today, Kendall takes the suggestion in silence, not pondering or agreeing, but in recognition, like maybe he'd reached this same consensus on his own while lounging by a pool gated and guarded from entry by Colin.
Kendall pulls his head up and lets Stewy continue, resuming his silence while Stewy combs out his finished look.
"That doesn't even fucking mean anything," he says eventually. "'Do nothing.'"
"Doesn't have to be nothing," Stewy says, walking away to the counter to grab a sleek vial of what Kendall assumes is some kind of beard oil. He puts a few drops into his hands, rubs them together then moves back over to rub his hands into the coarse hair on Kendall's face. "You can start an illegal dog fighting ring or buy NASCAR. Not nothing, but it's not anything."
There’s a beat and then Kendall's watching him again. Stewy meets his gaze, which he finds has resigned from contemplation and instead surrendered to something a little more mischievous.
"Get really into Naploeon and buy a ranch in New Mexico?"
Stewy smiles and responds with an pleased, conspiratorial hum.
"Run for president," he says, realizing he's long finished grooming Kendall's beard with oil and is now just holding Kendall's face in his hands. Neither of them mind.
"I should run for president." Kendall's smiling, and Stewy is absently running a thumb against his cheek.
"Win and block the Gojo deal."
"Dude," Kendall says with flimsy indignation.
"Shut the fuck up," Stewy says, laughing again then leaning down and kissing him on the lips quickly and with eyes open before letting him go, gathering the materials from his excursion, and turning around to place them back under the sink.
He hears Kendall get up behind him and sees him appear in the mirror, leaning close and swiveling his head to admire Stewy's work.
"Do I have to come to you now every time I need a touch up?"
"I'm not your fucking barber, Ken," Stewy says, despite his actions not moments ago, then washing his hands and drying them with a hand towel.
"So then, what? Are you gonna give me the name of your guy?"
"Find your own guy. You can give him room and board on the next island you fuck off too."
"I'm done with islands, I think," Kendall says, shaking his head.
"Oh?" Stewy responds, and hates the incredibly small but unfortunately real spark it stirs.
"It was fine, secluded," Kendall says, washing his hands too then taking the towel from Stewy to dry them. "Boring, but nice enough if you wanna buy."
"I like my Greek paradise just fine."
"Right, sure," Kendall nods seriously. "Stay close to your Mediterranean roots and everything."
"I'm not Mediterranean, but sure," Stewy replies, flashing back to another conversation he's had with Ken dozens of times.
Kendall puts the towel down and drums his fingers onto the marble countertop of Stewy's bathroom sink. Stewy knows where this is going.
"How is your Greek paradise?" Kendall asks.
"She's fine. Secluded." Stewy stares him down.
"When was the last time I was there? Was it-"
"Uh huh."
"Long time."
Stewy wants to string him along longer, would do so any other time, but he doesn't have it in him today. He can't help it. In defense of irrationality, Stewy's been waiting for this since he was young enough to want anything, since he realized he wanted Kendall then realized he could never have him because a part of him belonged to someone else. Kendall is here and Logan is dead and the company is gone and Kendall is here, he's alive and he's fine, even if only relatively and even if Stewy knows better than to really believe it. He's in his grasp, close enough and tangible enough that Stewy feels he can close a whole fist around him for the first time in what might be forever. Kendall was right to accuse Stewy of gloating, was on the nose to pick up on the scent victory Stewy was exuding. And more than just feeling victorious, Stewy felt it was deserved, felt it was earned. Years of waiting and scheming and begging and hoping, wishing, wanting, and it might be finally safe enough to say he's won. Kendall disappeared for months and reappeared in Stewy's penthouse, fishing for an invitation to be in Stewy's life and it feels a lot like winning.
"Do you want me to ask you to come to my island so we can think of things for you to do with your life?" Stewy says. "Among other things?"
Kendall smiles shamelessly. "Among other things, yeah."
Stewy takes the hand towel from him and throws it in a hamper.
"Let's go get something to eat, Ken."
Stewy leaves. Kendall follows.