Work Text:
Coming all the way down to the Waystar building for a meeting should have been above Stewy, but the request had come directly from that tiny weird secretary of Logan’s, so clearly Kendall was out of the loop on this one.
As he waited two minutes in the VIP lobby, Stewy went back through old meeting recordings, deleting the ones he knew were now unimportant. Best to free up the space if this mystery meeting went long.
The old man greeted him with the closest thing to a genuine smile Stewy had ever seen. Logan even clapped him on the arm as they shook hands. “Stewart, good to see you. Come in, sit down. Kerry, get him something to drink.” The old man had broken eye contact again, gesturing in that practiced, absent way of his.
Stewy gave Kerry a closed-lipped smile and accepted a bottle of his favorite mineral water, sitting on the couch with his back to the glass wall of the office with his arm outstretched against the back cushion. Logan seemed to take more than his usual time to situate himself in his chair and waited until Kerry had closed the door behind her to begin.
“Thanks for coming downtown today, Stewy.” He gazed at a spot over Stewy’s shoulder, nowhere particular.
How many people noticed that the old man could barely maintain eye contact anymore? When was the last time he looked directly at any of his kids?
“What do you need today, Logan? Usually your requests come through Kendall, so it was a bit of a shock to get the meeting request as a meeting request.” He sipped his mineral water. “Are we cutting Kendall out again?”
Logan’s mouth twisted briefly into a frown before training itself back into a hard smile that was not reflected in his eyes. His eyes did meet Stewy’s again now. “No, actually, cutting him back in, so to speak. Listen, I need stability for him, someone who can keep him in line. Clearly Rava wasn’t cut out for that, and Naomi Pierce has been even worse.” Stewy’s breath stopped entirely. He could not miss a word of this, even for oxygen. “Of course there’ll be contracts, and you’ll get a new slice to make things worth your while personally. But, so far you’re the only one who we feel has been able to exercise any sort of control like we’d like to see in his life. We don’t want to go the conservatorship route yet.”
Stewy leaned in. He kept his tone as neutral as possible. “What are you suggesting? I become Kendall’s minder?”
Again, Logan’s eyes flickered away and back to Stewy as he spoke. “No, get married. Strictly a business arrangement. Same as the old days, to strengthen ties between our business and yours. He’s already got his heir, so that’s taken care of.”
“I’ll have to see the offer, but I’m in.” Fuck, too fast. “And the offering better include my name in the trust.”
The old man’s face cracked a smile equally too fast and he held out his hand to shake. “Welcome to the family, Stewy.”
Oh, his precious Kendall, what just happened? And why did Logan need this, almost twenty years late?
When Stewy got out of his first meeting later that afternoon, he should have been more surprised by the notifications on his lock screen.
8 MISSED CALLS FROM “KEN DOLL”
Ken Doll: hey asshole, answer your phone!
Ken Doll: this is my fucking life!
Ken Doll: stewy
Ken Doll: stewy ♥
Ken Doll: stewy ♥
Ken Doll: stewy answer your phone
Stewy: I saw your signature on the paperwork, too, Kendall.
Stewy: You can’t pretend you didn’t know about this.
Stewy: Why did you make your dad do it for you? 🤷
Ken Doll: answer your phone
Stewy’s phone rang for exactly ten seconds before he answered, taking the time to roll up the dividing window between himself and the driver.
“He didn’t let me see what it was, Stewy. Why would you think I’d sign that if I knew what it was? Back in college you were always clear it wasn’t anything, so what the fuck? Why would you sign the thing trapping you with me like this? For the money? That’s cold, man.” Kendall was clearly in one of his bad places.
Stewy hated dealing with him like this. But, now it was his well-paying job to talk his fiance down. “Hey baby, yeah, I signed that, and I looked at what it said, and I made my line revisions. Just like I taught you to do when we were twenty-one and you almost got involved with Bernie, you remember?” Kendall’s breathy grunt of recognition was the familiar sound that he said he didn’t want to remember. “I had to do it, Kendall. And, it’s not for the money, and you’re not trapped. You’re free to do whatever you want as long as you come back to me at night. Just like college.”
The hollow choking sound of Kendall’s disbelief was also familiar to him. Why Kendall would call him in a place he had to whisper was beyond him, but the rasp of Kendall’s I’m-so-mad-at-you-but-I-can’t-yell voice was harsh in Stewy’s ear now. “You cannot do this to me. We agreed we’d never talk about that again. You promised, and now you’re trying to fuck me, not just fuck me like then, but really fuck me, with my money.” His voice regained a semblance of composure as he continued with clipped syllables. “The others won’t let you get away with this. The trust? You need their signatures for that, and if Dad couldn’t convince them to let Marcia in, they’ll never agree to you.”
Stewy rolled his head, relieving some of the tension in his neck. “Kendall, are you really mad about the money? Or, is it convincing yourself the same thing you did in college? Like that little speech before we moved out of the apartment and you told me we couldn’t do this anymore because we were on different paths? And you wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise and then we didn’t talk again for six months until you’d gotten engaged? You think anything between us has ever been about the money?”
Kendall practically yelled into the phone, “You said to me not three years ago that I could not trust you on money stuff!”
Stewy had said that, and it was true. “And you can’t. But, as I have tried to explain, Kendall, what this is between us is not about money, and that you can trust.” The car rolled to a stop and Stewy’s door opened. “I have to go. I’m walking into a meeting. We’ll talk later, babe.”
It wasn’t that he wanted the money, or that he wanted Kendall. It was that maybe this arrangement would finally let him have Kendall in the only way Kendall would allow Stewy to have him.
What he wanted was to be sure, finally, that Logan could not pry him from Kendall. More than keeping Kendall in the end, he needed to be sure Logan didn’t find out it was not about the money.
What he wanted was to finally be able to say he was important to Kendall, to have it in writing. The money was nice, but Stewy already had Roy money. He seemed to have more Roy money than several of the Roys themselves had. What he did not yet have was the Roy he wanted, the Roy who made him weak with want every time their lips met.
And, to get Kendall Roy served to him on a platter made of money? Of course he had agreed too quickly.
It was, however, part of his due diligence to find out why Logan would even mention a conservatorship. The digging had taken his investigators several weeks and way too much money to uncover. Hell, Britney had been tucked away for far less than a dead waiter and too many drugs.
Stewy would enjoy the time after they were married, showing Logan just how little he planned to control Kendall, and by then there would be nothing Logan could do to control Kendall himself except futilely throw more money at Stewy.
And, finally in marriage, he could actually show what he had been forced to hold back since he was a little closet case of a teenager. He could show Kendall what he actually felt, everything he had been forced to hold back before.
Two weeks before their wedding date and ten days before the final contracts would be ready, Stewy showed up for a board meeting to find Kendall hyperventilating on his office couch, head down, back to the glass wall.
He sat beside but apart from Kendall as Kendall cried, the same silent tears that had been the signal for a bad conversation with Logan for more than twenty years. “Baby, you can’t let him get to you that way.”
“It’s not him. I just didn’t think I’d get married like this, with my hu-s-husband controlling me like he does.” Kendall’s hands wiped hard down his face and Stewy held perfectly still so he did not give away everything with the lack of privacy afforded them by the glass walls. “You never wanted me, Stewy. You were always so far away, even when we were close. I tried, tried to have something more. And you never let me close.”
Stewy breathed through the memories. It was only ten days until he could tell a piece of the truth. Only fourteen days until he could prove to Kendall that the past had been a cave wall shadow of the future. “Well, you did ‘no homo’ me in the middle of sucking me off once, so that closeness was kind of mutual.” Kendall huffed a half indignant chuckle. “Your father has always had a hard grip on your life, and neither of us could do anything about that before. But, Kendall, I promise that whatever you think was happening when we were twenty-two was skewed by what your family needed from you.”
A knock came and Stewy looked back through the glass at the distorted tangerine of Shiv’s hair, her wide eyes and the angry line of her mouth. He held up his finger, one minute, and Shiv threw her hands in the air.
He pulled a tissue from the box and pressed it into Kendall’s hand. “We’ve got to go to the meeting now, Kendall.”
He stood and buttoned his suit coat.
As he opened the door, Kendall’s voice was only barely held together. “Stewy…”
He swallowed his reply and gladhanded his way to his seat at the table.
After he signed the paperwork, Stewy tried to get Kendall on the phone, or at least reply to a fucking text. Every fucking Roy but one assured him, Kendall would be there. He would make the fool of himself he made at every event. He would sing a stupid song that only meant something to him. He would get caught in a closet with someone else. He would do blow with one of the royal twins.
But, they all assured him, Kendall Roy would appear in front of that judge with him — would marry him on Saturday at eleven A.M.
Stewy only believed it when (from his dressing room in the fuck-off expensive venue) he saw Kendall step out of the SUV in his pre-formal casual best. He could just make out the beat of a Beyonce song coming from inside the car before the door slammed shut behind Kendall.
Good, at least Kendall wasn’t torturing himself with sad rap today.
With less than half an hour before the ceremony, Stewy had to tell him. Kendall would never believe him if Stewy didn’t come clean before the ceremony.
After two knocks, Kendall’s door opened to reveal Shiv in whatever handpainted silk bodycon dress her stylist had picked out, and Roman standing behind her with his arms crossed looking like a victorian urchin in his tuxedo. Shiv’s expression said she was ready to cut hit balls off and Roman’s said he didn’t care what happened except that he was ready to film it all to release to TMZ three years from now.
Roman was as mouthy as ever. “You can’t come in, Stewy. It’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding.”
Stewy stood on the threshold, aware that Kendall must be somewhere close but out of sight. “I need to talk to Kendall. It’s not a trick. Just five minutes and if he wants out after that, I’ll leave myself.”
Kendall appeared from behind the door Shiv held and slid past her. He turned to his siblings with that placating tone Stewy hated. “It’s okay. Five minutes. I’ll be fine.”
He pulled the door closed behind him and they were alone in the hallway. Stewy couldn’t help but stare at Kendall now they were alone.
“Ken, when your father came to me about this arrangement, I barely thought before saying yes. You asked me over and over if you could trust me about money and I told you the truth. And, you kept thinking this was about the money, but Kendall, it has never been about the money for me. I did it because your titan father offered me what he thought were scraps from his table but were actually my preferred feast. You are who I wanted since we were fifteen and you stared at me too long in the shower after soccer practice. You’re who I wanted since we were twenty-one and all the bitches from the clubs couldn’t compare to the feeling of your chest against my back and your morning wood poking me awake. You’re who I wanted on your first wedding day, wanting you to be happy, even without me.”
They were so close, Stewy crowding Kendall against the flocked fleur-de-lis wallpaper that somehow made his hazel eyes look blue. Kendall swayed slightly with that little involuntary lean into Stewy that he recognized from the past nineteen years of furtive longing. Stewy’s forehead rested gently against Kendall’s, grounding them both.
“Kendall, the one thing you can trust is that I love you, and I’ll never stop. If your dad knew before I signed those papers on Tuesday, he wouldn’t have let it happen. Just like he made sure you married an optically perfect woman at twenty-four. And, if I couldn’t sell this, he was going to take away everything from you. No more anything. Conservatorship with him pulling your strings. Please, baby. You have to believe me.”
Those hazel eyes with long lashes stuck together with tears blinked closed and open and Kendall’s hands fidgeted at the untucked edge of his shirt. His voice was thick with unshed tears. “So, I’m just supposed to cave now? All is forgiven because now my fiance saved me from my father? Because those promises are too good to turn down, if they’re even a little bit true? You didn’t even try to stop me when I left our apartment that day. You didn’t say a thing. You never told me anything before. Why believe you now?”
Stewy cupped Kendall’s cheek, brushing a tear from its track. “We remember that conversation very differently. I had to be so careful, baby. I had to be so careful for so long. What your dad has done for you the past few years, making that… go away, he would have done even more to kill what’s between us if he had ever had proof of what you were to me. Kendall, if I didn’t keep you at a distance, if I’d let you know how much I needed you, if your father had ever gotten the barest scent of what you were to me? Not only would you have been out of my reach forever, but he would have found a way to ruin my career and my life.”
Kendall choked out a sob and his hands fisted into Stewy’s lapels. “I thought I was nothing! You made me feel like nothing! Like him!” He leaned back to look into Stewy’s eyes, his mouth twisted in pain. “You chose to let me be miserable! We could have done something, gotten away, run away!”
His hand held Kendall firm behind the neck, pulling him close as Kendall shook. “We can do it now. This is our time. And, Logan can’t touch us, with everything in those contracts. Please, please, we’re so close.”
For several long minutes, Kendall clutched him, calming under his touch as he always had. As he pulled away and wiped his eyes, his mouth the soft pout of his personal brand of resignation. “It was really going to be conservatorship?”
Stewy pulled his phone from his pocket, already queued for the important parts of that first meeting.
The speaker on his phone was turned down so only Stewy and Kendall could hear. The harsh bite of the old man’s brogue could only be Logan’s. “Of course there’ll be contracts, and you’ll get a new slice to make things worth your while personally. But, so far you’re the only one who we feel has been able to exercise any sort of control like we would like to see in his life. We don’t want to go the conservatorship route yet.”
Stewy’s voice picked up after a thoughtful pause. “What are you suggesting? I become Kendall’s minder?”
Logan was clearly annoyed he had to say it out loud. “No, get married. Strictly a business arrangement. Same as the old days, to strengthen ties between our business and yours. He’s already got his heir, so that’s taken care of.”
Way too quickly, Stewy cut in. “I’ll have to see the offer, but I’m in.” Kendall’s breath caught. “And the offering better include my name in the trust.”
The file ended and Stewy slid the phone back into his pocket.
Kendall stared at him, fresh tears brimming in his eyes. “You wanted me.”
Stewy smiled. “Of course I wanted you. You’re the only thing I’ve ever really wanted that I couldn’t have.”
Kendall’s mouth met his and Stewy finally poured his whole being into kissing Kendall, like he had only ever been able to do when they were both out of their minds. No more fucking without kissing or hoping how he rested his mouth against Kendall’s neck wouldn’t be too much. Stewy would give Kendall everything he wanted to give now, and in this moment, that was his lips and tongue.
Too quickly, Kendall broke away again, his hands still gripping Stewy’s shoulder and face. His voice was deep and needy. “Tonight you’re going to fuck the shit out of me. It’s on. Me and you. Unstoppable. You’ll never get rid of me now.”
Stewy laughed. “Never. I can’t wait til tonight, baby.”
They crashed together again for one brief moment before the door clicked open again and Shiv’s clipped “Oh God, okay!” hit them like a bucket of ice. She turned slightly away and announced, “It’s been fifteen minutes, and you need to get into place now according to the schedule. You know, if that’s still happening…”
For maybe the first time, Stewy squeezed Kendall’s hand and kissed his cheek. “See you in a minute, babe.”
Kendall half snorted. “Not if I see you first.”
It was stupid, but so were they both for waiting more than twenty years for this.