Archive of Our Own

Roman’s brother is back at his side, and the world is light again.

Should be, anyway. Even was for a while. In the car Roman’s bliss was so big he wondered at Kendall seeming not to see it--let alone get stifled, suffocated by it pressing him up against the passenger side door. They laughed and cried (well, Kendall cried) and stopped for greasy Stamford pizza and sang along to the radio and fucking talked.

Normally.

Maybe not about normal things, but--mere facsimile of normalcy though it may have been, they did it like real people, real siblings were meant to, Roman thought; delicately peeling back flaky layers of sarcasm and exposing the raw, sticky skin of themselves, of the tumurous tangle of their family. Didn’t tease each other for their vulnerability, and let the stretches of silence hang heavy between them: titanic, impossible feelings, given space to respire. The boat, the funeral, that day in the boardroom, the firelit dusk in Southampton, the hospital. Kendall talked about the other patients: cracked-up Manhattan execs, teenaged cuttings of the New England upper crust, and--God forbid--gentle, ordinary people whose families were willing to scrimp and save if it meant getting their loved ones sorted. Nobody quite like Kendall Roy-- but who ever could be? Roman thought.

Connor had been right, back when the two of them first visited Kendall at Silver Hill; Roman had worn cruel fear like a patch on his sleeve--that his brother was being tampered with in there, skull sawed open and gray matter pricked full of needles and probes. That they were pumping him full of drugs that, sure, might dampen the pain in the depths of him, but would castrate whatever in Kendall Roy was still left uncastrated.

Roman finds the fact to be a personal failing, but he loves his older brother quite fiercely--in all his unpleasantness, diagnosable and otherwise. The prospect of a Kendall Roy sanded down and sanitized is only marginally more appealing than a void where Kendall Roy once stood.

… which was about as close as Roman was willing to get to the subject of the suicide attempt, mentally, before he became aware he really wasn’t going to have much choice in the matter.

Nonetheless, he does recognize this version of his brother, all therapized and medicated. He’s less a polished stone than a bit of boulder opal, familiar color flashing out of new cracks in his skin. Something like that, at least, Roman thinks on the floor of his guest room. Knees tucked beneath his chin, rocking himself to the steady hiss of the guest bathroom shower. It’s here that it all starts, the twang. Tension on a stretched elastic.

Kendall quieted when the car rolled from suburban highway into view of the Manhattan skyline. They pulled into the garage beneath Roman’s building in the mid-afternoon, one of Kendall’s bags slung over each of their shoulders, and rode the elevator up to Roman’s penthouse.

“I probably should swing by my place at some point,” Kendall had said uncertainly, lobbing his duffel onto the guest bed Roman’s offered to him. “Get some clothes that aren’t the two schlubby pairs of sweats I’ve been wearing for the past month. But…”

“Just take some of my shit. No need to… rush back to your, uh, stale fuckin’ hovel, if you don’t have to. We can get Greg to go,” Roman had replied, and offered a closet’s worth of clothes that’d more or less fit his brother.

From hence the shadow sneaks: a haunted house opposite Roman’s, just across the muddy March sprawl of Central Park. The apartment where Kendall had decided to die--and would have, if Roman’s summons of his siblings to Southampton hadn’t been so conveniently timed.

When Kendall told he and Shiv about his method, sodium nitrite, Roman obsessively researched, sick to find ample resources on what was considered one of the most effective methods of offing oneself that didn’t involve blowing brain matter across a wall or waylaying rail commuters. The tension in Roman’s heart--only minutely loosened by coming out, and then seeing his brother passed into the capable hands of inpatient care--pulled tight again, reading that. A broiling, directionless heat. Childish indignance--as if blood is what decides gruesomeness. Roman is skittish around the viscera, sure, but the violence of death originates in the face of the dead, Roman’s always thought. Beheaded strangers across the world versus the cold gray face of a person whose very smell is knit into the cable of his DNA.

Kendall’s Harvard sweatshirt is the color of dried blood, Roman notes, the fabric of it soft against his cheek. Did housekeeping stock the guest bathroom with razors before he canned them? Would Kendall be willing to dig the loose blades from their casings, forego his chosen method, his precious poison shipped from some crooked vet down in Guadalajara?

Whether he’d even want to is a question Roman is disinterested in considering. Any contingency is a possibility. It’s only the subtle shifts in the tone of water hitting the shower floor that keep Roman from breaking, breathless, into the bathroom: movement beneath the stream, a sign of life.

Roman’s heartbeat skips and slows when the water shuts off. He stands, tossing Kendall’s hoodie back onto the bedspread, and walks back into the kitchen to lean against the counter like he hasn’t moved from the spot Kendall first left him to wash up. Gaze fixed on his phone, he feigns disinterest when Kendall walks in, wet-haired, wearing one of Roman’s long-sleeved tees and a pair of trousers that don’t quite fall all the way over his ankles.

“I’m you,” Kendall says, holding his arms up to model as a coathanger.

“You’re me,” Roman agrees. And with this intelligent conversation concluded, he goes on, “you need, or--want anything? Fuckin’, got… water? Various waters?”

“Yeah, can I get a beer?”

Roman blinks. “Um. You. Uh--?”

A grin splits through Kendall’s face. “I’m fucking with you, bro. Test passed. You got Perrier?”

Roman opens his fridge and pulls a green bottle from inside the door, muttering, “asshole.” He slides the water across the kitchen island.

Kendall settles into an armchair in the den, legs pulled up in a cross that makes him look childish and small. It’s an odd sight--once Kendall would have made as much of himself as possible, legs out wide, hands gripping the armrests like a kings’ on his throne. Clothes aside, Roman thinks it’s a little like looking in a mirror.

Kendall catches up on the many missed messages and calls on his phone, confiscated upon check-in to inpatient: if not family, maybe Stewy, Roman assumes it’s the Waystar old guard--traitorous figures feigning as friends to pass off responsibility for his disappearance. Shiv wouldn’t withold Kendall’s whereabouts from Tom, Roman doesn’t think, and obviously Kendall and Cousin Greg are inexplicably chummy, but neither seem likely to have blabbed, not about this. It’s not impossible, he supposes, the press would have kept an eye on the wayward heir--Roman has turned down enough requests for interviews about the GoJo sale; no telling who might have caught word that Kendall Roy had checked into a private institution an hour and a half into the Connecticut countryside.

Pierce, probably, Roman thinks. Revenge for the Roy kids jerking them around on a ten billion-dollar leash. He hasn’t the taste to look it up and confirm, but he can just see the headlines now: spinning a smear campaign on his nutty brother into some sardonic thinkpiece on the importance of mental health care in a capitalist system.

Roman orbits a safe distance around Kendall, reassured by the mere sight of him, steady and dark like a bruise on his white leather. Mills about in the kitchen and tries not to make it obvious he’s gathering up all his booze into a tote bag to be buried in the depths of his walk-in--or maybe just lobbed into the building’s trash compactor; that feels safer. Eliminate all possibility of even the temptation. Roman’s distastefully sorting through a handful of half-drunk Mezcals when Kendall’s voice makes him jump.

“Hey, dude.”

Roman shoots up to stand--“what’s up?”--and sees that Kendall’s phone is to his ear, confirmed with a point, mouthed gibberish. Roman gives him a thumbs up, and ducks back into the cupboards, ears pricked to eavesdrop.

“I’m good. Roman got me. We got in, uh… like an hour-ish ago. So, listen, you’ve still got a key to my place, right?”

Greg, then, must be. Roman doesn’t know when Kendall chose their cousin as his chief goon, nor why, let alone how Greg elected to choose him back when Tom’s preoccupation with him seemed so consuming. It all seemed solely transactional until Greg texted in the group chat he shared with Roman and Shiv--formed in unspoken vow to update one another on Kendall’s status post-sale--to tell them that he’d paid Kendall a visit at Silver Hill to (of all the silly fucking things) play UNO, as though they were a pair of children whose attempted coup had been no more than a baseball through Logan Roy’s window. Perhaps it’s more testament to Greg’s status as an honorary Roy than anything else: their family can make nice over some pretty horrendous bygones.

“Would you mind, maybe sometime today, running by and packing up a--I think there should be a couple Swiss Army suitcases under my bed. Would you throw a bunch of clothes and shit in the smaller one? Nothing dressy. Also, my laptop. I’m at Rome’s. I’ll text you his address.”

Great , Roman thinks. He’s made it this far without their eight foot-tall gnat of a relative knowing where he lives.

“Cool. Thanks, Greg. See you soon.” A pause, and then: “Rome, Greg’s gonna swing by in a bit with some more stuff for me, okay? In case you need to buzz him in.”

“Lucky us,” Roman says. “They fucked you up good in there. I’d have to suffer a moderate-to-severe TBI before I trusted Greg the Egg to make do with ‘a bunch of clothes and shit’ for guidance.”

Kendall smiles. “He’s a fashionable little guy. He knows what he’s doing.”

“He is neither fashionable nor little.” Roman jerks his chin in the direction of the phone in Kendall’s hand. “Anything juicy?”

“Nah. Everybody’s forgotten I exist. It’s great.” Kendall scratches his crown, squinting lopsidedly. “Uh, no, I mean--Stewy texted. Few days ago. Said we should get a drink when I’m out, and then he sent a winky face, so either he’s fucking with me or he--”

“Wants to fuck you.”

“Y--wants to fuck me, yeah.”

Roman scratches under the bed of a nail. “How long is it, now?”

“That I’m sober?” Kendall guesses, brows raising in surprise. “I was just drinking after the sale, but I… I quit for a few weeks before I’d planned to--y’know. So, like, a couple months, for that. Last coke I had was a bump before the board vote. Three months, I guess.”

“Cool,” Roman mutters, struggling to meet his brother’s eyes. “That’s… good. Good work.”

Kendall shrugs. “Not much of an accomplishment when you’re inside.”

“Shut up. ‘Course it is. You love saying inside like it’s prison, you fucking nerd.”

“Fuck you,” Kendall laughs. “I sabotaged my chances of doing hard time at that press conference; I’ll take what I can get.”

They settle back into quiet, then. Roman gathers a mismatched smattering of gifted beers, ciders, and canned wines hiding at the back of his fridge in his tote full of liquor and with that has cleared the kitchen of all libations. Unceremonious, he takes it into his bedroom, tucks it into a corner of the walk-in, and throws a spare sheet over it for good measure. Then he thinks, turns to a drawer at the bottom of the built-in in which he keeps only one item: his father’s sweater from his first hospitalization, sequestered in the dashed hopes of keeping it safe from losing its scent. Alas, the ambery remnants of Logan Roy’s cheap English aftershave have faded in spite of Roman’s better efforts. He strokes over the sweater’s wiry surface and refolds it atop the concealed bag of liquor. If Kendall wants a drink so badly as to turn the apartment upside down for it, he’ll have to surmount the prickly touch of their late father’s effects.

Kendall doesn’t look up when Roman returns, satisfied with his efforts, to the den. Roman crosses behind Kendall’s armchair to loom over him, and still Kendall doesn’t turn.

“Yo,” Roman prompts him.

“Mm,” is Kendall’s reply. “Y’know, they--I’d imagine they closed our Waystar emails at the same time, yeah? Couple months after the sale.”

“Uh--yeah?”

“I think they just… locked us out, technically. Changed the passwords, ‘cause--” Kendall scoffs absently. “I’d had… because I’m--was, fucking sick in the head, I’d set all the stuff from upper management to forward to my personal email, too.”

Roman’s chest tugs. “Hey, Ken?”

“Frank and Karl are gone, I think. It’s all cycled out.” Kendall’s vice is a low rasp, miles away. “All of them, gone, like we were never even there in the first place. Theseus Incorporated.”

“Ken.”

“Who knows what, fucking--asinine CC lists I’m still on. There’s donuts up for grabs in the Vaulter floor copy room.”

Roman’s hands land heavily on his brother’s shoulders, stilling their unsteady quaver. Finally, Kendall looks back at him, glassy eyes now bright with recognition. He searches Roman’s stare, and then turns away again, phone face down on his thigh. Tilts his head a little to rest against Roman’s wrist, warm skin meeting solid and sure.

“Sorry.”

“You should unsubscribe from all that stuff.”

“Yeah. Yeah,” Kendall agrees, weary. And Roman dutifully watches as Kendall fiddles in his inbox’s settings, erasing this last messy vestige of connection between two eras of his life. When it’s done, Kendall drops his phone on the coffee table, briefly leans forward to put his elbows on his knees, face in his hands. Lets out a defeated, vocal sort of sigh, shoulders sinking beneath Roman’s grip.

“You don’t miss it,” Roman says. It’s not a question, but they both know he means it as one.

Kendall shakes his head. “But…”

And that’s all he says: but. A ten ton-word with which Kendall has such an unmatched way.

“I think I need to--I’m gonna do one of my… meditation things,” Kendall mutters, standing. He doesn’t meet Roman’s eyes; stalks, embarrassed, towards the guest room. Roman feels a flicker of panic at the prospect of the door once again closing between them.

“Is it--you want me to--help, or…?”

 “No, it’s just--” Kendall rubs the back of his neck. “It’s a, a--an exercise sort of thing, it’s… dumb.”

“You can do it out here. I don’t care.”

“I don’t wanna get distracted. And it’s embarrassing. Mantras and shit,” Kendall smiles weakly. “He probably won’t listen, but tell Greg he doesn’t have to wait around to see me if he comes while I’m in there, okay?”

“Tell Greg to fuck off. Got it. Noted. I think I can probably accomplish that,” Roman says, yielding from his brother a gentle scoff.

“Not what I said,” Kendall scolds him. “Be nice.”

Roman puts his hands up in surrender, then pretends not to watch while Kendall disappears into the guest room, shutting the door behind him with a soft click.

Roman retrieves his computer, sets up shop at the kitchen counter, in view of the guest bedroom door. Briefly, there are quiet shuffles of activity within, and then silence, settling heavy over Roman’s solitude.

First, he checks his personal email: over the course of the last three months of unemployment-- besides the odd press request for comment on the GoJo sale, the Roy family’s departure from Waystar-- he’s received little else but branded spam, advertisements and corporate newsletters he’s sure Kendall or their father signed him up for at one point or another.

A few days earlier, a headshot he vaguely recognized from Waystar Studios’ creative department messaged him on LinkedIn. During Roman’s time as Head of Studios, he tended to amuse himself sniffing around the creative departments, digging around for rejected screenplays, keepsake props worth stealing. Compared to Frank Vernon, the directors and their screenwriting teams had vision, appreciated Roman for his flair. In retrospect, he now wonders if this might’ve merely been WeHo elders clocking his West Village proclivities--Pacific Coast gays trying to take a poor closeted twenty-something under their wing. The fellow who sent the LinkedIn message was one of them, if an orbital member of the crew Roman doesn’t remember seeing much of: he was a production assistant at the time, little more than a--well, a proto-Greg, maybe, sans tendency to slimily scramble for the top of the shitpile. All the same, it seems he’s ascended in Joy Palmer’s wake: Head of Production under the guillotine of the Waystar dissolution Roman pretends to know nothing about.

I always felt like you had an eye for this stuff, more than the rest of the folks your dad sent out. Maybe you’d be interested in coming out to discuss a Sr. VP position to see us through divesting from the holding company?

It’s nice to be wanted. Surreal, after the bulk of Roman’s validation in life has come with a big fat asterisk of family drama puppet theater. But while the novelty of unemployment is certainly starting to wear off, now that he, Kendall, and Shiv are in each other’s lives again, he’s sick at the thought of departing New York. So he leaves the message unanswered for another day, at once an ego boost and a thorn in his side.

Roman is comforted by the low hum of Kendall’s voice from the guest room, unintelligible murmurs. A Google search on mantra meditation explains the practice, but reveals nothing of the secret words Kendall must be telling himself--spells against the parasitic power of his addictions, personal assurances; things taught in the classes he took in the hospital, or raw, original, straight from his newly polished and picked-at brain? Pseudo-Buddhist bullshit, or--maybe actual Buddhist bullshit. Kendall did tell Greg not to bring him anything dressy; maybe he’s making his way towards monkhood.

Roman makes a mental note to make a grab for his brother’s limited edition Jacque Marie Mages, if that does turn out to be the case.

He scrolls Twitter until his phone rings: Cousin Greg, the ID reads. Roman doesn’t bother answering, opts instead to take the decent chance Greg’s waiting to be buzzed in by hitting the button in the foyer. Sure enough, the elevator dings, and out steps the towering gangle of their cousin, cloaked in a long peacoat, rolling suitcase behind him.

“Cousin Craig,” Roman greets him.

“Hey, Roman,” Greg replies shyly. “I got, um, Ken’s stuff? Is he--” Greg peers around Roman’s apartment.

“He’s busy. Rehabby, mentally healthy person things peons like you and I wouldn’t understand.” Roman attempts to crane around the absolute excess of Greg for the suitcase, which Greg helpfully steps aside for--and, in doing so, into the apartment. “He wanted me to tell you not to bother waiting around for him, so.”

“Oh, it’s okay. I don’t have anything else going on today,” Greg says cheerfully. “I mean, I was supposed to, technically. Tom actually wanted me to go to this conference thing in Newark, since he couldn’t leave town this weekend, because--you know, Shiv’s having the baby tomorrow.”

“Yeah, Greg, I’m fucking aware my only sister is--spawning tomorrow. Thank you.”

“But I pulled the ol’ norovirus card so I could be around for Ken getting back.” Despite Roman’s plucky tailing, Greg is unbothered, strolling through the apartment and making himself comfortable at the breakfast bar. “Help out, y’know. How’s he doing? Does he seem good?”

“How--cloyingly sweet of you. Sickeningly, disgustingly so,” Roman deadpans. “He’s fine. He’s great. Peachy. Not really up to seeing anybody besides close family right now, I think.”

“Oh, sure, I bet,” Greg enthusiastically agrees, not getting the hint even a little bit. “How long’s he gonna stay with you, do you think? You think he’ll move back to 88th after?”

“I don’t--no. Probably not. I don’t know,” Roman replies tartly. “Pleasure as always, Gregory, but, uh, y’know. Fuck off.”

Greg is resistant to Roman’s belligerent ushering--physically, he’s not easily bullied, even sitting down. “Come on, man. He asked me to bring over his shit--his stuff; just--”

“His shit! I’m gonna tell him you called his stuff shit . He’ll be so mad.” Roman pokes his cousin’s side, his back, urging him out of his seat.

“Ow! Alright, okay, okay!”

“Out! Out! Begone! Thank you, love you, bye-bye--”

The guest room door swings open, and Kendall blinks between the two of them, frozen mid-shove.

“I tried to make him leave,” Roman snaps.

“Ken!” Greg frees himself easily from their scuffle, sweeps Kendall into one of his unwarranted hugs that Kendall, for once, bafflingly returns, furling his hands against Greg’s back.

“I told you not to--Roman,” Kendall sighs, voice muffled by Greg’s coat. “ Be nice, I said. Hi, Greg.”

“It’s so good to see you, dude. You look good. Feel okay, and, and--and all that?”

“Uh-huh.”

Through all this, they remain entwined, Roman’s big brother dwarfed by their enormous relative. Roman is undisguised in his shock by this display of affection between them--and, lower still, jealousy. If Roman had known these were the spoils of joining Kendall in blowing the whistle on their father’s enterprise, he’d have rethought his affiliations in that whole mess.

Finally, Kendall nudges Greg away from him—only just; they still stand close enough that Kendall has to crane his neck to meet Greg’s eyes. “Thanks for bringing my shit.”

Roman swears Greg glances over at him in cheeky triumph, but the look is so brief it may well be hallucinatory. “No prob, dude. Of course. I don’t wanna overwhelm you, or anything; I know you’re probably--big day tomorrow; you’ll see Shiv, and, and--Tom and stuff, right?”

“If I can’t help it,” Kendall shrugs. “But we’ll go over at some point, yeah. It’s, uh--y’know, inevitable that I’m gonna have to start… socializing, again.”

“Well, it’s not like--you say that like Silver Hill was a, a… monastery, sworn to silence.” Greg places his hand on Kendall’s forearm, squeezes it, and Kendall lets him. “Okay, I’ll get out of your hair. Let you guys chill before--baby! Family time. Woohoo. ”

“Thanks, Greg. Again,” Kendall says, leaving Roman behind to lead their cousin out. “Tom’ll probably let you come meet the kid at the hospital, too, yeah?”

“Oh, well--Tom, maybe. I dunno. He might be mad at me for calling out today to, uh. See you back in town.”

Kendall’s brows furrow. “It’s Saturday.”

Greg does some stupid little gesture, pseudo-jazz hands. “N-no--no rest for the wicked. I guess.”

Kendall scoffs, pulls Greg into a final embrace. “See you soon.”

“Love you, cuz.”

“Mm,” Kendall hums into Greg’s coat.

Roman has followed them towards the elevator, and when the duo part, Greg regards Roman, opening his arms placatingly. “You want one?”

“Not on your fucking life.”

Roman and Kendall watch as the elevator doors close on him, and then Roman turns slowly to his brother, brows in his hairline. “ Wow.”

“Don’t be an asshole,” Kendall sends venomlessly over a shoulder as he returns to the kitchen, suitcase pulled behind him and Roman in tow.

“Is he blackmailing you? Are you blackmailing him?” Roman peppers, following as Kendall brings his luggage into the guest room and hefts it onto the bed to inspect Greg’s selections.

“What could either of us possibly have on each other that is--what would we use leverage for, at this point? Greg’s got his gig, and I’m--” Kendall puts down the crewneck he’s pondering, fixing Roman with a fierce stare. “I’m out, Rome. Is that what you two think, that all this is another fucking play? Handful of fucking pills every morning, and, and--meditating for an hour a day just so I can find a way to weasel back into the company that probably won’t even last Jimenez’s first term?”

“No. No. Jesus,” Roman hisses. “Ken, I’m just--fucking asking what ended up happening for you and Greg the Egg to come out of all this without any love lost. I’d have thought he’d be the last person you’d wanna see, besides Wambsgans.”

Kendall searches him, flushed. “It’s… it’s good nothing came of it, I know that, but--he did try, Rome. For us. Until the end, he was gunning for us.”

“For you ,” Roman hears himself murmur--a gentle correction, a necessary one. Kendall nods in acknowledgement, head dipping briefly with shame. “But that’s not--that can’t be all of it.”

Sighing, Kendall pushes his suitcase out of the way, sitting on the edge of the mattress. “I did him really, really dirty. Even when we were on the same side,” he admits. “He snapped that night we got back into the city from Southampton. He was waiting in my apartment for me, just--with the note, sitting with it. I thought for weeks about how my--my death would affect you and Shiv, Rome, but I never gave a passing thought to Greg. How it would be for him, finding me. Even if I knew from the start it would have to be him.”

Roman’s stomach lurches, but there’s an echo of another feeling, something worse than grief--jealousy, again; protective fury at the private nightmare only Greg, at first, would have been privy to. The last to receive a text from Kendall, and the first to see his body, as fresh in death as it would ever be. Why him? Roman bitterly thinks. Why anyone but us--but me?

“He was so mad,” Kendall goes on, a bittersweet smile on his lips. “Rightly, obviously. I didn’t even realize Greg could be, not like that. I dunno. I guess it recontextualized him, a little. Made me realize he didn’t only give a shit about me insofar as I could--guarantee him corporate standing.”

Roman sits beside his brother; their knees touch, tactile reassurance.

“Sorry. For--”

“It’s fine,” Roman dismisses him quickly. All the better to press on: “Not to, uh--doubt his complexities, but. I have trouble picturing an angry Greg. Honestly, I have trouble picturing an anything Greg that isn’t, like, his usual brand of bumblingly anxious.”

“It’s fucking scary,” Kendall assures him, raising his brows. “Like--seven feet of pure wrath. I sort of thought I was gonna die. Which you’d think I’d be into, but, as it turns out, survival instinct really kicks in when there’s a colossus coming at you from where he’s been crying on your couch.”

Roman snorts. “Oh, no wonder you get along so well. I didn’t realize Greg was a crybaby, too.”

“And he’s not even on cariprazine,” Kendall agrees, shouldering Roman good-humoredly. He’s pulled his phone from his pocket, scrolls through his camera roll for something. “You wanna know why I’ve really got a soft spot for the little guy, though--” He finds what he’s looking for and holds his phone out to Roman: a video in a low-lit apartment Roman doesn’t recognize--Greg’s, or perhaps one Kendall lived in during the DOJ fiasco. Scattered strangers are mere silhouettes in the background; the figure in focus is Greg, disheveled and drunk and sunken into a couch. Kendall’s old PR manager is visible beside him, a drink in her hand. Roman smiles when he hears his brother’s voice from behind the camera:

“ Okay, go.”

Greg pats his thigh in tempo, stifles nervous laughter before starting: “ Uh--born on the North Bank, king of the West Side, fifty years running, now he’s rolling in a sick ride--”

“ East Side!” video Kendall interjects, voice already lilted with humor. “East Side, Greg!”

“H-handmade suit, raking in loot, five star-general; y’all best salute--”

“Oh my fucking God,” video Kendall is muttering, camera frame shaking with his laughter.

“Dude, is this your--the, the fiftieth anniversary thing? For Dad? You fucking--hold a gun to his head and make him learn it?”

Grinning, Kendall shushes him.

“ Uhh… bitches be catty, but the King Kong daddy, rock all the haters while we go smoke a fatty, fucking--Squirtle on decks, Kenny on rhymes--”

“Roll, not smoke. And it’s Squiggle, dude. Squiggle!”

“Squiggle on decks, Kenny on rhymes, and Logan’s big-ballin’ on Hamptons time,” Greg finishes.

“Sing the chorus,” Kendall demands.

“ No. No! That’s all I know. I swear. ”

“Do it, bitch!”

Close to the camera, out of view, Roman hears Naomi Pierce chime in, murmuring: “You actually performed this in front of--like, anyone?”

“Fuck you. It was so baller,” Kendall snaps conspiratorially back. “Please, Greg. Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease--” And then the video ends, frozen on their cousin beaming, mortified, into his hands.

“It was--actually, maybe, alongside… Tianmen Square footage, the least baller thing I’ve ever seen,” Roman tells Kendall. “I have never wanted to bash you over the head with a rock more than I did in that moment.”

Eyes covered with an arm, chest tight with laughter, Kendall throws himself on his back against the mattress behind him. “Fuck off. I know. I was so fucking--you wanna know what a manic episode looks like? It’s that. That’s what was happening.”

“Did he--did you make him learn that?” Roman asks again, reclining beside his brother.

“No!”

“What?”

“He literally learned it himself. I dunno if he got the video from Shiv, or if--I don’t know. He knows the whole fucking thing. I heard him doing it for Comfrey before I started filming.”

“Fucking--Ken-W-A’s biggest fanboy; Jesus.”

“Ken-W-A,” Kendall parrots in a gasp. “Oh, that’s good. I should have used that.”

“Yeah, well, consult me next time you wanna perform a rap. So I can knock some fucking sense into you. And/or help you with your branding.” Roman pulls out his own phone, digs through his videos and finds something old--Kendall standing in the kitchen at their mother’s, fresh out of his first rehab stay. “You remember this one?”

“No. Is it--what, like, New Years? We did New Years with Mom a few years ago, right?” Kendall hits the play button, and they watch as video Kendall rifles fruitlessly through their mother’s fridge, grimace clear in the morning light. “Fuck, I was skinny. Did I always look like that?”

“No, that was--it was bad then, right after.”

In the video, Roman’s voice from behind the camera: “Hey, Ken.”

“Uh… yeah?” Kendall replies distractedly, not looking.

“I don’t--have I seen this one?” Real life Kendall now murmurs, brows furrowing.

“Look at me for a sec?”

When he turns, it’s revealed that the entire left side of his head of hair is splendidly askew in a dark mop of bedhead, flattened upward like a cartoon smacked with an ironing board. Now Kendall laughs, scandalized by the sight--the sound of it mingling with Roman in the video, unable to control his giggles before the video cuts out. The two of them laughing together at the same sight, separated by a distance of time and technology.

“Dick. You’ve never shown me that.”

“There were a lot of good ones on that trip,” Roman says, scrolling aside past photos: assortments of he and his brother and sister and Mom playing cards and strolling London, smartly dressed. Kendall and Shiv, pressed up against each other’s sides and flipping Roman the bird in tandem; the three of them looking prim through visibly stifled snickers, seated in their mother’s parlor.

“Yeah.” Kendall’s eyes are bright and intent, voice rough with emotion, as they flip through. “God, I forgot Dad took me off Cruises right before that, too. I was so fucking relieved. I felt like I could--breathe again, for a little while.”

“Before you realized the, uh, guilt wasn’t going to slough off your back so easily,” Roman murmurs.

“Right.”

Roman lowers his phone to rest on his belly. “You weren’t--to what extent were you involved, in the end? Just… just sign-offs, right?”
“Just sign-offs,” Kendall assures him quietly. “But--I knew it wasn’t right, from the start. I was just so scared to fuck it up. The biggest position I’d had at that point, after Shanghai, and--everyone told me it was just how all that stuff worked, so I let it happen.” Kendall’s voice lowers further; Roman doesn’t dare scare him off with his gaze, much as he wonders if he can’t guess the expression on his brother’s face. “It was my idea to send them your way, you know. To Studios. I fucking hate myself for that. Made you complicit in it, too.”

Roman takes a slow breath. “That’s why you did it, isn’t it? The whistleblowing--DOJ thing. The press conference.”

“I wanted to make it right,” Kendall concurs. “I really did. But it got mixed up. I --I got mixed up. Got caught up in the… fucking Dad part of it. Trying to hurt him back, just a little. Like a fucking black fly biting a grizzly bear. But I did care. I do, still. Feel bad, about--what I knew, and the fact that it took me so long to even try to do something with it.”

“I know,” Roman murmurs. “I get it.”

They lie there, heavy beneath the weight of their wicked work--but small, too; young. Two boys wearing clothes that smell the same, lying on a made bed together, laughing at old candids. Roman revels in the soft glow of warmth radiating off his brother where their shoulders touch, childishly grieving their proximity in advance.

He makes it last until the sun starts to dip, sherbet orange, over the skyscrapers across the river in Jersey. Sharing videos and photos neither have seen of one another, or forgotten existed; Kendall’s stock of clips his kids have made on his phone, Roman’s collection of pictures of his hand protruding from behind his camera to flip Shiv off. Occassionally, with a sting they share, something of their father--moments of humor, his shape in the background of shots in Southampton, he and Marcia’s home, on the company jets. A video taken by Roman from the luggage rack of a golf cart, Kendall and Logan riding in front and only just audibly talking shit about Tom Wambsgans in the same aped Midwestern accent. A photo from Kendall of Sophie and Iverson playing in the pool at the Summer Palace, Logan just visible in the background, resting on a chaise and chatting with Roman and Shiv. Glimpses into interludes of happiness, even if their rarity proves them the exception, not the rule. Mostly, Logan makes very few appearances in either of their galleries.

Come dusk, Roman and Kendall rouse themselves, sleepy and nostalgic, and return to street level: Roman still mostly orders his groceries delivered, he explains, but he’s been increasingly finding pleasure in frequenting the specialty delis north of his building on Broadway: H Mart, Zabar’s; colorful culinary distractions, some sort of perverse pleasure not in getting the best cheese money can buy, but the best cheese Roman can find. Sort of like a game, he says. Like walking with no direction, all for the aim of getting lost.

Kendall thinks he’s crazy, and says as much.

“Pot and his dear old brother Kettle,” Roman replies.

They bundle for the blue coolness of early spring and walk in silence, Roman doing probably a pretty poor job of hiding the way he follows Kendall’s gaze, studies his expression.

His brother has always been intensely emotional, but never particularly expressive-- robotic , Roman has called him in his crueler diatribes. That hasn’t changed with his diagnosis, medication--but he seems calmer, moves a little slower. Less urgency driving his existence. And maybe that’s something that could only ever have been fixed by the cord of their family’s company being cut--hopefully, Roman thinks, the meds and the meditation and the coddling his siblings insist on foisting upon him are enough to ease the pulsing wound.

A prickle of fear creeps back up his neck at the thought that they might not be.

“Ken--”

“Do you think Shiv’ll be like Mom?” Kendall asks over him, and their eyes meet.

Roman blinks. “Um. What, like, give her kid an eating disorder?”

“Yeah. No,” Kendall says then, shaking his head. “No. Sort of.”

Understanding, Roman nods. Fidgets with the fabric lining the pockets of his coat. “Just, like, shit at it, then.”

“There are nicer ways of putting it, probably,” Kendall murmurs, voice warm with humor. “When she came and visited me, we kind of--it was tense, starting out. I don’t know how much she told you.”

“She’s kept her lips zipped about it,” Roman replies, gesturing for emphasis, “but--yeah, I can imagine.”

“She was doing that Mom thing, pre-empting, like… serious talks we needed to have, about--”

“About the vote,” Roman finishes for him.

“Yeah. With-- oh, I didn’t come here to get guilt-tripped, or--y’know.”

Roman sighs in tired concurrence.

“I shouldn’t have, but I called her on it,” Kendall goes on.

“Wow. Holy shit. How are you still, like, alive right now?”

“She definitely wanted to rip my head off. It wasn’t a good opening.” They arrive at the luxe co-op Roman favors, a few blocks around the corner from his building; Kendall gazes about, appraising the novelty of doing his own shopping. “What do we need?”

“I dunno; what do you want? I’ve got grilled cheese stuff; just need more mayo. You want, like--vegetables, God forbid? Breakfast stuff?”

Kendall scratches his chin, a wry smile painting his discomfort. “Greek yogurt, granola, I guess? We could--salad, with…?”

Roman lightly chucks his cheek with a fist, leading his brother amongst the produce. “Welcome to the real world, bitch.”

“You really like doing this?”

“Fuck yeah. I get to be alone in my fucking house for once. Stand in front of the stove and scroll Instagram with my ass hanging out.” Roman holds up a plastic box of arugula for Kendall to approve, and gets a shrug, nod in reply. “I didn’t use to give a shit; don’t get me wrong. I don’t know what happened. I woke up the morning after we all saw each other in Southampton and the idea of all these fucking people doing shit in my kitchen made me wanna barf. Just the implication that they could go about their lives right beside me while I sat with the reality of my brother nearly offing himself, fucking--” It all comes out before Roman can rethink it, and for a heartbeat he and Kendall meet eyes, looking stupid among the low-watt light and colors of produce. “I mean--you know what I mean.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I don’t wanna talk about it, right… right now, so.”

“It’s okay,” Kendall says softly. “We don’t have to.”

They carry on, quiet, Roman stacking salad fixings in his basketless arms: slivered almonds, dried cranberries.

“I think, if anything--out of spite for Mom, she’ll be alright at it,” Roman eventually resucitates their conversation.

“Yeah, probably. If we know anything about Shiv, it’s that spite can take her a long way.” Kendall eyes a bag of granola. “Damn, this stuff’s got--tea leaves in it. Dried hibiscus and shit.”

“Get whatever you want. My pantry’s still mostly empty,” Roman replies offhandedly. “What was the food like in Silver Hill?”

“Pretty good. I mean, not at the beginning, when my side effects were really--all I could keep down was, like, unbuttered toast and fucking--banana wheels.”

Roman scoffs. “Did the bananas come wheeled, or was that specially catered to your preferences?”

“Obviously I demanded my bananas were wheeled. No, dude, I fucking wheeled ‘em myself. To put on the toast. Duh.” Kendall hums--in a murmur beneath his voice, Roman hears him say, “Fuck, maybe I want bananas, too.”

“I’d think you’d never be able to stomach any of the shit you had in there again. Loony cake-style. For, y’know, trauma shit,” Roman hazards. It surprises him when Kendall laughs at that, gently.

“I’ll never be able to eat a bodega bagel again,” Kendall replies. “Silver Hill wasn’t traumatic, I don’t think. It was… it was scary, or--it was a lot at first, yeah, but--I mean, I dunno. I guess I’m only a day out. But I don’t think it was traumatic, besides the seizure, maybe. Mostly it felt like, like… Rava said it was just breathing room. A break. I think she was right about that.”

“Besides the what?”

Kendall blinks at him.

“Besides the--what did you just say? Fucking--seizure?” The back of Roman’s throat is thick with saltwater.

“Um. Yeah.” Kendall looks at his feet, teeters elsewhere in the aisle, pretending to eye the stock. “Sorry. I forgot I hadn’t… I told Connor.”

“Oh, well, if you told Connor ,” Roman snaps icily.

“It wasn’t a big deal, Rome,” Kendall retorts. “They switched me to a different antipsychotic; it was a bad fit. Just--convulsions. I was asleep; they got me on fluids and put me back on the other stuff right after. It happens.”

“Sure. Well. If it’s just--one of those things that happens.” Steaming, Roman forces himself to take a breath. “Just once? Just on the other meds?”

“Nothing like it’s happened before or since,” Kendall assures him. “It was a few weeks ago. I didn’t want to worry you guys.”

Roman pins him with a glare, newly burning with anger--sort of wants to batter Kendall over the head with their box of salad greens, were he not now freshly paranoid about knocking something in his brother’s brain loose.

To his credit, Kendall seems to taste the sourness in his words. “Sorry. That isn’t...”

“Fuck you, dude,” Roman exhales, weary and final. “That ship’s fucking sailed.”

Kendall shadows Roman past the dairy fridges, tailing like a scolded child. More intelligent responses than mere expletives fester in Roman’s chest: how would Kendall feel if Roman or Shiv kept something from him on the grounds of saving him the worry? How patronizing, how cruel. All Roman does these days is worry about Kendall. All he’s ever done is worry about Kendall. Before the hospital, before Southampton, before the pool. For as many years as Roman’s been old enough to see his brother for the (spectacularly) fallible human he is, Roman has worried--a permanent hum beneath the machinations of his being.

Briefly--horribly--he wonders if he might well be a phone call away from a neighboring universe where that constant was relieved, just over a month ago. All those wordless fears finally justified.

In his periphery, Roman sees Kendall pick up a pack of Greek yogurt cups, and then a bottled drink from a fridge by the checkout lines--kombucha; Roman turns its label over in his hands before he lets Kendall stack it on the scale, and Kendall lets him, knowing what he’s looking for.

“I got this. You’re unemployed,” Kendall says, slipping a card from his wallet when it comes time to pay.

Roman can’t help himself; his words come out in a laugh: “So are you, bitch.”

Kendall lugs their paper bag out into the cold, Roman close at his side. While they walk, Roman chews his words--the air once again cleared, he feels the need to serve up a peace offering.

“You remember Alec Greer?” Roman begins.

“Uhh…” Kendall’s brows furrow, eyes pinch shut in thought--he always prided himself on his expertise of the greater Waystar org chart, Roman recalls. Kiss-ass. But this is a deep cut; Kendall’s at a disadvantage, never having worked Studios. “He was a… a something? Under Joy Palmer, right?”

“PA when I was at Studios,” Roman says. “He’s head now. Took over after Joy.”

“Huh. Okay. Why?”

“He messaged me the other day.” Roman purses his lips. “Sort of… propositioning me, for--”

“Woah. You and him have a little something when you were out there?”

“F-for--to work for him; fuck you,” Roman snaps, cheeks heating brilliantly. “VP of Studios. They’re prepping for Waystar to sell. I know we’re not supposed to--we don’t have to talk about this; sorry. I don’t know why I--”

“No, dude, it’s cool,” Kendall assures him. “I’m--it’s okay, today.”

Roman eyes him doubtfully, his earnest expression. “Today?”

“Some days it’s worse than others. I have--trouble with it, talking about it.” Kendall smirks. “Less so with the peripherals--Studios, stuff I didn’t have a hand in. Today’s fine, I think. I mean, I wouldn’t be thrilled to run into, fucking--Lukas Matsson, but…”

Roman swallows, unsmiling, and gives a hesitant nod. “Except with a city bus, maybe.”

Kendall laughs, loud and bright--it shocks Roman, the humor his brother finds in this. And then he looks back at Roman in prompting, awaiting context, and Roman is battered by a fresh wave of uncertainty.

“I didn’t hate L.A.; I just hated being stuck out there with Frank, but--I dunno. About the job, or--maybe I’ll just be one of those rich kids who never works another day in his life.”

“The three bil’ from the sale could probably last you if you kept up dialing back on the luxuries,” Kendall agrees. He hefts their grocery bag a little higher up in his arms, pointed. “ This was, like, thirty bucks. That’s the least I’ve spent on food since Stewy and I were living on a diet of instant ramen and Easy Mac during finals week.”

Roman furrows his brows. “You told me your favorite college ramen topping was a spoonful of beluga caviar.”

“Well, yeah, but one of those cans goes a long way. Drop a thou’ on one every couple weeks; besides that your only expenses are beer and 50 cent Maruchan cups.” Kendall eyes him. “It was fun when we were all out West, in Riviera. Pretending Dad didn’t exist.”

“Pretending we could run a business together without killing each other,” Roman adds, and then regrets for his callousness. “I mean--I maintain that we could have.”

“Had I not gone insane?”

Roman smirks. “You were always insane. The--the paper, the thing in the safe, and then Matsson being a dick--that made you… just, bad insane. As opposed to--anyways, whatever. I dunno. I sort of feel good sticking around in New York, now that we’re all… I mean, and Shiv’s--gotta stick around for my baby mama, right?”

“You are fucking foul, dude,” Kendall laughs. “I could see relocating to L.A. down the line, for--for me, y’know. Once Sophie and Ives are in college, or--wherever they end up. I liked it out there. Swimming year-round sounds pretty good.”

“Oh.” Roman watches the sidewalk move beneath his feet. “Well, I dunno. Maybe I’ll put a pin in it.”

And if Kendall is amused by Roman’s turnabout, he’s generous enough not to call him on it.

They arrive back at Roman’s, and Kendall sits at the counter--looking, for once, thoroughly conscious of his unhelpfulness--while Roman cooks. But Roman finds it satisfying: the cooking, sure, but the cooking for his brother in particular; holding Kendall hostage with the generosity of care previously provided exclusively by hired help. It’s a new dynamic, uncomfortable for Kendall, pleasant for Roman. Giving to his sibling a kindness that, after a month of practice, is negligible to him. What a well-rounded rich kid he is, taking such good care of himself he can extend the skill to another! And in the face of Kendall’s compliments, Roman unabashedly glows, in spite of his snide retorts in half-hearted self defense. Because his food is fucking good --and Kendall doesn’t need to know that half the battle is working with quality stock, which tends to indicate itself easily enough with high price tags. Living without an orbit of hired help is, as it turns out, pretty fucking easy.

Kendall doesn’t last long after they eat--satiated, he drifts at their informal dining place at the kitchen counter, the weight of the day’s gravity pulling his eyelids heavy and his replies short and slow. Despite his pleas to do the dinner dishes at the very least, Roman shoos him away, listening over the sound of the sink as Kendall readies himself for an early bed: brushes his teeth, takes his nighttime dose of meds, changes into a tee-shirt and sweats from the suitcase Greg brought him.

He comes back out to stand in the guest room threshold as Roman is kicking the dishwasher shut.

“Turning in?”

“Uh-huh. I’m fucking…” Kendall rubs a bleary eye. “I’m wiped, dude.”

“Big day,” Roman agrees.

“Sure, I mean--sitting around while you chauffeur and cook for me and shit. Yeah. Tiring stuff.”

“Enduring any activity with me is a draining endeavour; c’mon,” Roman scoffs.

Kendall fixes him with a smile, tired in more ways than one, and shakes his head. “Nah. Hey. Thank you.”

“Gross. No. We’re not doing that,” Roman grimaces, ducking his head to walk around the counter to his brother’s side. “Not allowed to… to thank me, for--no.”

He bumps Kendall’s shoulder against his and Kendall understands, as he so often does, what Roman needs but is too prickly to ask for. Kendall opens his arms, and Roman lurches hesitantly into them. Somehow he is unable to return the embrace, a stilted reflection of their first hug upon reunion at the hospital this afternoon, Kendall’s arms full with his luggage--but Kendall is nonplussed now, typical of him, his paradoxical openness with physical affection. Roman doesn’t know where Kendall got that from, with Roman and Shiv being as constipated about it all as they are.

Roman can only take it for so long before he wriggles away, claps Kendall on the shoulder. “Alright, off to bed with you. Come, fucking--get me if you need anything. Is what I would say if I was… super lame, and cared. Whatever. Goodnight.” Kendall is laughing as Roman gives him a shove back into his room. When the door shuts between them, Roman feels the elastic pull in his heart at their separation, if only by that small margin.

--

Kendall’s brother is back at his side, and the excruciating sheen of the new world has dimmed to gentle darkness.

Every night for the past five weeks Kendall has woken like clockwork, delirious with thirst. It’s an effect of the lithium, his mood stabilizer--before bed and upon waking he chugs bottles of water, all through the day, at least once in the night. Feels like all he’s done in the hospital between counseling sessions is drink and piss and drink and piss and drink some more. It’s something to do, at least, he thinks. Distraction from the moments of lurching terror at the directionlessness of his life, the dark yearning for booze, coke, death, anything that will soften the blinding brightness of his existence since brought into stark relief.

Kendall wakes disoriented, hand reaching out to flounder around atop the surface of the bedside table for his water bottle--empty. Only now does he recognize he’s no longer in his dorm at the hospital, but the sterile guest room of his brother’s penthouse, presumably unused of yet.

Kendall rights himself, bleary, blinking between pitch dark and the soft orange of urban glow through the drawn curtains. His squint settles on a shape in the armchair in the corner of the room, a hunched figure: Roman, he realizes before the sight can spook him. Curled up in what looks like an awfully uncomfortable tangle but nonetheless sound asleep.

Kendall exhales fondness. He doubted the inkling he’s felt all day of his brother’s clinginess at first--probably just projection of his own reticence to be alone--but over the course of their time spent together it has become obvious to Kendall that Roman is equally hungry for company. Suffering withdrawals of his own, and sticking like a burr as a result.

Kendall clambers quietly out of bed, sneaking on soft feet to the kitchen with his water bottle. He fills it from the filtered pitcher in the fridge, standing in the frosty light, its cast of cold, to guzzle half the bottle. So cold it hurts his chest, sets a low ringing in his ears.

Such that he can’t hear the sudden buzz of dazed activity in the guest room behind him, the sound of his brother’s half-woken mumble calling out for him--and so what happens next happens quite quickly.

What Kendall feels, still sleepy, when he walks back down the hall with his refilled bottle to hear his name called with increasingly panicked volume is confusion moreso than anything else: misunderstanding of its meaning; has he done something wrong? “Rome?”

“Ken? Kendall?” And then the blur of Roman spills from the guest room door, the two of them crashing together head-on; water bottle cold with condensation slipping unceremoniously from Kendall’s hand and cracking into a handful of neat, sharp pieces on the floor between them. Kendall can only stare stupidly at the mess for a heartbeat before Roman’s hands are on his shoulders, just this side of too firm. “Where were you? What were--where--?”

“Um. Just. Water?” Kendall utters, pointing down dumbly. Lots happening right now. His socked feet are ice-cold and soaked through and about all the logic he can conjure is that there is glass on the floor, which he kneels to gather. “Sorry. Sorry, let me…”

Roman follows him down, and they reach for the same piece of glass; perhaps in some kind of protectiveness, Kendall tugs back against Roman’s grip, and hisses when he feels the shard’s edge slice through his fingertip, shallow as a papercut and just as painful. Kendall holds his hand up to eye the damage, blood beading at the line’s fine red edge, and only now sees Roman-- really sees him--sunken-faced and blurring into focus behind it. Slowly, Kendall tumbles into waking awareness, brows furrowing at the sight of what he finally comprehends is an expression of abject terror on his brother’s face.

“Hey. It’s--it’s okay. It’s just a little--”

“I thought you--I didn’t know where you--” Roman’s breath is quick and uneven. “Y-you were gone, and I thought--I didn’t put the knives away, somewhere you couldn’t--”

“You… what?”

“In the kitchen.” Roman’s voice is raising ever higher, every statement pitched like a question. “But it wasn’t--you were just--water? I just got--I was confused, I didn’t…”

“Rome. Rome, it’s cool. I’m fine. I’m sorry I scared you.”

Hand open in appeasement between them, Roman stares down at the tiny thread of blood marking Kendall’s fingertip. Kendall watches as his expression slowly twists with emotion--unreadable at first, then clear in its viscous fury.

“Ro?” Kendall murmurs.

“I’ll never fucking forgive you.” Stunned, Kendall watches as a tear slips down his brother’s clenched jaw. “How could you? How could you just--just leave me?”

Slowly, Kendall feels his whole body go cold and numb, sick with grief, as he listens to Roman finally release his well of sorrow in squeaky, childish sobs. He’s afraid to reach out, but does it anyways, wrapping his fingers around Roman’s wrist and leaving a smudge of blood on his milky skin. Roman comes tumbling into him--lurches forward to land half in his lap, face pressed fiercely into the crook of Kendall’s neck and shoulder. It’s familiar, this position they find themselves in. Instinctive, Kendall feels his hand rise up to press against the back of Roman’s head, pull him in closer, punishingly so. But he fights it back, just furls his fingers in the fabric of his brother’s shirt. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“I don’t care. It’s not enough,” Roman protests. Kendall can feel the dampness of his spit and tears against his collar. “I wish you’d just do it. Please, just fucking go so I can, too. So I can stop feeling like this, like--like I’m fucking choking whenever I can’t see you.”

Kendall shakes his head against Roman’s shoulder. “No. No, Rome.”

“I can’t take it. It’s all I can fucking think about, and I can’t do it.”

“I’m sorry,” Kendall hisses, eyes squeezed shut tight. “I’m so sorry. I’m not going anywhere. I’m here, Ro, I’m here.”

He lets his hand rise to the back of his brother’s head, feather-light--barely whispering over the softness of his hair, a suggestion of comfort.

“I want you to hurt me again.”

Kendall bites down hard on the inside of his cheek.

“Please.” Roman’s forehead digs hard into the bone of Kendall’s collar, fruitless as Kendall recoils from it. “It’d make this easier. Just--please. Please, just make me hate you.”

“I can’t, Roman,” Kendall exhales. “I’m sorry, I--I can’t; I can’t do that again. Not ever.”

“Please,” Roman insists, voice a ragged wail. “ Please .”

“C’mere. Come on,” Kendall whispers. He pulls Roman up to stand, supporting him against his dampened shoulder as he shrugs him towards the guest bed. Messily running a wrist over his eyes, Roman climbs in, Kendall following behind him. He threads his arms around his brother’s torso and pulls him close to him back to his chest, lungs working in time together. Too close for their age, for--everything; Kendall doesn’t care, knows Roman would probably make some horrible joke if he weren’t so broken right now. Needing more than anything for his brother to hold him together, not give him a new wound. No matter what experience, their father, have taught him. Neck craned forward so he can rest his forehead against the back of Roman’s scalp, breathing with slow effort into the wispy hair on his neck.

“You wanted to leave me,” Roman whispers, clutching at one of Kendall’s hands where it holds him by the collarbone. “You fucking asshole. You were going to leave with only that shitty fucking note to--as penance. I fucking hate you, Kendall. I hate you.”

“I know. I know.” Kendall is grateful for their position, face-to-back. He can handle these words; he’s heard them plenty before--but to see his brother’s mouth speak them would be too much, now. He’s worn down, sensitive. “I love you.”

“You don’t. Not enough.” Roman’s nails dig into the skin of Kendall’s hand. In reply, Kendall only hugs him tighter. “I’ll never, ever forgive you. I don’t know how I’m ever gonna trust you again. That you won’t just--without saying anything, without giving us a chance--”

“I won’t, Rome. I’m here. I know. I know I have to earn your trust. I will; I promise I will.”

To be somebody his siblings can believe in, whether that is some paragon of wellness or the overmedicated husk of who he once was--that’s all Kendall wants anymore. Their pride feels too generous. Trust, if only in his continued survival; he can plod through the remainder of a life with that.

Roman’s body shakes with quiet sobs against Kendall’s. Hands clutched in comfort, in punishment.

“It’s my fault,” Roman finally rejoins in a broken whisper. “It’s all my fault, isn’t it?”

“No.”

“I should’ve stuck by you. I should’ve convinced her. It’s because of us you tried to go. We’re--we almost killed you; we almost killed our brother.”

“No,” Kendall says again. “No. It’s not your fault. It’s--it’s not anyone’s.” In spite of himself, he laughs wearily. “Really. Not ours, not even Dad’s. It’s just--I don’t know, Romey. It’s too much, still, to, to--put all together. It’s a million things. Our dad got beat and raised us wrong and Mom didn’t teach us how to talk about our feelings and I’m sick and never knew because mental health awareness is crazy fucking stigmatized in corporate America and, and--I don’t know. I didn’t try to do it so I could leave you; I wanted to die because I thought I’d already lost you.”

Roman steadies his breath enough to speak: “I’m sorry.”

“I am, too.” Kendall presses his forehead hard against Roman’s crown, eyes shut tight to mitigate their salty sting. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

“Okay, well,” Roman loosens his grip on Kendall’s hands, briefly, to free one of his own and draw it across his face with a sodden sniffle, “I’m more sorry, so.”

“Fuck you,” Kendall laughs, and he feels Roman laugh, too, their lungs pressed together, working as one. “Shut up.”

--

Roman has taken pains in life to avoid waking up in his bedfellows’ arms--low-ranking in his list of favorite sensations, he thinks. So it takes him a moment of dawning lucidity to recall that today’s pair of arms are, in fact, his brother’s--and God, what a rich vein of disgusting jokes he could make about this, a balm over the discomfort he feigns to cover up just how desperately he wants to be glommed to his siblings’ sides every fucking day. If only Roman didn’t revile physical affection so much, he could really use more of it, if the restfulness of last night’s sleep is any indication.

He wriggles this way and that, kicking a heel back against Kendall’s thighs to shoo him away. In protest, Kendall grumbles, moves a hand from where it’s resting draped across Roman’s side to give his face a few indelicate pats.

“Stop it,” Roman spits against his brother’s palm.

“ Mm. What time is it?”

“Time for you to fuck off. Let me--” Before Roman can wrest himself from the sheets, Kendall cranes over him to reach his phone on the nightstand, purposely letting his torso flatten Roman beneath him. Roman lands a jab in his brother’s side to keep himself from rewarding Kendall’s foolishness with laughter.

Kendall gets ahold of his phone and finally rolls off, thumping onto his back with his phone on his chest, staring up at the ceiling. Cautious, he casts Roman a glance. Roman pretends not to see.

“You okay?”

“I mean, all my ribs are broken, probably, from… the steamrolling, just now. But yeah. Y’know. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Right.” Kendall looks at him earnestly now, sitting up against the headboard with a grunt, clicking his nails idly against the back of his phone. “Just--hard night, maybe. You sleep okay?”

Roman searches for a tart response, but comes up empty. Legs pulled up, chin resting on his knees, he gazes out the window at the day outside. Billowing clouds scattered over chilly blue.

Better than I have in months, he wants to say, but can’t. “Eh. You kick.”

Kendall’s wry smile tells Roman he knows this is a lie. “Listen, um, Rome, you can--we can talk more about it, if you want.”

“I don’t, particularly,” Roman snips. “To talk about it, or think about it, but--here we are. Not a lot of choice in the matter.”

But he feels the way his sharpness wounds the bleeding heart of his brother; always does. Once it might’ve been easy for him to ignore it. Sighing, Roman runs his fingers through his hair.

“You’re working at an advantage, you know--over us, me and Shiv. Got to take a fucking intensive course in talking shit out while we sat here waiting for them to set you loose,” he mutters. “The big, weepy, cathartic brain-dumps, Ken, they’re not--I can’t just… turn ‘em on, I don’t think.”

Kendall smiles gently. “Yeah. No, I know. Whenever you’re ready, is all I mean. But, um--” He stretches and stands, peering at his phone. “I’ve got this… NA meeting, I guess? In an hour-ish. Lenox Hill. Just… heads up.”

“Right.” The dread settles slowly, then the humiliation over top of it--an unspoken question hanging stagnant in the stale air. Roman pulls himself from the bed and idles, awkward, not quite able to meet his brother’s eye. “Right.”

“You wanna come with?”

“Yeah, uh, fuck no. I’ll leave the sobriety to you, Captain Straight Edge. More for the rest of us.” Roman runs a hand over his face, rubs the puckered line of the scar above his left brow. Shit. He tries again: “Y’know, when a dog gets--separation anxiety, or whatever, the solution isn’t taking it around everywhere in your purse.”

Kendall exhales something that resembles laughter. Roman hazards a look at him, finds he’s rifling around in his suitcase for clothes. “Yeah, well. You’re not a dog, Ro.”

Dad would’ve told you different.

Kendall disappears into the bathroom, leaving the door cracked as he splashes his face and doles clattering pills into his hand from a lineup of prescription bottles. Roman sits on the edge of the bed, tense. Runs his hands rhythmically over the jersey fabric on his knees.

“I probably wouldn’t be allowed to come, anyway,” Roman hears himself say.

“My counselors said family’s encouraged to tag along, actually.” Kendall reappears in the bathroom threshold, leaning against the doorframe. “Not like addiction only affects the addict. It’s, like--it can be good, I think. Contextualizes stuff.”

“You and your platitudes,” Roman mutters, picking at his sweats.

Kendall steps close to him; Roman sees his socked toes appear in his periphery, standing before him, and then feels the delicate, warm weight of a palm rested atop his head--familiar, an echo of something that came before, tethered and gentle. Roman feels a lump press against the back of his throat, and he leans forward enough to rest his crown on Kendall’s stomach.

“I can’t just fucking… follow you around, man. That’s not--we’re not kids; we’ve gotta live our own lives,” Roman whispers. In the back of his mind, he maps the train lines between here and Lexon Hill--the unfenced stretches of track, the tallest buildings, the bridges.

“I dunno, Rome, I’m still mustering up… wanting a life, period. Having one all my own sort of sounds like too much to manage.”

“Shut up,” he hisses. “Don’t fucking say that.”

“I just mean--”

“I know what you mean.” Roman squeezes his eyes shut. “You know what Dad said to me, when we were kids? ‘You can’t be your big brother’s pet forever, Romulus.’”

“You were never my pet,” Kendall murmurs. “No matter what--stupid, fucked up games he made us play, to torture each other. You’re my brother. We were kids, man, and he was threatened by the majority we had over him. You know that, right? He liked us best at each other’s throats. I don’t care what Dad said; the whole fucking reason I’m still here is because of you, the three of you. I don’t want a life without you in it. So fucking be it if that means we have to get sick of each other before we reconfigure where all our boundaries lie.”

Roman thinks he could be sick if he weren’t so staggered by the truth, the relief of that. 

“Please, Rome? I’m worried about you.”

“You’re worried about--?” Roman sits bolt upright at this, stands, gets up in his brother’s face. “Dude, shut up. Shut up. What? You tried to off yourself. You’re fresh out of the fucking loony bin, for Christ’s sake; I’m--I’m fucking fine; why are you worried about me? Are you fucking crazy?”

“I mean,” Kendall blinks. “Yeah? Yes.”

Roman rips him into a hug, out of practice, not sure how to do this without squeezing the air out of his brother’s lungs. “Fuck off. Shut up,” he mumbles against Kendall’s shoulder.

“I’m always worried about you.”

“Shut up. Shut up.” Roman squeezes his eyes shut. “I’ll come; I’ll come to your stupid meeting, okay? Just don’t be--don’t… don’t worry about me. Fucking--please.”

Softly, Kendall laughs, patting Roman’s back. “I’m your brother, dude; I can’t help it.”

Ugh. Another of the curses of this bloodline, Roman supposes. Again he wishes Kendall would batter him, open a wound in him, make it easier to revolt against the warmth of him, familiar as a womb.

Just this once, though, maybe he can let himself have the warmth. For a second, a slow, deep breath they share--before Roman shuffles out of his brother’s embrace and struggles, all the way to the rehab center in Lenox Hill, to meet eyes with him. It’s a lot, still--far more than Roman has ever thought he deserved. But in the moments he can step outside of himself throughout the morning, he is overcome with happy calm; the world is full of light.