Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He's been trying to look on the bright side: he'll be escaping the Santa Ana winds by the skin of his teeth. Soon he'll be back up north, where the blisters on his cheeks will heal faster than they came, and where sweat won't pool so thickly under a coat like this.

It'll feel fucked regardless that Greg should be wearing anything of his dad's, tweed or otherwise. His mom tells him with a sour twist to her smile that, save for the shag, the man in the mirror is a spitting image. Greg of course could never have determined that on his own without a picture. He's got no memory of that looming figure ever in these clothes. She could easily have lied, said that these were meant to be a Christmas gift but he should have them now, and he'd have believed her just fine, and that makes him feel all the more nauseous.

"It was too colorful for his job," she says. In retrospect it sounds intentional that Greg is confused. She's got him pulling the dusty brown sleeve up to his eyes to find some subtle plaid that he must have been blind to, and is in no rush to add, "You know—black and gray only. I think he wore it on the boat here. Other than that I think I saw him in it just once or twice... to a party, or something."

Predictably, she doesn't seem eager to speak more on the subject. Greg sees it in her eyes and her folded arms and knows to bite back further questions either for next time or to be forgotten entirely. Even if he didn't, she immediately tugs at his trousers.

"You're so goddamned skinny. I'll have to put another notch in that belt."

"They fit fine, Mom," he insists. "Any tighter and it'll just hurt my hips."

She's not listening. "I'm not getting your hair all over my floor, though. You'll have to go to a barber for that."

"Wh—no, wait, cut my HAIR?" 

"Yes, cut your hair. You look like a matted fucking dog, Greg."

"Well that's... untrue, and unnecessary," he huffs and starts taking the coat off. "Maybe before I showered. But that's not even my fault because I can't really be expected to bathe while hitchhiking for a week—"

"Above the shoulders," she says—a simple demand. And she manages to sound incredibly disappointed while she does it. His mother's gaze remains on the coat and button-up while he removes and folds them, as though she disapproves of him opting for comfort in any circumstance. "...I mean it, Greg. You need Uncle Logan to take you seriously. Do you want a job or not?"

"I mean... a job, sure—yes, absolutely," he corrects upon watching the sharp tilt of her head. Without really noticing he's started toward the fan to turn it up, facing opposite her for a thankful moment, and he almost loses his own voice in the buzz. "I'm just, like... I'm sorry, Mom, I can't just lie and pretend that I have no qualms about working for a company that, y'know, actively supports the war? Like, they even helped fund it, I think—?"

"Oh, knock it off." She drops his belt on the kitchen table and stretches the distance between them further, shouting across the room and then across the house, "Take the opportunity or don't. But I swear to god this is the last time I'm holding your hand through this shit, Greg! I can't keep doing this!"

He stares down the empty hallway and groans.

"...I know, I'm sorry."

His mom certainly can't hear it. He doesn't really want her to. He barely hears it, over the fan or particularly, as he falls backwards over the couch, the TV.

—folks better prep your iceboxes and medicine cabinets if you haven't already. Yes, the devil winds will be picking up in Orange County later this week, as you can see, the evening forecast continues, repeating what Greg saw just hours earlier. Even then it was warning him away from here simultaneously too early and too late, and most of all too fucking jovial. Greg wishes that the weathergirl could somehow see his contempt from her side of the screen.

Longtime locals know, but newcomers and transients listen up: expect annually low humidity, highly increased risk of wildfire, dust and other allergens, fever, otherwise unexplainable irritability, tension, uncertainty, and generally... strange behavior in humans and animals alike. From now until March, just blame the winds, because anything can happen.

Greg mouths knowingly with her at the end: Back to you, Mark.

*

The so-called "real world" that awaits him is met by Greg's body first and his soul a far, far second. For the days spent in the limbo of his mother's house, he'd dreaded the state of his nerves—it would track perfectly from the fears he maintained, however irrational, simply by being out of Canada with no certain journey back. Surely everyone will know he doesn't belong there. He wasn't trying to get out of it anymore when he voiced it to his mom, either. It was a genuine feeling in his gut that his professional dress would be transparent, and the worn denim and literal politics on his old sleeves would shine through, and that he would go hopelessly careening rather than achieve anything with this trip. However, Greg seems to have incidentally followed his mom's advice by the time he lands in New York.

Unable to be pushed any further, his nerves go so quiet as to keep Greg feeling utterly unreal for a good deal of the visit. He moves through the crowd at the airport with little going on inside of him at all. Mere hunger takes him to the first street corner cafe that he comes upon, and it's unrelated to his past experience with the city that he eats with no novelty.

Even at the initial lunch, later, at his uncle's townhouse, through all the snippy pleasantries with the relatives he mostly forgot about in all the years of hardly being able to even mention them, if only because he'd face accusations of being some pathological liar... Greg is just hardly truly there. And he does try. The oft-repeated would you just apply yourself echoes in his head and he looks inward, only to struggle to find anything to apply. At best he nods his head with wide eyes at some eager stories of Connor, by whose side Greg has wound up plastered, and he angles desperately for a sense of urgency.

It's hard when the one notably friendly face here isn't familiar whatsoever. When Greg was last young enough to remember interactions with this side of the family, the guy was serving in the Korean war. He tells a tale of his time there and laughs about the exchange this essentially was with him and his dad—that he was to make himself a man out there if he wanted his comfort paid for with Royco's money, and boy oh boy did I! And Greg flinches his way into reality. He feels a mild churn in his stomach.

"So you don't—you're not a part of the company at all?" is one of the first real questions he manages to ask, to this man or anyone else.

"Oh, no, hah, it's not for me..."

Connor looks around the room, a bit sadly, perhaps pointedly to note that all three of his younger siblings are on the other side of a door with their dad, and have been for most of the time since Logan's arrival. Perhaps Greg should have looked past the signs of being well-read and realized long ago he was sitting with the dud. He's suddenly antsy.

"Well, y'know, I did do a bit of a tour, you could say," Connor continues, unreasonably upbeat. "Thought I might wanna get in there at Labs in Connecticut, put my analytical brain to the test, chart radio waves and... and help invent things, I suppose. Really, the research that goes on in there—I'm probably legally bound not to even allude, y'know, but just between us? I've got an educated guess that true subliminal messaging is right around the corner. It's something in the ridges of vinyl."

"...Uh huh."

"Yeah, wicked stuff. Those bastards out in 'Nam won't know what hit 'em. None of us will—I swear, I promise ya' Greg, the war'll be over like a rug pulled under us. It's all connected."

Greg tries to steer Connor back to earth—"Did you try to work anywhere else? In RBN, I mean."

"Huh? Oh—yeah, I looked around. I actually did lend some of my property to a couple of educational films they put out a few years back. They needed a good wide-open desert-y space to safely blow up some barrels, and I got to roll 'em into the shot and they acknowledged me in the credits... Yeah, hah, that was fun. Oh, almost forgot, music too—we got some instrument manufacturers some years back too, and I'd had a bit of a phase—I actually recorded an album once, nevermind that Dad wouldn't let it go to stores, but that's unrelated. Hm. Anyway, I checked out the warehouses for kicks, thought about designing a guitar or something, maybe. But honestly, Greg... the ranch is just where my heart's at. I always wound up back there."

At any point that he finds himself relating, Greg just feels mildly embarrassed. In trying not to imagine everyone he's ever spoken to about his nonexistent career, he recalls what his mom told him and decides now that she wasn't exaggerating—that there's a million jobs at RBN waiting to be filled by anyone who ingratiates themself enough. She only ever stopped trying herself because she had a son to raise.

Seems that after Greg's birth she just lost this side of the family almost entirely. Whether purposefully or not he's been made to feel quite guilty about it, and then moreso through the memories that Connor has to share of his mom, especially from before she'd met his dad.

"I'm sure she's told you all about me, too," Connor grins, to which Greg feels obligated to lie.

It's strange most of all when the rest pile back in from their meeting in the other room, and a now more conscious Greg realizes how little he recognizes any of them. To know factually that these people are family but the closest connection they've really got is his grandfather, whose long face and flat mouth he does see in Connor, but it scarcely trickles any further down. Come to think of it, Greg may have had nearly these same exact thoughts when he visited last. Some child's version of it.

When they eat, for all Greg's fears of being thrown out like the infiltrator he is, the eldest brother is still the only one who really acknowledges him. He thinks of self-sabotage when he tries to join in on the conversation and still receives but glances—and once, he thinks, it's so isolated he can't be sure, a shut up from Roman.

Marcia does thank him when he compliments her on the meal, and he hears Logan laugh when she assures him that she'll pass his kind words to the kitchen.

Greg tries, then, to hide as much of himself as he can behind a glass of wine. He's got no business being here, he thinks more fiercely than before. At least not claiming to celebrate Uncle Logan's birthday. Even if he is the one face that's changed so little that Greg genuinely knows it.

How many wives has this guy had, now, anyway? It couldn't have been Marcia the last time. The other woman was paler, more severe in his memory. Greg had to be no older than eight, but he wouldn't forget it—her shrewd, very English voice, beckoning her husband over to admonish their son. And Logan's eyes on him, for much longer then than they've done all this afternoon put together, bright and laughing when he heard what... Roman? Must have been Roman. What the little asshole called him. All Greg remembers the man saying was hey, son, let's leave the word 'fucking' out of it until Christmas is over, hm?

People wouldn't call you that if you just didn't act like one, was the message he got then and many times thereafter. Greg has to imagine that the rest of this only goes well if by Uncle Logan's judgment, he truly no longer does. Once again he mentally prepares for everything to go back to normal.

*

The limousine ride is like another dream. It's only after, as the field's cool air smacks him underneath the eyes and wakes him up again, that it occurs to Greg that his cousins were likely laughing at and not with his awe at the extravagance of it all.

At least Roman was in the other car, is what he decides to think. He should be relieved in general. They've come to play baseball of all things. When Logan announced to jeering that it was time for "the game," and then as the group collectively refused to let him in on it, Greg's only thought was the most dangerous one of all. By comparison this leaves him ample room to finally approach with his gift.

The box fit easily inside his father's coat's inner pocket. Rather than cover it up with some patterned paper he opted, with his mother's advice when she shoved it into his hands, to simply let the wood be the wrapping. Better you not make him do the work of figuring out what it is.

He kept his coat buttoned, the gift tucked close to his body for the entirety of his flight here like it was precious cargo. He brings it into the open air with a similar caution. It's his key, his mom drilled into his head. The last loan she'd ever give him. Not including, of course, funds for the plane ticket and a hostel stay as long as it takes to receive a first paycheck. What she pawned to get the money, he's promised to replace once he can.

The birthday boy is too old to do anything but watch the rest play, so he seems a perfect balance of unoccupied and alert when Greg formally presents himself, soul and all.

That he now gets to be the one looking down on Uncle Logan seems to help in the thick of it. The wind cuts at the back of his newly exposed neck but Greg doesn't mourn his long hair for too long. He focuses instead on the change in the other man's face when he opens the box, and lets that fuel him.

"So hey, actually, I've been between jobs for a bit, and I was thinking about getting into, you know, the family business."

When Logan merely squints up at him, Greg almost forgets how to ask.

"...Do you s'pose, uh... might there be room for me here?"

"What, my brother doesn't take care of you? He's not hiring at the ranch?"

"Well—I'm sure he is, uh, sir, but I'm really more interested in, y'know... the show-business side of things? I'm—I'm very intuitive, I promise you that, and I train well—say, camerawork on a show, or... or set design? Something like that? I could learn the ropes no problem. I could intern, I could do—just something small, you know, to start, and... then work my way up."

"...Work your way up, huh?"

Greg nods, hopeful, but still feels he's waiting far too long for a real response. He swallows.

"You know, I think my grandpa—your brother, would agree, really, that what you do is something I'm much more suited to. Outdoor labor was never really my thing—"

"You just said that you trained well," Logan interrupts, proving that all this has nothing to do with his advanced age.

Greg loses a bit of his footing but tries to keep a face.

"Yes!—yes, I do, just... I guess, anything but that—"

"If my brother feels so strongly that his own grandson ought to be on my side of things, he should be arsed to at least send a note."

And with that, he begins to walk away.

"Wait—" Greg frantically leaps around to Logan's front again—"but... wouldn't you say the cufflinks—?

"Are a fine gift," the man agrees, with a knowing smile. "Thank you."

*

Tom is aiming to take Logan's spot, crossing the field promptly as he watches the old man do the same, but also casually enough not to be noticed—to catch the kid off guard. The plan is foiled seconds later when he wavers where he stands, twisting around as though lost and then meeting Tom's eyes. And something else—an earlier suspicion suddenly made solid—takes him over.

"Hey you... I saw you," Tom half-shouts, still several paces away. Cousin Greg just tilts his head and Tom speeds up and grins. "I definitely saw you. Earlier today at the airport... Small fucking world, huh?"

The guy pats Greg on the arm with such familiarity that he can't help but smile back, but it quickly devolves, without explanation, into yet more confusion. A small noise gets lodged in his throat as he frowns and shakes his head.

"...You did fly here from LA, right?"

"Oh—yeah, actually," he confirms.

"See! I knew it had to be you. I was thinking to myself, you know, at lunch—no, that would be an impossible coincidence, it must just be the jacket... But nah, I knew I'd recognize that hopeless little gaze anywhere, hah... Looks like fate has led us together."

Tom, Greg recalls in the same beat of those words. He was on the opposite corner of the room before lunch started and the other end of the table during. Greg got no better a look at the guy than any other plus-one. Just heard someone address him once or twice. This is his cousin Shiv's... husband? Otherwise intended?

His toothy grin is fading. For a split second the wind releases the swoop of his hair to fall flat to his head—and there it is. Greg did see his face. He doesn't remember this brown turtleneck or blue sports coat, but surely someone like him brings a separate outfit to change into... It was overall so brief anyway. They weren't on the same plane but Greg stopped to eat across the hangar where Tom was in line. Probably an all first-class flight. He'd realized that a man was staring at him and he stared back, quickly settled on an opinion, shifted his stance, glanced away, glanced back, caught a whiff of the same and a hard look...

Precisely at the moment that Greg is about to breathe in the memory like the first fresh breath of air he's had all day, then, Tom feels a terrible sickness over what he said and ruins it altogether.

"So what the hell'd you give him, huh?" he spits, stepping closer without warning.

"Oh—what?" There's that stupid little frown again.

"Your little birthday present, obviously. What could you possibly have given Logan Roy to make him look so fucking delighted?"

It's a half-lie of a question; Tom could see the man putting them clearly on his cuffs even from his distance. He actually put them on right away. Meanwhile Logan hardly stuck his lower lip out at the watch he'd bought. Tom's never seen him smile like that at all... and yet a big pair of eyes alone managed to distract him.

They blink sadly, innocently, and that dark mop of hair shakes, and an otherwise straight nose wrinkles, and alarmingly full lips open to start,

"Oh, just—"

"For that matter—seriously, who even are you? Shiv never mentioned a Cousin Greg..."

Another, more complete lie. Sure, she doesn't know almost anything about him. But he was a name. Up until now, a meaningless name, the vaguest of pictures painted with Shiv's mechanical words. Not even as much as his remarkable height.

"More technically, my mom is the actual cousin? ...I suppose they call that a second cousin."

"I know what they fucking call it."

Rather than continue in kind or switch demeanor again, Tom seems to wait for an answer to the first question. Greg sees no reason not to give it to him.

They were silver—a century old. Given to Grandpa Ewan by his and Logan's father before he passed and rarely taken out of their little velvet cushion, which was in turn sitting at the back of his own mother's closet for decades. Passed down, meant to be worn by her husband or son, someday. But they never were.

"I guess Logan just... always wanted them, or something. Or maybe he just likes to know that now he has them and Ewan doesn't. 'S my guess, at least... I just lucked into them, really."

"...Uh-huh. Nice, nice, tugging at the heartstrings, weaseling your way in here," Tom says, a professional sort of smile tugging his lips now. If he wasn't pissed he'd be impressed. It may actually be the other way around. "You'll be at the top in no time, I bet."

"Huh?" Greg returns the smile in spite of himself again. "No, no, I don't—"

"Well, you know, it's pretty dog-eat-dog in a company like this."

He's suddenly so as-a-matter-of-fact that Greg just nods.

"Yeah. So you better prepare yourself. New subdivisions opening up at every turn, small companies getting gobbled up the moment some other one crumbles right under your feet and takes you down with it if you don't have a backup plan... A pretty face only gets you so far, kid. So what's the aim, huh?"

"Uh, I guess if—"

"Aspiring game show host? Got a new pilot in your back pocket? Well—you might have to get on your knees once or twice to get one o' those through the pile of shit I've already gotta vet."

Greg blanches, then draws his head back and glances around for eavesdroppers while the other man does the same. No one could possibly be listening. But no one has ever been so forward to him in broad daylight, either, least of all as—a threat? Should he want someone to be listening? He really has no clue at this point, about Tom or anything else.

Nearly all the rest have taken their places at the mound, leaving the field on either side empty; the game may very well be waiting on them alone. It's at that realization that Tom cracks—just a moment too late. Greg and his wringing hands beat him to it.

"That's, uh... really—"

Tom barks a laugh that ironically startles the fright out of Greg's face.

"Oh my god, I'm joking! I'm fucking joking, man," he insists, and puts a good stride between them just to draw back a moment later and hit him amicably in the chest. Maybe a little hard, but fuck him if he can't take it. He does look a bit scared again. "God, no, it's not fucking like that. What do I look like? Of course we don't do that. Come on."

He doesn't give Greg the chance to clarify that he never had a script to give anyway. Or that he's unconfident that he'll be allowed to give anything whatsoever. He just leads him to the outfield from several paces ahead and throws him another ambiguous look from where they wind up. From Greg's end it's almost crazed, more and moreso each further time the man meets his eyes and certainly on purpose. Certainly a mere continuation of his earlier, one-sided jokes. Greg would be delusional by now to believe otherwise.

It's only an old, embarrassing habit, he wants to think, that his own appraising gaze should keep coming to sweep over an oblivious Tom whenever the ball is in the air.

**

Tom feels awful for it, feels the briefest calling to confessional, but it's truly the first thing on his mind. The sinking dread and grief he witnesses in all the immediate family is absent from the pit of him, whether he's in the waiting room or at the perimeter of Logan's bedside—no, almost immediately, he begins deliberating.

No one knows quite how it happened, especially not those in the other limousine. All Shiv would say is that the delirium was abrupt. Tom feels no need to wonder so deeply anyway. The guy just turned 80. His own grandparents each had their deaths ruled 'old age' a few years younger than that. The notion hasn't been far from his mind in all the time Tom's known him.

It's why he's carried this around with him for about a year and a half—this little fiery ball of guilt, it now seems to be, but there's no better time.

He feels happy, is what it is. However mournfully, Tom is happy when he gets on his knees in a hospital hallway of all places.

Of course, Shiv's face flashes instantly with an echo of that year-and-a-half ago, so Tom has to preface before he says the line:

"Siobhan—please, I know you're a modern woman, I know you don't need me—"

"Tom—"

"It isn't fear this time!" he insists. And it does feel, in the moment, like truth.

"God—are you sure about that?" Oh. She's mad. "Because right now is—you think my dad will die and leave you defenseless, Tom. This is... still, exactly what I don't want to be the basis of a marriage, only worse—"

"Worse?" Tom closes the box and rushes to stand. "Honey—fuck, I'm not... I just wanted to cheer you up. I thought—"

"That my dad's deathbed would be a charming backdrop for a proposal?" she seems to laugh, mirthless.

It stings. He supposes he deserves it and bites his lip.

"...No, just that—with all this shit going on, me formally declaring... commitment, to you, might be some relief. In the form of stability. But I—it's fine, I understand. Don't worry about it, I'll wait—"

"Oh, Tom, don't..."

The clicking of her heels down the hall that follows, the ensuing apology, the reassurance—they fill in the blanks more closely, Tom realizes, than a straightforward yes could have possibly. They click things fully into place. It's a pattern he knows well by now and one that he embraces as tightly as he does Shiv—the first bachelor CEO would be a pretty far-fetched goal, anyway, she ultimately says. And she laughs with him as he spins her around.

She won't put on the ring just yet, but he's not the slightest bit disappointed. Once she points out that if her brothers saw it a whole new shitshow would begin, Tom sees it clearly.

"Of course," he says, kissing her face. "Horrible idea."

"Mhm," and she laughs again, but not at his expense. She's happy.

So he's happy. He kisses her again.

"Just catastrophic."

Minutes later, down the hall in the opposite direction, Tom happens upon the most awkward-looking giant.

The giant in question doesn't notice him. He's turned away, hunched by the wall with his jacket tucked under one arm while the other hand tangles itself in the payphone cord. Tom feels compelled to keep his presence a secret at all costs.

"—no, Mom, of course I'm not trying to waste your money," says Greg, hushed but not enough, in a voice that Tom had yet to hear from him. "It's not my fault! ...Okay—sure, but this time it literally cannot possibly be my fault. It's not like I— ...Yeah, I did. Yeah, he liked it. Yeah—no, I... I don't actually know? ...I just mean I don't know! He was— ...listen, it was confusing, okay? All he said was— ...Mom, I'm telling you, I did and said everything I could have. I wore the coat, I called him sir, I... No I, I dunno. No one knows yet. ...Yeah, them too, but— ...Yes. Yes, mom. I'm trying. It's hard. I don't think anyone likes me. ...Obviously, I will. Uh-huh. ...I know, I don't want that either. But I, like... could, right? If everything here just— ...Well, thanks. Love you... okay. Bye."

Tom forgets to slink back around the corner before the phone clicks. Really, he no longer wants to. Nothing resembling panic—though something, undeniably, swells inside of him when Greg almost immediately turns and meets his eyes once again.

Now there, there's panic. Only for a moment, though, before Greg just scowls and groans.

"Fuck..."

And Tom watches him hightail it down some other corner, his own hands still firmly in his pockets seconds after the man is gone. For one of those seconds he amuses himself with a more cartoonish image, where Greg has left behind a cloud of smoke and the phone swinging... But what he's just pieced together inexplicably demands his attention.

A deluge of unfiltered pity carries him forward, sends Tom jogging after him before he knows it.

"Greg!" he shouts, and doesn't hate himself whatsoever for it. He does it again when the other man doesn't even check over his shoulder.

Under this washed-out lighting, and from behind as well, the frays in that coat of his aren't so difficult to miss. Shiv did say that Marianne has been estranged from the family for as long as Ewan, too. Tom might say he should have known but if he really thinks about it, he has. Each trace of awe and fear alike on Greg's face this afternoon has felt like looking into an old, dusty mirror.

He'd then feel stupid for having gotten so ahead of himself, earlier, if it wasn't terribly easy to just forget.

"Cousin Gre-eg!" Tom shouts a third time, coincidentally as a door is opened by a candy striper.

Fearing yet more trouble coming his way, nevermind that the girl who passes doesn't look particularly motivated to scold him, Greg slows down at once. If nothing else they ought not to be yelling in a hospital.

He sighs upon the final sign that Tom has caught up.

"You know, some might say it's impolite to listen in on a private phone call," he says with his head down, but also with the sort of bite that makes Tom grin behind him.

"Others might say privacy can't be had in a public place," Tom laughs.

He comes purposefully toe-to-toe with Greg's long stride, tries to duck down under to catch his face. Finally Greg relents and looks up, brows knitted together, soul withering behind his eyes. He's averting them to the wall a moment later.

"...Listen, man—"

"Hey." Tom stops him, a sudden grip on his elbow. "No hard feelings, yeah?"

They're just standing now. Luckily midnight lends itself to a lack of activity in the executive ward. Greg looks down at Tom's hand and forgets what he was going to say but does, tentatively, mean what he says instead.

"Uh... sure. Yeah."

"Because I was just messing with you at the party," he continues, somewhat needlessly. It's just the only bit of the past he feels justified to call on. And I want you to stop making a fool of yourself in there is on the tip of his tongue, though. He jerks his thumb in the direction of the waiting room with the ghost of it, telling him, "If you're gonna work at RBN, that's a whole culture you've got to get used to."

Greg grimaces. He has a feeling this is intentional.

"Yeah, well... that's currently looking like a big if—"

"Hey," Tom says again.

He realizes that he still hasn't let go of the other man's arm and then does so, just to grab it again in a higher spot. Greg blinks.

"...Don't tell anyone, yeah? But whether Mr. Roy... makes it, or not, I am more or less guaranteed the chair of Productions as it officially breaks off. It's absolutely legal, it's a simple matter of... the family having someone they trustoversee the new company long enough for it to stabilize. And I, y'know... I could sure use an assistant that I already know I can trust."

Tom doesn't finish with a smile so much as a curl of his upper lip. When Greg's tight mouth unfolds, however.

"Oh—what, for real? Holy shit. Oh my god, Tom, thank you?"

He nearly goes in for a hug, draws back, leans into the hand patting his shoulder but otherwise is wholly unsure what to do with his own—he and Tom meet in a frantic handshake, directed amusedly by the latter. Matching, face-breaking grins cover the crookedness of it, the grasp he has on Greg's wrist, over the tweed, to correct it.

"Seriously man, I can't thank you enough—"

"Seriously man," Tom parrots between laughs—a private joke. "Don't mention it. For real. Don't."

"Yeah, thank you, I mean..." Greg laughs back. "Oh—oh man, I gotta make another call—!"

He breaks their handshake to dart away, only to pat himself like he's forgotten something and pop right back moments later. Tom hasn't even had the chance to decide a route back to the waiting room yet.

"Wait," Greg says, "why wouldn't it be legal?"

"Huh?—Nothing, no reason. Just go—shoo," he tells him, playing into the other man's urgency and waving him away, "Go make your call."

He half expects Greg to turn back a second time and ask him for a quarter.

Chapter Text

RBN Productions, often affectionately called RBN-tertainment, is to more formally be rebranded as Waystar in January of next year. The FCC has allowed them the meantime to gather their bearings, actual necessity notwithstanding.

Some months ago Tom opposed the new syndication rules as much as Logan or any other big-three television executive. Now, at least in the privacy of his own mind, he must say he owes them credit to his current position. Soon-to-be position. His benevolent takeover, the apologetic handoff from good ol' Bill Lockhart to someone just new enough, just separate enough from the rest of Royco to meet the barest of federal standards.

And to a whole storm of mixed feelings inside of Tom, Logan will, miraculously, be alive to see how he performs.

Meanwhile Greg feels similarly excited and nervewracked about flying back to LA so soon. Specifically that after those unprecedented first few hours of knowing each other and then several days of being strangers, his very next time spent next to Tom is seven solid hours on a plane. Therein follows the biggest difference: he doesn't shut up about it.

Not that he's unaware—Greg knows he has a tendency to fill silence at all costs. He's not totally ignorant to the fact that Tom would probably prefer he keep conversation to a minimum right now, either. He just doesn't know what else to do with himself after an initial nap.

"I've never flown first-class before," is what it mostly boils down, or back up to, anyway. "I didn't even realize you guys had all this."

Meaning the luxuries of all this leg-room, seats that recline to allow actual, comfortable sleep, tables that a whole family could eat dinner on, food worthy of said dinners being cooked and served in-flight...

"Don't seem so proud of having been all but destitute until now, Greg," Tom finally tells him after a series of mhms. Or rather tells the cabin air, monotone, while he stares only at his book and simply hopes that the other man hears it. "...It's unbecoming."

"I'm not—!"

As obnoxious as it is possible to flip the page of a book, then, Tom does it. Greg holds his defense in his lungs and, when Tom's attention doesn't move whatsoever, puts his own on the new page, too. He staves off the burden of understanding by trying in vain to instead understand a lone passage in the middle of Tom's story.

"...Yeah, I get it, I'm sorry."

Tom hums with relief. Yet he's not surprised enough to be all that annoyed when Greg soon can't help himself:

"Uh... whatcha readin'?"

"The Talented Mr. Ripley," he's not unhappy to say.

"Oh. Any good?"

"Mhm." Tom rolls his eyes and pointedly flips through all that he's read so far—as if anyone would get this far if it wasn't good, Greg.

Truthfully he's already read it all before, but years ago. A long-awaited sequel was published recently and he wanted to refresh his memory. He might be finished if he hadn't had so little time to himself to read lately, he thinks, just as Greg starts up again, apologizing preemptively this time,

"Sorry, it's just... well, really, it's funny? I thought I might have to fly back to LA anyway, and now, y'know, I am, but for a completely different reason. And then, like—at the same time, you know, I can't shake the feeling I just am going home? Which I really... don't want to do, come to think of it—"

"We're only gonna be doing this once every couple weeks, Greg. New York is your home now."

Tom knows that that won't be the end of it, by whomever's fault—he promptly finds a place to stop and marks his book, and sets it closed on the table. Figures that if he's not going to be able to read then he might as well satisfy a craving. Greg is saying something he only half-hears as Tom whips a pack out of his shirt pocket, sticks a cigarette between his teeth, and waves down an attendant to light it for him.

He thanks her and inhales in time to realize that Greg, silent now, is eyeing the pack like a begging puppy.

And he sighs out a cloud of smoke and snaps his fingers for the lady to come back.

"Thanks," Greg says more to him than to her. In lieu of acknowledging it, Tom trades one story for another.

"...You know, I started all the way back in Magazines. Back in '58. Had to work my way up from there through the median-production chain of Hollywood Hillbillies—which is about to get the ax, by the way, and for that matter so is just about every other RBN show with a tree... but! Not been my problem for a good year. I did think I'd have to spend more time as a regional manager before this—but I'm not fucking complaining. I actually worked myass off to get here, Greg. You're lucky."

Abruptly if not a bit aggressive he jabs his pointer finger at Greg's chest, then, making him inhale too fast and choke. Tom gives a few thoughtless, rough pats to his back and goes on,

"Don't be fucking nervous, alright?"

"Oh, I—I wasn't really saying I'm nervous about the job—"

"Be excited. This is the opportunity of a lifetime for a little Quebecoi farmboy like you."

"Hah—well I wouldn't've ever exactly called myself a farmboy...," Greg laughs mostly because Tom is. It's a contagion he's rarely ever able to fight.

"S'pose you do have to do farm work to be called a farmboy, huh?"

"...Right. Well—I mean, about what you're saying, it's not like I, y'know, never lifted a finger in my life or anything. I know I don't have much experience in the workforce but I will put everything I've got into this job. Like, I promise."

Greg's pleading stare has an odd way of calming Tom down.

"I already hired you, Greg. How many times have I gotta tell you not to worry about this?"

"I'm really not, Tom!" It's the truth, or at least has been—if anything's bound to make him genuinely apprehensive, it's talking about it like this. "I'm not worried. Are you worried?"

Tom laughs—a little too sharp, and certainly too loud. Only Greg notices the heads briefly turning.

"Am I worried? No, I'm not fucking... you're funny," he sniffs. "Real fucking funny. The hell should I have to be worried about..."

Greg shrugs just about his whole body. Tom's imploring grin almost immediately flattens into a grimace.

"...I'm heading exactly where I want to be, Greg." He waits fiercely for the other man to nod. "I'm—you know, I'm frankly goddamn sick of being stuck all the way out in LA. I'm so ready to be in New York full-time. I've done enough fucking shit work—the casting, the vetting, the... just, sitting through hours upon hours of garbage to get to anything worth anything... I really—I deserve this."

Greg nods more purposefully at Tom's pregnant stare, now. "Of course."

"I'm practically—well, a bit of a detour, but I'm more or less halfway to being in the chair chair. Productions has always been a good part of the public face of RBN, Waystar'll be more of the same but also not too much of the same... I'm excited! It's a project. And at the same time, I'm ascending to a position above labor. I'm a figurehead now. Beyond the traveling and the meetings, I can do whatever I want."

To demonstrate the fact, Tom proceeds to take Greg's borrowed cigarette right from his two fingers. He looks Greg in the eyes while he finishes it off in addition to his own remaining nub, suffocates them both in the ashtray, and then hides his face in The Talented Mr. Ripley for good.

Following the incredulous sound that staggers out of Greg's throat, too, comes little more noise until they land.

*

A hot, strong wind meets them at the studio gates. Despite spending a good part of his childhood in the very same city and routinely visiting his mother after she moved back, it's so incredibly new to be here that Greg almost doesn't mind. Tom's the one who practically seizes with an urgent but impossible itch and tells the driver to roll the window back up ASAP.

Doesn't much help that he's been awake non-stop since early this morning. No chance for catching up on sleep after the uppers he'd had just to not feel dead while waiting for the flight, he sat and struggled to pay attention to his book for the first half while next to him, Greg slept like a baby. Out of spite alone he fared better in the second half. Through all of it he has pissed about five times from all the coffee that kept him further lucid.

Now it's half-past one in the afternoon three timezones back and Tom is buzzing, even after they're inside an air-conditioned building. Greg, who's been undeniably marveling at everything starting with the mere fact of being cleared by security, is the final distraction before Tom's first meeting. It's a wonder the cases dangling from either of those long, skinny arms don't deter him from stretching his neck so far.

"Will I get to do that?" he asks, again and again as any given notion enters his reality, usually facing him from a sign on a door or poster on a wall—

Will he be able to visit sets, will he meet actors, will he even ever have the chance to do the very thing Tom was complaining about, only in more polite terms, and read through aspirational pilot scripts?

"Woah! Down, boy," Tom finds himself laughing at the last. "Someone's got his hopes a bit high..."

"You told me to be excited," Greg counters, sounding only mildly jilted.

He's burdensome as he is amusing. Tom finds that much of the prickling in his skin has gone away and that even his consciousness of the fact doesn't call it back.

"...Yeah, within reason, Greg. You said you wanted to learn the ropes, yeah?"

They've stepped into an elevator now, and Greg has taken his first chance to set Tom's work bags down and roll his shoulders. It's evidently a much-needed break on his neck when he nods.

"Yeah—yes. Yessir."

Tom's cheek twitches. He's not sure about that.

"Well... you gotta tie some simple square knots for a while before you braid a net. Catch my meaning?"

He does get to thinking on the ride up, though. It wouldn't be a bad experience for the guy to get under his belt. It's not like it matters very much. Maybe one of those things each month is ever bound to be saved from the trash. On the upside, it could be humbling. It could be funny. Whatever sorry sucker took Tom's old position would be grateful for the slightly smaller load, too.

...Yeah, he thinks that he'll twist an arm and toss a few scripts Greg's way. Just to see.

"And oh—" he says decidedly with a swat to the other man's chest, just out the elevator and just beyond the moment of truth, "No sirs for me, Greg. We're basically family. Just Tom, alright?"

"Oh. Right."

Just Tom then smirks and leaves him in an audience of strangers while he goes to shake some hands.

*

Technically Greg is yet to be on the payroll, but he'll surely be compensated for today. He hasn't had a chance to ask, with all the one-on-one meetings in quick succession and all the notes that he's been frantically taking and every spare moment spent making sure his wrist and fingers don't cramp up, but... surely.

First thing he's doing back in New York is checking out a book on shorthand. Maybe a tape recorder that he could transcribe from would be a good investment. Once he sees a paycheck, of course.

"Lemme see what you've got so far," Tom demands at his first break, snatching the notepad from his hands mid-scrawl. "...Hm. Wow. Thorough."

"Oh, thank y—"

"Too thorough in fact. Pace yourself, Greg." And he tosses it back to him just before waving the next guy in.

Right. Yeah.

Not much of a chance to put that salient advice to the test is actually allowed him, yet, as most of what follows is a whole lot of—in Tom's words, "not even remotely equal subordinates making a case for their continued employment." As in introducing themselves, ingratiating themselves, and handing over paperwork. And yes, Greg, he could fire any one of these people if he wanted to, even though he just got here. He won't, partially because they could take him to court if he wasn't justified... but he could.

It's just subdivisions passing along the necessary information for Tom to get immediately acquainted with. The majority of it he'll have to read later. He makes a point of skimming to prove his intentions.

The first that he truly proves, however, is to the head of Game Shows. Tom calls him back to the seat after he's stood up to leave, finger and eyes locked on a block of text.

"Hey—hi, yeah—I have a question about, ah... the legality of this bit here, this—"

"Hm? Oh—" The other man, Cowan, peers down to see what Tom is pointing to, and instantly shoots back up with a too-bright smile—"That's just procedure. Just... you know, how we've found things to work best."

Brow slowly knitting even further together, Tom glances between him and the page, and begins reading deeper. Nothing catches his eye that qualms his concern. Briefly he glances to Greg, who is far more confused in his corner.

"What's laid out there has been tried-and-true for several years, sir," says Cowan. He sounds impatient, which raises Tom's hackles further.

"Uh-huh, sure, but as it relates to... say, the FCC, what's our...?"

"Ah—well, you'd have to talk to Legal for the details on that..."

"What? You don't know?"

"Well, it's just, I'm not Legal, so—"

"Yeah, I know you're not fucking Legal," Tom snaps. Cowan tugs on his shirt collar. "But you lead the game show division and you can't tell me if we'd all go to prison if the FCC busted down the door or not?"

"I can assure you we would not all go to prison, Mr. Wambs—"

"Did Bill know about this?" He's back to searching the documents for answers that Cowan won't give him.

"...Mr. Lockhart? I'm certain he—"

"Yeah, I'm gonna wanna talk to Bill. Get 'im for me, would ya? ...I'm serious. Go. Out. Get Bill."

"Uh... what's going on?" Greg hazards once it's just the two of them again, and gets a brief, hard look as an answer.

He otherwise watches in careful silence, glued to his chair with pen and paper still firmly in either hand, as Tom shuffles through those Game Shows files. A minute later someone—not Cowan—knocks on the door to tell Tom that Bill has already left the building—and where is he now, well, likely on his way home, but, alright, so call his home and leave a message, tell him to come back, I don't care that he just retired—

And several more harsh orders to secretaries and file clerks later, he and Tom sit behind closed blinds with three decent-sized boxes of file folders containing... incriminating documents.

Back in the late 50s, as Greg understands it—and is frankly just now learning of it—a series of scandals regarding the integrity and alleged fraud of multiple quiz shows led to not only their cancellation, but a cleanout of the teams involved. Producers and presidents resigned if they weren't fired, at the very least for appearances' sake. By 1960 the laws changed, and the Communications Act was amended, giving networks clear rules to abide by. Where most were still apprehensive simply due to the public's suspicion, the previously game-show-lacking RBN took advantage and flooded the market.

And just about every one of their now beloved game shows, for the entirety of the past decade, have been actively flouting those laws.

"This is not good, Greg..."

Despite his name Tom is muttering that more to himself than the other man in the room. He repeats it, outside of himself, while he pours over file after file of past contestants. The vast majority include some kind of note that makes the notion of screening for pre-existing skill or lack thereof, or rigging a win, or even... god, sexual misconduct as a factor in either of those, undeniable. With the FCC cracking down on broadcasting monopolies—the very thing that has put Tom here, it's a mere matter of time before agents visit the studio and happen upon these.

"These—these are a ticking time-bomb... God—why even are there records of this shit?" Tom wonders desperately, pleadingly aloud. Assuming and hoping that the walls are thick enough, Greg is still the only one to hear it. "Why would... Wh—couldn't they just do the crimes? Why'd they have to fucking write it down?"

Tom looks to him, frustration bordering on panic in every fold of his face, and doesn't stop. Greg can't imagine that he wants him to say nothing.

"Uh... posterity?"

But Tom just scowls. Greg shrinks as low into his seat as a man his height possibly can.

His own panic, he miraculously keeps below the surface. Though it's likely just confusion and inexperience that smothers it. If anything, certain regret comes bubbling up: This is the exact sort of thing that fed Greg's unwillingness to try to work here in the first place. Not quite so dire as political malfeasance, but people in power abusing the system in any case, and already now the task of... probably, at best, lying about it.

He can at least find an odd comfort in Tom's horror. And a boost in something else, too, when stress-induced body heat urges the other man's suit jacket off and onto the back of a chair, revealing bold red suspenders. Sleeves get shoved up to the elbow; forearms come out. The longer he watches Tom fret, Greg's confidence begins to turn around until finally he finds the voice to make a suggestion.

"Since you're in charge now," he starts, "can't you just... make the game show people stop?"

"It's not that simple, Greg," Tom bites out reflexively—but, truthfully, the notion was floating around his head moments ago. Alongside a swarm of far too many problems to parse out actual solutions.

However naive it might be, hearing someone else say it does set him on the track of more solid, productive thoughts. The rhythm that he's been compulsively tapping on his desk slows to a stop and he clicks his tongue in its stead.

"...Actually."

Tom visibly relaxes, and Greg perks up.

"If I just—I could get each of the producers in here one by one, off the record. Tell 'em we're... changing company policy. Threaten to fire them if they refuse. Cut it off here. Yeah... That's doable, I think."

"What about all this?" Greg asks—in retrospect, to his detriment.

It may very well be no terrible secret around here anyway, but Tom also supposes he must now be in charge of a number of complete morons. Who knows what undercover agents might be milling about under the guise of an internship, either. No, they can't have these boxes wheeled to the shredder in the middle of the day. Even if they could hide the nature of the files, having the shredder in use for so long, all in one go, while there's any possibility of facing questions of what for... no. It will have to be after everyone else has gone home.

"It could be in increments?" Greg offers. "So no one would get suspicious."

Tom spares the idea no thought. He's held onto his own plan through his final meetings and total lack of a call back from Bill—the guy clearly didn't go home after all, and Tom is on his own, therefore he should commit to what he's got.

"No, no, it really oughta be taken care of all at once. You'll be fine, Greg. I trust you. It's just a bit of shredding in a dark office building, then you throw it out, and then you get whatever the next flight back to New York is. I'll call the LAX ahead and give 'em your name, so don't worry about paying for the ticket. Company account'll cover it."

So little concern is betrayed by Tom's tone, which is to say none at all, that Greg doesn't fully understand what he's being told until it's finished. Then he struggles to find a way to feel about it until the other man is on his way toward the door. Carrying his own bags.

"Wait—Tom! Wait!"

He simply pauses and waits for Greg to continue with a raised eyebrow. And it's at that that Greg, heart racing from the speed with which he just bounded across the room, can't help but scoff.

"You're... you really can't stay and help?"

"Are you kidding? I've got to be in New York in the morning. Why? Can't you handle it?"

Greg swallows and relents. Of course he can handle it.

Should he handle it, is the question.

He still hasn't been paid yet, so, were he to dip, catch a cab to his mom's house, tell her sorry, my new boss wanted me to do illegal stuff and plop his ass right back down on that couch like this past week has been naught but a strange dream... well, his mom might not accept the excuse, but he wouldn't be breaching any contract.

Greg considers calling her for advice, just to see if by chance she does think he should hightail it out of here. Then he remembers that phone calls can be recorded and it wouldn't be the best idea to attach his name to a crime no matter what he winds up doing. He pictures the would-be conversation, then. Vividly, however uselessly, his mother's voice tells him to just use his best judgment.

Every illegal thing that he's ever done seems to rush to the front of his mind to aid in that judgment. On the record and off. The singular night he spent in jail years ago, which haunts him aimlessly because he was never convicted of anything because being present at a protest isn't a crime. He hates to imagine what it's like when you actually committed one.

"Can't I handle it," he mutters through gritted teeth, pacing now. "Can't you just make yourself complicit in crimes for me, Greg? Oh no no it's not illegal, no, it's just things that the people who make laws don't want us to do and that's why it has to be secret, I think you're stupid so you'll believe me, yeah, can you do that for me? On your first day? And can you do it all by yourself? Oh—oh yeah, no problem, Tom, I live to serve..."

Maybe it's just the frustration finding a way out of him—or the pacing. He's already moving, it's easy to keep doing it.

For all the time that Greg sat in the dark with the still-untouched boxes and watched vigilantly through the crack in the blinds for the floor to empty out, those documents go through the shredder now with only complaints as a buffer. True fear subsides; it's the sheer amount, really, that's daunting. The hours of menial labor ahead of him are easily the more solid villain than—what, the FCC? Or whoever else he's had no concept of until today?

Or Tom?

It hasn't completely left Greg's mind either way. He wishes that he could feel more pissed and less afraid. Seems quite a lot of damaged and obsolete media is already thrown out of this place daily, what's a bit more, he tries to think. Well—it's a lot. He's looking at the stacks upon stacks and it's a lot. Years' worth of information destroyed in the relative blink of an eye.

The more he thinks about it, the more wrong it feels for all this to just be gone. Like it would be a crime to destroy it so utterly regardless of what was written on them.

The actual crime, it occurs to him then, may be nullified if it were not, in fact, all gone.

Greg's mind races; he starts to read more of what he's sending through before he does, finding meaning where he was mostly confused before, catching the lines that those way up above would deem crucial—the ones that could either damn or save him, if it came down to it.

And he starts setting some aside, keeping that new stack just small enough to fit inside of his dad's coat.

**

Tom withholds any mention of the debacle to Shiv until Greg assures him face to face that there were no issues (delays at the airport do not count), and then some. It's because Shiv is busy more than anything. On top of her father's precarious health, she's got some finalizing to do with that California congressman since more or less giving her two weeks on his campaign. Tom would hate to appear to attempt to distract from the former. From the latter, Shiv makes impossible regardless. There's just no point getting into it if he can't really get into it. No harm in letting her believe his first day went great. Just for a bit.

It can't be for long, of course, or else those showrunners will produce a whole new stack of papers to shred. And then no one will know where to put them, with the boxes now empty, which will only bring more attention.

The men in question will have to come to him, Tom decides. He's got generators of catch-all entertainment to manage as much out here on the east coast as there is over there. And, though it's so new a privilege he almost forgets about it, he's in charge of their schedules as much as he's in charge of his own.

There is doubt. He does hesitate in physically making the call without real, further advice from someone who knows the company. Shiv is the closest and safest thing he's got to that.

He hesitates there too—not only out of unwillingness to interrupt her schedule but also remembering her personal relationship with the game shows. It's been forever since Logan last tried to bring her in specifically as a host "for some female flavor" or... worse, one of the girls who presents the prizes, in fact before they even met, but she still refuses to so much as leave their television linger on a commercial during the timeslot to this day.

But she's also to be his wife relatively soon. They had a whole talk about making the engagement official, finally, and keeping any secret from her in the wake of that... Other men might not think anything of it, least of all when it comes to business, but other men aren't months out from marrying into the Roys.

Tom just winds up by the phone again and again, thinking wistfully of his new authority and what a waste it would be not to exercise it.

It's never anything like that first day. Once Greg sees his paperwork sent out to the payroll office, and settles into the far more mundane menial work in Manhattan's RBN building, he loosens up easy. The whole thing might just sit in the back of his mind to collect dust if Tom didn't continue to bring up the meetings he's yet to have, and bounce alternatives and "backup plans" off of him.

He doesn't let Greg respond much, moreso just talks at him until he's satisfied and proceeds to tell Greg to get back to the very work he'd interrupted in the first place... but it feels good to be needed.

On one occasion it feels like a particularly fair trade, as Tom buys him a new pair of shoes and then resumes his thinking aloud the entire time that Greg is trying pairs on. The ones that Greg has been wearing are weathered to hell and clash with his suit, apparently, and Tom can't be having his assistant walk around like that, can he. Comments on each new potential shoe cut through Tom's impassioned deliberating, making it hard for Greg to take in much of either. He quickly learns to just keep nodding.

His own family, or anyone else that Greg met at Logan's birthday for that matter, he hasn't seen since and expects to do so next at the upcoming charity ball. An official invitation comes from Connor funnily enough after Tom tells him, taking delight in Greg's ignorance of such well-established and newsworthy affairs.

"I guess people just don't talk about it outside of New York?" is his only counter. If he brings up the lack of RBN influence in Quebec, Tom will latch onto that for far too long.

"Oh, but oh, they absolutely do," Tom starts, and goes on for just as long anyway.

Something something magazines, something St. Paul, Minnesota, something something maybe Greg just didn't get a radio signal in the rock he was living under. Which isn't totally off the mark, in the privacy of Greg's discomforting memory. For a while he didn't.

And now, thanks to his cousin's fiance, he has new shoes and a tuxedo.

*

He had thought that he caught a glimpse of the old man himself rounding a corner at the office one morning but immediately figured no, that's impossible. Here Uncle Logan is now, though. Looking in this light incredibly normal and not at all like someone who just had a stroke.

Greg tries not to stare—he thinks for a moment that they've made eye contact, and worries at once that the man will wonder why the hell he's here. Maybe he'll think Greg tried to sneak around him into the company, after him coming so close to death no less.

But Logan's eyes pass over him instead. A strong, startling hand comes to grip his shoulder just in time.

"Scoping out a score?" Tom laughs, directly into a glass of champagne.

Greg realizes just then that he must have looked like he was surveying the room. At best he was simply standing around, trying to look like he belonged.

"Uh, not—"

"Looking for a future wife, maybe? This lot's not bad. Marry rich, like I'm about to!"

At that, Greg does giggle a bit along with him, but certainly for reasons that Tom doesn't suspect. Another uhh drones out of his mouth with no aim to become a real response and is lost in the crowd noise.

"Big room, huh? Keeps getting bigger every year—I think out of competition ever since Capote tried his hand," Tom goes on, now more committed to the air of seriousness. "Lotta options... I'd skew older if I were you, Greg. Widows tend to like your type. They've got nothing left to pour their money into but projects. I'm sure they'd all love to dress you in their late husbands' suits and pearls and... take you out on the town."

Then there's just a certain pitch in his voice, a certain shine in Tom's eye, that make Greg not so sure he's invisible.

It's gone as soon as it came. Tom ultimately slaps him on the back so hard that his drink spills before marching away to something more interesting.

He doesn't not consider it. It seems silly to think about only as a reflex, Greg figures, as not even two full weeks catch up to him. Something that perhaps should have taken him on a gradual journey of change a long time ago is now happening very fast, dizzyingly fast... but he's taking it head-on, isn't he. He's swallowing his pride and growing up.

Part of that, he's been told, is leaving things behind. And he'd say he agrees. Greg has abandoned plenty of habits and games before. What's another?

Tom is far, here, from the only present reminder of the reason that this very place is so foreign. The uniformity of the dress code alone, the stark dimorphism, the caged etiquette... Greg never had a reason to believe that this or even a career half as grand was in the cards for him no matter what he did, so he simply didn't. Now, though. Now the million different things that this could turn into, that his image could be, flash before his eyes.

An idea or two did worm their way into Greg's head back in LA... despite everything.

That is, people like him don't have jobs above ground. Not unless they pretend to be someone else. He thinks of what happened to his father.

In his explicit efforts, then, Greg finds himself struggling more than before to move his eyes purposefully over the wealthy crowd. Half of it is to see if anything has changed since the last time he tried; to something beyond disappointment or relief, he gets his answer. Dresses and updos of every color fade into one another regardless of the lights, the shine, any particular likeness... any of it. They fall to gray like featureless stones and send Greg's gaze drifting to a deep black sea of mostly identical tuxedos, bowties, and sideburns.

Distance may have been the real obstacle, it occurs to him, as he finds his assigned seat and makes immediate eye contact with a woman sitting at the table. In a deep blue gown and matching, gaudy earrings, she must be at least in her sixties—Greg wasn't taking Tom's suggestion of older ladies particularly seriously, but the notion is automatically there. He glances down to her hand and sees no ring.

"...Good evening, ma'am."

"Evening. Gregory Hirsch, right?"

"O-oh... you know me?" He can't deny the relief, there.

But he still kisses her hand, quite awkwardly, when she introduces herself. She offers him the grace of acting like it didn't happen.

"Gerri Kellman, head legal counsel to RBN," she says. "You are actually the one person around here I know next to nothing about. And I've been a close friend of the Roy family for decades... I'm sure by now you've guessed what I'm about to ask."

Greg has never cared for the simultaneous vagueness and pressure of a tell me about yourself. He always reveals too little or too much, and rarely knows which until it is too late. This time, however, the boring and incriminating facts that explain what he's doing here are an incredibly convenient segue to the information that has been bottled up inside him tighter and tighter for days. He can get Tom the definitive answers he needs and then it will really be over.

"So—you're sanctioned to give legal advice to basically anyone in the whole company, right?" he asks at the first lull. "Including Waystar-formerly-known-as-RBN-tertainment? ...And it's all in confidence?"

To account for the way she's looking at him, he plays into somewhat more ignorance than he truthfully has. He doesn't admit to already having done so but rather asks if it would be a good idea to, say, shred anything. And furthermore what the next best course of action here would be, what the risk is if Mr. Wambsgans, perhaps, brings these negligent procedures up in an official meeting. If anyone should outright be fired to minimize further issues and the like.

He's quite proud of himself for the mere pensive nods that he's drawn out of Ms. Kellman—that he was successfully competent in his admission of incompetence. She's silent for longer than he would hope, though.

*

"Congratulations on the promotion, Tom."

Something he's heard so many times now it's become a mind-numbing pleasantry—but he hadn't expected it from Gerri. She's always held the place in his mind of a sort of mother who acts like a father, next to Logan's father who acts like a grandfather. It's a real, rare compliment.

Thinking of his own father, then, Tom almost makes the mistake of shaking her hand when he thanks her.

"You know," she continues in the very next beat, "it really is strange, having been around to watch the industry rise from nothing at all... You saw the television set, but I saw the birth of the radio—"

"Logan predates film entirely," Tom chimes in. She smiles, but goes on just as she was.

"...And would you know, it sounds nauseatingly poetic when I say it out loud, but I'd say that with it, I saw the birth of entire new attitudes in the American people. When the quality of their entertainment changed, so did they. Books could only satisfy the literate. A box that could play you a song or tell you the news was revolutionary. Then quiz shows—oh, people just loved to hear their voices. No one ever won any prizes in those first ones, you know. It was just the chance to keep playing, have the tiniest morsel of fame—something just, never a possibility for the common man before then."

Tom nods, frowning... he did know that. But he's never heard her talk like this.

"But soon, of course, participants wanted things. More importantly, audiences wanted stakes. And stakes had to keep getting higher, Tom—exponentially. You could of course go about this one of two ways, depending on your budget. You could make the prizes bigger, more devastating to lose and exciting to win, or you could make the questions harder. The second is cheaper, but see, the thing that the industry learned pretty quickly about the average American citizen... is that they were remarkably stupid."

In her brief pause, she looks like she can see Tom's heart sinking into his stomach. And she may very well, with the uncomfortably small space between them, now.

"I believe it was NBC—a fierce competitor of Logan's even back then, but they served us a useful lesson," she tells him, gently hailing a tragic end to this story. "They tried to be fair—unbiased, random, whatever you call it. And those random people? Knew nothing. It was abysmal. Don't ever play this shit again, the sponsors said. That's literally what they said, Tom. Do you understand?"

"And wasn't it a show on that same network," he practically breathes into her face, in a sudden urgency not to be heard, "that got caught? And canceled?"

Gerri sighs and takes a step back.

"Then don't get caught. Bill handled it just fine for a long time, I'm sure you can maintain it."

"But what if—"

"Do what you gotta do to keep it off the books, Tom. But I think we both know what will happen if half our original entertainment starts to fail, especially now."

She seems eager to be done with this, but Tom doesn't let her walk away.

"Okay—uh, well, with all due respect," he starts, and has to force himself to finish because he already regrets it, "...original entertainment isn't ours. It's Waystar. In two months Logan doesn't own it anymore. Not really."

"...You're a figurehead, Tom. Shareholders own it. Who do you suppose has and will continue to have the biggest piece of that pie?"

Humiliating as it is to hear, she's right. He ought to cancel those meetings—or just turn it into one. Keep it short. Change nothing but the documentation. It takes a good minute and another full glass of champagne, but the consequences that Tom narrowly missed become excruciatingly clear on the backs of his eyelids.

It takes one more to work up the courage and humility to go confront Shiv about going behind his back anyway.

"—obviously it was a good call, honey, I just wish you'd asked me first."

"Asked you about what? I didn't talk to Gerri."

"You—the game show thing, Shiv. That I told you about this morning? You're really telling me you... you didn't say anything."

"Wait, you think that I went behind your back? What makes you think that?"

"Because I told you about it, and then Gerri came to me! Why wouldn't I—"

"And so it has to be me? You said Greg was there—"

"Fuck—"

"Yeah. Christ, Tom."

"...I just assumed—"

"You assumed me why? You forgot about the poor little cousin you hired?"

"No... I—"

"Then why?"

"...Well, because of the grudge you have against the game shows, I guess. It was just the first—"

"Oh, now that's—you thought I would, what, set out to sabotage the shows? Do I actually seem that petty to you—or, frankly, stupid enough to even go about it like that, if I wanted to?"

"No! Shiv—"

"Because you are the goddamned stupid one if you really think I would, Tom. Why'd you even tell me in the first place if you don't trust me?"

*

He's been milling about in fear since Gerri told him this should be a talk between just myself and Tom. His mistake became clear in an instant, and either avoiding or fixing it became Greg's sole focus. Mostly the former. He expects the worst.

A hard punch to the shoulder seems about right.

"Ow!—Fuck, Tom, listen—"

"So you know why I'm here already, huh? Been enjoying the misunderstanding? I'd love to hear the excuse you must've spent all this time cooking up. Go on."

"Wh—why would I enjoy it?" Greg looks up from his arm and shakes his head, meeting an equally confused gaze underneath the anger. "...Look, man, I'm obviously embarrassed. I didn't think she'd... take it upon herself to go talk to you, or anything. What did she actually say?"

Tom almost switches gear—but no, he won't fall for that. Anyone can put on an innocent face.

"Like you don't know," he spits. "Why don't you tell me what you think she said."

What Greg tells him next is too thorough, too awkward, too stupid not to be the truth. In a way it's disappointing. Tom wants to be pissed about the time he's now wasted over it—about the coldness he can expect from Shiv for the rest of the night, about the way she's already spoken to him if nothing else.

He is. He is, still, blaming that on Greg and his naive capacity to trust. Him and his innocent little misjudgment.

The relief that that was all it was, that then shoots up through Tom, straight out of his throat as a bark of a laugh so loud that it startles even himself—that's just what's on top for now. They can coexist just fine. He hasn't stopped being mad. Nevermind that Greg was in support of changing the game shows from the beginning, that he never suggested anything else, and therefore Tom should probably have guessed—he is.

"Oh my god, Greg, you idiot," he says to prove it.

But he's laughing. The other man hardly wears a grimace in response.

"You really thought—oh my god..."

"Uh-huh, okay, I—"

"It would honestly be less embarrassing for you if you said you were offering up juicy information in an attempt to flirt... Here, Greg, I'll give you one chance to change your story—"

"Ew, no, man—"

"I'll believe it, you absolute dog, you!"

Knowing that Greg will have no choice but to go back and share his table with Gerri if he wants dinner, and if he doesn't want to be the one asshole standing when the performances and speeches start, they both anticipate the taunts to get relentless.

It almost distracts Greg from wondering, and he doesn't get another chance to ask. Just because it doesn't affect the guy either way, Tom chooses to wait until tomorrow, regardless, to let him know that the plan is off.

Chapter Text

When Shiv drops the prenup in front of him, it's a relief. It means she still wants to get married.

Morning before Thanksgiving is just a bit of an odd time to do it. She insists that she won't care if he puts it off, but something about that just seems the lesser option, even, than ringing up his mother to tell her happy thanksgiving, mommy... also, I'm faxing something over that I'd like you to look at?

He of course might get a different lawyer entirely if the woman didn't want to be involved. Upon learning exactly how rich he was marrying—or intending to marry long before the successful proposal actually happened, she made Tom promise that when a prenuptial agreement was inevitably on the table, she'd have a chance to look at it. And he trusts his mother, he does. From the trials she's handled in family court since he was in high school to specializing in divorce for most of the 60s, there's nothing not to admire.

It used to worry him, divorce. The concept of it. Nevermind the lack of stock Tom has consciously put in the church since college, learning that his parents had had to leave the one they raised him in for the associations his mother now carried... Well, she'd always been a mildly controversial woman.

Tom couldn't help but think back then, the more she phoned him about the cases she was taking on, that they indicated something going on between her and his father. Or rather outside of them. But nothing ever did break or otherwise come to light. They're as happy as ever. Mom Wambsgans' passion lies, in her own words, in protecting victimized spouses from having their assets stolen and reputations unjustly ruined. That's all. She's assured him that she's still a Catholic. It's not her fault that that particular congregation hears the word divorce and ceases to hear anything else, even in regards to a lifelong member.

"Yes, Shiv, she is the person I want to read it over."

*

For several years, Greg braved the deep, deep awkwardness of Grandpa Ewan's company every second Monday of October for the sake of a free meal. He would then do the same, albeit with significantly less discomfort, at his mother's house about six weeks later. This is a very strange manner of switching things up.

Why his grandpa is choosing to come down, spend time with his brother's side of the family for a second iteration of a holiday with which he's in vocal, political disagreement, of all times, after little contact of any kind for a good decade... isn't utterly beyond Greg. They're both reaching quite an advanced age and the younger just nearly died. It makes enough sense if he thinks about it. He'd just have figured that this would happen sooner, if it was going to.

Greg himself has hardly spoken to the old man in ages, not since the last Thanksgiving, not even about this trip—Marcia's the sole organizer, having asked him if he could take a flight and then rent a car. Honestly, she said, she'd already told Ewan that he would. He couldn't say no if he wanted to.

"You finally cut that hair off," is the first thing Ewan says to him after opening the door. A rare moment of shock in his eyes turns into an equally rare sight: he looks pleased. Greg doesn't know what to do with it.

"Ah—yessir... I had to," he admits. At least the frown that shoots his way next is familiar.

"Mm... well, good in any case. Now I can tell from a distance that you're a man. My eyes aren't as good as they used to be, you know."

Greg sucks his cheek. "...Yeah. Sorry about that."

He thinks of the twelve-hour road trip ahead of him and decides to take his chances in asking Ewan, before they get in the car, if he might not actually change his mind about flying. A thousand haunted recollections of second-world-war fighter jet explosions flood Greg's memory before the man even looks at him.

"Nevermind," he says.

It was a shot in the dark. He can't be all that mad, especially considering what it would mean for him, too: Greg is so accustomed to flying first class with Tom, now, he would hate to spend another two hours in coach.

**

With a holiday-sanctioned glass of early afternoon wine, Tom perches himself on the back of a couch, just close enough to Shiv without being too obvious. He's under no illusion, as he allows his face to wrinkle with deliberate timing at the TV, that he isn't talking just to talk.

"I've never understood the point of a Thanksgiving proclamation..."

"Mm," Shiv agrees. "It's funny, you can tell—he forgot to mention God at all last year, now he's hamming it up so much he's forgotten to talk about the country he leads."

"And they're just playing it on loop? I can't imagine there's any number of people who would be devastated to realize they'd missed it."

"It's a distraction attempt," she says as-a-matter-of-factly, almost boredly, but it's reassuring anyway. "...Performative unification of the country, we've all got one thing in common and it's that we've all got families, focus on your own personal charities and look away from the lack of mine... simple shit. Not bad. I could come up with better."

"So get a sex change and go join his cabinet," Roman pipes up from a nearby chair, "or just change the fuckin' channel."

"Oh, fuck you, Rome," she sighs, and she walks away, leaving Tom there.

Tom then figures it a personal responsibility to turn the TV off and place the remote on a high shelf.

He used to see a lot more of the youngest Roy brother than he does lately. In a professional setting it's not so bad—though still not great, given the privilege that the guy has to eschew decorum so long as Logan isn't around. Functions like this always carry the anticipation of how Roman is going to get under his skin, and very purposefully so.

It's simultaneously a bonding point for him and Shiv and a potential wedge between them. He's found it depends mainly on how successfully Roman has hurt her, but whether or not he has is something that Tom is still learning how to judge without asking. If she's left the scene, it's best to assume the worst and avoid both of them for a bit.

In the meantime, there's Greg. Greg, who clearly just has the one jacket—something that's only easy to tease him about until Richard takes it from him, so Tom makes sure not to waste the moment—and who's also got his grandfather in tow.

He only actually realizes who it is when Marcia greets the man. He smartens up at once.

Watching Tom's bright eyes as he shakes Ewan's hand, claims how wonderful it is to meet him, introduces himself as the man's future nephew-in-law, only for Ewan to smirk and tell him my condolences—Greg doesn't know whether to feel sorry for him or laugh.

"Happy Thanksgiving," he offers instead, once it's just the two of them by the threshold.

Tom continues to pout in the direction that Ewan walked off for a moment. Then he looks directly to Greg's hands.

"Didn't bring anything, huh?"

"I mean—I brought him," Greg says, gesturing.

Ewan is now having an objectively less fortunate conversation with Roman and his girlfriend, and the latter's little girl who is unlikely to count as a granddaughter for long. In his amusement, Tom has to concede.

Or he would, if Greg didn't proceed to ask who the kid there is. At which point Tom realizes that a birthday party and a ball weren't enough; the man next to him is hardly familiar with any of this. It's astonishing alone, an affront to the Minnesotan sensibilities that he'll never fully rid of, how estranged someone could be from mere cousins. What's comforting, then, is the knowledge that he's now got something worthwhile to occupy himself with before dinner.

Just in time for Connor to arrive with Willa, too. Tom's hand promptly wraps itself around Greg's elbow, excited to give him the tour he sorely needs.

Knowing the bare facts about everyone attending Logan's Thanksgiving doesn't help him too much, Greg feels, when the majority still have little interest in talking to him. He has the most luck with the plus-ones—which he supposes, technically, does include Tom. Though when he says so, the man practically abandons his side.

It's in favor of Shiv, so Greg decides it would be silly to be upset. There's always Connor, who's also happy to introduce him more thoroughly to the woman Tom referred to as let's just say... a girlfriend-for-pay. He wouldn't necessarily have guessed it, talking to her. She speaks quite seriously of her playwright aspirations and all with a friendly face. He has perhaps not half a mind, but a growing urge, to allude to a bit of common history.

"I think she likes you," comes a brand new voice just seconds after Willa has left the conversation. Greg nearly jumps—twists around, looks down to find a slicked-back head of hair.

This is possibly the second time that Roman has spoken to him directly, and the first without any others present. But he's liked nothing else he's heard from the guy yet.

"R-really?" he asks anyway.

Who knows, he figures. Tom turned around. Kind of.

"Mm—sure, why not. You're naive enough, you're not twice her age... Only problem is, she's an expensive gal. So save up some money, Greg, and god-willing, you could snatch her from Connor in no time."

"Hah, I wouldn't want to—"

"Just hope that no one clues him in on your plan. He looks soft, and... he is, but he can always hire men to kill you."

"What? No—"

"Oh—there he is now. Unfortunately for you, this wine has worn my impulse control down to the barest little nub. See ya on the other side!"

As far as he can tell, watching Roman cross the room to his brother, something to that effect is exchanged between them. Connor does no more than throw a glance his way and laugh, which shouldn't be a surprise, but Greg is put at slightly more ease anyway. Meanwhile he's beginning to notice a pattern resurfacing from his teenage years. He cares for it even less now.

At his parents' house the football game would be on about now, and that would be the final mediator if nothing else worked. Though it has almost never had to be, as far back as Tom remembers. The friction has a tendency to stop at how to best season a turkey or which is Bradbury's best work. Politics isn't a banned topic but nary a cause for argument to begin with.

It helps that no Wambsgans he knows of, nor any Owens on his mother's side, have ever dipped their toe into anything non-local. None have met a president, let alone sat down to dinner with them. None have had particular influence on the passing of a law. None have helped so much as a mayor run for office. If any had, Tom thinks, given that the politician hadn't demolished any children's hospitals recently, there would be nothing but respect from all corners of the room.

For his and Shiv's sake both he'd give anything for a proper round of yes, exactlys. Yes, I do wish they would fix that pothole. Absolutely, the local hospice care needs more funding. You've got some potential new clients lined up? How wonderful, good luck!

...Might be too much to hope for before anyone is sat to eat. Something real, that is— charcuterie boards and platters of white wine turn to mockery the longer that they lie about. They tease a host who's yet to show himself, and so this lot becomes worse. No one group stays pleasant for long. Frank remains busy with Gerri, whom he's been avoiding. Kendall and his wife are endlessly on edge. Their children like him pretty well but are too reserved to be much fun. Marcia's son is a new, mysterious player—so new, in fact, that Tom can rarely seem to find him. A strategy of onto the next rather quickly reaches an end.

It's Tom and Tom alone, then, who witnesses the first of Marcia aiding Logan down the stairs. He meets the former's sharp eyes through the railing, telling him very clearly that this has not been made a show for a reason. Her husband is still very weak and wants no one to see the evidence.

Out of fear more than respect, that might convince Tom to put all the distance the house has to give between himself and the scene. But then, in some slanted peripheral through the threshold, there's Ewan coming to meet him. The elderly Roy brothers, reunited at long last. He doesn't dare waste this.

So, with his back facing any corner that they could possibly round and his face pretending to be very interested in a framed painting, Tom engages in some good old-fashioned if not childish eavesdropping.

Names are exchanged as full sentences. A couple gruff quips about illness and estrangement. The vaguest hint of sentimentality—nothing terribly unexpected or exciting.

Then there's a long pause, without any footsteps to explain it.

"What?" comes, demanding, from Logan. "Don't go having a stroke on me right now. I just know you can't stand knowing I did it first."

"Those... those cufflinks." The way Ewan seems to force the words out, just loud enough to catch, Tom almost does expect a stroke to follow. "...They're awfully familiar."

"Oh! Well, they ought to be." A smile has never been so obvious in Logan's voice, nor has been a hard, devastated look in mere silence.

Feeling as though he himself might otherwise collapse, then, Tom leaps away to the relative peace of those mingling in the drawing room. It occurs to him only afterward that his footsteps may have alerted some attention.

*

"So, Ewan, how was the trip? Did you and Greg stop anywhere fun?"

Marcia does a decent job of keeping the conversation civil for the time being. Her questions on Logan's behalf have been paired a handful of times with knowing glances in Tom's direction. Or he may be simply paranoid.

"Oh, fine, fine... There was, actually, a charming little farmer's market on the way," says Ewan between bites.

It's both given and received like an announcement to the group that he's got the capacity to be pleasant. Both he and most everyone else, too, knows it earns him no points.

When he doesn't elaborate, Greg is enthusiastic in telling Marcia, also loud enough for the rest to hear whether they care to or not,

"Yeah, I wanted to just stop for fast food, or a diner or something, but Gramps insisted! He likes to be, uh..."

"Sustainable," Ewan supplies. He doesn't look happy about it—doesn't look up from his plate at all as he continues, even. "I prefer to cut out the middle-man as often as possible. I find that beyond supporting farmers it tends to have the added benefit of being cheaper, healthier, and more filling than a... Hardee's burger. Or whatever else."

There's no telling at whose expense any snicker that follows is meant to be. It's certainly a blend. Cutting through them all alike, unambiguous, is Logan.

"Mm—how sustainable do you suppose is the meal you're eating right now, Ewan?"

"I'm sure I have as good a guess as you do, seeing as you have nothing to do with putting it together."

Multiple half-started noises of alarm or yet more amusement break around the table, but Marcia once again acts before the threat of argument takes hold:

"Ah, it's true," she says, giving a sheepish grin and a shrug. "We have a large team who we pay very well. I do assure you though, Ewan, that I personally request everything in our kitchen to be ethically sourced."

"Do anything else fun, besides the market?" Logan all but shouts down the table once it settles. "Been a while since you've been to New York, hasn't it? Lot's changed... You must've gone to see a sight or two."

Anticipating another snide response at best, Greg takes it upon himself to keep his grandpa from saying anything at all.

"We actually got back pretty late—and y'know, it's funny but sitting in a car for that long does make you tired, like just as tired as if you were walking around all day... somehow. By that time we—we both just wanted to get some rest at my pad. And Chinese food from downstairs, if that counts as a, uh, New York spot..."

The silence quickly tells him that it does not.

Logan grunts. "...Chinese food, eh?"

"We did see a bit of the Macy's Parade," Greg starts again. Partway to cover up his mistake in mentioning food, partway because he cannot stop himself. "I mean—kind of. From a distance, while walking to the train to get here. I'd kind of always wanted to actually see it in person, like the whole procession, but Gramps didn't really, ah... it's not a big deal. I saw the Tom the Turkey balloon rounding the corner at 66th, which was neat—"

A loud, tortured sort of sound from the middle of the table makes nearly everyone jump. Greg doesn't know who made it until Logan addresses him:

"Son, what the hell?"

"Sorry, Dad, just—of course Cousin Greg likes Tom the fucking Turkey," is Roman's contemptuous answer. The sheer amount of vitriol now directed his way for the sake of a parade balloon simply strikes Greg dumb while his cousin continues: "You know I tried to get that canceled pre-production last year and I tried to stop 'em from making that fucking balloon, too. No one seems to care that that is the ugliest goddamn puppet to ever be on TV, let alone our own channel. You know what? I blame our own Tom—"

"Like we told you before," Tom cheeks a mouthful of potato to say, "the pilot played well with kids and sponsors. I just follow the money, Roman."

"No, you approved it because you're biased about sharing a likeness. Oh, and a name too, of course."

"Hey," says Shiv, sharp and admonishing, as she elbows her brother on his behalf. It's one of the most reassuring things that Tom has heard all day.

Of course, it's just the beginning.

*

Between dinner and dessert, there remains an implicit demand for togetherness that wasn't at all present before the meal. Doors remain open on all sides of the drawing room but no one strays from it.

Logan is in the center, pandering to the prettiest guest while his wife peers intently over her glass. Everyone else plays spectator and waits for pie in a joined state of malaise.

Everyone, that is, except for Ewan, who seems to have decided to refuse his role. Half don't notice but the other half, including Greg and Tom on opposite sides of the room, watch him cross it to approach his niece, of all people. Not even so loud as to necessarily interrupt, he begins a conversation that distracts the host's audience.

"Siobhan, I recall overhearing a conversation between you and... I believe Geraldine, earlier. I meant to ask but didn't get the chance, then—I must say, I'm confused precisely what your stance on Nixon is."

She very briefly glances to Tom, who doesn't look back quite fast enough. Soon they're both busy blinking at Ewan's stony expectance.

"Ah... how do you mean?" she settles on after a moment, a startled laugh stuck in her throat.

"Well, I only ask because you're the one person here who pursues a career in that world, as a woman no less, so I'd guess that there's a certain expectation—"

"Which I... haven't met," Shiv finishes for him. "Why, because I have a nuanced opinion?"

"I'm only curious. Perhaps you know something I don't, given that it's your profession and not mine. I just did notice—to every man you've spoken to on the matter, you've given nothing but criticism despite recent progress made toward environmentalism and desegregation. But to Ms. Kellman, above admitting support for those things you also sounded quite sincere in the possibility of aiming to join his reelection campaign if no Democrat nominees seem promising. Frankly, Siobhan, I'd have considered you a rare point of pride on this side of the family. It's pure concern."

Watching the blood rising in her face, Tom has never felt so thankful for Shiv's father to interject before she has the chance to speak.

"Sorry—I thought you had allegiance to the other side of the border, Ewan."

"The American government has undeniable influence on the rest of the world," he shoots back easily, simply.

"I don't need to explain a private conversation," Shiv gets out, but just barely before being knocked out of the ring again—

"Not my fault you have none." Logan has stood up completely, turning away from Willa now. Not with any focus on his daughter either. "You're really all talk, you know that? You've gone out of your way to be awfully uncivil for someone so opposed to war."

"War?" says Ewan, sharpest he's done all day. "You want to talk about war? Alright, Logan. You send your eldest son into war to teach him a lesson, and you pay off the draft board to overlook the other two. Your company publishes naive think-pieces about the country's involvement in Vietnam, and you're all but in bed with the president who's been escalating it. You hold no real conviction against communism—or any other belief, for that matter. You attach yourself to nothing, not even your own family, when it comes down to it. You are simply, exclusively loyal to money, and that is what I despise about this... this den of wolves, that you've propagated here.

"My apologies, Marcia," he turns to say, miraculously calm across her taut, alert stare, "but if there's ever peace to be made between us, I don't care how sick he gets. I will not be the one to step toward middle ground."

The real miracle is that Logan has allowed him to keep talking. He's just been nodding vaguely along with an open mouth, a growing smile—a firm one, finally, when Ewan starts toward the coat rack.

"Likewise, brother."

Ewan doesn't acknowledge him. He stops in front of Greg and makes no private matter of what he says next.

"As for you... the best thing I have to say to you, Gregory, is to get out while you still can. I disapproved enough of that... hippie lifestyle, but now I regret hoping that you'd ever leave the phase. What a mighty, stupid leap this is, Greg. I would take that self-righteous child a million times over a coward who ingratiates himself to the lot in this room."

With all eyes on him, or what feels like it, now, Greg sees no other choice but to defend himself. Even if he'd rather melt into the floor.

"Uh... okay, um, I don't think that's fair," is what he first manages in his shock. He swallows and his thoughts race to anywhere, anything but dignifying his own past. "To—to the other people in this room as much as myself, frankly? In particular Shiv—honestly, Grandpa, I'm sorry, but from where I was standing you were a bit of an instigator. And... one could argue, hypocritical to your other values, bordering on... misogynistic?"

"...So you did learn something during your brief stint in college. S'pose I should appreciate my money went to some use. Though I wonder if those—what was it, three semesters?—two?—toward a sociology major will do you much good here."

Just like that, he leaves. Cane in hand, he announces that he'll find his way home, and Greg faces the man's direction and nowhere else so long as he has the excuse. He swallows again.

Behind him, in the drawing room, Logan's voice rumbles.

"A den of wolves, he says... hm. I like that."

*

There goes any chance of getting Ewan's board seat, is a thought that Greg keeps close by out of dread for the alternative. Soon, however, pumpkin pie is on the table and the group moves to the next room, and collective shock fades. Then there's no choice.

"So, Greg," from Roman, incredibly without surprise, "what was your name before you changed it back?"

He pauses, in retrospect clearly to allow for confusion; he wants to see the hopeless shake of Greg's head. He gets it, and then he grins like the fucking cheshire cat.

"Moonflower? ...Duskmeadow? Fuckin'—I dunno, some other faggy-ass name, uhh... Love... Sparrow. Nah—Leaf? Twig? Actually, that makes sense. Am I right? Tell me I'm right, man. You were so the Twig in your commune."

Luckily no one but Roman and his giggling fit are demanding an answer from him, so Greg doesn't struggle much to choose the lesser discomfort of staying silent. Even as the other man continues—to embarrass only himself, Greg tries so very hard to let ring in his mind. Advice from the few kind primary school teachers he ever had ought to have come in handy sometime.

"I bet being in the whole Women's Lib thing helps your chances of bagging snatch, right?" says Roman, eliciting a bit of reassuring disgust from those closest to him. "Or—obviously, it would if you weren't just, the most sexless being to ever exist. Lemme guess, rejections probably go, 'oh, sorry, I just see you like a sister...'"

However well-intentioned, meanwhile, Connor doesn't help much by saying "Oh, leave him alone, we've all got our phases."

Greg just can't help but be suspicious of the smile Connor throws him. He's more on edge than he's been in a long time. Nauseous, too. But he still eats, working his way slowly through the pie and swallowing water after every bite so that he has an excuse not to look up from his plate. Least of all in Logan's oppressive direction. He'd hate to see how the man must be looking at him.

After the first two who excuse themselves, Greg feels justified to follow, and it seems so do a number of others in quick succession. Thanksgiving unity fizzles out, at least for now. Marcia calls out for everyone to be ready to play a game in twenty or so minutes. Should be enough time for him to catch a breather, maybe let everyone forget what they heard.

And he first does so in the nook underneath the winding staircase. It's a bit of a tight squeeze, with just an inch of room above his head when sitting flush to the wall, but otherwise an ideal little corner to hide in. Someone would either have to be looking for him, or have the same exact idea as he does, in order to find him. All while being a far cry from a broom closet and rather a reasonable place to sit without meeting an accusation, if someone were to find him.

It's just as he thinks that, that voices enter the hall.

"Can you tell me why exactly I'm here, Shiv? I just, you know, I really would have liked to be with my own family, and I'm happy to be your support against your own, but I'm not sure what my purpose is here when you keep avoiding me."

"Please—I'm not avoiding you, Tom. I'm just my own person. And so are you—I wouldn't have stopped you from getting on a flight to St. Paul this morning if you tried."

"But would you have wanted me to? I thought you wanted me here—that you needed me here, actually."

They're hushed, but clearly also under the impression that they're entirely alone. Greg tries to shrink himself even deeper into the corner, thinking of what it would mean to get caught—

"Is this about the prenup?" he hears Tom continue, somehow clearer now. He must be sitting on the stairs. "Let's just talk about it."

Greg's heard enough. He shouldn't have heard half this much. The same thing that twists his gut, just then, hauls him in a straight shot out of the nook and past the next threshold like his life depends on it.

Rather than call with her notes, his mother faxed her annotated copy of the prenup early this morning. Shiv was the first to see it and, in a turnaround of attitude on the matter, didn't seem interested in doing more than just that. She didn't even hand it to him. Her only courtesy was to tell him that it had printed.

Reading through every note didn't take too long when it came down to it, for Tom, but the immediate takeaway was that there was a lot. Every margin was filled, and a web of arrows and underlines and circles obscured the typed text to the point of squinting.

He decided at the time that all that information could be put away and dealt with later, and he truly didn't think much of it, simply because he chose not to.

Now he really wishes that his mother had called.

"Yeah, I read some of it," Shiv admits, without looking at him. But she's finally sat down. "She just—she made it pretty clear how much she doesn't want you to marry me, Tom."

"Oh—no, no, honey..." Tom moves to wrap both arms around her and rub hers as reassuringly as possible. "I didn't get that at all. My mom's just thorough—and concerned, I guess. Wants only the best for her little boy, you know?"

He waits until she at least matches his light laugh with a hum of her own to let her sit back up.

"So—"

"It's mainly the clauses about adultery, really," he says. "That there aren't any, I mean. But that's just her looking at it from a purely legal perspective, y'know, I'm sure things would be different if she actually spent more time with you—"

"Well that's what the prenup is, Tom. It's legal."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm just saying that bit's not a big deal. Right? Having a clause about something that's a crime anyway—should we also have a clause in there about, say, if one of us commits murder? You know?"

Tom laughs again, but Shiv's face doesn't change. She sits up straighter.

"Uh—well, I'd say an extramarital relationship is hardly equal to murder, Tom."

"Right..." He registers her tone of voice too late and shakes his head. "Wait, what?"

"I mean, it shouldn't even really be illegal, should it? The private affairs of people in their own relationships—I've really never understood why that's something the government should be involved in."

Tom straightens up and scoots back like she's afflicted with something that he could catch.

"Shiv, are you saying—?"

"No, not at all! No, Tom, I'm not. I'm not having an affair. I—"

"Then what are we talking about, here? What's all this... what are you saying?"

"It's just the prenup terms, Tom. That's it. All I'm saying is, if either of us were to wind up wanting a divorce because the other was cheating—"

"But that wouldn't—"

"—then I would hope that we'd still have the sense not to factor it in when it comes to dividing assets, because why should that matter—"

"But, but that's not going to happen... Right, Shiv?"

For a split second, the look on her face matches the horror on his. The pause on either side of it speaks louder to Tom than anything she proceeds to say.

"Oh my god, of course not, Tom." She grabs both of his arms and grins, wide, inches from his face. "In the same way that of course this townhouse isn't going to catch fire, not with the precautions my dad's staff takes, but city code still requires fire escapes."

Trying to piece together the analogies in his head feels like moving through molasses. Tom blinks.

"So... you think either of us might just. Happen into an affair, unpredictably, like in some freak accident. Like a lightning strike. Instead of a conscious choice being made."

"Okay, obviously not, I just..." He watches a lump in her throat bob, and can hear her voice go... narrower. "I swear I have no intention to cheat on you or, or suspicion that you would. I swear. I just live in the real world, Tom."

...Uh huh. He nods. He does a lot of nodding, and blinking, and agreeing, because he's tired of fighting, and he craves so badly a conversation like this that ends with a kiss and a sincere, mutual I love you. If it's him who has to compromise to make it happen, he'll do it. He knows already that he's going to fall back on his original plan and push nothing more about the prenup. He'll do it.

He just needs to forget about it for a while first.

*

"There you are. Man, fuck you for being the last place I thought to check... Oh, woah," he switches gears as soon as Greg turns his head with smoke billowing out of his mouth. "Is that uh... reefer?"

Had the afternoon gone differently, Greg might chuckle at the word Tom uses—or otherwise be entirely relieved to see him. But he's been rethinking his whole career for a good ten minutes. Regardless of Tom's claims he has no idea what to expect.

"No," he says, then holds up and shakes a pack of Winstons.

If Tom notices any wariness in his eyes or his stance, he doesn't say anything. He just comes to lean over the railing with him.

"In that case, mind if I, ah, bum a fag off ya?"

Greg bristles with a worse pang in the pit of his stomach than earlier, no longer out of shock, just dread. When he halfway averts his gaze and says nothing, though, he looks back up to find nothing deeper in Tom's face. No cruel glint, no curl of the lip. Just genuine, imploring glances between his own face and the cigarettes in his hand.

"Oh—yeah, yeah, sure."

He hurries to fish one out for him. Tom puts it in his mouth and just keeps staring at him. It takes Greg another second to realize, and another, still, to find his lighter and extend his hand.

Instead of taking it, Tom leans forward. Greg holds his breath and lights it for him.

Not as rich as he usually prefers, but it's alright. His dad smokes these. Tom uses the exhale of his first drag to look away from Greg, out at the city, and say what's been on his mind since he started looking for him:

"Fuckin' Roman, huh?"

"Hah." Greg sniffs. "Yeah..."

"...He really wasn't nearly this much of a bastard not that long ago. Think it's something to do with Logan almost dying."

This air of exchanging simple information feels like something to hold onto at all costs. At the same time, watching Tom suck down a good centimeter of his cigarette in one go, reasons for the guy to have come out here occur to Greg.

"Sorry about my grandpa," he tells him, and Tom frowns, bemusement pulling the corner of his mouth.

"Why are you apologizing?"

"Just—you know. I guess I'm... more related to him than most of the rest of you. And he kind of ruined everything."

"Oh—" Tom scoffs, channeling his fiancé— "this was not the worst Roy Thanksgiving, Greg. Not by far. Ah, man, I can't wait for you to see Christmas around this place..."

The way he says that makes Greg think that he should only be more apprehensive. That is, if he even has the chance.

"Is, uh... is everyone talking about me in there? About what my grandpa said?"

There's no harm in alluding to it anymore, he thinks. Not to Tom. But the other man's frown returns, deeper this time, a lopsided smile truly unfurling up to his cheeks even in the middle of a drag. He leans more fully against the railing and shows some teeth.

"Yeah, Greg. Everyone in there has nothing better to talk about than you."

"...Right, right," Greg sighs. "I guess—"

"I wouldn't fucking know anyway, I haven't been... yeah." Tom's cigarette reaches the nub; he tosses it off the balcony and watches the light fall all twelve stories down. Greg watches with him. When it's gone, Tom barely has to turn his head. "So. You were really a hippie, Greg?"

He sighs again, unsurprised, but it's annoying at worst. He just shrugs and nods.

"Were you actually in a commune, too?—did you all... walk around in the nude?"

No, he wasn't, and no he never did, genuinely, no. He only ever didn't bathe for more than a couple days whenever it was impossible to do so, which he worked very hard to prevent. Sure, it meant washing himself in a stream or a lake a few times. But it was mostly a motel shower or a bathhouse. There was never any spiritual connection to the earth at all going on for him, particularly not to the dirt and the mud. Any time he's slept on grass he hasn't enjoyed it.

Greg spends so much unnecessary energy insisting that he is not nor has he ever been a dirty person, it begins to backfire. But most of Tom's questions are laughable. He's soon mostly unhesitant to answer, to for once be the one to correct the other man's naivety—

And to admit to himself, he begins to realize, how much of it all boiled down to a manner of dressing. When Tom asks him if he would go to more protests, he has to think about it.

"...It would depend," he decides, or rather doesn't.

"Mm. On what?"

"Where it was. If I thought it could make a difference. If it couldn't... get me in trouble."

"I don't care what you do with your free time, Greg," Tom tells him.

It's the truth mainly in the sense that he is not currently the same man who employs the one next to him. And Tom knows it. But the notion that he'll take that as permission is too far off to pose any threat, and the softening of Greg's features is... unmatched.

"You must've had longer hair back then," he then thinks aloud.

Wistfully but somewhat self-conscious about it, Greg confirms it.

"How long?"

He hesitates but only for a short moment; his hand marks the measurement just below his collarbone.

Tom already can't shake the image, it's so vivid. His eyes flicker up and down Greg's current hair like he can, currently, see it. All the while he's positively desperate for proof.

"Please tell me you have pictures somewhere, Greg—you have to," he says, and repeats, laughing in-between to the other man's growing embarrassment. "I simply must see that. You have to promise me that you'll find it and show me sometime... I'm serious, Greg. Promise me."

Just as Greg relents and makes the promise, there's a shout from inside, drawing their heads to face the balcony door.

"Guess they started without us," he mutters.

"Mm." Tom hums, preparing to forget himself. "...Whaddaya say, wanna go play their little game?"

**

It's been a while since Greg was last able to afford his own place. Not that he's had many roommates either—he often didn't have much permanence or security at all. It was a van with some cushion in the back, or the attic above an employer's store, or a week's stay at a motel, or... more or less an extended stay with a friend or other companion.

So no, never a commune, but hardly any better.

What he's got now in Greenwich Village is essentially one big room plus a bathroom and a closet, which above all is something. It's four walls and a roof and electricity and running water and just him, and it's cheap.

Other than the bed, kitchen appliances, and rugs and single chair that came with the apartment, though, it's pretty bare. When his grandpa stayed the night, he had to take the floor to keep an old man's back from breaking. Hiding the paraphernalia that he'd forgotten to put away after Ewan was already past the door, too, was a decent challenge.

There's a small table, now, that someone down the street was throwing away. He's also made use of a curtain to make the corner with the bed sort of its own space a few days too late. Then each trip to L.A. has allowed him to bring trunks full of his old things from his mom's storage as well as free posters that he gets from the studio—whether they feature shows or movies that Greg is any kind of fan of, they cover up the peeling paint on the wall. Slowly but surely it is coming together.

Last paycheck's big purchase was the mattress. Greg figures now that if he's careful about it and really milks the free food from work, the next two can pay for a decent box TV.

A discounted Royco television set might have suited his purposes and could be in his pad the same evening he receives his second check—but Tom warns him against it. Says he's got no obligation anymore to pretend that those things are built with integrity or that they won't fall apart on him in a year. Greg wouldn't have really minded that as long as he had something in the meantime, and he tells Tom as much. The guy still insists.

"No one ever got anywhere by settling, Greg."

He makes it sound convincing.

In the same conversation he doesn't ask, but tells Greg that he's taking him out to dinner tonight.

Some old colleague of Shiv's has called her down to DC to meet up about a political opportunity. Tom had thought the client she was already talking to was a sure thing by now—apparently, Sofrelli swears to high heaven that whatever I've got going on, his guy is ten times better. He's gonna be the next president.

"I'm doubtful, but a call like this from him is rare," she told him. "Guess I'll see."

It makes enough sense. The knowledge still stirs something uncomfortable in Tom until he's made his own evening plans.

He didn't for one second look anywhere but Greg. How Thanksgiving ended frankly begged for an encore, even and especially in the wake of Logan's outburst that they were lucky to miss. It's added some tension around the executive floor, and then the more that news of the big boss breaking things or going catatonic travels in a big ol' circle from Kendall to Shiv to him... Tom thinks he and Greg really deserve a night out. Something a level or two above the lunches they share a few times a week. That, and he's too impatient to wait for the Roy family Christmas to corner the guy and open that door again.

Tom makes an undeniable show of it—calling up Le Pavillon in front of him, reserving a spot for just four hours ahead, placing the phone on the receiver with a smug glance—only for Greg's expression and posture to betray nothing. He's never heard of the place.

"Seriously? What? I know you haven't been in New York long but—fuck, Greg, have you eaten nothing but grease-trap droppings for the past thirty years? Could you tell me anything you do know about the culinary world."

Greg shrugs, but offers this: "Uh... I know that you shouldn't pronounce the N in pavillon."

The smile is wiped from Tom's face.

"Well, I'm not about to sound like some wannabe French jackass, Greg. Just be ready."

Greg never did get entirely fluent in French. He lost a lot of it after high school, having immediately moved back to California with his mom when she decided she was no longer obligated for the sake of his education to stay. She hated Quebec. Never spoke the language at home and, if she remembered any from her own childhood, spitefully did not dignify her father's determination to maintain it. Greg himself may very well have only kept what he did over the years because of Ewan's tendency to test him and then treat him better if he passed.

In his more recent years of permanent Canadian residence, especially around Montreal, he got better at conversations out of necessity. But true confidence never came, and it's already slipping again.

Needless to say he follows Tom's lead and doesn't use any more than what's on the menu. He also seems to pass some reverse-test in pronouncing it no better than the average rich American when he talks to the waiter.

That is, it's with delight that Tom waves the man away with a request for a few more minutes to decide, and then explains to him what he's going to like. Greg may translate the words with more intuition, but Tom knows what the plates look like. He knows how they look, ordering this or that. How each wine will compliment each entree—and yes, the waiter will make a recommendation, but no, you don't take it. Not if it's your first time here. Ideally you've beaten him to it.

It's funny—as Tom goes down the line of instructions, Greg's hands itch to write them down. In the end it's all made useless by Tom following a reflex to order for the both of them, which leaves Greg more relieved than he is bothered. He does, then, hand his own menu back with a perfectly accented merci.

"...Show-off."

"It's just how you say it, man."

"Mm. You sure it isn't perhaps slightly, but still noticeably different in French Canada than actual France? I bet they can tell by the way you swallow your R, or something, and all the waiters are gabbing back there in the kitchen about the tall, funny-looking peasouper getting courted by Mr. Wambsgans."

While Tom laughs at his own joke, Greg stares with tight lips, deeply unsure which part of that to focus on.

It's probably nothing, or the lighting playing a trick on him, but they are at this lower-level, clearly secret or exclusive part of the already supposedly "best French restaurant in the city." A thick red curtain divides them and just a few other booths from the front of the establishment. They're distant enough even from those other people... no, no. But maybe? No.

"Relax," Tom says, "s'all jokes. I have nothing against Quebec. Actually, I'd been meaning to ask—I noticed, on your application where you put your last permanent address... it said five years."

"Oh—yeah, that's... I realized afterward that that probably seemed, uh, inconsistent with my job history? Yeah, if—if it matters that it's accurate on the record, I did technically... move around a bit. Quite often. But I was in the same general area for all of that time, so..."

"Uh huh." Tom nods, absentmindedly picking at his bread. "That's all fine, Greg. It doesn't matter. I just, ah... had a hunch about why you were up past the Great Lakes for that specific amount of time, and I wonder if you could confirm it for me."

It feels for a moment sinister when Tom punctuates that with a sip of wine, leaving only his wide, focused eyes for Greg to meet over the glass. He sucks in a breath and doesn't let it go until the bottom half of Tom's face is unobscured again—though it's the arch in the man's eyebrow that really does it.

"Uh... hah. Well, yeah, man, I... yeah," is Greg's initial confession, with a chagrined smile more than anything for the way he said it. "...You got me. Um—you're not gonna tell anyone, are you?"

"What, that you're a draft dodger?" Tom rolls the words around in his jaw like they're the hors d'oeuvres that have yet to come, and watches the panic bloom in Greg's eyes with the smallest of sparks in his own.

"Tom—"

"Greg, if the board had ever pulled your card, that information would have come up when I hired you," he tells him, leaning forward, in a softer voice now. "It's not really dodging if nothing's been thrown at you yet, is it. All you did was move to another country. One you already had citizenship to. That's it."

Before Greg can express much of anything, a white sleeve cuts through his view with the first plate of the night. Small soups for each of them—to prepare his palate, Tom said.

"I went to my grandpa, actually—for help in getting into college again? I'd have been back to riding on luck after another two years but I figured, hey, two years ain't nothing, it gives me at least some buffer time... But, uh. Basically, in his words, I either should've found a way to pay for it myself, or outright enlist because that 'yielded a better chance I wouldn't be on the ground,' or... knock up some girl and marry her fast—or move back up to Canada. Which he made clear that he thought I was a coward if I did that, but... obviously I did it. And I really don't think it does make me a coward. Or—if it does, I guess I really don't care? I dunno. Should I?"

He's perhaps only been allowed to speak for so long because Tom has been taught not to let people see the food in his mouth. But Tom doesn't make any attempt to stop him from doing the same. Everything flooding out of Greg's mouth just seems to enter him, ready to shoot off once his own finds a good place to stop chewing.

"...Y'know, Greg, before the lottery I was fucking terrified of 'Nam," comes right out the gate—a word that Greg himself had been reluctant to use. Tom watches him nod with such force then he might rock the table. "And even then—would you know, if I was eighteen years younger, last year, I'd have been shipped off?"

Greg's eyes gain a shine that no one else's ever had when he's told them this. "Wow."

"Yep. Despite everything I still... honestly, I was still afraid. Who knows, you know? Though—lemme tell ya, that was nothing compared to the year before. Sure, I was high in the production chain of several beloved sitcoms, but. I was also fit, healthy, as of yet unmarried..."

Tom considers bringing up that first proposal that he made to Shiv five months in. How he would have asked her to have his child too if she hadn't made such a quick job of setting him straight. It feels like his teeth alone, in a click, decide to skip past it.

"...But listen—a little talk between Shiv and Logan, some words exchanged with the draft board, and anything that might have been there? All gone. S'long as you're here, you don't have to worry about shit, Greg."

His story isn't completely true. As far as he knows, there may have been no conversations of that nature at all. All Tom ever got to his face was a reassurance from Shiv that if anything came for him, he could trust her father to take care of it. She was more insistent than anyone how big of an If it really was. He was already in his forties. He wasn't wanted in Vietnam.

"Wow," Greg says again.

It feels at once like a single, taut string throughout his body has been loosened, enough to make him lose a couple inches in apparent height... but not quite cut. What holds it most firmly in place is new. Some horrible defense shoots outward to catch the cord as it threatens to let Greg truly relax: he's reminded, with the sharpest stab of guilt yet, of something that he perhaps should not have done. And a fear that Tom can somehow tell.

For the first time, in spite of it, Greg banishes any urge to call upon the anger he'd felt on that first night at the studio. When it all fades, there's something much older that remains anyway—something that recognizes this unprecedented safety, this simultaneous electricity, and doesn't hesitate to take its chance to flood out.

With the arrival of the main course, Tom really must insist that he pay attention to what he's eating. And Greg agrees—apologetically, damming it back up, insisting in turn that this is an incredible meal, that he's never had anything half as luxurious in his life, that he's thankful, this is delicious—that it's just, to be completely honest with you, Tom—

"I have had some worries, especially since, ah... my grandpa's outburst. That it may get out that... um."

Bad spot to pause for a bite of foie gras, he realizes mid-chew, but Tom's expression all but demanded it.

"...What, Greg?"

"Just that—okay, technically, I did in fact... dodge?"

Tom blinks. The gears don't have to turn for long. "What, you burned your draft card?"

He sounds so unfazed, Greg is inclined to stay equally composed despite being caught so off-guard.

"Y-yeah, actually. So...so you don't think—?"

"Does the government just magically know that the little paper card they gave you is gone?" Tom chuckles through a bite of greens—he can't help it. It's a particular joy carrying him more than pure, superior amusement here. He's lifted above his own memories, reliving the relief, finding it more certain than it was the first time. "Just go and get another one. Tell 'em you lost the original. Easy peasy."

"Well, it's just—"

"Seriously, Greg. You'd've been so utterly low priority even if they had tried to call you—it's not gonna happen."

"The thing is, it was filmed? The, uh... burning. That is."

When it was aiming to get out some minutes ago, it was still behind a buffer of reiterating his irrational fears and awareness of them, how he was nervous about moving back here and why he did anyway—too many fucking actual dodgers filling up the streets and picking the job market to the bone, funnily enough—and then what led up to this far more solid fear, Greg's original months in USC and how he got in, why he dropped out, how stupid he knows that he was, now—

Now, the concern in Tom's eyes and lower jaw effectively streamlines it.

"I wasn't, like, particularly close to the camera... um. At the protest. Where I was. But I know I was on it—I watched the news replay it later, you wouldn't have to look for me that hard, and you can—you can kinda see... uh. Well, it's a handful of guys doing it. We kind of—we smoked 'em? Which is technically still burning, I mean definitely it is—"

"Smoked them as in—you turned your draft card into a doobie?"

Greg is too strictly on his train of thought to even worry, ironically, about Tom's voice ticking up a decibel.

"Um, so, yeah, it's possible that there's a tape out there somewhere, and if I move up, y'know, in the job... someone could, I dunno, match my face? If they wanted to?—like, if a corporate adversary or whoever wanted to dig up dirt on me? And then I'd be back to square fucking one—"

"My god, Greg, aren't you full of yourself..."

In staving off the fit of laughter that Tom can feel coming on, he bites his knuckle and stares for a beat out at the room. No one is paying any attention to them. He decides this with a pulse of calm.

When he turns his gaze back, Greg looks hopeless.

"You turned... your draft card... into a doobie," Tom repeats, begging those tremors back.

"It's not that funny, Tom. What if someone—"

"Oh, it's fucking funny, Greg. How'd that grass taste, huh? Like moldy cardstock and ink? Could you detect the vintage?"

He's just riling himself up, and it takes a few seconds to properly take it in when Greg just keeps staring at him with those dark, shining eyes, so worried somehow that this could possibly catch up to him.

"I knew a guy once who taped every single local news broadcast," Greg tells him. "Just—just a whole room, piled high with tapes. And he can't be the only one, right? So it's out there. It's possible, Tom."

"Possible that the tape exists? Sure. Possible that anyone but you would go to the effort to find it and, and match you?"

Tom finds himself picturing that room full of tapes. He's seen plenty in his own time, if far more corporate and organized than what Greg described, so it comes easily. It's a terribly vivid fraction of a second. In his mind's eye those stacks stand crooked, intimidating, ready to topple but refusing to ever quite get there. And nevermind the mundanity of what's on all of these, it's a discomforting sight, all that precarious information. Imagining what the owner could do with it. Imagining how easily he could destroy it and how much would be lost, just like that. He breathes deep and tries to focus on his plate.

"...No, you idiot."

With features only softening, eyes fluttering to prove that he's thinking, Greg nods.

"Right. Yeah."

There's a stretch of silence.

"You never got arrested at the time, right?" Now Greg shakes his head. "Yeah, there you go. Just... maybe don't tell anyone else exactly when or where it was, and hope that I will never have anything to gain by offering up this privileged information, or that I never, say, naively trust the company lawyers to help me figure out your situation... and you'll be good."

Tom grins at him through his last mouthful, gleefully watching the journey behind Greg's eyes up until he gets it all down.

"I'm kidding! Fuck, man." Tom reaches across the table to shove Greg's shoulder with the backs of his fingers. "You can trust me. Obviously."

And he waits until they're both finishing off their second glass of wine to ask, "So, you ah, still bogarting that joint every now and then?"

Greg stares at him and swallows. He doesn't think he should answer that.

Forgoing dessert or cigars in his impatience, Tom drags Greg into the bathroom. The staff knows him; he has nothing to worry about abandoning the table. He just checks the stalls.

"Forget the grass, Greg. Hell, forget all the gourmet shit—at least for now, because you're about to lose your appetite if you weren't full already. This is true luxury."

"I really did like all this, Tom," Greg tries to say, unable to help but read into it. "I'm just—honestly, it's all just a bit surreal, so if I seemed—"

"Oh, it'll feel less surreal in a second," Tom laughs. His hopes for a Greg overwhelmed with awe may have been dashed, to some disappointment, but he's no stranger to plans abruptly changing. This works perfectly well. He's excited—almost overexcited, fumbling with the tin he'd had in his pocket. "...I'm sure you've only had street shit. Time to try some rich people drugs, Greg."

Tom extends his closed fist to Greg, offering the first chance at a bump. The hesitation is expected.

"You know how to do it?"

His worst fear, suddenly, is for Greg to tell him and with an infuriating lack of confidence, oh, I've already tried blow and I actually didn't care for it? So before the guy has the chance to say anything—to so much as arch an eyebrow or purse his lips—Tom pulls his hand back and snorts it himself.

Fuck, it's been a while. The ensuing rush makes him track down the drive in Greg's face in an instant. He gums his knuckle and wipes it and gets ready to pour another.

"This isn't stuff you 'get in trouble' for, Greg. Not even if those doors open. I'm your boss anyway, yeah? If I've got anything on you, you've got it on me too, hah."

"I've never tried it before," Greg finally confirms. It's amazement that keeps him from moving. Keeps him just, mouth open, blinking rapidly. "I've seen people do it, though. Does it—does it hurt?

Tom shakes his head slowly, holds his hand out again. "Nah."

*

La Pavillon isn't quite the place for it, Tom knows. But it's easy to forget once the bill is paid, and once they're out on the street to find a less classy, more appropriate place to be so charged up. Somewhere that they could find some more, even. Businessmen at Tom's same level cutting lines right at the table.

Now the enchantment comes, for Greg. The exact sort of club that they were off to find is just a block over, hiding down some stairs and an iron gate that must have been there since its speakeasy days. Tom leads him in with his arm around Greg's entire back, which acts as a comforting sort of cage in such unfamiliar territory. Otherwise he might not know what to do with himself. Not with his heart beating so hard.

He briefly thinks of himself as a sick dog that's been taken out for a perfect final day with which to remember him before putting him down—and he asks Tom with no preamble if that's what this is, laughing in spite of himself, and gets Tom positively guffawing in return.

"Just enjoy it while you can, Greg, yeah?"

What there is to enjoy, then, is a second bump, and a fancy, private booth that Tom claims is a favorite of The Doors, and an abundance of cocktails that Greg has never heard of and which in Tom's words have no earthly business costing half as much as they do.

"So why are you buying them?" he asks.

"Because I can, Greg! Have you not been listening to me?"

It does get a bit difficult, is the thing.

Somewhat because of the questions that seem to have become Tom's favorite—did you see that chick who brought the vodka, Greg? Whaddaya think? Or look at her, by that table of old men, you like her? You think she'd like you better than those geezers?—to which he can give only so many unique answers. While not necessarily at Tom's personal fault, they feel more like scraping at the very back of Greg's mind than usual.

Then every other thought in there, too, begins to buzz uselessly alongside the heartbeat that's made it up to his ears. The rest of the noise and the lights out past the booth don't help. And the deep, burgundy velvet in here is some kind of suffocating tease.

That initial rush loses its grip, and he starts thinking about being that dog again.

"You ever think about the JFK assassination, Tom?"

He hears the words over the music, but the rest is far away.

"Huh?"

"I heard someone mention a theory like, a few days ago, that Logan had something to do with it. Could that be true?"

Tom starts giggling something fierce. "What?"

"I mean, I wasn't a part of the conversation, but it sounded like some points with some, y'know, basis to 'em? Like some inconvenient financial policies that Kennedy was signing in, or something about the white house refusing RBN journalists—"

"Good lord—" Tom hurries to shut their curtain and create at least a bit of a sound barrier. Just in case. "Greg, buddy, listen to me. Just about every major tragic event from the past fifteen years has got some tabloid, somewhere, postulating that the Roys are involved somehow. It's for attention. It's nothing."

"But do you think he could? If he wanted to?"

"What—Logan, order an assassination?" Tom barks another laugh, lips stretching wide, waiting for Greg's face to stop looking so serious. But it doesn't. It twists his own. "I don't—what's going on, man? Your head get so big from the coke that you're worried about getting assassinated, now? I think you've got to actually be someone important first—"

"No, no, like—I just started thinking? About, you know—the fact that assassinations are happening so much at all? And you just—you never know anymore?"

"Oh, buddy..."

Tom realizes what's going on. Greg's pupils have engulfed all the blue. It's almost funny.

"Don't you ever think about that? Like—Kent State, oh my god, Tom. You heard about that, right? They can just do that. They can just shoot you."

"Yeah, Greg, you should—"

"Like, honestly, Tom, that's half of why I stopped going to any protests, I'm just, I'm kind of living in terror every single day—aren't you? Isn't it just—like, with the war, and who knows when the laws could change again, and who knows who's getting assassinated next, I mean, fuck, it could be Logan, like, he's not exactly well-liked, is he? And, and nuclear weapons? Right? How the fuck am I supposed to get any sleep knowing about those? Anything could happen at literally any time, Tom, we could all just blow up tomorrow, or—"

At the precipice of his own freak-out, Tom just punches him on the arm.

"Christ, Greg, stop it," he tells him. The coke has clearly numbed Greg up a bit because he doesn't recoil all that much, so Tom does it again. "I mean it. Shut the hell—stop. You don't need to talk about all that."

One moment Greg is rubbing confusedly at his arm, and the next, he's grateful—he's a new man. His heart has stopped beating so hard. Tom, however, has started bouncing his leg so forcefully it's spilling his gin as he sips it. The ample space left in this booth, as Greg takes what feels like a first proper glance around, feels like an awful waste and his own fault.

"...Sorry. I didn't mean to ruin it."

"You know what—fuck this place," Tom says instead of anything else that he'd like to. He hurries likewise to stand and yank Greg up with. "I've got a perfectly good bar at my own anyway."

*

He doesn't remember falling asleep. He hardly recalls entering the final venue of the night, impressive as it is, beyond the way his head was already swimming by that time. At Tom's advice Greg drowned it in more booze—the easiest way they were going to manage sleep before pissing all the cocaine out, he said.

He knows that he kept telling Tom that he was sorry until Tom told him to shut up. He told Tom that he admires the face he's able to put on, no elaboration. Tom understood anyway and told Greg about where he grew up, how it forced him to learn. He knows that noise fell out of him like sap, and that Tom's went in through his chest instead of his ears.

They tore through a loaf of bread as their appetites shot back, and let Tom's dog lick peanut butter from the spoon, and... sat down in the conversation pit, and clearly never left.

Greg's cheek stays pressed into Tom's shoulder when he's first woken by a third voice echoing through the room. Words penetrate the fog; meaning doesn't.

"—hear any of that, Tom? Are you awake? Fucking christ... Kendall just blew the world up."

The other man shifts and flexes beneath him, at which Greg blinks weakly up at Shiv, who's red in the face. A retrospectively far overestimated image of a compromising position flashes before his eyes. Panic jolts him awake and upward, knocking his skull quite unfortunately hard into Tom's.

Chapter Text

Christmas in St. Paul is a living fairytale in Tom's memories. Even the war years. Even when the winter carnival had to close and the ice castle was gone. As a boy he'd always delight nevertheless in the impossibly thick blankets of snow, the way it covered Como Park, the endless white to play in.

However real across the pond, war was but a villain in a storybook then. No bombs would come to his sledding hill or his frozen lake. Tom skated as he pleased and he knew nothing of a time where he couldn't. The year that he fell through cracked ice was long after he learned to swim, and the panic and fear of freezing in the moment—even the scolding his father gave him for his recklessness—is now lost to the warmth that came afterward. The two or three homemade gifts that he would receive on the day-of never stand against recent abundance in Tom's mind, nor how the number doubled once the depression ended, but only alongside the luck he knew that he had at the time. Many of his schoolmates got only the gift of good food and family, after all.

Shiv has expressed willingness to follow him back there, or at least affection for the way he reminisces. He's heard a million somedays for a million wishes to show her the house that he grew up in, to formally introduce her and his parents, to take her to see The Nutcracker at the Hennepin. It just hasn't been remotely an option the past two years.

Now, if Logan were simply in the mood to alienate all of his children and not just the ones who were present at that no-confidence vote... Part of Tom has to hope that that's where the man will land, for the sake of the excuse that will then present itself.

It's admittedly not an insignificant part of Tom throughout the month. Despite Shiv being put on edge by the whole ordeal already and, in more irresponsible spite, the havoc that Logan wreaks in the wake of his attempted ousting, he wishes hard for any reason not to see the man at Christmas.

In the three weeks that precede he's hearing twice as much from him as usual anyway—somewhat a given at this time of year, and doubly expected with this transitional period to the official corporate spinoff starting the first. Some of the input, however, bordering on demands and then quickly becoming demands, is unprecedented. Tom is only able to piece together what happened in that board meeting via Shiv's retelling of Kendall's retelling, but he knows—they know—that this is a misdirected show of power. Undirected entirely. In Shiv's words it's Logan milking any last juice he can out of ownership rights, here, before his name comes off the billing.

And it's pissing Tom the hell off, frankly. Negotiating on behalf of Common Sense isn't often a part of his job that he does sitting across higher-ups. At least not anymore.

Christmas programming is enough of a bitch to begin with, with scheduling, and organizing the specials, approving sets for live filming, rushing production, especially animation... And here comes Logan, the old bastard, trying to cancel a good chunk of the easy part.

RBN's semi-annual onsite teleplays have historically gotten good air and critical praise. There's never been any formal complaint of the syndicated films playing in the slots that any middle-American family is expected to be preoccupied on Christmas (and probably playing the Channel 11 yule log anyway), regardless of their age. Tom knows the charts, and he knows that even if they had good replacement material, it would hurt the numbers. There are things that people always want to see, but—

"Don't tell me about people, Tom, I know people."

Sure. Sure.

They've already got Jim Henson's crew for a special, which is big. A couple music stars, too. The rights to the Grinch and Charlie Brown have been in the bank for a few years by now, and those can take turns filling slots about every night. But it's not good enough. No, they've got to fight the other networks for the rights to air some Disney or Looney Tunes shit. Buy it from them at all costs. Logan wants him to march into ABC studios personally and throw money at them until they hand over the Rankin-Bass special of the year, which would then give RBN two in a row, and which would by no fucking means go unnoticed.

Tom struggles to find the line between the placation that'll keep the grunts from uprising, and complaining to anyone who might like to take his less than savory words directly to the big boss. Best he's got to satisfy him risk-free is Shiv, who agrees that this is some reckless bullshit—that they're gonna get what, two? three?—three or more major companies airing their properties back to back on RBN, right in the face of this forced-diversification overhaul? It's spitting in the FCC's eye. It's just goading them to send goons the moment that this transition is expected to be finalized.

Really, while Shiv agrees to do her own father-daughter finagling of the matter, what Tom has is Greg. He's talking that perfectly overlarge set of ears off for a good extra twelve hours out of the week on the plane and off, with all the added responsibilities he's got in LA.

Seeing the subsequent circles under the other man's eyes just seems to add to his own. Gives him yet more to gripe loudly about.

If not for the content of the meetings and the punchbagging that follows, Greg would still hesitate to make his ask. He can tell that Tom's sour mood runs a bit more physical than normal. Every week now they arrive at the LaGuardia in four layers and leave the LAX with three of them stuffed into their carry-ons. Greg has watched the guy develop a pretty persistent cold and a severe itch as much as he claims he's fine.

It's just not important enough to risk worsening all that. It's really not an ask so much as a confirmation, anyway. Or he thinks so until a week out, when he decides that he's found the perfect beat in their rhythm. They're at the Manhattan office, post-lunch, day before a weekend, and Tom is perusing a folder with evident boredom.

"Well shit, Greg, you should've given me more advance," is Tom's response, just halfway looking up from paperwork. His voice is lacking in annoyance and thus delays Greg's panic.

"Wait—huh?"

"You've clearly seen how busy the studio is right now. Christmas vacation is first come first serve. I need you here. I thought you were Jewish anyway."

That and Tom's genuine frown throws Greg off.

"You—what, because of my last name? Uh. Well, sure, my... my dad was, but he, uh..."

Point is, it's gotten across, he isn't. Tom is struck with echoing discomfort and no desire to get into all that. He sits up straight and coughs.

"Well, I'll see how the scheduling works out, Greg, but I can't promise anything. You might have to be on call. Y'know, in case something goes wrong at the studio and you need to pass my authority on. You'll be in LA anyway, right? Honestly, it's kind of a selfish ask of you to begin with—your mom is right there. Just invite her up and exchange gifts in the break room."

Greg balks. Tom's jaw is unrelenting and tight, his eyes practically glazed over. He doesn't know what to say except to start begging, negotiating the eve and the day after, he could come in after such and such hour, so earnest and desperate that Tom cracks about a day sooner than he intended to.

It's an internal crack. He tells Greg to quit moping and go grab him a pepsi, and something in him just deflates at the sight of the back of his head.

"Gre-eg...," Tom sings, just as the other man is almost out of the room. He turns around in time for Tom to prop his feet up on the desk and continue in the same voice, "I'm fucking with you..."

They have a good laugh about it. Afterwards, Tom does still need that pepsi.

He may very well invent a reason for Greg to actually get called in, later. Given that an agreement for Shiv to join her father for Christmas has wound up acting as some sort of leverage, as much as Logan could possibly agree to behave more reasonably... it's only fair, Tom thinks, that he and Greg both be on business for the holiday.

*

"Yeah, it's going good, it's... fun. I'm sorry—I know I'm in town all the time without visiting now, it's just, I really don't get the chance. Busi—I'm a busy bee now. A busy man, I am, doing important business all the... yeah. You know."

There's not much to say when he catches up with his mom these days. It used to be a couple times a year in person and scattered calls, and Greg would have everything in-between to relay if perhaps with a mere modicum of truth. Now he can tell most of it over the phone but he's done so every couple weeks. He supposes he overestimated all that hasn't been talked to death. Not that he wouldn't want to be here anyway. It just leaves him to nearly as silent of a Christmas morning as he'd be having in his apartment.

Greg's gift for her is paying off some of her debts, which she definitely appreciates, though not without a reminder that the reason for half of them is Greg himself. Hers to him, in lieu of the usual wad of cash that he no longer needs, is a sweater. Fits in nicely with the other clothes that he's picking up. Actually, he thinks he sees the empty hanger that his mom took it from.

It's fine. At least she wrapped it.

Being here long enough to peruse rather than shove things indiscriminately into a trunk is present enough. He wasn't in the headspace to go searching the week he stayed, before. Now the past is something for Greg to explicitly worry about and nevertheless, he wants to go digging.

Photographs are something that his pad is sorely missing. That's what he thinks about, with imagined volume as if to dispel any other ideas, when he sifts through his mother's disorganized tub of them.

And then there's not much he can do when he arrives upon recorded proof of his old, long hair. It's the first of it he's seen since he could last find it in the mirror, from a good couple years prior—and frankly at its best. He recalls the professional blowout he'd gotten a day before for the sake of "presentable" pictures. Only for this to wind up collecting dust in the dark.

In his mind's eye it's already framed on the wall at home instead, receiving what Greg expects to be half-friendly ridicule from... someone who has yet to make a notion of dropping by.

Tom is one of those things that he's mostly left out when he talks about his life for fear of giving the wrong impression. Either too good or too bad. Which could both, in turn, be too bad. He has dreaded the day that the man might eventually, forcibly accompany him inside, whether as a boss or a friend, each time he's asked to take a detour here. He knows it's needless worry. He can't seem to ever be at capacity with that.

Greg just doesn't like to have Tom on the brain at the same time as his mom at all, lest they inexplicably meet somewhere in there. He hates to think of what she could tell him. She knows a lot more than Ewan.

That's why it feels like a trick when she's the first to bring it up.

"I figured that's why you came this way for Christmas anyway," she shrugs, a sort of unprovoked resignation on her face that Greg tends to associate with his own shame."Just go have fun, why not. You can always sober up on the way home."

He'd heard about what was going on down in Laguna Beach, of course. He'd thought about it. He does feel temptation prodding harder, now, and at the same time he wants to fold in on himself.

He better get a move on soon if he wants to spend enough time there for it to be worth it, his mother even tells him. If she's trying to get him to leave, she can just say so—he'll go, and he tells her that. But she won't admit to it.

A year ago Greg missed out on the chance to go to Woodstock. This would certainly make up for that. He gets all the way to the bus stop on that train of thought. Then in an otherwise unremarkable instant he seems to remember who he is.

He's somebody now, is who he is.

Whenever it was accurate to call him a hippie, whether Greg proudly did so or not, he didn't mind it. He liked it. He found no threat of judgment in a whole sea of nobodies. It was easy to stay one himself. It hardly occurred to him for a long time that another option may come along.

He thinks about the people he used to know and the chances that he'd run into anyone there. He wonders what they would think of him now—if they even recognized him. He thinks of the acid he'd inevitably be offered and the likely bad trip he'd subject himself to just for the off chance that it could be good this time. He thinks of police raiding the place, of getting arrested.

He thinks, with an oddly worse twist in his gut, of his two humiliating semesters in college. Of his choice to fall into obscurity, even with his education paid for so long as he maintained passing grades, just because he... he what, couldn't handle it? Because it felt safer to have nowhere to fall from?

He's embarrassed. He's embarrassed of it all. Tom may be right that no one else would care to dig up his past, but if anything happens, this wouldn't be the past. It would be now. Becoming a nobody again, then...

Despite how close Greg is at the moment to his humble roots, the fear constricts him not unlike the far-off gunfire in Saigon.

He thinks that if nothing else, a music festival just isn't necessarily how he wants to spend Christmas.

He doesn't go.

*

His wedding is set for March now, which feels like an awfully short deadline to scrub out the filth from the dynamic of his soon-to-be in-laws. If that'll be done at all. Tom defers to Shiv on the matters of her own family, but a lawsuit from son to father regarding the family-owned company that he himself is a part of, and which Shiv has always wanted to push him ahead in... It feels like a setback that he's just meant to pretend isn't one.

It'll be in England, too, against Tom's initial plans. But it's fine. It's not something for the husband to be concerned with, anyway. They've got planners. The timing will work out fine. He's excited beyond his wildest dreams, isn't he.

** 1971 **

Greg has decided he ought to read more. In high school he was quite bookish and proud of it, while perhaps owed to a lack of security amongst peers at the local theater and no TV set in his home—what happened to that, he wonders. He hasn't gotten through a book in years. He misses it.

Visual media aside, it's something to occupy at least the sixteen or so hours a week that he can't do much else but nap, and he wants to nap less. New year, new him and all that.

Tom's comment on the matter is ringing in Greg's head before he ever has the chance to say it. He anticipates whatever it's to be with a paralyzing dread that quickly feels ridiculous, makes him admonish himself heavily for being so self-centered even as he continues feeling it. It's with a rush of satisfaction and a sudden dissolution of all that worry, then, when Tom doesn't waste a second at the first flip of a page.

A week later, a new title catches Tom's eye; Greg has to swear ten times over that he's not copying him.

"It just seemed interesting!" he says in defense from Tom's bright eyes. "And—I mean, it is. Clearly."

Greg shows him the fifty or so pages he's gotten into Ripley. Tom nods with approval, but takes a moment to judge the use of a napkin as a bookmark.

"You should've asked to borrow my copy," is what he finally says, to the other man's delight.

"Well... can I borrow Ripley Under Ground?"

"...Maybe. Depends what you've got to say about that one when you're finished. I might not care for your interpretation, and then I won't want to let you soil my pages with your ill-intentioned gaze."

Greg nods like that makes decent sense and tries to get back to it. Tom chews his lip, unwilling to let it end nevermind that he was first to avert focus. He eyes Greg exclusively through his periphery until it's painful. Then he marks his spot with his thumb—just three lines below the spot he'd held minutes ago—and coughs.

"Mm—what part're you at?"

A startled little noise comes from Greg's throat to match his eyes, then just as soon fades.

"Oh, um, finishing chapter eight. Not that it's a long chapter—it's like, two pages." As if Tom hadn't read the book first, and twice, Greg then shows him the single page flip, the empty space filling up half the last. "T—Ripley has just said he, uh, wants to make Dickie like him."

That, he wanted more than anything else in the world, Tom recalls before his eyes pass over the line.

"Uh huh. Well. It gets better."

For half the flight in or more, as it would usually be in the early morning, it used to be that Tom would glance up from his own book and find Greg's still, oblivious face. Sometimes the back of his head, which would let Tom know that Greg was going to complain of soreness later after sleeping on a crooked neck. If he stared for a long time, it didn't matter, nor whether it was at Greg's cheeks or his eyelids or the sky soaring past the window. Tom himself wouldn't even know. The minutes and seconds would be meaningless. He'd blink, and remember his book, and resume the journey like there was never any pause.

It feels like an ambush when he simply follows that habit now and Greg's eyes keep fluttering up to meet his instead. The itch to keep at it never hit him so hard even on the last flight. Tom quickly finds he can't take it anymore and decides that, whatever it is, he might as well take advantage.

Without giving the poor guy any warning, Tom slams his book shut and unbuckles.

"Move over, Greg. I need some shut-eye and I'd like the window seat."

*

First thing that comes to mind is that he thought it was sad. He only knew that it was a crime novel, going in; he had no idea that affection would come before violence—that it would start with the murder of someone Ripley liked, let alone... felt any other way about.

Greg has never felt more confident in reading anything that way. He knows that others might deny it or look over it entirely, sure, how else would it be so easy to find? Why else would someone like Tom be willing to read it in the open? He himself maintains a doubtful voice in the back of his head, born from the empty pit of literature he's ever seen that remotely hints in this direction.

Nevertheless, after getting over the shock of it all, Greg is made a notch or two more optimistic about the man next to him. He feels perhaps not more justified, but less guilty about watching him sleep on the plane.

Tom really is a handsome man when he gives you the time to notice. It's refreshing to see him peaceful for once.

Greg refrains from telling him that. He just makes a point of slapping the book shut, with maybe an hour remaining of the flight back, and dives headfirst into being honest about the rest.

"No," Tom interrupts after not much opinion at all. To Greg's brief terror, the look in his eyes is deadly. His jaw shakes; he glances furiously between Greg's face and the book, then "No fucking way did you finish that book already, what—you did not. No. You're lying."

**

It starts to happen.

Not while on any of the actual sets, like it had always played out in Greg's imagination. It was a vague ideal course of events to begin with, never quite that strong or conscious of a dream. Just a notion. A realization tinged with hope, more than anything, that with fame comes actual untouchability.

And not just because you're rich, but because thousands or millions of people agree that you're special, therefore worth protecting.

It's a meeting with the producers of an upcoming RBN sitcom, Four's A Crowd, at the end of which he's addressed. And he's at first too busy hastily scribbling the last of the notes to register it.

"Hey guy," the man repeats, and Greg whips his head up from his lap to see—the director?—having approached his chair in the corner, now apparently staring him up and down.

Greg looks around on instinct. It's just the three of them, with the other man's colleagues currently but flesh-toned blobs on the other side of Tom's block-windows. These guys don't usually acknowledge him much at all.

"Me?"

"How tall are you?" he asks frankly—another sweep of his eyes.

It occurs to an otherwise baffled Greg to stand, as his answer. "Uh. Six-seven?"

"Good lord, perfect—listen, uh..."

"Greg," Tom has to be the one to supply, though equally wary.

"Greg. Perfect. Listen, the episode we're filming tomorrow calls for a running gag with a customer at a store who's—who's just freakishly tall. No offense, that's just what's on the script. And you're taller and skinnier than the caterer we were gonna use. Point is we could really use ya on the show. It would sure save me some grief in finding some other giant on short notice, anyway. So—quit starin' at me like that, kid, you free tomorrow or what?"

"I—I mean I, I don't have any acting experience—"

"No need. You've got two lines. Your head won't even be in one of the shots."

Greg looks immediately to Tom who looks for a moment uneasy, glancing between the other two, but he slips into half a grin. He's drumming his fingers on the desk, clearly thinking up his answer to the question he must know Greg is about to ask. What exactly it depends on, he himself doesn't know.

Tom's gaze lands on the director, who pretends not to notice. If only to complete the triangle.

"Well—could I, Tom? Am I, uh, particularly needed in New York tomorrow...?"

"Sure, why not," he says. "Could actually be convenient for me to have two days here, so. We can just fly back tomorrow once it's done. Maybe I'll come watch you do the lines, huh? I could start a betting pool on how many takes you go through."

"I'll getcha front row seats," the director shoots back with a laugh.

Greg hardly catches that; he's too busy figuring out which of them he ought to be thanking more profusely. There's a round of endless thanks between all three of them.

"One p.m," he's told, and then the door shuts, leaving Greg breathless.

"...Just like that?" he laughs.

Tom has landed on amusement, he thinks. He rolls up a newspaper for the express purpose of smacking the other man good-naturedly on the chest. "Get ready for your five minutes of fame, Greg. Just like that!"

The afternoon on the other side of the cameras is more of a blast than he'd hoped. Two lines be damned, any proximity to those mirror lights while someone in a black turtleneck puts powder on his face makes Greg feel fantastically important.

Most of the four eponymous girls are nice to him both in-character and out, too—with just one of them scripted to have something snarky to say about his height. Greg recognizes another from a movie he saw recently, and she says she recognizes him, too, just unable to place her finger on where, before he confesses that this is his first gig ever. He immediately regrets his impulsive honesty about that, but then she acts cheerfully surprised.

For a short time he wonders if this is what flirting is meant to feel like. If so, maybe he really has been missing out. Then the high falls flat the moment that she walks away—that filming begins for real.

Greg only fumbles the take during which he notices Tom come in. He later thinks of it as the sheer power of determination to not be the subject of a joke after all this, that he turns two lines into three or perhaps two and a half—it's all of three words that he improvises, here you go, as one of the Four comments that she needs something from a high shelf. His head isn't in the shot there, which is agreed to add to the humor. Director says he's keeping it in.

"Gotta say, buddy, I'd assumed that was just in the script," Tom tells him after the wrap. "Not half fucking bad! You could make a thing out of this."

He goes on to clarify small, background roles, but Greg doesn't feel the need to hear anything beyond Tom's praise and his grin and the rough arm he throws around Greg's shoulders.

And he suggests that they make use of the extra time they've got before the flight, go out to eat to celebrate, at which Greg wholeheartedly ignores all the complimentary snacks he filled up on in the hours prior.

"Y'know, I thought I'd have stage fright, but I actually felt... more confident while acting? I'm... to be honest, you know, I'm not often all that sure of myself in regular conversation—"

"Oh, I know."

"Hah, yeah. But yeah, it's just, it's easier with a script I guess. Like, I don't have to think about what I'm gonna say, I can just follow it. I can just say the line."

"Mhm—all three of 'em."

He knows that there's only so much to be said about his role and how much he enjoyed it. He just struggles to shut up about it. To a relief that Greg finds funny even as he's feeling it, Tom quite enthusiastically helps him.

It's just a rare winter's evening out in Hollywood. They eat outside and catch some decent fresh air, laugh as their cigarettes are half-smoked by the Santa Anas, discuss Ripley Under Ground over a couple of gourmet pastas. There's some ironic talk of either of them relating to the protagonist's schemes to live lavishly, which is swiftly abandoned. No, Greg says with a shaky smile, if I was going to kill you and take your identity I'd obviously have done it already.

Tom thanks him for the reassurance but claims to respectfully disagree.

After that, he has a particularly fun time making fun of Greg for accidentally calling it Ripley Down Under, proceeding exclusively in an impressive Australian accent that only grows more adept as the wine takes hold. Intentionally or otherwise, it serves to amuse Greg just as well. He giggles so much that Tom has to shush him lest another table makes a complaint. Still in the drunk-Aussie twang.

"Maybe that'll be the next sequel," he suggests once relaxed. "That's the continent that they used to send criminals to, isn't it? Could be relevant."

"Sure, if the books weren't taking place a good ninety years too late," Tom snorts.

Finally the waiter comes back round and he starts talking like himself again. Their waters are refilled, and Tom promptly clears his throat.

"Accents, Greg," he says simply. "Could really help the acting career. Hey—why don't we finish this up and start heading home, huh?"

Greg nods and does not think about the obscenely late hour that they'll be arriving in New York. He's equally unoccupied by the money he should have earned today, either. He holds onto no doubts that that bonus will wind up on his Waystar paycheck next week, nor, frankly, care for if it in fact doesn't. Not right now.

What he thinks of all without trying is last night's dinner, not utterly unlike this one, in the hotel restaurant. It only follows that he thinks of the couple other times that they'd done so before. Of the rooms he and Tom have shared in the name of a larger business, and now the one—the open space between two beds, the goodnights exchanged at the cusp of sleep, the sound of each other's breathing in the dark... mostly just for him.

Unable to court much sleep on the plane, tired as he later becomes, Greg lets his head roll away from the window. He doesn't have the energy to think about where his attention comes to rest.

**

Two weeks later, in the morning of his day off, Kendall of all people is at Greg's door. He hasn't seen the guy in more than passing since Thanksgiving. It's seemed lately that he's just plain gone from the office. Yet Kendall greets him almost like Greg—cousin greg—should have expected his arrival, casual wear and all.

"...Gotta be honest, man, I'm not completely sure of the, uh, etiquette here? I mean, I guess you're my cousin, so—"

"Yeah, don't worry about that, man," he says with a wave, and walks right in. Greg wishes that he were the sort of person who could remain steadfast at the threshold on principle, but he unthinkingly moves out of Kendall's way. Then it only makes sense to shut the door. "So listen, there's this family counseling thing that my dad is pulling, and, uh..."

Greg perks up in his pause, only partially taking in what the other man has said.

"Am I invited?

"Oh—no," Kendall laughs, short and rough. "It's just for publicity. And publicly, Greg, you're—no offense, but you're nothing."

"Uh-huh. Actually, none taken? I should probably be comforted, given—"

"Given the fucking—the shit storm currently raining on the family? Yeah, exactly, man. Anyway, I have no desire to play nice for everyone at this B-S retreat, I wanna go in with an umbrella, and that's why I'm here. I know you must have the good stuff, Greg. I need some."

Greg may have woken up over an hour ago, but he finds himself blinking as though into consciousness. Seems very shortly that he's taking too long for Kendall.

"C'mon, man, you're Switzerland here. Don't worry. Look—obviously, I'll pay for it. I'm not just asking for a favor."

"Uh..." However absurd the notion, Greg expects some kind of trick. He almost fell for this with an undercover cop once, back in the day. Someone far more experienced wound up scaring the guy off. "Well—wait, I thought you were clean?"

"Yeah, you thought. As far as the commonwealth is concerned, however, courtesy of my father and his rumor mill, I'm... hopped up on some dangerous cocktail of acid, methadone, and pep pills. So. I really might as well, you know?"

Any image of police in his mind is wiped away. Kendall in all of his tired energy reminds him far more viscerally in the moment of the guys Greg has watched go into the back of a cop car. He shifts his feet and frowns, trying only vaguely to hide that he finds this a bit sad. But he also just wants to understand.

"You might as well—as in... for the counseling?"

"Yeah. I think my dad ought to reap what he sows. He speaks things into reality quite often. Let him see what he hath wrought, right?"

After a short laugh, that seems to be the last that Kendall is willing to engage in perfunctory conversation. He does a spin around as though there might be a stash hiding in plain sight on the wall somewhere, while Greg grips his bare feet into the carpet. At nearly the perfect center of the room, it occurs to him, he plays an awkward guardian of this humble abode to a now unpredictable caller.

"Yeah—I'm sorry to waste your time, Ken?" he tries to tell him, "But I don't actually have anything."

It's the truth; what Greg doesn't say is that if he did have any cocaine or anything else, he still wouldn't want to sell it to him. Both out of some lingering worry that they'd be traced back to him, and an uncertainty of whenever he might get access to more. There's no hesitation from Kendall to disbelieve it regardless.

"No way. Cousin Greg, the hippie egg? He's got nothing?"

"Well, ex-hippie—"

"I mean look at this place. You've got a, a bead curtain over there. This wall art's, like, peak psychedelic environment. Maybe not for me, but, for someone more like you, definitely. If there's not at least some fucking... ganja in a hollowed-out book or something, I'll eat my shoe. Actually, I'll grind 'em up and smoke 'em."

When Kendall starts toward his shelf, inexplicably serious, Greg hurries to get ahead of him. Very quickly he knows it must look suspicious, but quicker was his sense of urgency against a Roy looking too closely at any of his books. It's almost lucky that this would happen so soon after he bought them—they're fresh on the brain.

The way that Kendall stares up at him, mouth hanging open in an undeservedly victorious smile, indicates a lot more than suspicion.

"Dude, like, I'm sorry, I really don't have anything for you," Greg says with as much authority as he can muster. He convinces at least himself well enough to forget that he does, in fact, have some dope tucked away. Just not in the books. "I promise I don't."

Thinking on previous experience with addicts, he has every reason to expect Kendall to push past him and start rifling through his belongings anyway. And he has very little plan to physically stop him.

Thankfully all his cousin does is tighten and suck in his smile and nod, and start backing up toward the door.

"...I get it. It's fine. I got other guys anyway. Just thought I'd try my dear old cousin first. Thanks for nothing, dude."

Minutes after, across Manhattan, Tom receives a call. Greg's voice on the other line makes him think for a split second of his proximity to Shiv and want to take the phone into the next room. He ignores it.

"You never call me. What's going on?"

"Hey, uh, have you heard of this Roy family counseling thing?"

Now Tom's head swings over to the woman who is in the middle of packing for said thing. Her eyes widen upon contact, and her head tilts.

She told him days ago. It's meant to make the headline that Logan Roy accepts risk of underdeveloped psychological science, willing to try anything to repair family rifts. Outside of the hopeful effect on shareholders, the man openly thinks it's stupid. At least to his daughter. Shiv said she might like the idea if it was genuine—that she'd probably refuse if it didn't put her conveniently close to a potential client.

"Of course," he says warily. "How the hell do you know about it?"

"Well, it's just, uh... Kendall stopped by my place. He was kinda... raving? About Logan? I think he intends to show up high and like... ruin everything."

"He... what?"

"Yeah." Greg audibly swallows. "I just thought you should know. You're—I figure you're going, right? Or is it kids only?"

It's not necessarily kids only. Kendall's wife was given the go-ahead as a plus-one while all parties involved know she'll decline. But Tom has had it relayed to him that his presence, as the president of a company that's now legally required to not be owned by the Roys, poses a risk at an explicitly family publicity event.

"Yeah—" he's about to lie, but the uselessness of it dawns on him mid-sentence. "—uh, no, yeah to the second thing. But ah... it's fine. Figured we'll take advantage of it and fly out to the studio."

"Oh... as in tonight? Or tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow, obviously."

"Well—okay. Yeah. That works."

"Uh, yeah, Greg, it better work."

"You'll, like... pass on the warning about Kendall, though? I just think—"

"Uh-huh. Thanks, buddy."

He hangs up and faces Shiv before there's time for suspicion to possibly settle on her side of the room. Her hair bobs more than her actual head, then; her eyebrows alone ask what that was about.

Tom thinks most vividly of what's taken an unwavering hold in his mind since he's heard of it: the seaside manor in Maine that he's not invited to, not allowed to even limit himself to all the ample space beyond press access. Worse than a hard no, he has faced the kind that flexes only to remind him that he's pushing too much. Then—he hasn't mentioned it so as to avoid that counter-productive break—there's every other certain exclusion he'll face as the reasoning behind it remains the same.

"Just Greg," Tom says. "Work stuff."

"...Bad work stuff? Anything I should know about? Sounded like Greg got you worried."

"Nah, not really... Greg just has a knack for blowing things out of proportion."

*

Feeling good about himself in a whole new way since his last trip, Greg saw a world open up to him ever so slightly. For the first time since renting his place several stories above Greenwich he found himself braving the scene on the ground—at which a lack of intuition only scares him, he realizes now, when he has no purpose. A bookstore even in that area was remarkably easy to seek out.

What's truly daunting and somewhat shameful to navigate is the sheer number of works that he's been utterly ignorant to. Most of what he's bought, he hasn't yet looked at again beyond the spine.

He saw not even that in the dark, this morning, as he grabbed impulsively for something to toss in his carry-on. Now he thinks that might be a reliable system.

"New book?" Tom eventually yawns. Greg was so involved he hadn't noticed him leaning over, let alone waking up. "...Wazzat one about?"

If Tom liked the Ripley books for the same reason that he did, as Greg has reasoned with himself, then perhaps the man would recognize other things. And he might have a shot at knowing something for sure.

"It's uh, called Maurice," he says, masking the coward in him, threatening to rise up, with a sigh and some other meaningless air. Tom is expectant but neutral about his tutting. "Um... so, the author actually wrote it in the nineteen-tens but never published it, and I guess he just recently died? So far it's—I'm not sure you'd like it..."

Tom reaches out to turn the front of the book over, and Greg's heart stops.

"E.M. Forster? I know him. I've read most of him, in fact—what makes you think I wouldn't like it?"

It resumes just to stop on a harder beat this time. He's terrifyingly unsure how to parse the offense on Tom's face.

"I don't know how to say without spoiling it for you," Greg decides.

Tom responds initially with a grin.

"You're challenging me."

In the next second, without permission, he's flipping through the pages that remain after Greg's thumb. Then he clicks his tongue.

"Looks short enough. And you like to zip through books without absorbing them so I'm sure you'll have no issue lending it to me on the way back."

"Wh—I do absorb them!"

Tom just shushes him. Urges him to continue zipping through it.

It pisses him off, really. Most of all in how easily it tracks.

Greg's employee file never formally required it. Still, for posterity, Tom figured it due diligence to make it seem at least plausible that something more solid than blood relation had secured the guy's position. Just in case. The game show documents scared the idea into him.

Tom had almost suspected that the school name on Greg's application was made up, with how much of a bitch it was to find in the phonebook, and was begrudgingly prepared to go ahead and fudge everything else for him, too. About three separate local operators in, he finally found it. And after getting access to the test scores there was no true wonder at all that Greg made it into a state college. Only in why the hell he dropped out.

...No, he knows. Just by looking at him Tom knows. He just doesn't like it. Wasted potential and all that—and at the same time still daring to be a talented little piece of shit. It's sickening. He hates Greg in those moments. He hates to see someone just riding the line.

"I've got Mr. Hobins for Mr. Hirsch."

"For—mister Hirsch?"

"That's right."

Tom figures immediately after he says it that it makes sense. He just needed a moment to recall the director's name. Thanking the secretary, he hovers a finger over the button and shoves the phone up to the man whose ears have just pricked up.

"It's about the Four's a Crowd scenes. I believe all the film caught fire in a freak accident."

Greg frowns in too-serious concern up until the moment that the phone is at his ear. Tom watches the slowly blooming light on his face with such rapt attention that he forgets to listen whatsoever; the other man has to repeat himself after muffling the receiver on his chest.

"Hm?"

"I said, he said that he heard the two of us were in today and that it's wonderful timing."

Greg's smile suddenly feels like a death sentence.

"So...?"

"So—so I guess they could use me again? Apparently they had a lot of ideas to extend my whole gag into another episode later in the season, and it also lets the store set not go to waste or... something. And it's like, ten or so lines this time."

Tom continues to nod, brow furrowed, but says nothing. Greg has to say the words out loud before he deigns to understand them:

"So can I? It's just—tomorrow again. It's convenient, right? No worries about a Greg shortage for the actual workday, hah."

And he stands up, begins to pace. Of course it must simply look to Greg, in that short time, like Tom is taking the long way around the desk.

"Ah... I dunno, Greg, that might be pushing it on such short notice this time around—"

"Could it just count as one of my vacation days? Maybe?"

The hope in his eyes, in his ever-shifting stance, is a knife in Tom's pleasantries. He wants to yank it out and send it clattering to the floor and all the while he thinks of plunging it deeper. One way or another he hardens up. Shoves either hand in his pockets.

"Ah... hah, if you really fucking want to use it that way, you'll have to pay for your own hotel and flight back home. I do have obligations in New York tomorrow that I can't just shuffle around for your sake, you know."

Tom gets in one more short, confident but mirthless laugh prior to Greg's understanding nod. He watches in devastation as the man pulls the phone back up to confirm he'll be there.

The rest of Greg's workday is more than typically unpleasant, with a load of grunt work that seems to be meant to make up for the following day that he won't be working. Not for Tom, anyway. How he chooses to look at it is that tomorrow will be made an even more exciting day in comparison.

It is to some cracked relief, by the time he makes it home, that Maurice also makes it back onto his shelf without passing under Tom's nose.

*

She told him about Senator McGovern before, having come back from DC all sorts of disappointed. Sofrelli wasted her time, she said. Built up too much upon a stand-in for a dead Kennedy that "changed the nomination process, whup-te-do." Neglected to factor in the matter of her womanhood and her family and thus how attaching herself to a longshot would do neither her nor the client any good. Of course she agrees with McGovern's personal politics, and of course the country would be in an ideal state under him, and it's for that exact reason that America isn't ready. He's too clean. There's no potential for her to sink her claws into.

What Shiv didn't mention before now was that this guy is the same client she ditched counseling to see in Maine.

"McGovern just finally made his candidacy public, so Nathan begged for a second chance," she shrugs.

"Nathan?"

"Sofrelli. You know. Oh, don't look at me like that, he's a colleague. I can't be aware of a colleague's first name?"

Sounds like the colleague convinced her of some potential, as she goes on. Him and by some abstract degree Kendall, the mention of whom makes Tom antsy enough to forget the other reason his stomach has dipped. His wish to have been there, still, doesn't go entirely up in smoke. Salty brine wafts impossibly through their bedroom windows while he watches Shiv put her things away.

"What I've been convinced of most of all, Tom, is that I've got nowhere to go but up! One of two things will actually happen: Either McGovern loses, and no one could fault me that. Right? I was—I was too in my head about it before, I think. But no matter what it can always be spun. I was helping a little guy. Grassroots, underdog. It's admirable. And that's the worse option—If he does win? Then my name is attached to the miracle campaign. If someone as radical as him polls at any notable margin while I'm on it—while I'm not even just staff, I'm on his personal team... it's my fucking miracle campaign. Right?"

"Right," he agrees, joining her enthusiasm just in time for her to climb onto his lap and talk into his mouth.

"He does have a good portion of the youth and anti-war vote on lock. His commission did a good job on fixing that up. It may be slim, but..."

"And it's... it's fine?"

"What is?"

"So there's... no conflict of interest. With your dad. And the current president being, uh... in his pocket and all."

"Oh, of course there is. Weren't you listening?" She draws back. "That's why I fucking want this, Tom. Well no—not why... but it just—okay, no, yeah, spite is a perfectly acceptable factor, I think."

"Oh—oh, sure. Of course."

"And come to think of it I actually—no, I wouldn't call it a conflict of interest. He was... dismissive of it at worst, just... annoyed that I blew off the fake counseling for a 'small-time politician.' And that's exactly it. He doesn't care. He knows I'm the fucking smartest of any of his kids, because I'm not the one who's never had a job or who's threatening to drown himself in the ocean or who has already had to be sent away to get his head straight... but he still doesn't take what I do seriously! It's—it's a challenge. He outright bet I couldn't, called it some—said yeah, sure, you can have your projects, like I'm building a ship in a goddamn bottle!"

That's a soothing idea. Tom breathes it in as deep as if it were the thing amongst all that that actually mattered, and he almost finds himself wandering off on that tangent, just for a moment before Shiv stands, her warmth gone.

"It's a challenge, I know it, and I'm taking it."

Chapter Text

Mr. Hobins very quickly appeases his concerns. For the foreseeable future, he assures Greg, filming days for shop scenes should be reliable. If Mr. Wambsgans were to simply fix his own LA meeting days to, say, the day before or after, and were Greg to make it one of his own days off, there'd be no problem.

It bodes optimistic in the moment. In retrospect Greg blames it on their spontaneous meeting in the halls, the coffee nearly spilled, the face-to-face promise, the rough but prolonged handshake. He returns to Tom's office with little of what he set off with.

"A recurring character? You? Patrick the freakishly tall frequent customer of Mildred's Department Store—the hell are they gonna do with that for six more episodes? ...You just gonna get taller and taller, you think? Maybe they'll give you bigger platforms until finally the only thing in the shot is your legs?"

"Well, what he was actually saying is that Pat can get a job at the store, y'know, on account of being able to reach the top of the shelves without a ladder," Greg tells him. "And then I guess he'd just kind of... be there, in any store scenes, to provide commentary, or I guess struggle with simple tasks in the background... So it's, yeah it's basically still comic relief, it sounds like? But Mr. Hobins also said he can see it playing well enough for me to come back next season and get a little more fleshed out—"

A minute ago Greg's news was met with Tom stomping a familiar, strict beat around his desk. Now Tom's entire body seems to stutter with the sharp sound that leaves him. Greg watches his stance wobble, an arm shoot out to catch himself on a chair. It's only then that he realizes how drastically the man's initial amusement for all of this has faded.

"Next season? Greg. Greg, you're—are you quitting, right now?"

He truly wasn't, but the terror on Tom's face flashes so violently so as to convince any version of Greg across time who might.

"No! If they do want me for another season I have like, a year off from them in-between, don't I? And I'm, I mean that's why I'm asking about our schedule, so I can make it work—"

"Well, the answer is no. No, I'm not fixing my schedule to fucking—to Four's A Crowd, Greg. Did you even think for a moment that there may be a reason that the studio meetings are irregular? Did you? Huh?"

Greg swallows. "I'm sorry, I just—"

"It's because they have to work around my schedule. You have to work around my schedule, Greg. That's your job."

Tom has crossed the ten or so feet that separated them moments ago, shoved his finger in Greg's chest, and found himself caught in Greg's averted gaze. To pull it back to his own he'd have to reach out or drop to the floor. The other man nods, crooked, and pulls him.

"Sorry," he repeats, his throat audibly dry. "Before you just seemed like..."

"I seemed like what?"

"I—I guess I thought you wanted to help me be an actor for real? And because of that I just, I assumed it might be possible to... balance it. Or something. But I get it."

He meets Tom's eyes again but only briefly, coldly, before starting to walk to his usual corner. Anything and everything that may be brewing in Greg's head is at once in his own, and Tom grabs him by the arm to stop him.

"You know, Greg... really, that fucker Hobins might've said that the days would be reliable, but listen. I have been in this business a while. And I can tell you that he almost certainly cannot guarantee that. Why don't you lemme have a look at the contract, huh?"

"Oh—" Allowing himself to be reeled in, Greg's face is lit up again. Albeit with worry. "He uh, didn't actually give me one... yet—?"

Tom whistles. "Well, shit, man. That's your first red flag. He asks you to consider a job that stands to conflict catastrophically with an existing one, in the same company no less, and he doesn't let you look over a contract first?"

"I mean, I guess it was a sort of casual offer anyway... Didn't you kind of do the same thing?"

Tom scowls and lets go of him, but steps closer.

"That's different. You're family. And you were destitute at the time, Greg."

"Yeah—sorry. That's fair. Yeah."

"The point is, I know TV execs. I was one. And I also personally know Hobins, and I don't fucking like him. If I was a little more corrupt maybe I'd just fire him, who knows, he makes cost-effective and marketable TV but not good TV, if you know what I mean? That's what you've gotta watch out for. Trust me—there's gonna be some stipulation in that contract, whenever he draws it up, that a little baby chick of Hollywood like yourself won't notice even when you try. Because you just won't know what to look for. And he's counting on that.

"One day they'll need you when you don't expect it, and you'll be caught between obligations, and you'll either blow the same amount of money you'd be getting paid just to get there on time or you won't go at all. And when you can't go it won't matter that you were with me, or at some family obligation—you're not just getting fired, Greg. You're getting sued."

The gears behind Greg's eyes turn. A lump goes down his throat.

"...What if you looked over the contract for—or with me?" he asks. "Or—if I got one of the guys from Legal? They're trustworthy, right? Then I could at least see whether or not it was, uh, conscionable, like, just in case—"

Tom slaps Greg on the shoulder and laughs, flattered and determined to show it with all of his teeth: "You think highly of me. Thank you. The thing is... my honest advice? Greg? S'just not a great idea to keep your hopes up, here. It won't be conscionable. I know this for a fact. Small, recurring roles like that... they're not sustainable, and they really don't even pay enough for all the work that you are doing. You know I saw the checks you've already gotten. Once for fun is alright, but making a commitment to it? For that?"

It's not so easy to hold a smile anymore. Optimism and victory get lost in a storm of other things—and it's neither of those that get caught in Tom's throat even as concession is evident in Greg's gradually pursing lips.

"...I'm just looking out for you, Greg. I don't want to see you get exploited like that."

Come to think of it, his role being based entirely around a gag does leave a bit of a sour taste in Greg's mouth.

And even in the more serious development that's been alluded to—maybe you could even wind up a love interest for one of the girls, of course not Jane, but y'know... Helen, maybe, she's quirky, it could be a fun side thing, who knows... It's clear that his height, his supposedly inherently ridiculous appearance, is something to overcome. He'll only be paired off with the weird one. It'll still be mostly for a joke, and it won't be him who's making it.

"Yeah, no, I'm..." he begins to decide, puffed up by a whole new wind, "I am better than that. I deserve better than that."

"Attaboy!" jeers Tom, alongside several more celebratory slaps to just about his whole upper half.

A mild soreness, an easily manageable sort of buzzing, sets in where his hands were as Greg resumes his usual tasks.

*

It's Tom's idea not to give Hobins the convenience of an immediate answer. Greg finds the man's office, a room less than half the size of Tom's but with twice the color, with most of the day gone. About half an hour to spare before he needs to be ready to leave.

All remaining whims settle like rocks in his chest when the man offers him merely a short pout at the news.

"Ah, well, that's a shame. I appreciate you being forthright. Guess I'll see you around?"

Hobins reaches out to shake Greg's hand, but he doesn't let him take it.

"It's not because of Tom. Mr. Wambsgans, I mean," Greg says, because he needs to say it. "Just so you know."

And thank god, there's some confusion on the man's face. "Oh?"

"Yeah. It's... also my own dignity. I just thought I should get that across? I've decided it's—well, not beneath me, not like that, sir, I just... I just really think that I'm worth more than comic relief, is what I'm saying. That's all."

Thinking he ought to be satisfied with getting that off his chest, Greg looks away from Hobins' lack of visible disappointment and turns around.

Then comes a startlingly loud laugh. Greg spins back.

"Nice try, kid, I'll give you that. Whew." Hobins wipes a nonexistent tear from his eye and props his other hand on his hip. "...Look, Hirsch, no one is worth anything in a sitcom. I got a team that'll scrap their ideas for Pat and make up some replacement scenes in a day if I just ride their asses. But I like the chutzpah, so here's some advice: You want a serious role, you need experience first. So play to your strengths. You're tall. You're kinda funny-lookin'—but you're also kinda pretty, to the right gal, you know. Bit of a Ringo type. Go get a portfolio. And those pictures? Should be the only place that you get a big head."

Before Greg knows it, a deceivingly friendly face has escorted him back out into the hall, his hand now firmly and thoroughly shaken. The door shutting behind him sends a gust of cold air over his neck. As the little hairs prick up, with it comes a stinging, spiteful urge. It makes its way to Greg's lips and twists.

He chews on it for a while.

**

No matter how unpleasant it has sometimes been just to share his breathing space, more often than not recently, Tom has always harbored some pity for Roman. The man just doesn't give anyone much of an option outside of that and outright disgust. Not anyone outside of his family, anyway. General sense of decorum changes if two or more Roys are present. The shocking becomes merely eye roll-worthy, the scandalizing an ever-successful command for attention, the stomach-churching likewise an offset for a grave atmosphere. Tom likes to think that he's adjusted his humor and tolerance accordingly, or at least as far as Logan himself would tolerate in terms of conversation. Past that—what Roman could say only to him with no repercussions... well, he's got to laugh along, hasn't he.

It's then for perhaps the same reason that Shiv herself experiences a back-and-forth between truly hostile rivalry, and then camaraderie with her youngest brother, that Tom has a habit of entering any situation with him as a blank slate. He holds onto a necessary belief that a peaceful luncheon or evening is possible, and he simply allows the other man to sour it as (or if) he pleases. It's an appropriate familial and non-familial approach: the Connor method, as Tom thinks of it.

Soon to be gone, however, are the days of ambiguity on the matter. He will no longer be a mere permanent plus-one. The fact has been on Tom's mind for all of his engagement that Roman is about to be his brother, too. And he's never had a brother. He'd like to put a good foot forward.

For Kendall too, but it's the nature of the Roy family that even during an effective truce it's still wise to only take particular sides. The drug-addled traitor is still invited; daddy's little bastard is anointed with greater responsibility.

Anyone else that Tom might ask to plan his bachelor party isn't nearly as capable when it comes down to it, anyway. Roman's got access to a fucking private jet.

With far older and tenderer memories he welcomes the friends who pull up to the landing strip in a taxi—halfway before they're even out of it.

He hugs Jonas first with full, present knowledge, and a subsequent guilt, that it would be Matthew if only he wasn't at the opposite door. It was very much a spoken part of the pact between the three of them that no one was extraneous, that they should be a solid trio. Tom knew even then that it was only said so much because he and Matt needed the reminder. That is, he hates to think that it was just him.

The third man whoops and hollers as he runs around the car, then, to tackle Tom with as much ferocity as ever. He stumbles and laughs in a timbre that he's otherwise outgrown, and they shout every long-dead nickname as greeting over their violent excuse for an embrace.

A burst of faded emotion comes and goes, the years passing him by all over again by the time he regains his balance. The flash of Cornell's lawn under his feet gets shorter and shorter with each of their reunions. Nearly twenty years after graduation now, it's more understandable than it is bitter. Only the shame bubbling underneath it all truly lingers... particularly as it's mentioned that Tom is the last one by a long shot to finally get married.

"You know I had to wait for the right girl!" he laughs, to a jeering round of oh yeah, yeah, uh-huhs. "—and you know what, good thing I did play slow and steady and stay a bachelor, ya chucklefucks, 'cause I landed one hotter than either of yours combined."

There's an audible groan somewhere off to the left from the woman in question's youngest brother. Tom spares him a glance and in the process catches Greg watching on with wonder. He's suddenly, delightedly conscious of a responsibility to introduce them.

"Yeah, there was a fourth guy in the room—Stanley? Yeah. But he was, ah..."

"An asshole," Jonas supplies.

"He was already at Cornell for two years before the three of us got there. And he was already in a different frat. And—yeah, he was a fucking asshole."

Greg watches them laugh around some unspoken shared memories and nods like he somehow understands.

"Would you really call the Seal and Serpent club a fraternity?" Tom asks. To his left Matt shrugs and makes a vague notion with his hands. "It was more of a club, yeah. A society. Or—it still is, you never really leave, of course. But no, we were our own fraternity. I think we had more of a code just between the three of us than we did as Snakes..."

"So you were the Fly Guys?"

Tom laughs much louder than he needs to, reveling in Greg's ignorance. "No, they're the Fly Guys. Because they have to fly in to visit me, duh."

He knocks on Greg's head, asks anyone home, but is still enthusiastic about going on to explain that it used to be a far greater distance because he was living in LA for a good ten years and Matt and Jonas stayed in upstate New York for their jobs in academia, meanwhile this flight was about thirty minutes. The straight facts have a hold on Tom. They give him endless opportunity to talk—to educate this poor sod who knows nothing about those great, ancient Cornell Days.

When Kendall finally shows up, Tom feels almost interrupted. He keeps relaying the most important antics through minimal breath, and over the sound of whirring blades, as he and his old best pals and Greg are climbing their way up to the jet. He realizes how long it's been just him talking once they reach the lounge inside, and then decides to notice Greg's stilted gestures.

"You seem surprised. Thought I couldn't have ever possibly done anything fun or had any friends, huh?"

He fully anticipates some defensiveness and is locked and loaded for ways to push the man into digging his grave—only for him to say "no, it's just, I guess I've never seen you hug anyone. Or hang out with anyone else."

"Well—" Tom sputters, glances dangerously back to Matt and Jonas, who certainly heard that. "How the hell would you have seen it? You think I run all my extracurriculars by you, Greg? I have a life outside of being your boss."

To prove it, he goes on to elaborate on the resounding undeniable truth of him and his oldest friends. How they tried out for hockey together and when Jonas didn't make the team, they went for wrestling instead. How they were kicked out of the library for arguing too loudly and how that led to them organizing structured debates on literary interpretation out on the lawn, the likes of which would amass considerable crowds every Saturday. How Matt snuck brandy into the punch at Professor Blunt's retirement party and the old codger never even noticed.

If most correspondence between them three boils down to a letter from each on Christmas and birthdays, and then joining up like this for weddings and funerals, it's not because they don't want to keep in touch. It's just life. They're as solid as ever.

"Nothing has really changed," Tom says, "except distance."

He doesn't say that as loyal as he may have been to Jonas, it was Matt whom he always went to with a problem first. That Matt stayed up talking with him when Jonas wanted to get some sleep. He doesn't say that in any sport or game or contest it was always Matt that he most wanted to beat, Matt whose attention he lived off of, Matt who once smacked a kiss on his cheek as a joke and had Tom thinking about it for weeks, trying desperately, impossibly, to recreate the circumstances. He doesn't tell Greg because he has never told anyone how truly often a freshly of-age Tom Wambsgans wondered whether there was something wrong with him.

Kendall pops a handful of valium first thing and tells the room to wake him up with smelling salts when they land. Roman takes advantage of every last piece of in-flight entertainment mostly separate from the group. Connor splits his time between some Civil War memoir, Greg, and Tom's friends whose anecdotes he's genuinely interested in.

When Greg isn't made either a third wheel or the vehicle through which he can tell that Matt and Jonas are becoming a collective third wheel, he tries to get some reading done. It's difficult not because of a lack of option for quiet but because there's no escape from an atmosphere that's been rubbed raw. Tom's clear need to fill every beat that he possibly can just follows him.

Nevermind the cruelty or mundanity of any given word, Greg just grows tired. In the six hours forward he doesn't need evidence of any particular failings of their own to decide that he doesn't like Tom's friends very much.

It's a relief for all, except perhaps the older brother whose instructions he honors, when Roman next addresses the group. He stands in the middle of the cabin and dramatically dons an unfitting hat.

"You dorks have probably been wondering where we're going, especially as I've ordered for all the window shutters to stay closed. That's because even the least cultured among us—cough cough, Greg—would have the surprise spoiled. Would anyone now like to rub their two little stubby wires together and make a guess?"

Connor raises his hand at once— "Given the flight time, I'm gonna say the Caribbean. In fact, called shot—Barbados."

Roman imitates the most obnoxious buzzer sound.

"Wrong! Horrible guess. Seriously, what's wrong with you. Anyone else?"

"I bet you flew us in a circle," grumbles Kendall.

"Just tell us, man!" Tom shouts. "I'm on the edge of my seat."

"Ah, the unlucky groom has spoken. Well, if you must know, I was initially thinking Prague... but then I remembered that the city's full of a buncha dirty commies. So Paris it is, bitches!"

*

It's about midnight in France when they arrive. Roman urges them all into a limo, where he loudly flatters himself about his European contacts and how they guaranteed the debauchery of a lifetime at this place. There's some vague last-minute warnings about the degenerates who haunt the surrounding streets just as they start piling out, on which he refuses to give further details when asked. Tom has to jog to catch up with him.

"Wait, Roman wait—is this one of those clubs where—where people are actually... getting it on? In the club?"

He side-eyes Tom as much as a man his height can. "Yeah, duh."

Tom wants to laugh but instead lets out this indiscriminate yelp of awe as he passes through the ropes into the markedly dark and foreign discotheque.

"Freaky!"

"Uh-huh."

Greg soon catches up. "Are there any, like... rules we should know about? Like, cultural expectations, or where, say, the lines are with um, with encounters of a particular—"

"Seriously, Greg? It's a free for all, anything goes—obviously just don't rape or kill anyone. Even the French aren't too fond of that."

And he slaps Tom and Greg simultaneously on the backs as his goodbye, before moving ahead and being swallowed by the scarcely-lit crowd.

Against all odds, Tom's wildest imagination hadn't supplied him with much more than getting tied to a chair while a stripper popped out of a cake. He is relieved that it's not that—surely, in retrospect, Roman would never plan something that he would expect. But now that he's here, it's also somewhat a... not-plan. Just bringing Tom to a den of sex and drugs and letting him run loose like a dog in a field, otherwise forcing nothing. In all his consciousness, particularly of Shiv across the pond, he's now meant to go out and choose how to spend his last weekend of freedom.

Not that he's considered any of the rest of this premarital era to be one of freedom. If Tom really thinks about it, he hasn't so much as looked at another woman. He's settled into the comfort of never having to do so and forgotten how.

But he's allowed. That's what the point of this is, isn't it? It's one night, and he's allowed. He's a stag. He's gonna be a stag.

"This place is wild, man!" he shouts—to Greg, because Matt and Jonas are nowhere in sight. "I'm—I'm hard as a rock, I'm on a mission to get my cock sucked, I'm gonna have the time of my life!"

Greg nods down at him, wide-eyed, a brief interlude from his flightily looking around. He looks like the words ring as hollow to him as they did coming out.

"Wow!"

"Yeah!"

The incomprehensible buzz of Parisian funk fills in the silence nicely.

"I've just got to—"

"You should do the same!" Tom tells him before ducking away toward the bar, just so that he's the one to leave.

Greg feels lucky for understanding what it meant when Tom joked that he for once had no idea where they were going. He's known about Paris for days. Logan said that he'd heard it was in the books—that he "knows the flavor of unsavory things that happen in Paris." And apparently that French bastards in general can't be trusted.

In the first show of real fatherly responsibility that Greg has witnessed from the man, he expressed concern for Kendall's stability and self-destructive streak, and he asked Greg to keep an eye on him. It was a deeply pleasant surprise after his initial fear that he was going to be blamed, somehow, for the family counseling outburst that he didn't even get many details of.

And it's still a nice thing. And he's already fucking it up because he has no idea what direction Kendall went in, and this foreign club would be difficult enough to navigate when fully-lit.

In return for the favor he did also ask if Logan might perhaps be willing to put in a word for him if any casting directors called. He hasn't sought out any new roles yet but he knows he ought to try in New York if he does, so... Just a spur of the moment idea that might help him far in the future. And Logan said sure.

So it's a relief that goes as far back as his career plans when Greg spots Kendall in a corner somewhere—flanked by two other guys, one of whom is pouring a pill out into each of the others' palms. He leaves before Greg makes it over.

"Hey! What is that?"

"If it isn't my hippie cousin Greg!" Kendall greets with a dead sort of cheer, and slaps the other guy on the shoulder. "Stew—you've met Greg."

"Uh... I have not," says a man that Greg indeed recognizes from around the Royco office, now that he's this close. There's no mistaking his beard or his high voice.

"So you've come running for a fix, huh? I guess you really must've just been out. Sorry about all that."

"What is that?" Greg repeats.

Kendall holds up his pill with a cheeky grin. "Scooby snacks. Want some?"

"Uh, I don't..." If he ever knew it, he can't remember what that means, and he doesn't want to ask. "Just—is that actually a good idea? Since you like—you had a lot of valium earlier, and that's technically still in your system, and mixing drugs is always super dangerous, isn't it? Like you never know what's gonna happen."

Kendall just blinks up at him for a good few seconds, then laughs. "Man, what? What the hell's your problem all of a sudden?"

"I, I guess I'm just like, worried? Ken? You know—considering what you were saying when you wanted me to hook you up so that you could go fuck with your dad, a-and you knocking yourself out for the flight, and now this, it just seems, I dunno, scary, from an outsider perspective? And I think I speak for everyone when I say I'd rather you not like, die—"

"Oh, you're speaking for everyone? Did everyone put you up to this, Greg? You're the guy they send to intervene, keep me from killing my little old self—not Roman, not Connor, not my actual fucking family..."

Greg doesn't know what he can say to that other than, sadly, that they are family, aren't they? The bleakness combined with Kendall's disproportionate smile, on top of the smoke and lights in here, quickly get his eyes watering as he stares hopelessly on.

"Hah. Yeah, listen, Greg, the only way you're gonna keep me from taking this ecstasy is if you take it from me."

He gives Greg this challenging look, a deliberate pause before beginning to lift the pill up to his mouth. In a panic Greg glances back and forth between it and its point of no return, and it looks like a cry for help as clearly as it looks like determined spite, and Greg just—he doesn't know what else to do.

Kendall doesn't make it difficult to swipe it away and put it in his own mouth. The bitter sting on his tongue encourages him to swallow it fast.

"Well look at you, Greg—"

"Wait, did you say that was ecstasy?"

"Fifty francs worth," Mr. Hosseini leans forward to say, then turns to the grinning man between them. "Nice, Ken. Wanna go track him down again, or are we not doing this?"

"Oh, we're doing this. But maybe Greg's a little bit right. Let's just do halfies, yeah?" And he pats Greg on the elbow, already angling himself away. "Have fun, man. You owe me for this, by the way!"

His bar-related French is probably better than any other circumstantial facet of the language, which is a silver lining on the cloud of anxiety that settles.

Pills are something Greg has always avoided touching, arbitrarily, in their unreliability. Only way to know for certain what it's going to do is by taking it and offering yourself up to the fates—and now here he is, digesting a tablet that could hold anything and therefore holds everything, most likely the worst thing. The impulse alone that it was feels like proof that he's doomed.

As it occurs to him that Kendall definitely wanted him to take it, especially, he starts wondering. His own cousin wouldn't trick him about what this was, would he?

That question soon closes in on itself without an answer, falling into a contented nothing.

Anything remotely adjacent goes with it. Something on the far end of the spectrum, something beautiful, blooms in its stead.

And it's not because of the gimlet.

In the peak of things, he starts looking for Tom. Everything looks brighter, it feels easier even while the room feels bigger, it feels like he could pop up above the crowd and spot the second tallest head and surf right over. It feels leagues more urgent than being Kendall's keeper.

Between flashes of color and discordant ye-ye notes and shining, writhing bodies on all sides of him, Greg's spirit flies away and lives in the past months. Someone is slamming shot after shot at the bar and Tom is approaching some desk jockey from behind, squeezing his shoulder while Greg almost spills their coffee. Someone runs their nostril along the back of someone's wrist right in the middle of the dance floor and he and Tom are clutching their skulls; Tom is watching him from the couch, not looking at Shiv who is pinching the bridge of her nose, while he gathers his things and leaves.

Someone is licking the back of another's neck and Tom is on the verge of tears. Tom is stepping on his foot on purpose. Someone pulls their pants down against the wall and Greg's phone is waking him up at midnight and Tom is wishing him a happy new year and heat is pooling and Greg wants to find him. He wants to find him. A piano key reverberates. A man is mirroring him across an airport. A new, slower, practically death-like song starts. He wants, he wants.

Every bare patch of skin around him shines. He's never wanted so much. He wants until he almost forgets.

There's just only so many bodies he can brush by before one looks back—one that he wants to look at, that hooks itself into the tendrils of feeling extending from Greg on all sides. He doesn't close a door. He shifts like a gas from one world to the next. He's nothing but a set of eyes, meeting another pair and the thick brown mane that frames it, and an equally thick mustache, and a tongue that runs over the lips underneath. Greg has no body until a pair of hairy hands splay over it, his skin a protective layer over an impossibly hot core at the very last moment.

Words that taste like the damp street-winds of Montreal come out of Greg as simply as breath. This man feeds them back to him with a low, deep vibration that touches Greg below his belt before one of those hands do. Te sucer la bite. Lá-bas, murs rouges. He understands more confidently than ever, and he nods, and he becomes noise.

"Oui, oui, je veux," someone says. The rest is a dream.

*

The next Tom sees of either Matt or Jonas is a wave across some empty space, a thumbs up when the other is following someone upstairs. All three of them are on the hunt, it seems, and Tom is the one stuck cocking his gun. He repeatedly doesn't get very far past it's my stag night, and I'm looking to get my cock sucked.

More often than they walk away entirely, he keeps catching their faces in the light at inches away and deciding she's not right. He feels a twist in his gut and it's a no-go, just like that. He keeps moving on.

And then.

What makes him stop moving, Tom thinks, is being reminded of the woman he's about to marry. She looks at him first, smiles when his gaze bemusedly follows her, and after a minute sits next to him at the bar. She talks before he can make his proposal, speaking English and quite intelligently so. She engages him in genuine conversation about the state of the world economy. Tom almost forgets where he is.

Save for the atmosphere, he could easily be on an early first date with Shiv. She's got similar eyes. She's even got the same pixie cut that Shiv used to have, which Tom has missed since the day it crossed the line into a mullet.

It feels momentarily worse this way, simultaneously too right and not enough, that there should be any notion of this girl acting as a replacement for a gone version of her. But next to the idea of actually going and making it with someone he's just met, it's the only option. This girl has let him do it properly. She turns it into an honest answer to a question, rather than some filthy proposition when he says, voice shrinking,

"It's my stag night, and I was hoping to get, um..."

"Follow me," she says. And just like that she leads Tom away from the bar and all the empty shot glasses he's empowered himself with.

He's like a kid being helped to cross a busy street. He doesn't know where they're going until they pass under a red curtain, and into an entirely red world. It's a single neon light back here bathing everything underneath it in heat, passion, blood, sex. There's some kind of fog that even has a pink touch to it. Tom finds himself completely at the behest of her hand, too unable to comprehend the noises he hears for them to quite shock him.

Other things stand a chance, though. Back here there aren't rooms so much as stalls on which some curtains are closed and some are not. He keeps his gaze forward, on her, until she pushes him against a thin wall that someone else is absolutely on the other side of.

And she kisses him—a gesture that somehow surprises him more than the rest of this, enough for his eyes to stay open. In this light he can make out her face the least when she's close.

"Do you have a rubber?" he breaks it to ask.

"No, why, do you have something? Or you think I have something?"

Tom shakes his head.

He may have had blood flowing down there earlier in the night but he's distinctly soft, now—no possibility for any prophylactic if he did have one. Even after the girl runs her hands down his chest, sinks fully to the floor, and unbuckles his belt.

He blames it on this place. It's too unfamiliar. He's never had sex anywhere remotely public and he's never had the faint breathing and moaning of who knows how many others as ambience. It's never been so red. Any other day he would say this is a room to get murdered in.

Shiv doesn't even blow him while he's standing up. It just doesn't happen. She prefers him lying on the bed so that she doesn't have to be on her knees.

But this girl's miraculously patient mouth, namely her tongue on the underside of his dick, eventually does get Tom twitching to life. He's suddenly determined to maintain the conditions that allowed it for as long as possible and so he doesn't move his unfocused gaze from the wall behind her, and he tightens himself against his wall, and he bites his lip to keep quiet. The shame of lacking an erection shifts smoothly into a guilt over her success. He's encouraged by it to drift away, to be somewhere else entirely but for the ball of pleasure in between his legs.

He might do that, then, if something sore and stale didn't keep him so awake. Heat trickles steadfastly through his core in such a way that keeps Tom a person in a place. Light shifts startlingly, oppressively around him. Dark movement to the side draws him further away from what he's afraid to watch on the floor. It falls into such shapes through a generous gap in some other curtain to convince Tom that he's where he wanted, that it's all become light-headed nonsense at worst—such that he's late to realize what he's been watching. What's been hardening his prick where sensations wouldn't.

It's not a spectre, it's not a mere resemblance, it's his—

It's Greg. It's the undeniable outline of him, backed up against a wall diagonal to Tom's own. Another body sits at his feet. For a moment it's an uncanny mirror.

And then Tom takes in a functioning height, a broad set of shoulders, a thick set of arms... an impressive mustache. It's thick enough to peak out above a pair of lips that Tom can't see. If it frames anything it's the base of Greg's cock. It shocks the first open circle of Tom's lips and the first sound out of him, and the sharpest southward rush of blood that has plagued him tonight by far. What tainted his arousal before was nothing compared to what comes with this, too, only now the throbbing heat inside of him wrestles with his horror in such a way that he cannot tell which is which.

Greg's red hands flex on red, cotton shoulders. His veins bulge and shine. His hair falls over his face, appearing to drip, devastatingly black. It disappears when he bares his neck. The curve of his mouth stutters and some sound, something, reaches Tom.

He can't look away.

He doesn't want to. He blinks desperately through a layer of tears. He just, he wants—

He wants to get this over with. He wants to be anywhere but here. He can't think of anywhere else to be.

The shape over Greg's bottom half becomes a violent, featureless hole. It sucks in all light. Tom stares at it, hating it, and doesn't see it.

He is it. He hates it more.

He heaves; he fails to stay quiet, and something travels, and the face across the way shifts. And he meets it. He looks at Greg who looks at Tom. Tom stays. Greg stays.

His chest burns. Everything burns.

Tom's eyes shut themselves with the force and the shock of it—it's too much to coexist with any reminder of the world, and it comes so abruptly as to attack him. Thin hands grasp at his hips and remind him that he's not the only victim. He doesn't want to feel it. He tries to feel it. He's lost anyway in a pulsing, blinding, pink bliss.

And then it's gone. Tom uses the first new spark in his brain to close his curtain completely and then collapse into the deepest corner, frantically zipping back up against the cold air.

When he opens it next, that other curtain hasn't moved, but nothing is behind it.

*

His aimless wading through the crowd is stopped by Connor, who doesn't hesitate to talk as if they're back home. The guy just learned some interesting French customs after trying out his semi-fluency on natives, Tom gathers. He brings himself somehow to sound incredibly normal when he responds as basic etiquette dictates.

"Rome wasn't lying, everything really does go here!" Connor shouts. "I like it but the sheer choice must get burdensome after not too long. I don't think I could live in this city, do you?"

"No!" Tom shouts back from the deepest, truest pit of himself.

"Maybe in the countryside, though... Tom, would it be crazy for me to trade in the ranch for a vineyard?"

"You're thinking of ditching the ranch? Are you okay?"

Connor stretches a too-far grin and looks remarkably like Logan, only squeezed thin.

"Never better! The weight of my decisions are off in the distance where they belong. I'm free, man. I found this gentleman selling ecstasy and shared a half with a beautiful stranger. It's a great dose. Perfect clarity. Heard from Ken that Greg took one whole, though, would you believe it? I didn't think the kid had it in him. Bet he's been having fun..."

Tom lets loose a sound that leaves his throat dry.

"Don't fire him over it!" Connor seems to warn him.

"I just might!" he manages, over an overwhelming desire to puke.

He doesn't. He's alone again soon. For the first time in hours it occurs to Tom that he can go outside. The harsh musical twang that is then cut off by the closing of a door doesn't feel incomplete but satisfying.

Lingering, tingling drunkenness carries him, and is perhaps what boldens him against the smell of piss out here. The fresh air makes up for the rest. Tom decides he doesn't feel so shaken when he can actually breathe if only through his mouth.

The fact of the matter is, once he surrenders himself to a cigarette and feels the most level-headed he's been all night, he can't decide what he feels. He can only imagine that if he did, if he tried a little harder to assemble the parts, he wouldn't like it. The burning end of his cigarette seems to count down to when he'll be forced to do something. Tom finds himself inching another, already, out of the pack.

But he doesn't like standing in limbo either. He glances around at the others out here, especially the lone men and their similar lean, their backs against the wall and their fingers up, and imagines them in the very predicament he so fears—the one feeling he knows for certain is inside of him. They're wandering souls, existing without purpose. Always on the cusp of doing something but never quite getting there. Falling in line to ultimately become the same unhappy, trapped thing, each and every one of them.

Tom wonders what the fuck is wrong with him. And then he's saved from the obligation to wonder any harder, as another lost soul walks past and catches his eye.

It may be proximity but he's so much more solid than the rest. Tom knows him at once. The hair, the frame, the shirt, the mustache—it must be. It's him.

"Hey," Tom hears himself say. He's waking the fuck up. The other man doesn't turn. He starts after him and says it again, harsher: "HEY! You!"

Somehow it's more certain when he does see the man's face for the first time. It's as distinctly French as it gets, a knowing flash in his eye, a sardonic pull on his lip as though to remind Tom of where they've been. An immediate, righteous anger bubbles forth.

"Where the hell do you get off, huh?"

The man just frowns at him.

"Don't fucking play dumb, you sick bastard. Taking advantage of a guy who's clearly high, he's not even—"

...Is he?

In the opening that Tom has unwittingly given him the man mutters some fast, dismissive French. He sticks a half-smoked cigar in his mouth and resumes walking.

"Hey!" he shouts again.

He can't just believe that this frog doesn't understand him. He won't. That can't just be the end of this.

Tom charges him when he's ignored, grabs the man's shoulder and turns him around. Finally, he's met with an equal amount of fire in the eyes. Strong arms push him away furiously now, goading Tom to rush forward again.

"Hey, fuck you," he spits over the meaningless French barks, gripping the front of the guy's shirt, hoping that he can at least understand that—

And as he's shoved away yet again, a fist collides with Tom's head mid-step and sends him instantly to the ground.

"Woah. Who's—wait, oh my god, Tom? Tom!"

His panic abates when he sees a knee shifting—though struggling, clearly. Greg had just come out to smoke to make up for the disappointment of his high wearing off. He had no fucking clue.

There are at least six other people out here doing nothing at all. He immediately wonders what would have happened if he'd gone to the other side of the building, and starts panicking again.

"Tom—holy shit." Greg runs up and finds him with splotches of deep red on his cheeks, and shining tear streaks on either side of his slowly blinking eyes. "What happened? How long have you been on the ground?"

"...Greg?" is all he says, then shuts his eyes like he's trying to keep something out of them. "Fuck."

Tom thrusts his whole self up in that moment with a sharp, pained groan, scrambling so unlike the slow effort that Greg saw a second ago. He's kneeling on the pavement without thinking, reaching out for Tom's arm to help him up, he's pressing his other palm flat to Tom's chest for balance—and he's abruptly swatted away so hard that he falls on his ass.

"Don't touch me!" Tom hisses—a voice that Greg has never heard before.

The face, though, he recognizes. Greg blinks away some downright silly tears as he reluctantly stands.

"Did you actually... get into a fight? Or something?" he asks, cautious now.

Tom won't look at him anymore, not while he just barely manages to get himself on two feet again. His face is too screwed up for half of it for it to really be possible. Greg gets it, but he also doesn't.

He reaches out again when it's done, just barely grazes Tom's now dirty sleeve. The back of his hand is stinging a moment later.

"Just leave me the fuck alone, Greg, would you? Please. Fuck!"

**

By the time that Greg makes it back to his own bed, true clarity and misery have begun to set in. It's only after some of the longest, and simultaneously least satisfying sleep of his life, that he is able to realize that what came before wasn't a dream at all.

It wasn't something he watched happen to someone else, or a film, or an unprecedentedly horned-up wish. It was him. It was him.

Recalling it is about the only thing that works to conjure up even the ghost of positive emotion for the first couple days. The first, he's got off anyway—allotted recovery time for everyone who went on the trip. For two after that, Greg calls in sick. It feels disingenuous to say that about withdrawing from an illegal drug but when he hangs the phone up, he knows that he didn't lie. He really is too deep down to even think about work.

He's pushed further, receiving the mildest of annoyance and nothing else from Tom when he says he can't come in. Just a sigh, an okay. He then has no good reason to expect any attempts to check up on him. But he would like more and more to just sleep forever each time he remembers that there have been none.

The one comfort is the sense he gets of why.

Chapter Text

Shiv had just been visiting the studio for fun. She used her name to get in but claimed no ulterior motive beyond getting a tour, no order from Logan to spy on anything. It was of course assumed that that may be the case anyway. Spies never tell you that they're spies. Tom felt confident that he could make sure she saw nothing that would make her unhappy and stepped forward.

He quickly figured it was true that it was pure curiosity. It had been a long time since she'd last been allowed to see what went on here, or rather had an excuse to. The game shows, she declined entirely. She told him of her grudge that very first day. Tom agreed with the sentiment behind it—yes, good lord, what kind of man sends his own daughter out to be a sex symbol?

She gave him the funniest look, then, and asked if he realized he was talking about his own boss.

"Should I realize that?" he said with as much innocence as he could muster.

He remembers her short fringe and her mod coat. The remarkable thing was that it was the middle of the year and much too hot in LA to wear more than a single layer, even indoors. But she'd insisted on keeping it on.

"You sound like a politician," she told him. "But one of the good ones."

It was a right miracle, the sheer ease with which they got to know each other after the years that Tom had previously spent married to his job. All dates were doomed from the start as far as he'd been concerned for a long time, all the while still partaking here and there, just whenever loneliness hit a little too hard—whenever this overabundance of love that he'd been born ready to give made him feel top-heavy, with the potential to spill onto any beautiful, unsuspecting passerby. Women consistently proved themselves too far removed from his ilk at best and untrustworthy at worst, however, and so bachelorhood seemed to be his destiny. Tom was occasionally able to convince himself that that wasn't so bad. His career was what he really wanted to focus on, after all. He refused to lower his standards.

Shiv let him feel comfortable joking about the flaws of the very shows that he worked on, and she laughed when he did. She was smart and she knew what she wanted, just like him. And she asked him if he knew where to have a good time around here.

She was such a fine, intimidating mind, and made him feel such a need to prove himself that Tom felt he became a whole new man. He was honest about it, too. She was one of the first to hear of certain shortcomings straight from the horse's mouth and she responded with an affection that Tom has never stopped chasing.

As it happened in particular with making love, they've joked that in his blind determination he must have tapped into some kind of primal instinct because he knocked it out of the fucking park.

And in being a rock to lean on, Tom found that he had no need to change or to gain any experience. It was a role that he settled into like it was the most natural thing. An infant Mozart memorized his sister's piano lessons through sheer unbridled fascination, and as Tom had watched his parents long ago he supposed he must have done the same. It was just only then that he had the opportunity to sit down and play.

Within weeks they were drafting out the journey that Tom could take, with her help, to one day usurp a king he'd yet to actually meet.

**

What a dizzying web of relations to be consciously caught up in. Greg simply has to take into account that Uncle Logan had most of his children much older than most and it falls into place... briefly. It's difficult information to maintain when he'd really rather not conceptualize the creation of said children. He and Shiv are the same age, and his mother is her cousin, and her mother, whom he met once but would not have been able to name before yesterday, is his... ex-great-aunt?

It's only once face to face with Caroline Collingwood herself that Greg has any more than a theoretical notion of her as she currently is. No one, not even Tom, has told him what to expect.

And then she's really not much different or more complicated than how he remembers—other than happening to know far more about him.

"Oh, how is Marianne?" she asks, and moves on quickly after he gives the standard polite answer: "From what I hear she's as estranged as Ewan these days. It's so odd to me—the strife those two used to have...? My god, family events back then. I'm not sure you'd have wanted to see it. Last I actually saw of her anyway had to be Boxing Day in... what, '51? Fifty-something. I hope I'm not misremembering that that was after the funeral..."

"What funeral?" says Shiv, who Greg had forgotten was there.

She looks between them while Greg looks at the ground.

"Ah—I'm sorry, dear..."

The Lady Collingwood seems even as he doesn't look at her to be torn between basic decorum and answering the question. She winds up managing both, facing neither Greg nor her daughter but some presumably judgmental space between:

"My deepest condolences about your father, Greg. I should know better than anyone that some wounds never truly heal."

"Uh-huh," he says. "Thanks."

The energy that Greg leaves behind, passing the two women into the chapel, pairs at once with Tom's offhanded mention that this venue was a matter of the bride making amends. It's no one's first choice, he'd said with derision. This dissipates entirely as Greg actually walks in and faces the Gothic Revival in its apparent prime.

He would never admit it to any fellow man. But he's truly glad that Shiv managed to have her own fun back in New York, or wherever else that she went, and has no desire to know any of the details.

It feels fair given that all Shiv is allowed to know is what her brothers know. Which happens to be what Greg knows, however it is that he told it, give or take a few twists and exaggerations... Tom feels no need to bring it up but to correct unfounded assumptions—no, I didn't get beaten up, it was just once, it's just the single black eye, no, it wasn't a fight, the guy was incoherent and huge and the punch came out of nowhere, no, I didn't get knocked out, my head was just swimming and I didn't feel like getting up, fuck off—

The good news is that the bruise has faded to an easily hideable yellow before his big day comes around. Even his mother, who kissed him on both cheeks when they hugged out in the bright sunlight, didn't notice any discoloration.

Or she was at least so caught up in seeing him for the first time in nearly two years that she simply looked past a bit of powder. The notion arose and made Tom break the embrace with his father a little sooner, however guiltily, than he might have.

Later, after his parents have been shown their rooms and then return to the ground to make themselves at home amongst their in-laws-effective-tomorrow, the same sort of dilemma enters in the form of Greg. Tom forgets who's by his side when he greets him. The past week, including and especially the other bookend, is nothing. The sun is shining, the snow is melting, the birds are chirping, his wedding is tomorrow. Of course he gives Greg a hearty hello.

"Oh, who's this, Tommy?"

His mother's purely curious voice sends a jolt of panic through him.

"Hi, I'm Tom's father," his old man takes it upon himself. He closes the space that even Tom didn't, extending a confident hand. "I don't believe we've met. You look far too young to be a college friend."

"Uh—Hirsch! Gregory Hirsch—"

"Mom, Dad, this is my, uh—Shiv's cousin," Tom coughs and says urgently—as though if he doesn't get everything straight then the two, especially his mother, will peer too closely.

His cheekbone throbs, threatening to wear the bruise bright. He smiles politely through it. Even the somewhat awkward handshake that he'd make a point of criticizing any other day.

"I also work for Tom," Greg says. "Really, I know him a lot better than I do, uh... Siobhan, funnily enough."

He gives them all a sheepish look, the longest going to Tom.

"Oh!" his mother chimes in, now glancing between the two of them. "That's surprising. But I suppose it makes sense, that you're young. What is it that you do?"

"What doesn't Greg do?" Tom laughs and pats the guy roughly on the back. "Best assistant I ever had."

Just as Greg is shaking his mother's hand but fixing an open, awed grin on him, there's a golden sliver at the old iron door. Tom rips himself from the scene and guns for his lifeboat.

"Shiv! Shivvy! Come meet my parents!"

*

"So kind of you to arrive so late in the day, Logan. We were all quite entertained by your grand entrance, as I'm sure you intended. Unless it was your new woman's idea."

"Christ, Mom—"

"I sure hope you were entertained. I paid for every last tablecloth, and I can't arrive when I please?"

"Oh, of course you can. You're incredibly capable. Particularly of stealing the show at your only daughter's wedding."

"The wedding's tomorrow," Shiv and Logan say simultaneously, at which Caroline seems to beckon the room to join her in horrified laughter. Few take her up on it, preferring to stew in their discomfort.

"My, Siobhan, I should think you'd appreciate my defending you..."

Her daughter just gives her a tight-lipped smile, then flashes Tom the same look across the tables. In the few hours that he's known the woman he's grown very quickly to understand the futility of dignifying her quips. It's no wonder that Roman claims her far more than Shiv and Kendall.

"I think the silence," says Logan after a period of chewing, "should tell you that she doesn't."

And they resume as they were.

Tom thinks that it's against the spirit of a wedding to have any pair of divorcees in the same room, least of all these two. His joking about that genuine belief earns him some laughter on his family's side of the dining hall, then short hums of agreement where the Roys sit. Most notably from Kendall and Marcia and Greg. He begins to wonder if it may be him more than anything who's stewing. The more he looks for them, the more he notices others picking at their scallops but making the show their meal.

"So, how's that settlement treating you and... what's his name? Rory?" Logan asks over tea.

"Mighty fine," says Caroline. "And yes, you're right. I must say I'm surprised that your memory's stuck around this long. I hear that's one of those things that stroke victims often expect to lose. Oh—I did mean delightedly surprised, by the way."

"I'm sure, I'm sure. You'd hate for me to forget how to fuckin' count, or let my prick hang out in front of the shareholders, and make your stock effectively worthless."

"Guilty as charged, darling. Let's hope it doesn't hang out anywhere any time soon. We neither would want you to have even more children, would we?"

Shiv actively flouts the assigned seating to get away from it, which encourages Tom and others to do the same.

It is funny, though. How well Logan and his ex-wife bounce off of one another in their plausibly deniable animosity. Without much beyond right now to go on Tom guesses that they get more out of this than they ever did together. That is, aside from three kids.

Their oldest is the one to tell Tom later, making a convincing brooding Victorian child out of it: That's the longest he's seen his mom and dad talk for in a long time. Kendall actually did enforce a good distance between them at all times at his own wedding, he says. Maybe that's why, Tom supplies.

Getting married seems an exhausting endeavor. Just about every time that Greg sees Tom for the rest of the day, the guy is shaking some hands, or posturing, or fussing at staff over minutiae. The placement of a table, the type of flowers used as decoration. That's what Greg manages to hear in passing or shouted from the other side of a hall, anyway. Any more time face to face with Tom, or granted most anyone in his actual family, is clearly too much to ask for.

Setting aside the size and beauty of Collingwood Castle and the impossibility that he'd ever get his fill from a place like this—if playing the role of an ambassador is what he could expect as a groom one day... shit, pile it on all the other reasons not to. He'll find some other excuse to visit England assuming that he'll one day afford it on his own.

Hopefully for a bit longer than a few days, if he does. The constant flights back and forth have stopped feeling much like a luxury. Having little choice between the labor of mingling with not just strangers but foreign strangers, and wandering the halls and grounds, instills in Greg a wish that has only floated occasionally before now. It wouldn't be here in gloomy Herefordshire even if he could, but if he had to commit to any sort of place... well.

It all begins to nudge him in the direction of changing his mind. Perhaps even toward celebrating this wedding in all his own irrelevance to it. Something old, something new and all that.

He does speak personally to Tom's parents a little more at the real party, where everyone has changed to make a statement if not meet a dress code. It's specifically at their interest.

He at first thought that they'd noticed him glancing and were coming over to give him a what-for. But no, they want more details about why a member of the Roy family isn't close with the rest, let alone in a higher role than assistant. Then they want to know what kind of boss their son is. Greg tries his best to paint the picture that he's sure Tom would want him to, and doesn't realize until he's finished that it was more or less a joke.

"Tom is kind of the only reason I'm even able to have a job here," he admits earnestly, which opens up a whole new line of questioning.

He's made to feel suddenly quite important. Filling those shoes is just as daunting on such short notice. Tom's father even asks, like he's the key to settling a debate, what Greg thinks about Shiv not taking Wambsgans.

Until now he didn't know that she wasn't. But he figures that it tracks. He doesn't think any Roy could afford to lose their name.

The two across him nod thoughtfully.

"How 'bout you, Greg?" Mr. Wambsgans starts again. "Being a Hirsch and all... Assuming that you have no intention to revive the era of cousin-marriage."

"...Pardon?"

"Your name! When you get a wife. Forget I said the other thing, hah, I'm an English teacher. We happen to be reading Jane Austen—it's just on the brain. Meant nothing by it. Anyway, whaddaya s'pose you'll do?"

Greg is distracted primarily by how much the man sounds like Tom the longer that he goes on talking. Facing such a familiar set of teeth, he takes a moment to realize that a real answer is expected of him, no further jokes incoming.

"Uh... Well, if it came down to it, I guess I'd hyphenate?"

Mrs. Wambsgans proceeds to make a remark about the youth of today which Greg cannot tell is meant to be good or bad. He thinks that he should get out of there before he winds up ruining everything—whatever form that should take.

Their farewell before moving onto the next, then, comes with a wholehearted welcome to the family.

"Honor to finally meet you! Shiv has told me a lot."

"Likewise—good things, I hope."

They share a handshake and a laugh, then both do a quick head-swivel to check if the bride is around. It does feel quite odd to be meeting McGovern without her present. She should be here to moderate what her client says, if nothing else.

"I must say," the man says, "I saved you for last. I've spoken to each of Shiv's brothers, as well as her father, now, and... hah, I'll just say that she let me know what to expect! ...Well. Connor was interesting. Eccentric fellow, that one. Nothing I can't handle after all my time on this Earth, anyway. But you—you're a real homegrown type deep down, arnchya, Tom? Born n' bred middle American. I think we have a lot in common."

"Well..." Tom's voice goes jovially hollow as he grins at the floor. "I'm not sure if you mean to flatter me or yourself."

"Flattery? Oh, not at all. Just honesty—and objectivity. Shiv told me you're from Minnesota. A far cry from the silver spoon of her own family... Now, a Roy who's marrying someone like yourself—well. That's about the makings of the perfect sort of person for my campaign, wouldn't you say? I'm real lucky to have her on. And so are you!"

It's easy to fully agree with him, to continue amicably. Though Tom does feel it important to get it across,

"Well, you know, as often as I might like to tell her so it's not quite like a queen stepping down to marry a peasant—"

"No, of course—"

"I am the president of Waystar, Senator. You know. We're equals, Shiv and I."

"And I love to hear it. Not enough men are catching onto that model of relationship, I feel. Personally I think the western world is decades late on the matter."

"Is that... part of your presidential campaign?" Tom thinks to say, with an ironic twist of lips.

"You know, hah, it might be—point two, right under agricultural reform."

A real, chest-deep laugh breaks from Tom, and McGovern joins him.

"Your wife would be the first person to tell me that America isn't ready for it, though—"

"Not wife yet! Don't—"

"Right, right, can't jinx it! Haha! Not wife yet. But yes, she's a hard one. Sincere congratulations... Though if I might circle back—"
"Point three being to reduce the camera glare on foreheads everywhere," he adds. A little too late in retrospect.

"Hm. Yes—"

"I'd be your strongest advocate!" For a moment Tom would like nothing more than to be shot dead.

"Great to know I have your vote," McGovern tells him after a beat. "Speaking of, I do hope it's true, what Shiv tells me? What's in the cards for you, that is."

"...Oh? What's in the cards for me, now?"

"Your shift away from Waystar, of course—isn't it? I've done little to involve myself with the FCC but I understand well enough that Mr. Roy stands to face certain unwanted pressure once Waystar is run by someone who is on paper his son-in-law. Right? I'm not—"

"Oh—that." With the consensus as far as Tom knew being that Logan would take any pressure on the bow until the point that it broke, it hadn't occurred to him. "Ah—yes, of course, I can't say much and nothing is promised, but it's been discussed—"

"No worries, Tom. Obviously this would work out wonderfully for the both of us, wouldn't it? RBN has already sprinkled in a bit of bad faith about me... Supposed odds, y'know. Well I'm sure you know. I don't like watching it—that's why I've got Siobhan and Mr. Sofrelli to do it for me, heh. Mm. Do you know Nathan?"

Tom narrows his gaze but tries to smile.

"I, I haven't met him. No."

"Talented man. Real passionate. He recommended Shiv to me in the first place."

"Oh, I do know that much." He sucks in his lower lip ever so slightly.

"I'll admit I wasn't initially sold on her until I found out about you, you know. And I'm sure glad that I did, Tom. I sincerely look forward to a less biased future of our nation's news with your influence."

"...Right," he says. He hopes convincingly. "Thank you."

The evening slips on in full. Tom weaves in and out of the courtyard. He struggles to touch base with Shiv and in the process hits a lot of his marks a second time—makes it a fair round, he supposes. Connor seems to have successfully passed Willa off as respectable to Tom's own parents, who have in turn behaved as the socialites they've always aspired to be. Matt and his wife attempt the same. Jonas and his have already gone to bed. Roman appears not to have left the payphone by the chapel.

As for Kendall, the tension between him and his father remains palpable if ever they're in sight. One or the other or both. Tom keeps as wide a berth as he can without forsaking his host duties and at best shares a pleasant and genuine enough conversation with Marcia.

It serves as a proxy talk with Logan as far as he sees it. The old man's just not one for these things when he doesn't have to be—he'll be cordial or downright aggressive. His wife's enduring show of warmth is where the middle ground would be, and surely by design. With her around Logan will never have to cast his own net again.

Still, she fits the role of a mother-in-law more substantially than Tom imagines the Lady Collingwood could if she even wanted to. He's inclined to put away any urgency other than what tomorrow brings, to acknowledge her experience and ask if she has any advice to spare.

He's inclined, but she offers it before he's got the chance to get that far.

"It's more of a truth than it is advice," she admits. "But important to know. Many are blind to it, I think, and it ruins them... A marriage is some of the hardest work any man or woman can do, Tom. But if you've chosen the right person then—the work? Should feel worth it."

"Tell me, Greg, do you think Tom is right for my daughter?"

"Wh—me? I, um... I don't think I have much authority to speak on it, I—"

"It's my understanding you spend quite a lot of time with the man."

"Yeah—yes. I do. I guess I'd say it's Shiv that I... don't know well enough to say."

"Mm. I see. You do sound awfully unwilling to express your support for the union..."

"No no—I didn't say that."

"Exactly. You didn't say anything. You ought to confess to some opinion quick if I shouldn't think the worst."

"Okay yeah—I think Tom is, uh... yeah. I think it's a long time coming, I guess. He said it's been, like... over two years now? Since they started going together? Tom is definitely really serious about getting everything right, here, I don't think he'd, uh... do anything to hurt her. No. Yeah."

"Ah, very good... And what about Shiv?"

A colleague, she says. Just a colleague. She can know a colleague's first name.

Do colleagues tend to place their hands, or let hands be placed, on the lower back? The curve of the ass? Has tenderness been stripped from those places? Is the world as he knows it becoming unrecognizable?

The wine seems to be catching up to him. Tom blinks the floaters out of his vision and turns away.

*

By the act alone of seeing it Greg feels like he's the one who's done something horrible. For all that he'd fretted as far as weeks earlier over the fact of what was happening and his selfish discomfort with it—he has more reason than ever, a better reason in fact, to oppose a wedding.

And all he's gotten is lightheaded. He begins to panic about the inevitability of Tom either having to hear the news, likely from him... or obliviously entering a marriage with a woman who doesn't love him.

That woman is his cousin, Greg reminds himself, as if it might summon some emotion from the pit of him on Shiv's behalf. It doesn't. Something new twists in his gut but quickly falls to insignificance; a cigarette smothers the thought. What came before is what tears at him. What floods his head is all Tom—all feelings that aren't really Greg's own, and which he doesn't even want to comprehend. He doesn't think of himself as particularly selfish but it shocks him, the direction he finds himself pushed toward. When he puts all of his weight on a wall with no mind to the stones scraping his back and wonders desperately what he should do, it's a matter of reasoning against the willingness that he already has. That he fucking shouldn't have.

It's so sad, it's hilarious. What mirth Greg unwittingly wrings from it comes bubbling out at once, echoing through the barbican. He isn't bothered, either, that his distress reaches other ears. He just doesn't look at them. He's too busy looking inward at an unprecedented puzzle. It's sad because it's unprecedented.

He cares about Tom. A lot. He wants to be a good friend. He's also a little bit afraid of him because Tom is first and foremost his boss. Not a friend. Which makes the other things that Greg wants a bad idea. It's such a bad idea that he stops wanting them sometimes. It makes him feel like a bad friend, or fuck, a bad employee.

He feels more afraid, and then he wishes that it just wasn't something that he cared about, because why the hell should he. Why, after these past months, should he?

Before Paris last weekend, it had been a nearly entirely dry year. Summer of '70 was the direct aftermath of the year before that: Greg was done. He'd struggled, he'd settled, he'd in fact settled for too much. It had long proved itself to be an innate part of him, that he just couldn't be the pursuer. He didn't have it in him. He was too afraid, even after coming to realize that his encounters otherwise were no longer making him feel wanted—not in the way he wanted to be wanted.

He wouldn't necessarily say never, say, if he was on the stand. But he can't remember the last time that he was approached so... implicitly, yet still undeniably. That he felt so confident and properly receptive on that end of it. That they didn't slink away to some genuinely private place. That he took it standing. That a man sank to his knees so gladly for him, pushed Greg's hips against the wall and swallowed his cock like he was starving for it.

The image gets clearer the further that Greg gets from it, it seems. Everything else, sensation included, has faded just far enough for him to still be able to miss it.

It's the ecstasy calling for him more than anything—and he knows, then, that without that he's just as lost as before. There's a lot beyond immediate pleasure that threatens to rear its head and force him into some crooked, pretending little beast. He's still got a lot to be tired of. He hasn't lost any of those reasons to tighten up his standards.

Though it's also just been long enough. Past the dreamlike state Greg fucking misses it.

One of the waiters from the party stares at him from the other end, practically a silhouette in front of the tunnel's opening. There's not much to make out but a thin frame and a short shag, but he traces it nevertheless. He imagines his cigarette's glow lighting his eyes up and making him obvious from even all the way down there.

True to form, it's the other man who starts walking first.

He's pretty, but not Greg's type, but that's better. He's got a patient ear for as long as Greg's mouth runs with his predicament, and dope to share and a car and a pad to himself not far from here. It's simple to forget all about the silk sheets back at the castle, or to know them and drive in the opposite direction anyway, even before Greg smokes enough to loosen up. There's no choice but to shut it out of his world if he wants this.

Against better judgment he gets the guy's name before sucking at his neck. At Andrew's neck. It hardly matters as he gives himself to the high—he thinks nothing of it, just shares a mouthful of smoke and feels a hard body. He falls into a pattern he knows. Palms Andrew through his jeans in the car. Slides a hand down the back of them once his front door is closed.

They smoke more, and it's a whole different animal than the ecstasy, a much more solid and familiar one that Greg easily decides he prefers. He still knows who he is. It's just this man who associates to nothing and takes no shape. Exactly as he needs it.

It could be anyone's soft stomach that his fingertips press into or whose legs he kneels between, and tonight it's Andrew, and Andrew's perfect.

Greg takes him as he is, doesn't think about who he isn't. It's artless. No focus at all. He just feels the weight of a cock on his tongue, the fingers indiscriminately tugging on his hair, the encouraging noises above him, and how much he's missed this.

*

It could be nothing. Maybe. Always the possibility that he just makes an idiot out of himself.

No, it couldn't have been nothing. And if he really thinks about it it's not the first time. Other heated moments are there, just below, sloughed off where Tom desperately needed the two of them to fit into a box. He feels with deep misery for a moment that it's his mistake alone, and that he should tell her that they don't have to do this.

That would just be words, wouldn't it, though. Of course they do. Of course they have to.

Shiv takes longer than him to get ready to sleep and has all the space and time in the world to catch his vacillating attention, his half-started breaths, while he sits up and waits. She glances over several times, getting to the last curler in her hair before making an observation aloud.

"I can see you itching to say something over there. What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Tom says reflexively. And he quickly decides that it's true: "Nothing wrong. Just a question—um. So, Shiv... am I getting RBN?"

He breathes some optimism into it and watches her face open up. That's answer enough for him to take another impulse and go on,

"If I am, why did I hear about it from Senator McGovern instead of you?"

The flash of defensiveness in her eyes bodes for a more certain response. She sighs.

"I'm sorry, Tom, I just didn't want to promise you anything until I could promise it."

"It sounds like you promised it to McGovern."

"Well yes, because he's not gonna be my husband," she laughs. "He's someone I need to see me as useful. You don't have an issue with me lying to him, do you?"

"Hah, no... I'd just suppose that, ah. The future president should know when he's saying too much." Tom promptly fears that he has said too much—at the same time that he knows he perfectly meant to. He picks at his fingernails and keeps his focus there. "I really would like to have known that you'd told him, at least. Then I would know to play a part and not have it sprung on me? I took classical theater in college, y'know, not improv."

Shiv makes a plausible scoffing noise. It passes enough as something else for Tom to ignore it.

"...I'm sure you did well enough not to rouse suspicion, though. Didn't you?"

"Uh-huh. Don't worry."

A chair drags on the floor.

"It uh, it is more or less in the bag by now," Shiv finally says—and Tom looks up, all frustration wiped from his face, to see her walking toward the bed with a developing grin. "Yeah—my dad's coming around to accept the fact that, y'know, there's only so far he can directly spite a government agency... I think there's some dodgy waters with Nixon and the stock at play there too? In any case I'm kind of the favorite right now. I'm Daddy's girl, I'm getting married... Not to mention, don't know if you heard, but some theme park project of Roman's just went up in flames earlier today? As in literally. Gerri told me. I don't think Dad actually knows yet, but once he does, oh-ho..."

Shiv whistles and does a chopping gesture over her neck—the last use of her hands before they're pulling her body forward from the corner of the bed. She props herself up and Tom leans in, fist tangling in the wool blanket.

"I've just been spinning it as a... potential wedding present? Is the thing. And we both know my dad won't make that move until he has no choice. So it's, ah. Just a waiting game. Start the countdown, honey."

Tentatively, Tom stretches his lips to match her smile. Something rises in his throat and he swallows it like a pill.

"Is that, uh... why I haven't seen you all evening? You've been playing political chess?"

She hesitates just the same to take the amnesty that he's offered. Tom lives in that pause.

"Yeah—exactly," she says. "Sorry I didn't tell you. I've just wanted to get everything right."

"I think it could have gone right with me having a direct role." He offers that gently, with eye contact this time, and waits for her to stiffen up. She just tilts her head.

"I think the sight of you next to me would look like you'd hired me to beg. It would scare my dad off."

"...And if he's scared off anyway? Do you have a backup plan? We should come up with one."

She nods and crawls all the way across the bed to him then, in a manner awfully reminiscent of those early to middle months. They'd follow up sex or eschew it altogether to scheme out loud, playing off each other until someone fell asleep mid-idea. Tom makes himself comfortable to join her in that world.

"Technically I do already," she admits, "uh... blackmail. But not. I've already sprinkled it in—made it sound plausibly deniable that that's what it is, of course. Very plausibly deniable. Just—notions, you know, that I happen to know that Productions has violated the Communications Act so many times that rebuilding is inevitable, and it's so diverse it's bound to go through another mitosis in five years, and... if nothing else 'my husband deserves better than that circus.' That sort of thing."

"And—you think he got the implicit message. Right?"

"I mean, I want to think. It's always possible he just doesn't think I'm capable. I never claimed I would do anything about it, anyway—or even that I or anyone else could. But..."

"But if it came down to it—"

"If it does, yeah, I'll play those cards. I'll lose the edge of being underestimated, but, y'know. One thing my dad knows how to handle without fail is a transaction."

"...Well. We better hope he doesn't call your bluff if you have to do that," Tom realizes. "I had Greg shred everything."

Despite the truth in it it feels inconsequential—somehow to both of them. There's no rationalizing to conjure more backups, no questioning into the gritty details, no half-baked actionable plans to make a believable case without documents... Shiv seems to be picturing what he told her, eyes twinkling at a landscape on the wall. Tom feels briefly like a man who's getting married tomorrow.

"Hey, I actually learned something about Greg," she says when she moves to lie down.

Half her face is soon squished carefully into the pillow on her half of the bed. Tom's heart skips a beat but he manages to move nothing but an eyebrow.

"Did he ever tell you about his dad?"

"No?"

She delivers the rest so casually, so removed, like it's any other gossip.

"My mom told me. He was discovered having an affair with another man, and he got fired from his job, and he killed himself. Jumped right in front of a semi."

**

The moment he decides is when he spots Tom from Andrew's car. In his head he'd built up a whole ordeal of either seeking out the man's room and having to see Shiv when he asks to speak privately, or waiting all day, trapped in the responsibility, for the right moment. With that no longer a factor, it feels like a sign. It feels right.

"Actually, wait—right here," Greg says at once.

"Not the front?"

"...Shit, did you see him? Did he just go in the garden?"

"I dunno, man."

"Yeah, here please. Thanks."

Andrew makes no secret of looking him up and down while he frantically unbuckles. "Hey, I had a fun night."

Greg is already opening the door—he throws him a single bright but hurried glance.

"Yeah, me too."

For a minute or so after Andrew drives off, he sees no further sign of Tom or anyone else in any direction. No dark shape of a man against the lingering snow or passing between hedges or trees. A worry begins to gnaw at him that he'd imagined it somehow. Or that it was perhaps someone else. A groundskeeper who has since gone back to their home.

It isn't such a terrible thing if he has to make the fifteen minute trek back to the castle on foot. The thought that he's missed the chance, though...

Then he hears a distinct cough. A couple of birds nearby prove it was real by abruptly escaping their branch.

"Tom?" he asks the dry cold.

"...Greg?"

He feels incredibly silly, tracking him down so fast by voice alone when a second ago he was all but lost. Fortunately it seems Tom anticipated a farce and stayed where he was and just waited. Sitting on a marble bench underneath an arch of dead vines, at presumably the crux of this garden maze, he's arching his neck up to the sky when Greg comes upon him, like he too wondered if he was losing it. The glimpse that he catches of that look lasts almost not at all.

"You following me, Greg?" Tom says, appearing upset only as it's through a mouthful of smoke.

"Kind of," he sees no reason not to admit. Though it earns him a look he ought to quash: "Well no—not like that, Tom. I just need to talk to you."

It becomes apparent somehow as Tom stands, silent but for another extended puff, that he must have walked all the way out here rather than smoking in the courtyard for a reason. Greg freezes from the sudden uncertainty, now feeling the need to give equal deliberation to a whole new question. Does he ask it, that is. And would the answer tell him that his news is useless.

Then Tom waves him on impatiently—both hands, cigarette in his teeth.

"Yeah, okay, what the hell is it, Greg?"

He swallows and looks Tom in the eyes and shakes his head.

"Don't get married, man. Don't."

It's no surprise and thus no real hurt when Tom just stares, dumbfounded, and leads up to a disproportionately mean laugh.

"...You're trying to stop my wedding on the morning of? Classy."

"I know, I'm sorry, I would've tried earlier if I'd known, Tom," he steps forward to say, already strained, imploring. And of course Tom is eyeing him and frowning to ask known what? and Greg has been thinking about this since he woke up but he still hesitates, afraid in a way that he couldn't have been before he was here of what speaking this into the air between them would create, "Shiv is... I mean, I saw her—"

"No."

That's it. Tom says it with no more than a quirked cheek, like Greg just asked for the rest of his bagel.

"N-no?"

"No," Tom repeats.

"So... you—?"

"You didn't see anything, Greg," and he's audibly angrier, then, as level as his voice remains.

He might fool Greg if not for averting his gaze to the ground and beginning to pace. Instead Tom shows him his back, the elbow pads on his peacoat and the flighty ends of his scarf, and allows Greg the freedom to fill his chest back up. He stands still and waits for them to face each other again.

"Did, uh... did you?"

"Did I what?" Tom spits.

"See anything," Greg shrugs.

"What the fuck does that mean? See anything." There's an attempt from Tom's eyes to pierce him, hurt him, that doesn't work, and so he puts the violence into his heel when he smashes his cigarette butt into the mud. "What are you even doing... I'm getting married today, Greg."

"But you shouldn't!"

The other man is just noncommittally shuffling away, now. Scraping the mud off his boots and onto the wet grass.

"Seriously, Tom, I'm just trying to help you," Greg starts with even more confidence, even and perhaps especially as it feels useless, given the undeniable misery in what he can make of Tom's gaze anymore—he easily strides to the front of him, refusing to let that misery or his own fear win. "And... and Shiv is definitely cheating on you."

"Greg."

"Listen. The guy's hand was on her—"

"Shut the fuck up, Greg!" Tom faces him again, now for the worst. "Shut up! Stop—"

"But the guy—"

"He WASN'T! It wasn't! Fucking—leave me the fuck alone, Greg," and to complete the echo of very recent events that have been tormenting him enough, Tom pushes him out of his way.

This time Greg's lithe body recoils more dramatically than Tom's strength demands, as if to make up for all that he didn't react before, to squeeze yet more guilt out of him when Greg doesn't actually leave. Neither does Tom, for all his show of stomping away. He swivels back around before reaching the end of the first hedge and finds the other man's mouth already open again.

"I'm trying to help, man, fuck, I—"

"Why?" he finally demands, scraping his throat with the volume of it. So much for peace and quiet out here. But Tom can't stop—the sight of Greg, this gangling man making some play at guardian angel, he can't fucking comprehend it. He can't ignore it and he can't dance around it. He can't. "Why the fuck would you want to tell me this shit? Why can't—just—why don't you want me to be married?"

"Christ, Tom, because you deserve to be happy?"

Tom is still spreading his arms, heaving, begging, and Greg is stretching infinitely forward, hopelessly reaching—but he finds that easy to say. The words have been there for so long.

"Because you deserve to be happy!" he shouts again, louder, closer, fresher than they've had the chance to be for a week, "That's fucking why! It's the truth, and you deserve the truth, and I, I think you already know the truth, Tom? Maybe you just needed someone else to say it, to—to tell you how obvious it is that you're not happy—?"

It's just Greg, it's fucking Greg goading it out of him, like taunting a perfectly docile dog with raw chicken, holding it just out of range until he can't take it, he can't see anything else, or hear anything else, so that's what he blames, he blames Greg—

Tom reaches out, it's so easy, it's nothing, it's just them out here, he's got both hands on either side of Greg's face before he can think about it, pulling him—pulling himself. Rushing forward. Kissing him.

It's lightning on Greg's lips, a residual shock all through his frame long after Tom breaks away.

It's only a fraction of a second, the briefest taste of what Greg seems to want him to have so badly just—just too much.

Too fucking much. He still can't take it.

Greg opens his eyes to a pitiful noise and a flash of tears. His shock keeps him where he stands. Harsh footsteps finally take; within seconds, Tom is gone entirely.

*

Everything changes and nothing changes.

Back in his room at the castle Greg pulls his reception clothes on inches at a time, a piece of him anticipating his door getting busted down any minute and for all of them to have to be ripped right back off—

But there's nothing, and it makes sense. All the reasons that Greg never expected that remain, almost like it didn't happen at all. His tie stays on, painfully tight, ready for a funeral.

It makes sense. He's not an old friend or a brother in law—just a cousin, a second cousin, and an employee, extraneous, lacking in any real history. Of course he'd belong at the far end of any pictures he's even allowed in. What message would it send to the press if he was anywhere else. That would be the logic to it no matter what.

Greg still resigns himself to the position that it feels Tom has purposefully put him in. As far away as he can be, that is, to give Tom and his regret a wide berth. In all his own stewing hurt he does think of it as a favor he's doing the man—letting him have this. He tries not to look at him directly but to take in the scenes as a whole, Tom being just a small part, an equal figure to any other in this show of a wedding. Every wedding needs a groom. No need to get such a knot in his throat about it.

His eyes glaze over against many of his attempts to enjoy himself, and when they don't, it's for Greg to catch cruel glimpses of hope. It's then repeatedly soured by this wretchedness over feeling optimistic at all—that he should look at Tom's grin while he makes his vows and find something missing in it, from all the way back here, and hope. Worse, that he should itch so badly to stand when the priest makes the rhetorical call for it, to speak again with a whole audience, now, instead of holding his peace. That he should seriously consider taking the matter to the big man afterward despite the doneness of the deal and everyone filing out.

But he gets used to it. They make it to dinner and speeches and Greg sees no more point in stopping what will run its course regardless; whether or not it's on the man's face he knows that Tom knows, that he must be looking at Shiv and seeing her taking a roll in the hay with that other guy. He faces the same sort of slices of white behind his eyes—the snow that he didn't fall into but which he might have, had Tom taken it further. Had he lashed out harder until he found a point of no return and dragged himself on top of him.

They blink themselves away around the time that Greg gets a properly full stomach, somewhere between his first and second glass of wine. He shifts quite abruptly into a decision-making state of mind, with the groom nowhere to be seen after exiting the dance floor, and begins doing exactly that.

This is more or less a party now. A room full of half-drunk strangers, dancing to Tommy James, who all share at least one thing in common with him.

Greg thinks of the RECNY Ball, and of Paris, and of all the people other than Tom who have told him to get married.

Looking out at the floor by himself, he even wishes for an insane moment that his mom or grandpa were here. Old instincts, he decides. He's already disregarded them by the time he stands and starts toward the throng of dancing couples and eligible singles, in whose faces he summons the dormant effort to find something that he likes. Then it's bare pragmatism when Greg recognizes the little use in it—the waste of time it is to try to control how he feels, at least now while the burden of knowledge drags him down. He ought to just work around it. He can only control what he does.

He's thinking only of finally taking himself seriously, and not at all of Tom's rehearsed declaration of love to the room, when he picks out a girl to ask to dance.

*

There's a rich, intense high to being married above it all. Tom soars on pure accomplishment and joy for hours. He feels one with his body, one with the moment he's in and no others at all, and most importantly one with Shiv, because it's done. The rings are on and he can't stop looking at them.

It lasts for as long as Shiv is by his side, petering out some minutes after her first absence. She leaves him with a level head, though, and he laughs at himself, feels silly when it did seem serious, Logan ushering her down a corridor and into a library with ugly mutterings about her brother. Which brother, Tom didn't even catch. He clings to the part of him that wonders, and he props himself at the edge of the room and stares professionally, curiously down at the angled sliver of that door. He refuses to ache.

He's married. And he's still a company man. He's rational. He knows what's important.

Shiv is important, but what she's doing at the moment doesn't concern him.

His interest on the door wanes before Tom realizes it; it seems he blinks and cherry wood is instantaneously replaced with yellow light and distant, cheerful bodies. Very suddenly much cheerier than himself.

Easiest to pick out among them, always for his height, is Greg. And much shorter than him, bizarrely so, her fingertips surely unable to find real purchase on his shoulders... a girl. Tom doesn't know her. She could be anyone. Even so he feels a hatred for her drop into his gut—because she's opted to dance with Greg, and he hates Greg. He hates everyone on that fucking floor, his own Shondells record included.

I think we're alone now, my ass.

He unsticks his cheek from the wall and tears his gaze away, forces it back to the yet-empty space where that cloud can't get him.

The speed with which the Roy siblings stride back toward him graciously decides Tom's heartbeat, gets his blood pumping again back to where it should be. He's so caught up in the relief that the textbook fury on Shiv's face means nothing until she's right about to pass him, her equally severe brothers in tow.

"Woah—honey, what happened in there—?"

"Ask him," she snaps, not stopping, just jerking a thumb backward and whipping past, straight for the stairs.

Tom's reflexes are rusty, he has no time to change her mind—but as Kendall follows he slows down enough to grab him.

He's far more pliable than his sister. He really always is. He gives the details straight. Rubs sincerely at his face when he apologizes.

"I swear to you, Tom, I wanted to wait, I did not want to do this now," Kendall says. "I know it probably doesn't comfort you any. But I just need you and Shiv to know that it wasn't my choice. I tried to change Sandy's mind. This was just how it had to happen."

Tom nods. That's just about all he's been able to do through Kendall's explanation—a wow here and there, that's big.

He understands it, somehow without really hearing it. Kendall says he doesn't expect forgiveness right now or necessarily ever, but the storm of feelings that forgiveness exists to quell never rises to begin with. He just nods, piecing together the information without bias, hardly recognizing one of those implicit pieces as himself.

Far more intimately and presently he knows that wherever Shiv has gone to, she isn't happy. She won't be reasonably convinced to resume the celebration as it was, either.

With his options locked Tom finds his blood flowing to some approximation of it, though, as well as the party looking the way it should. He dives in there to chase his high through the first route that occurs to him.

Run, run baby run to me—

"Mind if I cut in?"

Tom doesn't wait for an answer, and Greg doubts he'd be able to give him one. Both he and his third dance partner assume he means to take her anyway—but Tom doesn't even glance in her direction, just takes Greg's hand and shoulder and laughs at his shock.

"Oh—uh, hey! Tom!" he shouts, breathless, almost panicking for both of their sakes. He does an unsubtle job of looking around at the other pairs, searching for less-than-amused reactions, and Tom just tells him, practically beaming at him,

"Shoulda known you had two left feet..."

There's a few good seconds. It all comes rushing back. Greg settles a hand on Tom's waist and puts a genuine effort into righting his stance.

"Is this, uh—?"

"Hey, big news, buddy," Tom says, a little softer, a little duller, but still smiling. He leads them into an exaggerated spin.

A good idea, Greg was going to say. He tosses it for a questioning head-shake.

"Kendall's taking over the company."

"...What?"

"Yep! A total leveraged buyout. Get ready for some changes—"

"But—but wait, how can he do that? Can he really just do that? "

"Yes, with obscene amounts of money, Greg. More than you could ever comprehend. Most of it's in stock, of course—don't ask me to explain it. I'm just telling you."

"I don't... why now?"

"Because of Logan being in England, apparently."

"Should you be telling me this here?"

"Probably not, Greg!"

He hardly remembers that they're dancing until Tom finally does do a sweep of the blurry faces around them. He returns from them unbothered, though, just gripping Greg a little less.

"Uh... so is this—is it good? It's probably bad, right—or is it? Should I actually be worried or not, Tom?"

"Not sure yet," he tells him frankly, and repeats casually, just before breaking away, "I'm just telling you."

Alone once again, rhythm lost, Greg feels that he's had his fill of the dance floor.

What dumb luck it is, the next he sees of Kendall not ten minutes later—or maybe just a close and convenient space to smoke for all, he realizes after the fact. He wouldn't have had much trouble looking for him anyway. He just wasn't sure yet whether he should.

That sense or lack thereof proves itself valid as Kendall at first neglects to spare him much attention. But Greg once again is late to realize and pushes it, and winds up in a good spot without direction.

"You're—glad I'm taking over," his cousin says, planting his feet. "Really?"

"I mean, yeah?" Greg insists, truthfully if only because he's coming to the conclusion in the moment. "Uncle Logan is—I guess I'm not... directly affected, very often, but there's shockwaves. And just, what I've seen and what I've heard... Well it's common, isn't it? For people to just lose it when they get old? On top of being generally, uh... mean, and—"

"Mean?" While the gaunt look about him hasn't changed, a smile has crept up on Kendall's face that eases Greg's apprehension halfway before he gives him permission: "C'mon, man, you can do better than that. Go ahead. He's not here."

"Uh, unstable—"

"Oh, you were ready."

"And not fair? Like at all? Often—honestly, you could say, very prejudicially motivated, uh. Sometimes violent. Generally scary. And... yeah, fairly out of touch with reality, even when it affects his own money, and laws... Yeah, man. Everyone would be better off if he retired, probably. Or—obviously that doesn't matter if you're just taking it."

"Agreed, Greg. More than anything I... I just feel sorry for my dad."

"Right. Hey actually, I did also want to ask, um. Even if we're legally separate, y'know... is this gonna affect Waystar Productions?"

For a split second Kendall looks like he caught him and like he's about to walk away again. Then he smirks.

"...Do you want it to?"

"Oh, uh... well. It's, you know, it's not that I don't like Tom," he all but whispers, truly frightened more by admitting this aloud than of anything he had to say about Logan, "but working under him can get a bit. Stressful."

"Ha. I bet."

"And I really don't anticipate it getting any easier—like, far from it?"

Greg envisions his future in that regard more vividly now than he's done all day, and lets an absurd laugh bubble out, and promptly fills his lungs with smoke.

"Well." Kendall coughs, indifferent. "You can bet on stock dropping. Probably just temporarily—for a year tops. My dad'll cling to his personal share like a fuckin' sea urchin, though."

"Yeah, I guess I'd just say, I'm eager to move up from being an assistant. Lotsa shredding involved, if you know what I mean..."

It's impulsive, it's clumsy, it's half a lie that feels horrible to tell even as half a truth. Greg gags harder on embarrassment than lingering fear. Kendall just hums.

"Yeah? What are you trying to be, Greg?"

He waits for the punchline. "...Really?"

"Do you have a plan? Or are you just trying to get rich?"

"Well no—actually, yeah, man, I'm kind of—I'd really like to be an actor? Actually? It's just, y'know... finding a role that pays enough to be worth like, devoting myself. Risk—risky business. Mostly a waiting game, I think... I mean. I did actually land a couple episodes of this sitcom, though, that's supposed to be airing later this month, it's like—"

"Damn, Greg," Kendall whistles, and gives him a once-over as if to make sure he's talking to the person he thought he was. "...Look at you, all tuff. That's great, man. Congratulations."

Greg grins, for a moment painfully wide. Before this weekend he'd mostly run out of opportunities to mention his minor TV gig, least of all to anyone above his own station, and he's still earned so little here despite the abundance of socializing to be done. It was scraps he was after to begin with, so it didn't surprise him.

He's forgotten anything resembling sincerity from anyone he actually knew, he thinks, let alone the sort of surge of pride that could topple him over. Greg nearly forgets to thank him.

"Yeah, man. Listen, I got shit to do but—I'll be sure to tune in."

It doesn't occur to him that he never got the chance to tell him the name of the show until Kendall is almost out of sight. He tries shouting it down the way.

*

It's more neutral news than anything, the more of a grip he gets on it. This same sort of thing on just a smaller scale almost happened a few months ago anyway, and had it been successful Tom would have been in full support. It's just the timing that's bad. He tries telling Shiv, who initially won't hear it and throws some palpable animosity his way for the "side" he's taking. So quickly as to erase that completely, however, she begins to have all these positive ideas of her own. She's pacing furiously either way.

"Yeah, you know, now that I've calmed down about it, this—this might actually work out even easier."

"See, honey? Now can—"

"Kendall absolutely likes you more than my dad does—oh, yeah... and not to mention that he just ruined my wedding, or—not really, but he thinks he did... He'll be motivated to make that up to me. Unless—well... fuck, unless he stays on that goddamn high horse. If he holds a grudge because of Dad, or he—"

"He does like me. I'm really not worried about it, Shiv."

"—or he doubles down on all that restructuring for integrity bullshit, or..."

"Shiv! I'm not worried."

"I am, though," she says, and nevermind her tone it's a relief that she'll stop and look him in the face. "There's the McGovern side to this too, Tom. I need to figure out what the hell to tell him."

He nods and takes one of her hands in both of his own.

"But can't you figure it out tomorrow? He seems like an understanding guy, Shiv."

Until Tom says it outright she just won't get it—that he doesn't want to talk about this, he doesn't want to worry about shit right now, he just wants to get back to earlier. He's barely holding himself together where he's at, now, he needs something to go on, he's shaking on his elbows and knees at the foot of the bed, waiting to consummate their marriage and make it all right.

So he does, and she does, and after she needs no more convincing he's still going—

"I just want to feel happy about tonight, Shiv, can't we just have tonight? Can I just love you like a normal man—can we just pretend that anything bad is not happening and be happy people? Please?"

Yes, she says, I love you too, she says, nodding furiously, holding his face.

Shiv pushes him back into the bed and climbs on top of him, and all Tom has to do is hold her tight.

After he knows for certain that she's out for the night, he accepts what's been coming on all evening. Tenfold since his climax wore off.

Allowed nothing else, it seems, Tom pushes his face into the pillow and begins to weep.

Chapter Text

Nothing changes and everything changes, again. With nothing more than the rising of the sun.

Sort of. Greg is very confused about it and is apparently the one person most confused about it, or at least the most distressed about Logan's refusal to dignify any request for clarity. The man announces quite simply after breakfast in the morning that, whatever anyone heard about a hostile takeover last night, they can put those worries away.

"Kendall and I had a talk, and we worked some of his personal issues out, and he's come around. As you'd expect however he's feeling real sore about himself right now, so some arrangements have been made for him to go get his head straight as soon as possible. In fact he's just about left already. He's sorry that he had to go so soon, but he felt it couldn't wait, and—frankly, I think he was too embarrassed by his mistake to face any one of you."

He's so professional, so perfectly concerned at the front of the dining hall while he delivers that news. Those fat hands folded over his stomach like he's making a presidential speech.

"In any case, the good news prevails," Logan goes on, but Greg takes advantage of the pause:

"But where is Kendall?"

Logan's open mouth turns slowly to face him, and settles into a tired, scrutinizing look.

"Like I said, somewhere to get his head straight. Now—"

"But how could he already be gone?"

"...Ever heard of a taxi cab, Greg?"

"But—"

Kendall's siblings do openly agree that it's odd, but Logan's hand-waving on the details is met with bizarrely little resistance. Greg tries to follow him on his way out of the room, ask what this actually means for the company and if he really can't say exactly where Kendall is, in case anyone needed to contact him or, really, just wanted to make sure he's okay—and receives but a hearty fuck off. At best, "he's away, is where he is."

He hesitates to ask the next obvious person, but doesn't spare much consideration to skipping over him. The group quickly disperses into a handful of pairs, none of which Greg feels remotely as justified in infiltrating as the one—even insofar as it means running after him in a corridor, his wife in frame when he catches him, begging to talk.

It does feel terribly strange. Almost like it's a stranger that he meets there. That dance, though, that hand on his shoulder told him well enough last night—it's okay, forget about it, it never happened. It's pushed down the list of priorities anyway.

Tom humors him, tells Shiv to go on ahead for a second, and sighs.

"Yeah, buddy, it's almost certainly more complicated than Logan's saying and he's just—I dunno, trying to keep nice for now. Kendall had people behind him from what I can tell, so... yeah, even if he did actually wuss out, all that means is they don't have his shares on their side."

"If he did? You—you don't think Logan, you know... got rid of him, do you?"

"What?" Tom screws up his face in that judgemental way that simultaneously reassures him. "No. C'mon, man."

"Sure—I know, I'm just, I'm trying to understand—?"

"Hey. Deep breaths. Listen, Greg...," he sighs again and rolls his eyes a bit, but after checking over either shoulder he settles in a slightly closer stance. "Kendall's got a bit of a history, you know that, right? By the time I started hanging 'round he was just fresh out of rehab. This isn't totally without precedent. Alright? Anyway, I've got a honeymoon to pack for."

With that he's off, but still shouting back: "Just don't worry about it! Relax! Enjoy your week off!"

*

Tom's own week, which was meant to make up for all the lovemaking that he and Shiv have neglected in past months, is cut short to a few days via a radio call. It's the sort of thing where the decision of what to do is called a personal one and technically left up to them, but one decision is the blatantly correct one. They agree, relenting quickly, that it was bound to happen. Dissatisfaction festers inside Tom nevertheless.

In another twelve hours' time the newest Roy son is sitting with the rest in the living room of Logan's beautiful summer home, acting as a meager sounding board to the big man's company decisions.

Lo and behold, too, there's Kendall. Unharmed but looking markedly more tortured than Tom last saw him. Unwilling much to participate in the free debate his father has sanctioned over the state of the company. He thinks of Greg's paranoia and can't help but wonder. More suspicious, really, is Logan's unprecedented open ear—that he's the first one to fly the notion of selling, of naming a successor within the foreseeable future.

When he's called into the old man's private office, he's grateful that it's with Shiv as a unit. The distinct image of a Bond villain's deathtrap awaiting him otherwise fills his mind.

Tom sits when Logan asks; Shiv wavers by the arm of his chair.

"On top of all this shit, the fuckin' FCC has just yesterday put a hit out on radio stations," is how he leads, pacing behind his desk. "No more songs that mention illegal drugs, or else some big scary fine—so advertisers are making deals for cuts, expecting less listenership, not to fucking mention the tobacco shit, and all these goddamn terrorists and riots... It's war, you see? War on me. My journalists are working overtime, I've got to call Nixon, I've got to... cancel a magazine... It's just a goddamn nightmare."

Shiv shares a look with him.

"Did you call us in here to vent, Dad?"

"I want to minimize chaos," he says, ignoring that. "I want to keep everybody close. Shiv... you've married a good man, and I want him on the front lines."

"The—the front lines, sir?"

Finally, Logan sits down across from him and folds his fingers together.

"I'm selling half my Waystar stock. No use having you over there." Shiv balks more than Tom, then, enough that the man has to acknowledge it: "Fiction and fairytales and minstrel shows—it's dying. It's all dying. If I want to survive I've got to focus on the shit that matters—the shit that's real. People want to know what's actually going on. And I need someone younger than Sid, the old fucking fart, but also someone with experience in that chair. Someone in that sweet spot. Reporting back to me. So congratulations, Tom."

It ends not with a handshake, just a slam on his desk and a smirk on his face, clearly inviting Tom's thank you sir, I won't let you down, I intend to make myself indispensable, as quickly as it shoos him away.

"I'd like to have some private words with my daughter, now."

After they celebrate Shiv has a lot to say, though quietly so that it won't travel beyond their guest room, about how much of that was ripped right from her. She hisses a bit even through the wine and some of the sex. It was just that rich of Logan to have said all that like he came up with even half of it—like she didn't fight to get it through his thick skull.

In many ways it's delightfully like how they spent their nights before the turn of the decade. So Tom doesn't mind. He appreciates further distraction in whatever form it may take—however inevitable it is regardless, until his honeymoon is officially over and he's back home. The enormity of this step up in his career simply cannot hit him until then.

It's just so soon after his last one. Excitement or for that matter any other anticipation for the notion never really began brewing. The thrill of the strategy on his wedding eve was just that, and he lost it with no will to go searching, and now he feels he's meeting it empty-handed. His bags were already brought up by someone else.

But then there's Mondale, wagging his whole damn body because Tom walked in the door. Suddenly he's on the floor, disregarding his things and the hair getting on his pants, and opening up the cage and letting his dog climb all over him, promising that it'll be a long time before he ever has to miss him too much again.

"Out of LA for good, buddy," Tom tells him, at the same time that he remembers—because even Mondale's face can't stave it off for long—that this home is done for, too.

Less than half a year here and they're moving out once again, to go hand in hand with the wedding. It's half for appearances. Half of that is just for Tom's parents despite them being well aware of him and Shiv living together and therefore the likelihood of premarital sex—he supposes it's to create some illusion that they can cling to. If only he lived closer to home and then all he would have to do is make a point of pushing their beds together.

For all his time in LA he'd only gone through two apartments. A relatively squalid existence before Productions and for the first year, and then a decently swanky pad that Tom kept expanding, as he could afford it, for the next six. He and Shiv never formally moved in together even as Tom began to spend more time at her place in the Hills than at his own. No one with a brain, not even his dog, would have wanted to give hers up for his. And he was reluctant to live somewhere without his name on the lease. They were perfectly modern people who could dance a modern arrangement, anyway.

Back then he was realizing for the first time that however good he thought he had it yesterday, there was always something better.

Tom scratches behind Mondale's ears and remembers when he had just three suits to rotate between. All those frantic runs to the dry cleaners. No matter how consistently everyone at the ESQ publishing house proved not to notice or care, he always worried that they would. What people did notice, years later while Tom moved into television, was his new puppy shedding unstoppably all over his expanded wardrobe.

It hasn't been nearly so bad ever since Mondale stopped enduring a California summer.

"I know, I know, you just got used to this place and now you gotta acclimate all over again? I know..."

Tom shucks his shoes and belt off, making himself wholly comfortable on the floor for a good while. He just thinks Mondale deserves it with how much time he's spent away.

*

Greg is brought back into the loop on pure chance, all on his own, just reclined over his couch in his apartment. He recognizes Kendall's friend from Paris on the TV and seems to wake up at once from a week-long dream. If nothing else he puts down the hash pipe.

"—a certain bias, which we believe the American people will not and should not stand for. Logan Roy is unwilling from every arm he extends to be honest to his own audience, starting with his very own family. As unfortunate as it is, I think Kendall's abrupt and last-second drop-out from this endeavor speaks for itself. We're moving forward and to tell you the truth, Walter, we don't anticipate too much of a struggle before the price drops. We're confident."

A chart of Royco stock is blown up on the left of the screen. Stewy starts telling the camera things about Logan that Greg didn't even know. He leans closer to the TV.

"Oh... shit..."

What was meant to be a vacation, and which mainly functioned as one from Tom because Greg went into the office a couple times anyway, just to make sure that things wouldn't pile up, now feels like a useless hole in time. Days spent twiddling his thumbs and flouting nonexistent assignments and pursuing stupid flights of fancy. He's not sure if he's glad that he understands all this now.

That new understanding includes the fact that the grass is contributing to him being antsy. Greg doesn't pick the pipe back up, but instead soothes himself with his own rough fingers in his hair, carding and pulling until he wonders if he isn't due for another trim.

"What? You're not excited?"

It's funny how much potential for hurt Tom manages to hold in his lower lip and the harsh squint of his eyes. Or it may just be the salt blowing in from the Lower Bay. Greg supposes it his own mistake either way for thinking that in a new backdrop he'd see a new man, and obeys the tug.

"No—yeah, of course I... it sounds exciting. I mean. It's just kind of out of nowhere? With no warning?"

"This is your warning," Tom laughs. "And it's not out of nowhere. It's a long time coming, man. We were stagnating at Waystar. You just don't understand—this is good. This is better, Greg."

He nods like he trusts him—he wants to. Moreso he wants to be able to enjoy his first time at Coney Island and not be bogged down by thoughts of inevitable loss. It's just hard. He scrambles for the safest thing to say, to justify the lack of enthusiasm about the news.

"I guess I'm just thinking about the people I'm gonna miss, Tom. I did have a couple friends. And it was, y'know, nice to be able to visit my mom—"

"Aw, is Cousin Greg gonna miss his mommy?"

With sparkling eyes above his mock-pout Tom darts out to poke his ribs, forcing a yelp of a laugh out of him. It's humiliating how easy it is. For half a second Greg considers commenting that he overheard Tom calling his own mother mommy back at his wedding, just feeling that he ought to do something with this wrench in his gut and there's nothing to lose—

But Tom has already switched gears, is already reassuring that he'll have a chance or two for in-person goodbyes. He was hoping it could be cleaner, but there's always finalizing, he says. The board's got to vote and Tom's got to meet the next ringleader of that circus, formally pass the baton and whatnot.

Then he's off down the boardwalk as swiftly as he'd slid up behind him in the first place.

Renting out an entire chunk of Coney Island for Kendall's daughter's birthday seems like a not entirely sound investment in the middle of a hostile takeover, but shut up, Greg, what do you know. He figures that Roman has got a point—at the very least that he has no idea whether he's in good enough graces not to be kicked out.

He would avoid the lot of them and just go be the one shameless adult alone on rides if not for the need to rationalize out loud. Connor is always easy to stick to anyway, and Greg knows that Willa should actually have some vested interest.

"I guess the—the staying put is an upside? Since now, y'know, I wouldn't have to worry about getting called and then I can't actually do it because I'm across the country that day, or... yeah."

"Have you been called yet?" Willa asks, clearly expecting the answer to be yes. Greg hesitates to kill the light in her eyes.

"Uh—I actually went to a couple auditions this week, with my free time—but, no, no luck so far. But you know how it goes, hah... like, who knows? S'not like there's any shortage of options in New York. I think I might like the whole uh, scene better, even..."

"I've actually never auditioned for anything myself... I'm strictly in the writing business of it all. It's not that I wouldn't like to also act, I just, want my creative ability to speak for itself first, you know? There's more control that way. Actually—I don't know if you've got your sights set on the stage, but..."

Willa goes eagerly rifling through her bag and produces a novel-thick stack of paper, bound by twine. SANDS graces the off-white cover in loopy, handwritten text. She pushes it into Greg's hands.

"It's not as long as you think—most of that is character background and stage direction," Connor says before Willa can, at Greg's wide stare.

Willa hurries to add: "A lot of the dialogue is subject to change anyway, since I'm not too happy with it... But hey, y'know, that's one of three copies that I've got with me just now so, go ahead and take it, and maybe, if those other auditions don't work out..."

"Oh! Yeah, thank you," Greg says, late only because he was flipping through the character list and struggling to skim for the important stuff. "Any, uh, particular character that you think I'd fit...?"

"Well, most are gonna be pretty covered a lot of the time anyway. See—it's out in the desert. It's very not based in appearance. I thought it would be good for equal opportunity and all that."

"Right. Nice." He opens it at the middle just to see what the dialogue is like. "In perhaps—cadence, though? Maybe, uh, Connor, has an opinion...?"

The other man clearly doesn't even try to think.

"Just read it, Greg!

"Like I said, the dialogue is not set. I'm sure you could bring something to any role you wanted. I'll probably even change stuff to suit you."

"See? She's flexible like that."

Greg nods appreciatively, but now he doesn't know what to do with this but hold it awkwardly by his side. He foresees Roman running up to slap it out of his hands like a schoolyard bully any second now.

"I've thought about trying to write something myself," he starts if only to distract from the lack of real interest grabbing at him, which he fears would become too obvious soon. But it's not a lie—it gains truth while he says it. "Probably not a play, but like, a TV pilot or a short film? I really just have a handful of ideas that I haven't fleshed out and thought maybe I should—"

"Oh neat, you totally should!"

"Have you got a typewriter?" Connor asks.

"Uh—no. Not yet."

"Get one. The words flow so much better than by hand, I promise you."

**

"I mean, working in TV really was fun. Or around it, anyway."

"We're still gonna be in TV, doofus."

"Entertainment, I mean. Like—you know, I actually really did like reading through scripts, the—those few that you let me? Even if they weren't TV-worthy, it's still like—it's neat, I guess. Or it was. To be somewhat of an arbiter of their success, or something."

"O-ho... it's arbitration you like, Greg? Well, I'll see what I can't scrounge up for you. Everywhere you go there are lives underneath you that you can hold like putty in your hands, do not worry..."

At Greg's attempts to defend his intentions, Tom finds himself nostalgic from his own amusement. He keeps his book open but faces the man at the window, squinting from the bright orange light just outside, and refutes point after point. The studio layout is hardly different, Greg. You'll find some other time to get reading done, Greg. I don't know how much more I can stand of you waxing poetic, Greg. Thank god for no more six-to-eight-hour flights, huh?

"I think you need a cigarette, Greg."

Tom's own terrible need for one is evident in the particular moment that the stewardess extends a light for them—which Greg leans over him to reach, rather than her. When Tom meets his eyes in those inches of space by pure habit, he knows it's for the last time, and he feels an overwhelming urge to do something disgusting. All he's got at his disposal is a mouthful of smoke, and so he blows it in Greg's face.

The man does little more than wrinkle his nose and recoil back to his seat. While Tom chuckles, Greg holds his wrists together.

"Hey, can I be honest with you, Tom?"

If he falters, it's from a lack of eye contact.

"...What, Greg?"

"I guess I just have um, concerns, about being involved in RBN News? Like first of all, I mean, the idea of Uncle Logan breathing down my neck—"

"Oh. Shit, Greg, I'll—"

"And with the role that RBN has played in the current climate, like... you know, being really obviously biased about Nixon? And supporting war escalation? And all that shit about—fuck, like, police shooting protesters? They always try so hard to make it seem like the dead college kids are the bad guys, Tom—"

"You are not gonna be a reporter, Greg."

"I know that, I just... I don't like the idea of being around that? If we're working for it, don't we support it?"

Tom blows air. Ash falls onto the table.

"...Okay, I see right through this," he decides. "Nice try, man, but it's done. Now be careful or people will start to think you're some kinda commie."

"I'm serious, Tom," Greg all but whines, eyes pleading.

"Serious that you're a communist?"

"Shh—" Greg glances around like there might be a government spy in the cabin, ready to seize upon any inkling they get of a godless Red. Tom snorts. "C'mon, man. I'm not. I just—"

"I get it, you prefer entertainment—fuck, so do I if there weren't extenuating fucking circumstances, but it's all the same. You really don't get that?" He rolls his jaw over that bite and takes a drag, while the other man sputters more half-assed talk about principles and the state of things, which Tom then easily interrupts:

"Greg. It's all RBN. Even if we gave it a different name to appease the FCC, it was always RBN. You're telling me—with all this talk—that you don't realize that half the TV and movie angle is propaganda too? Because it always has been. It's just covert. Or did you fall for it?"

He doesn't keep watching Greg long enough to get even a silent answer, but technically the stretch of nothing that follows is still something. A small noise from Greg's throat punctuates it. Somehow the lack of continued effort on his end incenses Tom more.

*

Kendall shows up at his apartment again. It's the evening. Extremities hidden in pockets and dark glasses hiding half his face, he doesn't seem so much like a man with a plan this time, nor does he try to act like it. Greg moves aside to let his cousin pass through without waiting for him to ask, just greets him with the single word of his name.

"Uh," he sniffs, and pauses long enough for Greg to gather a thought or two.

"Ken, dude, I was meaning to ask but I couldn't figure out a good time. What happened?"

"I really don't want to talk about that," he says. "Listen, I'm gonna be honest with you though. Stewy was my main contact. And we're—obviously, not on great terms at the moment. And I can't... you know, I really can't. Anything you don't have, I'll give you some money to go get. I'm serious."

Yeesh. Greg has to stop himself from expressing that aloud.

The thing is, the news in the past several days has been rife with substance laws. Any other time and he may very well be tempted to take Kendall up on that, but his heart beats at a concerning speed just at the thought. He's stopped touching what he does have out of paranoia—it's been pure tobacco and alcohol whenever he's needed it, burning his lungs and sloshing up his insides, all out of what he knows is a bit of a stupid fear of... what, the UN? Greg tries at least to make it sound more reasonable when he says it.

It's hardly convincing anyway. His cousin's presence reminds him that even and especially in the face of the law, money talks. But no way in hell is he letting Kendall stay here alone while he goes out.

And looking at him, Greg just feels too sorry to turn him away. He sighs.

"All I've got is dope, man."

"...Sure, fuck it, I'll take some dope."

It's been so long since he last rolled for someone else, Greg becomes the most self-conscious he's ever been about his technique. Then all that goes down the drain when he takes his first puff in a couple weeks. It always is best when he's taken a break, he remembers.

Whatever cocktails that Kendall must have had in his bloodstream in the past, unsurprisingly, have rendered him not so lucky. What could have been passed around for a good time between three or four people instead all goes to him, while Greg rolls a second for himself. He knows from experience that he's going to overdo it, now. But it feels like the thing to do rather than just watch someone else get high—if this is going to be how he spends his evening regardless.

Kendall, then, does a scary-quick job of pointing out the thing that he would have otherwise been focused on.

"Writing a manuscript?" he asks, and somehow evades Greg's understanding until he jerks his head toward it.

"Huh?—Oh." He'd forgotten that the typewriter was still on his table, half a page sticking out. "...Uh, no, not really. Not yet anyway. Just messing around."

"Mm... Hey, I overheard that you lost some auditions."

And right frankly onto the next, goddamn. Greg can't tell if that means Kendall is getting high too fast or not fast enough. He lets out a hiccup of a laugh, almost coughs on his own joint.

"Um. Yeah. S'no big deal. My heart wasn't set on 'em or anything."

"So I actually know this guy. Down the chain of, ah. Royco subsidiaries and acquisitions," Kendall starts. Now Greg can tell, just counting the seconds added to each consecutive pause. He wants to say something about the guy bogarting a conversation more than the joint, until—"They're about to film a commercial for this new fucking... cassette player. Fuck, headrush. This is surprisingly good shit, Greg. Anyway, if you go to the audition it's, y'know. Basically guaranteed. Just tell 'em who you are, and. Yeah."

What first occurs to him is that playing the Roy card to casting directors before clearly did not work. Second is the fact that at that point, fresh from a hostile takeover attempt, perhaps Logan Roy wasn't a reference that an independent company would care to call.

Third is to profusely express his gratitude—as much as he can, that is, while the high engulfs him.

"I think you'll probably be on screen for twenty seconds," is what Kendall says back. "Tops. But you just gotta get your face out there. Get a few credits and the rest comes easy."

*

The News floor has a stricter, albeit informal dress code. At the studio out in LA and even two floors down, Greg could get away with a mismatched suit jacket as long as it was complementary. He saw Tom in every shade of brown, every tint of Navy, popping red ties abound. He'd started collecting patterned ties of his own just to have a bit of flair that wouldn't break the bank—and now they're going to hang uselessly in his closet, other than the one or two that pass for greyscale.

What degree of saturation is allowed is one's best judgment, so says Tom, who does not openly mourn the loss of anything more than vaguely off-gray. Nor does he intend to use his new power as chairman to transition out of those rules, as Greg asks—except perhaps to push them himself. Just slightly.

Tom's new office is certainly grander. Greg runs his hand along a whole wall of mottled glass panels and does, once he plops his ass in the new leather seating area that's to replace his old corner, breathe in the room with delight.

"Attaboy." Tom puts a brief masseuse's grip on his shoulder as he passes. "Knew you'd get over all that. Put your feet up, Greg, enjoy it!"

So he does, and beams back at Tom, who tells him that if he gets scuff marks on that table, though, he's paying for it.

Moments like that relieve Greg of his initial worries, convincing him of prevailing normalcy. No horrid, festering energy awaits him in his career under Tom. Just the same—just more of the often tiring, but predictable same, the ebb and flow, the comfort slipping on and dull shame left behind.

Before any other expectations, then, Greg sets off to kill the part of him that hopes for any sort of turnaround with Tom, any inexplicable reversal of events. His first few days at RBN aren't alone worse or even more tedious than the average week beforehand but do nevertheless, while they're fresh, encourage him to invest in some self-respect. If Tom is rebranding himself, then so should he. And he tries very hard to keep it up despite the lack of immediate rewards to reap. He's trying to take into account all of his experience and grow up.

He just knows what road he could be headed down even if it all turned out to be true, if anything beyond a skipped heartbeat turned solid... and he doesn't want to think that it's worth it anymore.

He doesn't want Tom to stop acting like nothing ever happened. Greg just wants that fact to stop coming home with him.

Tom is fully glad that it's not Kendall now. It's baffling that after the pure vitriol that soaked the ground floor of his wedding the guy should even be allowed co-COO. Whatever happened in the hours between then and breakfast, Tom cannot picture a version of things where Kendall is stepping in as a perfectly stable leader. It would be some sad dog in a suit no matter what.

The thought of Roman in the chair, meanwhile. Tom shudders for opposite reasons.

Any disappointment he may have had about a lack of an announcement, about practically the waste of the second half of his honeymoon, faded over the course of dessert on his last night in the Hamptons. Everyone agreed that it was never real anyway. Logan will wait until his death bed to so much as truthfully consider a successor, was the thesis statement. He's too prideful. He would be admitting that it was possible he could ever, one day, die.

It was the exact sort of house that such an admission should be made, come to think of it. Tom can only hope that he'll one day look back on grief for his own parents' passing and find those beaches in the background.

"I'd like not to talk about my father dying," Shiv says when he mentions that aloud. "Or yours."

"Of course not," he agrees quickly, but then notices that she seems in fact far more shaken than she should be, at such noncommittal arriving-home talk. "...Oh no. Honey, don't worry, he's got the heart of an ox—"

"That's not it." And she abruptly fills the stale air of their new apartment with a bright, unlikely grin.

He remembers asking what Logan had said once she left her private talk with him, and receiving a simple reminder that it was private.

She thought it was too silly to tell him before, is her excuse.

"He said that—if the world were ready, if it wasn't inevitable the stock would drop... he said he'd want me to do it, Tom. He's seriously considered me. Above his sons. He said he has."

Tom has firstly purely amazement to express, bordering on disbelief given the utter lack of women in any executive positions at Royco. Everything Shiv tells him with tight cheeks and wetter and wetter eyes, and which therefore simply must be real... seems at shocking odds with the Logan Roy he knows. He tries to envision the scene in his head. All that comes is every last impassioned rant about her father that Shiv has ever graced his evenings with.

Then he catches a certain glint and remembers to tell her but of course, that she really is the most competent and the obvious choice and the world is due for a change—only for her to interrupt.

"He did actually—he said he really wanted me on his team, is the thing. He wants my help with this fight and I—I think it's a challenge, don't you? He wants me to step up and prove I've got it."

"Wow. Do, uh... do you think he'd really say you, if you did? Because if his reason is the stock, which would only be a sign that he's lost it more than we know if it wasn't—"

"Yeah, I don't know," she sighs. "Probably not. It's not entirely impossible that he will lose it enough, though..."

Tom catches her hopeful lilt only in retrospect, there. He suddenly can't hear anything but the rushing in his ears.

"Well... wait, do you think it's basically me, then? Because—if he wants you but can't say you, and we're a unit... then it's me. It has to be."

"Fuck, Tom, I dunno, I..."

"Do you think that's what he's doing?"

"Is he—is he setting you up to be my puppet, is what you mean?" She seems to consider it, but laughs, leaning in. "Do you want that?"

"Just because it's his plan doesn't mean it's what's going to happen," Tom says, swallows, laughs with her. "...If it even is his plan. I have a hard time believing that he wouldn't think it's worse, a woman controlling not just a company but her husband..."

"Right—maybe he just thinks that you'll die and leave it to me, and then the rightful heir has all the social sanctions she needs to take over!"

"Exactly!"

Tom can't seem to stop the spasms in his chest, now, and can't flag any hint of distress either. In the same boat—and perhaps with the implicit understanding of a good wife, Shiv starts toward the liquor cabinet. It's all new, practically decorative. This is the perfect time to make it real.

She doesn't ask him what he'd like but pours a scotch he may have very well chosen anyway. He watches her grin soften and fill with breath.

"That would be more or less what happened with the Pierces..."

Tom is handed his glass. He blinks.

"The Pierces? As in the Washington Pierces. Whatever made you think of them?"

She hums. He drinks.

"Dad hates them," she muses over her own. "Has for years."

"Exactly—wouldn't he hate to have anything to do with them? Hah."

"Funny thing," she starts to say.

They tell Greg he's got an everyman-ish quality while also not looking too boring. He's just asked to wear a plain sweater—thin material is best, something that will pull up a bit, show a little skin when he raises his arm to put the headphones on. His nameless character sits on a couch for a few beats, surrounded by a boring house party, and is comforted when he can retrieve his brand new cassette player from inside the couch's arm. They cue the colored lights and blast some new Bread single from speakers around the set; he smiles serenely and folds his hands over his stomach while the camera zooms in.

They're vying for the same chair, all while sitting in it. Tom doesn't quite understand the thinking but if it's what Logan wants, he'll play along.

Back in the 30s, in RBN's first days of televised broadcast, Logan had what Tom imagines to be his first confrontation with the fact that he couldn't oversee everything at once. Everything spiraled from there. But in the particular moment of stacking television on top of radio, it was just one trustworthy name that he needed to take that branch and report back to him.

"I understood the numbers, and more importantly the people," is what Sid tells him, when he asks. "And I think back then he actually liked that I challenged him a bit. A captain and his quartermaster, you could say."

"Back then," Tom catches with a smirk. "So you think that era's ended."

"Ha—I'm still here, aren't I?"

Not for long, Tom thinks, firstly because the man is aging just as badly if not worse than his father in-law. He doesn't look nearly as sturdy.

"Sure, sure, but it seems he's sent me to oust you." Tom laughs to keep the humor of the matter plausible, but delights in the clear limits on the other man's tolerance. "Truly, I'd like to cohabitate without any resentment. I think Logan just wants a younger perspective in the room—or maybe he wants to make an Odd Couple out of us. Or do you suppose he only watches his own channel?"

Sid's old face gives hardly any way to amusement—already to a point that Tom now decides is annoying.

"Mm. Do you know, Tom, that when I started out I was the only paid employee?"

"Oh?"

"Yes. Everyone else were volunteers. Every other job... could be done simply because it was wanted to be done. Mine needed to be done."

"I'm sure you were very capable in your day. What do you do now that you do have to pay people, though?"

It's a whole lot of that. Tom gets the sense that a great deal of the strife that Sid Peach fuels is a continuation of what he no longer has the option to do with Logan himself, now that they share a board room with ten others. Tom then recalls what he saw of Frank's role, before the vote of no confidence, and wonders precisely what in Logan inspires men to crave this from him.

It's a short period of wondering. But more for Frank than for Sid. Sid won't actually admit to himself and Logan being old friends. Vice versa is far less surprising.

Maybe he hates to think that anything beyond his ability got him where he is. Maybe it's true. Maybe for all that he kept the numbers alive until now, Logan has been long since disinterested in whatever else he had to offer. Maybe it's been simmering low since they met. Maybe Logan has just always wanted an excuse to replace him—

"Maybe he just couldn't ever get over Sid being Jewish?" Greg suggests.

For a moment Tom just scowls at him for interrupting his train of thought, which he was saying aloud for himself, dropping the temperature at once. But it fades fast.

"Yeah, I see that," he tells him with a laugh. "Old bastard... It's funny, the politics seem almost to get less complicated, the higher stakes there are."

"What does that mean? We're not—you're not saying we play on that, are you? Tom?"

"What? Jeez, Greg, of course not. If it would work I don't think we'd have the problem in the first place... Just keep—y'know, being useful, yeah? That's what I mean. It's all money. Just saving Logan his fuckin' money, man."

Sid's office is not so strategically, though thankfully across the floor, closer to the bullpen. From his own Tom spies nothing but doesn't have to worry about being overheard himself. One crucial bit is available to him with just slight effort on Greg's part, even—his assistant, whom Sid does not keep behind closed doors but rather at a single desk outside. Pretty girl, early thirties, short skirts, untalkative. Something about her rubs Tom the wrong way.

She's more of a secretary, is what Greg comes back with. And she's unreceptive to any flirting, from him or any other guy in the office who tries, and by god do they try. He insists that she doesn't do anything that could mean much to Tom unless he breaks into her drawers after-hours.

The more that Greg tries to backtrack from the notion, then, the more Tom considers having him do just that.

Of all things it's Sid himself who sours it, stepping forward like he does from the shadows of the break room, or around the corner, with something deniably nasty for Tom to bounce off of. With perhaps the most overlap between him and Greg yet, Sid is there at the tail end of a list of tasks; he watches Tom pat Greg on the arm and send him off. The voyeur adds weight to his hands.

"Your errand boy sure is a big one, isn't he?" he chuckles over a slowly-filling styrofoam cup of water. Tom starts to join in kind, but then, "Think he should have aged out of it by now... Tell me, where do you get them?"

"I'll have you know that that's my wife's cousin you're talking about," he says, balking, a kind of heat rising in his face that Tom hasn't felt in a long time. It's just the first thing that he can think of.

"Oh, I was only asking out of curiosity, Tom—I wouldn't need one. You've answered it anyway."

After he walks away, Tom squeezes his own cup in half and sends water all over the carpet to soak.

Greg isn't necessarily lying to his doctor. Not any more than the average person plays that game. If it's prescribed, it's legal, isn't it?

"I just said I was having trouble sleeping," he shrugs, though with a bit of pride. "I didn't realize how easy it was."

"Aw, good ol' quaaludes..." Kendall turns the bottle around in his hand. "Hah. I almost forgot this was an option. My wife put a lock on our medicine cabinet."

He's made it no secret already that his motivation for slumming it with Greg is first and foremost a need for a private place to get high, away from his wife and children and anyone who might take it back to his father. Once a week or so became a routine before he knew it. Stretching his boundaries felt inevitable before the first high even ended—like he'd somehow promised it by the way he'd thanked him for the tip-off. Like they'd spat in their hands and shook them when his cousin went home, agreeing that the dope had indeed not been payment enough and Greg would hereby brave the streets.

Though he has to imagine that there's some deeper-running appreciation there. Even if the guy never drops by to hang out when sobriety is necessary, they still have a decent time. Kendall never alludes to Greg owing him from Paris. He thanks him. He brings by beers and snacks. He giggles at the patterns on Greg's wall.

It's often a relief to not spend an evening alone anyway.

It's a bonus, that Kendall has connections in the realm of his own pursuits—and it's a bonus worth traipsing certain paths of Central Park, and milling around in back rooms, and maybe making some risky exchanges for. If and when it comes down to it.

"I don't understand. You were dead-set—"

"Eh, I wasn't really... I was excited, yeah. But things change, Tom. It was taking up a lot of my time and I didn't like it. I would have had to start traveling, too, and... you know what a hassle that would've become with fighting this takeover."

"So it—it's just over. You're quitting him."

"...Yes, honey, that's what I said. Since when do you care so much about McGovern? If you don't vote Nixon, my dad'll toss you."

"Uh—ha, okay, as powerful as your father is, Shiv, he can't follow me into the voting booth—"

"Or if Nixon doesn't win he'll assume that it's some purposeful coup from all his friends and loved ones—"

"—and I don't care about him, I care about you! And you wanted this! I'm just trying to understand where that went."

"What's there to understand? I just re-evaluated my priorities—simple as that. For that matter, they are your priorities too, Tom. I'll be spending more time here, I'll be helping Dad and by extension you—"

"But—that was what this already was, wasn't it? Your thing with McGovern was half the reason I'm even at RBN now."

"Well, no, you're on a stepping stone, remember? You're on the way up, like we wanted? RBN being my dad's baby—y'know, Sid the wire mother that provides food but you, the cloth mother that it actually wants."

"So I don't actually provide anything, is what you're saying."

He knows in the moment he says it that it's avoidable. But it's the first thing he thinks, and there's this stabbing feeling in his gut that pushes him to do it, and at no point in the ensuing fight does Tom make the choice to say the right thing and end it. It ends the way he can always expect it to when he's the one who pushes it: Shiv doesn't directly respond, just says that all this is dumb and takes it upon herself to change her surroundings.

"I don't think you actually believe anything you're saying," she tells him from across the room now, shucking off clothes in a decidedly un-erotic manner. "I think that you've just had a bad day, and you know what, you can tell me about it later. Seriously, Tom. I thought you would just be relieved that I'm not around Nathan anymore..."

He couldn't respond to that if she wanted him to. As far as Tom knew, she wasn't even aware of the wound that she just reopened. He sure hasn't talked about it. He bit down on something and sewed it up himself, refused to look at it after the fact.

Now he's left stiff and cold, entrails spilling out of him and onto the bedroom floor while Shiv gets ready to shower.

Connor's first foray into city life, in his new self-describedly restored, 20s-built art deco townhouse, is hosting a viewing party for the Academy Awards. He proudly announces his transition to urban socialite and a new desire to mingle with the people. Some big local names from Broadway are invited, too. It's exciting.

Greg finds no actual filmmakers or Hollywood stars or anyone otherwise invested in what goes on behind a camera in the crowd, however. And he searches pretty thoroughly. When he finds a moment to meet with the host himself without Willa nearby, Connor tells him that he realized the irony only after figuring out the guest list. These people are of course the main people he'd like to begin some relationships with, anyway, if Sands is to get out there. He couldn't have done this for the Tonys or else they'd have been busy. Anyone that Greg would like to meet is probably at the Oscars, he jokes.

It's true, though. He recalls Tom saying, soon after he first started, that as executive members of RBN's heartland media, they'd have tickets. Back row, probably, but tickets.

Possibly against better judgment, he seeks Tom out on the vast floor and brings it up.

"Oh, we could have tickets now if we really wanted to," Tom tells him, with a twist of his lip and a survey over the room. He's got this vantage point on the edge of the stairs, halfway up. He lowers his voice and leans in, keeping his eyes out: "It's just not worth it. I have it on good authority that half the awards are going to Patton."

"...Oh. I didn't see that."

"Yeah, Greg, hardly anyone but professional critics did. It was three goddamned hours long. There's your proof it's all rigged. You know who wants to see a movie about war in the middle of a war?"

"Yeah that—that does seem, uh... a bit propaganda-ish," Greg agrees, eyes drifting.

He realizes belatedly that despite Tom's tone, the man is playing nice. Though he glances back and finds, even then, that Tom doing the same was too much to expect. He's just watching the party.

There is a lot to watch, Greg supposes, with the wide variety of sports coats and sweaters and vests. And dresses.

"We've got a corporate retreat coming up anyway," Tom says frankly. "Logan apparently does one every year for the board. I assume that means you, too, being in the loop and family and all. Decent tradeoff if you ask me."

Tom smirks and nudges him with his elbow and throws him some quick eyes—and just sees Greg pouting in the other direction, sipping his drink.

"Are you sure? I wasn't invited to the Hamptons."

"Well—" Tom scoffs. "Why should you have been?"

He downs half his drink, and his lip curls, and his grip finds the railing until it hurts. Greg says nothing and prepares to say nothing for the several seconds that pass. Then Tom turns entirely, abruptly, and smiles wide as though he's only just now approached him. Greg plays along once he hits him on the shoulder—and Tom notices with some amusement while some drops of wine fall off the edge.

"Hey, I hear your Four's A Crowd episode is airing soon—or I saw it. In the TV Guide, I mean. We should have a watch party for that instead, hm?"

Greg promptly stops looking so down, in fact flushes and squeezes his own cheeks as if to deflate them.

"Yeah, um, I think in a couple days," he nods tentatively. But nothing fades in Tom's eyes. "I mean... I dunno about a party—"

"Seriously, man, it could be everyone in this room seeing your headless body projected on that wall. Didn't I see you on Connor's wall last night, they'll say. You were all distorted over the sconces and it looked for a moment like you had a very strange lump..."

"Hah—yeah." Right. Greg figured. "Uh... no, I'll just watch it on my TV at home as intended, I think. Probably invite—a friend or two."

"...Mhm." Tom swallows, waiting, but gets nothing. Then he sighs. "Y'know, I do still keep my ear to the grapevine. Usually halfway during pilot season a second would've been commissioned, and I haven't heard anything—so I don't think it's going anywhere anyway. Good news is, that makes you practically a recurring character instead of some lost background rando, hah... if the tapes don't all get recycled in a few years, anyway."

Another beat of silence, while Greg nods.

"Oh, there's Kendall," he says.

Tom is glad to change the subject. "Looking fantastically depressed as usual. You'd think he'd be able to put on a smile for a party."

"You know, it's funny, we've actually become friends. He's going through a really rough time, I think."

Tom swings his head up at him, mouth trembling between a scowl and a disbelieving grin.

"...No kidding."

Greg shrugs, but his heart is beating like he just ran a marathon from that confession. He doesn't know what's made him avoid it for so long. It's his own cousin, after all.

"He comes over sometimes. Actually, he'll probably watch my episodes with me. He seemed interested when I told him..."

With Tom either staring unexplained daggers or again avoiding his gaze entirely, now, and little time left before the awards start at which he can expect the room to go dark, Greg tells him goodbye and sets off for Kendall. He figures he ought to invite him in person if he wants to make sure the guy remembers.

Tom refuses to move from his spot. Rather than following Greg's route with his eyes he flags down, or rather up, the nearest waiter for another glass of champagne. Then he scans the crowd to find him again.

When he lands on him, talking animatedly with a nodding Kendall, he takes a mere two seconds to decide that this is no better than Greg being up here. For the first time all night, Tom would prefer to watch Shiv and whatever strangers she's talking to.

"God, I can't—"

Greg trips over himself in his hurry to turn the TV off the moment that he catches a glimpse of his character in frame. His knee throbs, and he groans and succumbs to the floor.

"What the fuck, man," says Kendall from the couch.

"I dunno, I just panicked?" He wouldn't know how to explain it. For days it was all he could think about—it was enough to fuel him to go seek out the real serious stuff, but as the moment approached from minutes away he began to dread it. The idea of watching himself act turned from pride to horror. "...I think it's the coke. Maybe."

"So... are we not watching it?"

"Ugh—okay, sorry, yeah—"

"I don't really care," Kendall says, stopping him mid-crawl. "I get it. A lot of actors can't watch their own stuff."

"...Oh. Okay, cool." Greg swallows. "So uh, you're sure you don't want to...?"

"It's up to you, man. I'm getting my nut either way." And Kendall reaches for the bag to cut himself another line.

"Uh..."

Now that it's been off for a minute, and the chance of missing his debut completely rears its head, his TV's dark screen inspires the opposite anxiety. He doesn't know what to do until he hears Kendall snort twice. Then he thinks he can always catch a rerun.

"...Yeah, no. Yeah. Me too. Mind if I get the last one?"

A good chunk of his bookshelf has gone untouched for upwards of a decade by now, overlooked for the sake of newer whims. Tom makes a point of balancing recent buys with the older books he's still yet to read, although that's much slower-going these days. He spends no less time perusing bookstores in any case. He figures it a harmless addiction especially as it's just one shopping spree per month. Usually.

March was far too busy, even—he's been good. He knows he won't hate himself so long as he brings home less than ten this time.

It's while browsing the English Literature section that he recalls. Forster's name stands out on the spines and Tom practically jumps with that awakened curiosity, his thumbs tracing down the line, disregarding alphabetical order because it's all shuffled by the middle of the day anyway... but doesn't find it. Not in any nearby sections, either. Must be popular, he thinks, and just vaguely wonders why he hasn't heard of it outside of just the once, then.

Generally Tom prides himself in never having to ask an employee for help. He feels like a stranger to himself when he approaches the counter without anything to buy yet.

"Excuse me—I wondered if you had a book in stock that I didn't see on the shelf. Maybe you've just sold out. It's called Maurice. E.M. Forster."

The young woman nods and goes searching through a box directly underneath the desk. Tom watches her pull out some cards and tut over them—for so long that he feels the need to check his watch.

"You're sure it's Forster? I'm searching by author and can't seem to find any evidence we've had it. I could search by genre, if you know that."

"Yes I'm sure. I saw the name on the cover myself."

"Well, it seems Forster is one of our default authors, is the thing—I'm looking at the stamp right here. It means we carry every one of his novels. Was it maybe an essay, or short story that was part of a larger book—?"

"No, I know it's a novel," Tom snaps, frustrated now. "He's a very famous author and this was just published—how could you possibly work in a bookstore and not know this?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but you must be mistaken—"

"You're mistaken. Especially if you think I'll be taking my business here again."

That's what he gets for shopping at the chain stores where they hire girls right out of college who are probably smoking grass before their shift, Tom supposes.

But in the next two stores that he tries—smaller ones that he's been in many times before, where they recognize him—he's told the same thing. Even when he does ask them to search by genre too. No, we've never carried it. No, you must be mistaken. He begins to question his sanity until he tries a nearby library, which Tom tends not to patronize but as a last resort, given that he's looking for books to own—and his mention of the title immediately earns him a cold look from the man at the desk.

"Oh, you won't find that here," he's told.

The librarian's eyes pierce him in such a way that destroys any ounce of relief that Tom felt over not going crazy. The deeply spiteful part of him wants to ask what the hell that's supposed to mean. But the review about Maurice in the Times comes to mind—the words that Tom allowed his eyes to trip over because he decided that they didn't make sense, that he managed to disregard. He knows at once why he skipped over Greenwich.

He turns back around without another word, without even breathing, just tightening his coat and glancing around for anyone he might know. The search ends there. He'll just read something he's already got.

*

They're just back-to-back at this point. Greg can't avoid it coming into work. Every other day there's some kind of protest on the street, indiscriminate, no longer on a solid plot, just collective anger about anything and everything connected whatsoever to The Man.

He's just tried not to look. Or else it feels like it's about him.

From the comfort of his home and through the screen of his TV, and the bigger and more organized and further away they are, Greg finds it much easier to watch. He even wishes, a little bit, that he could be there again. Especially when Kendall's around and open to talking state-of-the-world. When he is, Greg relieves himself of everything that's built up in his chest since the last time; when he's not, it's usually because he can't speak much to begin with.

Whatever it is, the protests, the way Logan and RBN handle it, the divisions getting unjustly shut down, Nixon, Apartheid... it almost becomes a reliable sort of appointment. He smokes dope and they go back and forth and he feels better afterward—about his job and safety and everything else. Kendall even says that he doesn't have anyone else to tell this shit either, least of all Roman, who just doesn't give a shit because he's convinced he's untouchable.

That, and any critical word about RBN would make it to his dad. At least with Greg, the guy reminds him, if he went to go tattle, Kendall would have something on him right back. Greg tells him that he wouldn't have done that anyway and he just laughs.

A few days into May, it all gets a bit unprecedented. Greg goes so far as to unplug his TV and call him in the middle of the week, telling him as covertly as he can that he's got acid. Kendall tells him to say no more.

"If I was in DC. Maybe," he says at his first chance—at every chance after. "Maybe. But fuck, dude, I'm glad I'm not. I don't understand how that's even allowed, like, actually arresting all of those people? Isn't that completely against the first amendment, or something?"

He already knows it is. He asked Tom about it. He still waits for Kendall to acknowledge it.

"I just... I just think if a specific protest has that many people, y'know—then that's indicative that something needs to be changed, right? If half of your citizens are on your front porch, you should do something!"

"Exactly, man. But you know they won't. In the scheme of things it wasn't really that many people."

"I know. It's so fucked up."

"Yup."

"You think they ever will? They've got to."

"Mm... yeah, I think so. Maybe. Whenever my dad stops having a reason to lick Nixon's ass."

"So... up to five years from now?"

"Ha, fuck. Let's hope it's one."

Greg whines, starting to feel the shoulder pain and slight regret kick in. He gets up to grab a heating pad and put on a record.

"What if we did something, Greg."

The ceiling swirls. He struggles to roll his head away. Kendall's not even looking at him.

"...We?"

"Yeah. We could—we could hire a bunch of people. I could get 'em to stand outside RBN. More 'n more until he has to report on it. Everybody'll report on it."

"Wow. So what could I do?"

"You could... help make signs?" He begins to dissolve into giggles. "I don't fuckin' know. You come up with something."

"Uh..." He doesn't know. Everything scares him. Ceiling included, now.

He lets it drift. Kendall says nothing for a while. It could be hours for all Greg knows, and then,

"Oh my god. Let's make a movie."

Greg sits up, suddenly turned onto the curtains anyway. "Really?"

"Shit, I'm watching it already. I can see it—like, perfectly. This is insane. I'm so tuned in, wait... We—we do it about the issues, but subtle, but also not, and... and we change the world. Yeah. Boom boom boom, minds change, peace and love... I've solved it. I fucking solved it, Greg."

"Oh my god—totally. Yeah, man..."

"Gimme your typewriter. I gotta get this shit down before I forget."

Greg realizes all of his previous mistakes with tripping. He should have just stayed indoors. And he should have had a sitter he trusted more.

He laughs at a stain on the wallpaper for at least ten minutes while Kendall types.

"You're like my big brother," he hears himself say. "Except I never had a brother."

The typing noises go on forever.

"Oh, thanks."

Another forever.

"Yeah, you're like a little brother a little bit."

"Now that I'm coming down... it might not work."

"Well, it's three pages."

"Yeah. Fuck this."

Greg curls up in his bed, staring at the crevice between the mattress and the wall, feeling positive that the moment he looks away it's all over. He wants to milk it.

Kendall is typing again, in his boxer shorts on the other side of the room. Greg slides down a million tangents in a fearless instant.

"Do you think the takeover is still gonna happen? Or do you want it to?"

"I..." It stops. "I can't answer that."

That's how he knows it's really bad.

"...Oh, okay."

"Royco's a monster that just gobbles shit up, Greg. My dad's like—he lives inside the stomach. He's the tapeworm. Everything you do, it just feeds the tapeworm."

"I feel like you just made two separate, conflicting analogies?"

"Something... drastic. Has to happen."

He sounds like he might cry. Greg feels a stab of discomfort that sobers most of him up—but leaves behind the abundance of breath. He's got a million good thoughts floating around and fear in a far corner. He stays staring at that crevice.

"Hey Ken. If someone happened to have, say, documents that proved something along the lines of... the RBN quiz shows were rigged. For a whole decade while Logan still owned them. Would that be anything?"

There's a long breath that turns into a short laugh. Greg thinks it's likely, then, that Kendall was crying.

"...No, that's nothing, man. That's like—that's baby shit. Just a distraction that would make things worse. Throwing pebbles at a bear. That's just a one-way ticket to getting banished from whence ye came, y'know what I mean?"

Greg rolls onto his back, finding his trip alive and well against the odds.

"Oh. Right."

**

The shrieked words that reached his ears through still-echoing gunshots as he ran were protestors outside—black panthers—bombing—may day bastards—and then his own shout of GREG! as he spotted him through the crowd and blinked everyone else away.

Vice grips on wrists and a sprint that could have won him state in high school and possibly a few feet of air for the other man, given how fast and unrelenting Tom pulls him—and it's all a blur. It's still a blur, minutes later.. A door slams shut and a large man with a gun and a radio stands in front of it, and yellow light swirls in his eyes.

"Oh my god. It's happening. I knew it. I knew this would happen. It had to eventually, fuck, I knew it, I knew it..."

He hears Greg without understanding him for who knows how long, up until the guard pipes up:

"Sir, sir, please remain calm. It's gone quiet. You should sit down."

He watches Greg argue in forced whispers—that shouldn't he be ready to run if someone breaks down the door, or shouldn't they be better hidden, shouldn't they turn the lights off... And all of it piles so high that Tom feels sick. He still hears ringing. He hears footsteps that the guard insists aren't there. Greg says wait, he hears them too. The guard calls out to the others in the room, who didn't exist to Tom until now, if anyone has any valium on hand for these two.

Tom blinks twice, understands enough to be offended, and promptly snaps out of it.

"Oh—you listen here, asshole, do you know who you're talking to?"

Tom's defensive tirade seems to be partway on his behalf, which loosens something. But Greg happily accepts the pills that Sid's secretary offers from her purse. He takes just one, thinking both of appearances and the likelihood that Tom will change his mind.

Within the minute, inevitably from something other than the valium, Greg's panic subsides. Noises stop creeping in, the world opens up. He watches Tom shove a man out of the line for the phone to call Shiv at home—and his sense of time has returned well enough that he can tell the man was only able to leave a message.

If they were closer to the ground floor, they could have holed up in the basement. Or just left the building. If they were closer to Logan's office, they'd probably be in a room with iron doors and a combination lock.

What they've got is a conference room, and a guard who can make a single facial expression. He looks through the shutters on the window every minute for reassurance. Tom still tells him that if he won't escort him somewhere safer, then he better be willing to die to protect him from those bastards outside. Greg has taken the man's advice and sat. His heartbeat is steady, but heavy and loud, ticking away so that the clock won't have to.

When Tom speaks directly to him for the first time since grabbing him, it's to point out the manilla envelope that's been in Greg's hands for the entirety of it, wrinkled irreparably by his unconscious fist. His voice comes out soft and unaccusing when he does. It alone nearly convinces Greg that nothing is wrong.

"What's that?"

"Oh, I, uh... I was using the copy machine when. When I heard the gunshot." He swallows, staring down and finally trying to smooth it out over his knee. "I guess I just held onto it."

Tom pulls up a chair and scoots close, peers down with him. He just needs something.

"Anything important?"

His voice betrays that he already thinks it might be. Greg has neglected to mention it thus far for a reason, but that reason feels meaningless in the face of the sort of secret Tom would think he's hiding. He sighs, still reluctant to say, and just hands it over.

Tom quirks an eyebrow, unsure what to make of that—of Greg's shrug and go-ahead nod and the look in his eyes as blank as this envelope. He doesn't know if he wants to open it, whatever it is.

But he does, because what else does he have to do. He lets the contents fall into his hand and is startled by the sight of Greg's face in a glossy headshot on the top of the stack. For seconds he just stares, and doesn't check back to the real man next to him. Meeting the eyes of the picture feels good enough.

Were it anyone but Greg on here, inside the first page is all the information that Tom would expect to see. Height, weight, hair color, eye color. Some other perhaps less than relevant bodily details. A list of physical skills. Acting credits—just the two. More pictures from those sets that serve to show off height differences. His time at Waystar under other experience. Tom himself and Will Hobins as references.

"After I did that commercial I was told for like, the fourth time that I really ought to get a portfolio, so I just, y'know. Stopped procrastinating. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be, I just needed copies..."

Tom can't hear him. He's flipped another page and gotten stuck there, thumbing the photo and the paperclip that holds it on. Just trying to comprehend what he's looking at.

Willing to grow hair out, example below, says the caption. It doesn't help.

He's just vaguely softer than he is now. In a rust-colored turtleneck, a gray sky frosting his face, hair dark as the dead trees behind him... Tom feels certain of the wind chill that was there, sweeping Greg's hair back behind his shoulders. But it's not whatsoever satisfying. Whoever took the photo seems to have designed it to inspire a hot, terrible rage. The man inside it looks so lonely that Tom isn't sure there was anyone else behind the camera. He stares at demure eyes and angled cheeks and open lips and—even though he was promised this—feels like he's stumbled upon something that he shouldn't have.

"What the fuck is this, Greg?"

He doesn't look up, just finally pulls the page away, flipping rapidly through what remains, finding the same four pages in repetition, forgetting why he's here—feeling thrust into an entirely different catastrophe.

"Uh... I just said?" Greg swallows again, watching the man's lip curl up into a shape that he's seen too much of recently. "I was gonna ask you, obviously—about you being a reference, before I gave it to anyone—"

"Oh, good to fucking know. You clearly assumed confidently enough to go ahead and print it already."

"Well, yes? I—"

Tom stands up from the chair to pace between both ends of the table, taking the portfolio and its copies with him. He grips it in the same crease that Greg had made and gives the man no choice but to get up and follow.

"You're real fucking full of yourself, you know that?" Tom snaps when he does—all lower teeth, finger jabbing in his chest. "Getting all these fucking pictures taken..."

Greg puts a pair of defensive hands up even as Tom turns away. "It's just something that aspiring actors have to do, man—"

"Then why did it take you so long? Huh?" He swings back around and laughs, hard and mean, right in Greg's face. Either some spittle or a bead of sweat hits him close to the eye, too. "What a fucking joke. You had a few minutes of screentime on a show that no one will remember in a month and what, a thirty-second commercial? Do you even have any lines or do you just sit there looking pretty?—and you're planning on quitting me for that?"

"Tom! No! No, I don't want to quit at all, that's literally why I've barely done any roles? Tom—" Greg glances desperately between Tom's face and the papers wobbling, crumpling to death in his hand. "Tom, I swear. I would definitely wait until I was promised a serious gig before, like—asking for temporary leave, or anything... I just want my name and face out there, you know? That's it!"

The hurt doesn't leave Tom's face, nor the stinging his throat. Not a bit. He shakes his head, deepens his scowl.

"No. No. That's not it, Greg, because how the fuck am I supposed to trust you when you're not even sure where you're going? Huh? At any fucking moment you might rocket on up because you're keeping your options open—because that's what I am to you? After all I've done? I'm an option?"

"No, of course not—"

"Because I could have left you at Waystar to do fuck all for Hobins and wind up destitute and mooching off your mom again, but I didn't, I took you with me because I give a shit, Greg. Maybe I shouldn't, huh?"

"I give a shit! We can both give a shit—"

"No we can't, can we? Because clearly you don't want to be here—"

"I—fuck—exactly, Tom, here! It's not you, it's this fucking place, it's just—it's RBN! Fuck! No one was protesting the studio, man, no one's trying to shoot up the studio, no one just making TV and movies is gonna get assassinated, I never wanted—we shouldn't fucking be here in the first place, Tom..."

He tries to keep that as quiet as it is earnest, unable to help a look around the room, but the other man doesn't get the hint.

"We, huh? Well thank you, Greg, my dear peon, for being so fucking worried for me while you go and fuck your way through Hollywood because that's so much more appealing, I guess, than what you get here in the real world."

Greg flinches, breathing hard, and takes another glance or two around. "...Tom, please, everyone can hear you—"

"Oh, they can?—Enjoying the show?" he turns to shout, at which every pair of eyes averts themselves, and back again. "You are not avoiding this because we're trapped here, Greg, you narcissistic piece of shit, you—you have no business thinking so highly of yourself... Seriously, what the fuck IS this?"

He looks at Greg and he just sees the man in the photo, and he hates it. He feels like he's about to cry and he hates that Greg knows what that would look like, he just fucking hates Greg and he hates what he's holding and so he gives the papers one last violent shake before throwing them altogether.

Greg makes a noise as they go flying, scattering. And Tom uses the cloud as cover to walk away, toward the outside window, where he comes to rest his forehead and watch the police on the ground far below.

It was a suicide. Some desk jockey, no one that any of them knew well, shot himself at his desk. Everyone arrested outside the building will probably be let go with no charge. Who knows if it'll affect the stock. Who cares for now, either.

Tom's hand comes curling, gently squeezing around Greg's shoulder as they file out. He tenses up but says nothing, just keeps walking.

"...Hey," Tom eventually says with a cough. "You know, you really should keep those stapled anyway."

Greg exhales—he can't help it, he hits a certain pitch and smiles a little, too. Whatever direction it is, he's lifted. He tries so hard not to expect too high.

"Mhm... duly noted."

Tom nods and lets go of him, but stays by his side for a minute or so of silence. They're headed for the same place, anyway. He obeys the morbid urge to stare in the direction of the dead man, looking for evidence of him, and sees none. He thinks of the divine punishment for taking one's own life. Whether it's true or not. What's inside of him suddenly doesn't feel so heavy in comparison—he's alive. That guy isn't, and he is.

"Hey listen," he starts again, still heavy and sick, but breathing stronger now that they've reached his office and closed the door. "I'll give you a raise."

Greg stops in his tracks while Tom continues to his desk. His heart skips a beat. He feels this compulsion to tuck the envelope away as far behind himself as he can get it.

"...Really?"

It's easier to look at Greg from this distance, though he still looks down to his desk and the papers he gathers up while he tells him:

"Yeah. I get it, man. Even if it wasn't real this time, it's... it's a tough job, and you deserve a paycheck that can better reflect that. Much better. I'm making a note of it right now."

"Wow, I... Thank you, Tom."

"Uh-huh."

But he can't quite relax. Greg stays where he is, restlessly shifting his stance and unable to fully catch his breath—until Tom looks up at him again.

"...What?"

"Is that like—I'm sorry, I need to know, man, is this you telling me to toss this in the trash? Because I can balance it."

Tom stands up straight but almost rocks back too far on his heels, and feels readier to outright heave the closer that the other man gets.

"We talked about this, Greg. You can't."

"But like... I can try, though?" He approaches the desk all the way, that fucking envelope coming to rest on the edge. "I mean—if you're telling me that I have to choose between one or the other... yeah, I. Sure. I can give it up, I guess. If you're telling me to. But I wanna like... know before I just do that?"

Tom then must imagine that he might want to ball up this salary note and forget the whole thing... because he does not. The thought brings no real comfort at all. He stares at Greg without blinking and feels, himself, a worse and more pitiful creature by the second. But he doesn't stop staring.

"...No," he pretends to just now decide, slumping his shoulders. "I'm not telling you to."

That evening they get drinks, and Tom feels well enough to joke that "whatever Willa plans to pay you, I'll top it!"

Greg hikes some shame up in his cheeks but comes around to admit, without any real fuss,

"Honestly, I read the script... I kind of, um. Didn't think it was good?"

I'm awful, thinks Greg, and then Tom, just before it's all lost in a shared, drunken laughing fit.

Chapter Text

Gregory Hirsch,

I am reaching out to you in regards to a memoir that I intend to write about your great-uncle, Logan Roy. This memoir would detail the exploits of Logan Roy the tycoon, the magnate, the father. I've written to each member of the family and other immediate company in hopes of scheduling some interviews. Any information about his character from those who know him best would be helpful and you would be credited appropriately. Below is my contact information if you'd like to give me a call at your earliest convenience, or you could simply respond to this letter if preferred.

###-###-####

M. Pantsil

He basks for some time in the sense of importance granted by such a letter—subsequently by the excuse, bordering on duty, to set up his typewriter and sit in front of it for hours.

Greg immediately has many questions that he deliberates over in drafting a response—how did Pantsil get his information to start with? What makes him seem like someone who would have publishable anecdotes? And isn't a memoir usually made after someone dies? Is this intended to publish while he's still alive or wait until after his passing, and for that matter is it built into this book's concept that Logan is expected to pass soon? Does this guy even have Logan's permission to do this? The more Greg thinks about it, the less likely that seems.

But the motivation to send a letter back, still, remains. He's just glad that he didn't head straight to the phone.

He's eventually got a paper full of just about useless, half-started messages with Dear Mr. Pantsil and too-exaggerated formal speak as the two common threads. Greg chews his lip; he might have done well to draft by hand first and not waste so much ink. Now any notion of scrapping this altogether, even in precaution, seems to serve only further waste.

What he officially folds up and slides into an outgoing mailbox is about three pages of personal concerns, tail-ended with a willingness to meet up over coffee.

*

In the less than two months since Shiv told him of her dad's musings over buying Pierce as a defense option, it has seemed more and more to have been just that. Just passing thoughts, irrationalities spoken aloud once and never to be mentioned again let alone acted upon, by Logan or anyone else.

Then a week into June, an RBN executive meeting is called and that interim is laid out, as news to absolutely everyone present: he's gotten lawyers, he's contacted the FCC, he's talked to Nixon, and they're going for it. We're gobbling 'em up, he says, like that's a one and done deal. Not a hint of irony. No complications to worry about. Final item is to pool resources and commission a giant fork and knife, maybe some hollandaise.

For a moment Tom refuses to look anywhere but ahead, lest he betray any lack of wholehearted support. But he can't help a flicker of the eyes or two, and when he does, his fear of standing out as any pinker than the rest is gone. He's far from the only one shuffling his feet or gripping the side of the table or wringing his hands in his lap. He thinks he catches Karl mouthing did you know about this to Sid.

With the way that Logan barrelled in there to begin with, admonishing the group for their apparently worthless efforts in fighting the takeover, it feels like the tragic precursor to an execution when the first person clears her throat—the one her in the room, too. The wrinkles on Logan's face deepen at once with a Henrician readiness to shout treason.

You brave soldier, Gerri, you.

"I just wonder if maybe it isn't too small?" she says. "Pierce nets what—6 mil? That's less than our monthly. It feels a little like... setting up a lemonade stand to raise money for a new house, no?"

Logan shakes his head, taking it in stride. "It's not about the price. If it were, I'd have 'em already. No—it's the spread. They're respected. I need that."

"We're respected," offers Sid.

"Not enough. Their corner is growing and ours is shrinking. Ever slightly—but it is. Pierce is the key to this fight, I promise you lot that. We take ownership of our political competitors, we steady the slope, we fucking win."

"And—" It's Karl, now—"and we think that the Pierces will actually sell—?"

"What the hell is this? Do we have a problem?" The prompt, deathly silence in the room should tell him no. Tom holds his breath, feels his collar inexplicably tighten, when Logan's eyes pass over him. "...I didn't think so. Don't be fucking concerned about Pierce selling. That's what negotiations are for."

He slams a fist on the table on the way out, taking his sons with him.

"So you just... didn't say anything."

"How could I? When your dad makes up his mind, he makes up his fucking mind. Ken and Roman didn't say anything either. Only the old guard has the balls..."

"And of course that did fuck all."

"Of course. It's funny—to even try to sway him they practically had to encourage him to do something worse. I should be glad they didn't succeed, shouldn't I?"

"Well no—fuck, Tom, even if Pierce would sell, which they won't, they'd—firstly, give Dad such a stupid-high number that it's even more counter-productive to buy. What the fuck. They'll stretch this out, you know that, right? They'll debate Dad to death. Nan's father and husband died to leave that to her and she's just gonna let it go? Right. Uh-huh. He's so—he's so convinced that money is all it takes..."

Tom finds himself extraneous while Shiv goes on about the Pierce family's reputation for staying independent at all costs, and how there'd be no room for something like this in the current climate even with some other paper. How this would look like infringing on journalistic integrity, plain and simple, and would probably go so far as to hurt the president who's sanctioning it, which the guy himself is probably too stupid to realize. How revolutionaries are getting ballsy and Logan should expect the protesting to become unmanageable.

It's for her own benefit—nothing Tom didn't already know. But he begins to actively think on that tangent for the first time all day. His worries about the state of the company become outweighed by imagined gunfire.

Just as he begins to swallow those bullets and truly sink into the couch, Shiv changes pitch. Something he couldn't really hear anyway is interrupted by a practically squeaked well—

"One thing, I guess..."

Tom sits up, turns around, and watches her pace.

"What, honey?"

"I mean—if we did merge... Maybe it really could happen, then. Maybe... even if it's meaningless in this fight, maybe some years down the line... maybe it changes? Right? With Nan setting a precedent?"

The next good look that Tom gets of her, her eyes are glossed over. With happy tears. He goes breathless and just nods.

"Yeah, it could—"

"And both internal and public attitudes will have to change," she says as though he disagreed. "If we're connected. And just—in fucking general. I don't know why I didn't think about this before, it—it's not that far away... And then the ethics of it—well, I could just change how things go if I was in the chair, couldn't I? Maybe this is the best way to go. Maybe we let Dad take the company spelunking so that I can hoist us back out, better than ever."

"Oh—woah." Tom blinks. His knees dig into the cushions. "That's. Wow. Really?"

"Spend money to make money, right? Only way out is through?"

He tries to match her grin out of courtesy, but what she's suggesting...

"Um. Shiv, is it possible that we're getting ahead of ourselves?" What he manages is a stretched face and a puff of air, while she draws back. "That... All that could be so far down the line—you don't really think this is worth it, do you? He's losing it. You just said it yourself, someone's got to stop him."

"Are you going to?" she snaps, her neck going with it. He goes quiet and frowns. "Exactly."

"...Well, Shiv, you've got a decent track record of making him come to his senses. Surely you're not going to just... neglect to try. Are you?"

"I might! Fuck, Tom!—don't you understand what this could mean for me?"

"What about everyone else? What about me?"

"What about you? If I win, we both win. That's why we're married, isn't it?"

"...Funny, I thought we were married because we loved each other."

She comes around to his side of the couch, then, changing gears once more into a warm, reassuring body. Tom leans into it, has an easy time pretending that it's what he needs as long as it gets her focus off of Logan's seat. He hadn't thought that Shiv was serious about that. He thinks now that, while talk shifts closer to the unlikelihood of it, and to the corporate retreat, which Tom could take or leave anyway, he'll choose to believe it still doesn't run quite that deep. Surely it can't.

"And if he's really going to have it, it's bullshit that he refuses to pull the one string that would at least let me come...," she says.

"Are you actually surprised?" he asks—one of those sparks that are coming out of him more and more frequently lately, expecting to start something destructive.

What he always seems blocked from being able to expect in these moments is deep regret. It never fails to poison him before he goes to sleep. It's like clockwork. The impulse is just strong enough, and stronger each time, that following it feels more important. So when it doesn't take, this time—when she picks up on words far more than tone, and uses that simply as a jumping-off point, Tom isn't entirely relieved.

But he's not disappointed for long. He forgets about it. He realizes how empty their apartment looks from here. So much unused space that he's been blind to. He stares out with purpose while Shiv rants in his ear, imagining what he could fill it with if she'd let him.

*

On Thursday afternoon they're told to pack for temperate weather, and other than that it seems this morale-boosting trip is still intended as a total surprise. That doesn't seem like a hopeful thing. Tom is thankful to overhear Karl ask for more details on the clothing front, will it be humid and what color scheme would be most appropriate—so that he doesn't have to be the one to get told to calm your pansy ass down, just don't wear wool and you won't be sweating.

Friday evening, they prepare to load onto the plane. Even the flight time remains a secret as far as Tom can tell. The last time that he got on a plane without knowing the destination now hovers by his scruff, so he takes his first chance with the one person he finds likely to have any clue:

"Oh, yeah, word is it's Saigon," she whispers in his ear. "He's got an ambassador friend there. We'll be away from the gunfire, I'm sure. He just wants to make a point of how invincible he is."

Tom stares, every last bit of mirth gone from his body.

"...Are you kidding me?"

Gerri's face changes at once. "Of course I am. I don't know where we're going, Tom."

"Oh!" The sting of humiliation is overwhelmed by the return of his breath and color. "Right, right."

It's a pleasant surprise to be here at all. Tom said that he would, but Greg's mind's eye at the time projected a much larger group of people. Sid's secretary isn't here. Neither is Shiv. Uncle Logan hasn't even brought his bodyguard.

"Careful saying that out loud, buddy," whispers Tom, when he asks about the last. "It'll sound like you want to take advantage of the fact."

"Of course I wouldn't," he starts to say, but just gets hushed again.

Not ten minutes later he catches Roman muttering to Kendall: "Hey, where the fuck is Colin?"

The question has been openly-secretly passed around the RBN executives for a good week now—is it a good idea to leave the country for a weekend when the last time that Logan did so was the catalyst for the very takeover attempt he's currently fighting? And when he's bringing the very man who made that attempt?

"He wants to see if you'll try it again," Roman jokes to Kendall, for whom it seems like hell to not be sedated.

With that in mind Tom keeps his nose in a hardback compilation of Thomas Mann, and his forehead angled to block his eyes if and when he glances through the curtain to Logan's end of the plane, and his ears open. As long as he can stay awake, anyway.

"You get a letter from this Pantsil guy too?"

"Guy? Oh, no, Rome—you can tell. The first name left up to an initial means it's a woman. She just wanted to leave plausible deniability."

"Shit—you're sure?"

"With reasonable margin. Why, did you talk?"

"Fuck you, of course I didn't. I bet you did, Brutus. This was yours and Sandy and Stewy's plan, right?"

"Rome—"

"—send a biographer, get 'im to tear the company apart—"

"Her, man."

"So you did send her?"

"Don't fucking bugs bunny me, I didn't do shit. Yes, it was in the original plan. I've already told Dad. He's not worried. He's prepped and he'll shut it down. What would I even tell her that Stewy doesn't already have, huh?"

"...Nyeh, so you admit it, doc."

Logan pushes his way into the room just in time.

"Why am I still hearing about this Pantsil business? And Roman—don't fucking chew with your mouth open."

"I was doing—"

"You're in your thirties, for cripes sake. It's disgusting."

Greg hastily gives up his long seat by the bar for a spot across from Tom, where no one but him would see anything but the back of his head.

*

"Linz?" He has to find out via the signs. "Not Vienna?"

"Don't sound so ungrateful!" shouts Logan, at which Tom straightens up.

"No no—I only, when you said welcome to Austria I'd just assumed, haha...!"

It's not convincing. It doesn't matter. They're not even here to see the sights beyond the drive to the true destination, as he soon learns; the twelve of them flew 4000 miles over the Atlantic just to get on a boat and sail down a river. A truly sound purchase in the midst of everything.

"Ain't she beautiful?" they're all asked upon reaching the docks. Logan waits until he gets the collective response that he wants and then goes gruff: "Well, she's what I could get on short notice."

She's a Lurssen superyacht called The Boar. Up until getting on deck she's decidedly un-boarlike—then Tom is past the shiny white exterior and gets a decent look at the inside through glass panes, and he begins to see it. He can imagine the process of collecting the furnishings, as far as he's able to look. He doesn't get too far before a member of the boat staff starts calling out names for room keys.

Tom watches the others mostly pair off, with mild curiosity that hardens the longer that his own name is neglected. At very last, even past Ray and Mark, he and Greg are reached. Their key tags bear the name number 7.

"He could only get a yacht with seven cabins?" Greg mutters, twisting it in his fingers.

"Oh, you're too high maintenance to handle a roommate all of a sudden? This boat's not good enough for Greg the superstar? Of course it's not. He's got preferences for his luxury and decadence now..."

Tom carries on that vein of amusement, ignoring Greg's attempts to shush him, as they stroll along the perimeter. If anything successfully quiets him it's the time he now has to notice, given the size of this thing, that there should be more than enough rooms to accommodate everyone individually and still have space for the staff. What they have must be the seven above deck. So everyone stays equal except for Logan, who gets one to himself.

"Wow. I wouldn't even guess we were on the water..." Greg's face lights up when they walk in. It's funny to see next to the severity of the decor, as much as Tom holds his own appreciation for it—particularly as the other man takes a childish leap for the bed on the left. "Mind if I take this one?"

He immediately tears his gaze away from Greg to take his own, more thorough tour.

"Both sides are the same. I don't care."

Save for the Klimt at a measly ten-by-twelve, the paintings on the wall look like originals. Upon closer inspection they just might be. Tom wonders what the insurance is like. He could cut himself so easily on the sconces if he wasn't careful, too—or the ornate backs of their matching chairs, the jade cushions of which would feel wrong to actually sit on. It couldn't be true, but he has this grand sense of being the first person in a century to do so.

Bathroom is nicer than he could expect at a hotel. Along the wall closest to either bed is a closet large enough to manage a month's stay, if one was relatively low-maintenance. Maybe not Tom. But he can make a guess from the amount of time that Greg spends checking out the space in his.

He has to hunch uncomfortably to fit underneath the pole, but he finds that his entire wingspan leaves about an inch, lengthwise. He's then hilariously determined to stretch himself to touch both ends at the same time anyway for a good minute before moving on.

"You think everyone's room looks the same?"

"If you mean is everyone's room modeled to get them in the mood to solve a murder? ...Probably."

He closes a cabinet at the perfect moment to reveal Greg's face. Already properly spooked. It seals something for Tom, and he continues,

"Honestly, Greg, I was thinking for the whole flight that Logan was planning to And Then There Were None us... but clearly what he's going for is Death on the Nile. Look around you. Someone's gonna die tonight."

His heart pounds deep. The other man breaks before he does.

"I get it," Greg says. "Ha-ha."

Frank's arrival makes thirteen. Logan makes a point of joining hands with him in front of the group, or most of it: Business partners reunited after a brief hiccup of betrayal—a meaningless handful of months compared to their previous several decades. It must be part of the Pierce strategy, but neither Tom nor Greg can yet parse how.

"You should have told me we'd be on a boat, you old bastard," laughs the guest of honor, "I could have packed some swim trunks!"

"Oh, this isn't that sort of cruise anyway," Logan chuckles back with a shrug. He glances back at everyone, eyes warm. Raises his voice just a notch. "River's not safe for it. Only way you'll be swimming is if I have you thrown overboard!"

Greg looks to Tom. Everyone now accounted for, The Boar is finally ready to set sail down the Danube.

*

When the group mostly disperses, Tom included, it doesn't seem so bad. While perhaps not so genuinely for the others, even as Logan outright encourages them all to do whatever they like until dinner except fill up on snacks, freedom feels ripe for Greg's taking. He's convinced in spite of what he knows that he hasn't breathed fresh air in months. Something right out of an oil painting passes them by, and he decides not to waste it. Nevermind the dreadful pace that it takes.

The motors are working hard against the current. He thinks he should appreciate that even if no one else is. Because no one else is.

He holds out for as long as he can against how it all wishes to run together. Slowly, the guilt of growing tired becomes itself tired. A handful of faces show themselves quite easily underneath. Greg resists the final tugs and clings to the first compromise that occurs to him: He had, in fact, packed trunks. Just out of a guess. Assuming things aren't too different in Austria, then, peak daylight should last for another hour or so.

On the way back to the room, he passes Tom in a sitting area, book in his lap, cigarette hanging out of his mouth, feet up on the table. First sign of life in what may have been longer than Greg even thought.

"Good book?" he hazards awkwardly. "...Better out here, probably."

"Care to join me?" Tom says, a perfect surprise.

Perfection then pervades, and something inside Greg drops further than it already was.

"Oh. I was actually about to go get a tan on the deck—that unshaded very corner of the deck. I mean. The bow. Um. You don't think that that would be like—bad, here, do you?"

"...What, having your shirt off?" Tom scoffs. "Unless you mean you'll be completely naked. In that case I believe the Austrians see that as punishable by death. I'm sure they'll have snipers waiting in the mountains ready to make a target of the first lily-white ass they see."

He doesn't meet Greg's eyes at all the second time he passes, towel in hand.

Tom is allowed no peace. He can't focus on his book. The scenery shifts so quickly from picturesque to dull. And when staff finds him, nothing they offer in their stupid accent sounds like it would truly make his stay pleasant. A birdwatching tour. Fishing lessons where he can't keep what he catches. They can pour him a drink or give him some cheese and crackers—all he's allotted by Logan's orders. They can have some scary old woman massage him.

He cuts his losses and sets off on a sternward stroll, which in retrospect is aimless for a dearly insignificant amount of time. Up the first flight of stairs to the second deck, he rounds a corner and finds Gerri, Karl, and Karolina. They would appear to be lounging innocently but for a flash of matching, startled faces.

"Hey there, Tom," says the man between the three of them.

"Hey. Strategizing, I see." A row of nods. "About... Pierce?" Another. "Well, mind if I pull up a chair?"

He just does it before anyone grants him permission. At least one chairman of RBN ought to be in this conversation, he'd say. And he does. They laugh, stilted. A new breeze hits Tom's back, justifying him, and after no time at all, without quite meaning to, he's fallen past their defense and into what they were really talking about.

They're trying to understand his thinking, is how they phrase it. Not just with the deal. This whole trip. Each of Tom's jagged and unkempt thoughts are spoken back to him, just cleaned up—and more.

"Do you know he's got Roman rooming with Laird?" mutters Gerri.

"And Kendall with Frank," Karl nods. "Instead of the sons together."

"That's... odd," Tom agrees. "You're sure it isn't just their own strategy? Maybe Kendall and Roman are in on it."

Each beat now comes with a wary glance in either direction. After a short one Gerri concedes the possibility. It would make enough sense that someone other than Logan knew the details of the retreat, wouldn't it?

"This whole paired rooms thing doesn't sit well with me regardless... Not that I have any problem with Karolina—"

"Of course," she says.

"But it feels deliberate."

"The same way that getting us all completely away from civilization, with no way to contact the outside world, let alone home, seems deliberate?" Karl asks.

As Karolina proceeds to be reassuring, facing only him, Tom gets the feeling that this is something they've hashed out already. There must be a radio in at least the captain's cabin, and it's not as if they're out in the middle of the ocean or an island or anything, she says. There's no more than a thousand or so feet separating them from land at any time.

"That's still Austrian land," Tom feels inclined to say.

"Exactly my point," says Karl—just slightly too loud, cut off by a shush from Gerri. "...I've never known him to be particularly familiar with the country. I just want to know what the hell's made him so confident. He left Colin behind—"

"I know," Tom says. He swallows. "Have any of you... raised these concerns with him?"

Not yet, evidently. That's one of the things that they were discussing. All three pairs of eyes eventually settle on him.

Tom then reaches for the charcuterie plate in the center of the table and pulls it to himself, and takes his sweet time cramming the last few remains into his mouth. It's not polite to talk with one's mouth full, after all. Once there's no choice left, he stands and decides,

"I'm fucked no matter what I do. And you know what, I don't want to have come all this way just to have this kind of talk. So this is—you lot can figure this out."

He tries to ignore their scoffs as he slides his chair back under the table and starts away. Gerri is always hard to tune out, though.

"Uh-huh. Thanks for all your help, Mr. Chairman..."

And what do you know, Tom makes it nearly past the end of the upper corridor, considering the chance to turn and give the three one last look, and spots Logan approaching from the direction he had come.

"...Aw, seriously, Greg? It's been hours, man."

A minute or so after stumbling upon him, Tom pokes an experimental finger into Greg's newly pink back. It's both to wake him and to see the difference, the latter of which is successful. So Tom surveys his options, then inhales deep like he's preparing to rip off a bandage... and smacks the man on the back of his thigh.

He meets the eyes that then shoot open, alongside his mouth which releases a yelp, with a bit of a grin. Greg scrambles to a defensive position and barely makes it to his ass.

"Tom, what the hell—?"

"You are very lucky that you fell asleep on your stomach," he tells Greg from his chest, extending an arm to help him up. "Except—oh, Jesus, the right side of your face..."

"Huh? What do you—oh. Shit..." He shifts fast if not clumsily from needing to arch his neck back, looking at Tom, to bending it forward. And he's still made to feel like the smaller one as he presses fingertips to his cheek and finds it uncomfortably hot, while the other man tuts. "...It was kind of overcast, I didn't think that could happen?"

"Didn't even think to put on sunscreen, huh? Or did you even bring any? Yeesh, let's hope that when all that flakes off you'll at least have a tan underneath. But I have a funny feeling you'll be back at square one..."

While Greg pouts, and grimaces, and tests his burn on his arm and anywhere else he can reach, Tom resolves in spite of himself to gather up the towel and Greg's key, and to take him to the ship's doctor. He tells himself that it's something to do—an excuse to explore a little more. And it truly is a little. They're at the door before Greg seems to even realize that they've been walking.

Tom is the one to say in his best broken German that this man is in hasty need of... ointment of some kind.

"Before the pain sets in," Greg agrees.

The Austrian doctor does look at best surprised behind his mustache to see one of them arrive half-naked, come to think of it.

It's when it starts to really sting—when Tom would otherwise just be smugly watching him wince while the ointment is applied by the doctor—that Greg figures he doesn't have much to lose.

"So... any news?"

Tom's eyes change. He changes so little about his lean against the door, however, it has to be on purpose.

"About what?"

"Uh. Uncle Logan? Like... y'know, anything to worry about?"

"...What makes you say that?"

Some accented approximation of you can do your arms and legs yourself is thankfully shoved at Greg before he can answer. Tom grabs the tube for him and yanks Greg back out of the room by the elbow, and he searches for any sign of life in their vicinity, more suspicious than comforted by the lack of it, for the whole walk back to their cabin. When he lets go of him it's to more or less throw him at his bed.

"Shit, Tom, what is it?"

"You go first," he says. He's got his hands on his hips but keeps his gaze mostly on the floor, glancing up to Greg for a fraction of a second at a time. There's preemptive fury there. "What's troubling you, huh?"

It takes him halfway through the ointment, and some pants finally being pulled back on, to properly name the biographer. Tom's rigid body falters almost instantly. With yet-uncertain hope Greg watches him clutch his stomach and laugh and fall onto the other bed.

"Oh, man, I really don't think... well."

And Greg can hear his still-shaky breath. Just like that, Tom ends the preamble and gets into his own piece.

*

Their seats are arranged analogous to their cabins. Logan at the very head. Next, his sons to the left by age and his ex-ex-partner and banker to the right. Then Sid and Karl, a funny match but perhaps the one plausible option before Gerri and Karolina, in their dresses that dazzle bizarrely in comparison to the rest of the room. Then Ray and Mark, either of whom Tom could forget entirely in their absence. Their promotions came perhaps a year before his own and they're convinced, particularly the former, that it gives them some kind of seniority.

Finally, at the very end... the two of them.

He searches for the question in the other man's face when they first happen upon the name plates, and feels an ironic triumph when he finds it. Tight jaw and curved brow and restless hands just scarcely touch the silverware.

"Don't think too deeply about it," Tom tells him out the side of his mouth, but heads immediately for the wine.

He recalls, not that many years ago at all, watching one of those Bond films and thinking that he ought to make some rich friends so that he might one day have the excuse to do something like this. To dress like—not quite this; Bond never wore a pale blue jacket as far as he knows. But once upon a time it was all equally unavailable. Dining halls floating on the water or firmly rooted on land. Now, the awe of the matter slips past in a blink and comes to rest so deep inside of him that he just can't retrieve the initial feeling any longer. He's got comfort, alright. Most of the time.

Beyond that, he can only try to remember. Or watch Greg. The man had the miraculous forethought to pack a fine silk shirt which surely well accommodates his burn, though he has no clue what he's really wearing. Before the meal begins he wanders around the room like he's in an art museum. The material drapes too loose, reflects so much chandelier-light that one couldn't tell the color of the shirt from more than a few feet away.

Unfortunately Roman beats him to acknowledging it, and with something far more crass than what Tom had in mind. He comes up behind Greg and tugs on the technically brown sleeve, drawing out an ouch that forces him to explain his incident to the party. Well. Either that, or let them all save for one believe that there's a third woman among them.

"Ah... explains why you look like that," Roman says—his final words before being drowned out by their host:

"Bit too much information, there, Greg!"

A smattering of amused breaths follow. That is Logan's entrance and, in following the old guard, Tom's cue to sit.

Four straight-faced Austrians all but blend into the walls behind him, shining silver platters at the ready.

"Dinner at last! But before we eat, shall I have a volunteer to lead us in grace?"

A catalog of childhood memories stiffens Tom before it occurs to him to check more recent ones. Greg is the one to lean forward—amidst all the other shifting and muttering at the table, frowning, and whispering but we didn't do that at Thanksgiving, did we?

Either of them are suddenly unsure, memories taking all sorts of shapes. The head of the table did grow up Catholic. And he folds his hands and looks around with increasing, apparent frustration. Tom's shoulders flex. He looks to the sons, who are looking to their dad. Greg's eyes flicker over the patterns of the tablecloth as he plans ahead what to say if Logan just picks him, as instructors often do.

"...No one?"

The empty porcelain vibrates with a slight rocking of the boat. Ray, looking between Greg and Karolina for the world's most unbalanced reassurance, begins to raise his hand.

"Oh, you're all so green—it's a joke!" Logan shouts. Ray's hand shoots back down and he seems to wait for Logan to laugh before he goes ahead as well—and so follows the rest.

The servers are gestured in with the soup and appetizer: pork knuckle, and then a hearty dollop of cheese spread circled by overlapping bread slices. Each bowl with its side is easily large enough to be a meal all on its own. Had they not all been ordered to essentially starve themselves for hours prior, it would be a hell of a lot more daunting. Down the table, Roman apparently tries to refuse the liptauer. No one hears him, but Logan commanding him to eat it is terribly unsubtle.

Greg finds his wrist trapped in a vice-like grip within the second. He nearly looks to Logan instead of Tom, who's got this urgent look.

"Don't," he says.

"Don't what?"

Tom points with his free hand to the soup spoon, on the opposite side of Greg's bowl, and raises his eyebrows and jerks his head. Then he lets go.

"Really, Greg...," he mutters—still watching to make sure he understood. He keeps under the lowest breath even then. "Dessert spoon?"

"Sorry..." Greg rolls his eyes.

There's no time or space to tell him that it's not just Tom's own rigid sense of rules. He's watching down the table again, prioritizing whatever tidbits from Frank or Gerri or Kendall that he can gather. Anything at all that's not just about the goddamn soup. Though he does also watch the windows, in awe of how much time has passed. It's getting dark out there. He can barely tell the distant hills apart from the sky when he tries.

He almost doesn't notice the last server to leave. It's Greg's wavering, uneasy attention that Tom catches first—following it past Ray, to Gerri's, to Sid's... to the woman who rounds their end of the table, topping off wine, muttering the same shaky word to herself.

"...dreizehn... dreizehn..."

At least, it doesn't sound like she's addressing anyone else.

The volume from any given corner of the table dips when she passes, heads lifting and turning in a bizarre wave. She fills Kendall's glass to the brim and picks up her pace tenfold on the way out. Logan doesn't wait for the door to squeak behind her—

"The hell was her problem?"

"I—" Karl gets Logan's eyes on him likely faster than anticipated, and he coughs. "...I think she's superstitious. She seemed to be worried about there being thirteen guests."

"There's twelve guests," Logan shrugs.

"There's—well, twelve plus you makes thirteen..."

"Does it? Thank you for the arithmetic lesson, Karl."

"...You're welcome, Logan."

"Mm."

A handful of snorts around the table simply can't be helped, and they clearly don't go unnoticed, either, even as each of the culprits—the one that Tom knows for certain being Greg—masks it with the slurping of their soup. He kicks Greg under the table until he quiets down.

"...I wonder, who here can tell me what was going on when I was twenty-eight years old?" Logan asks the table. He folds his hands under his chin and looks around. "Here's a hint: I was born in 1890. Here's your chance to show off those arithmetic skills, Karl."

Adding the years is simple enough. But Tom's days of seeing who amongst his friends could raise their hand the fastest, and so much so that it began to bother the professors, are so far behind him he can't seem to bring them back. He imagines the same sort of thing is happening with many others, and that's the best of it.

"The Spanish Flu," says Greg. There's no question in his voice. And there's a whistle from Logan's end of the table but clearly not the man himself.

"Cousin Greg, the scholar...," says Roman.

"And here I thought you'd only done a couple months," continues his father. "Good man, Greg. Enjoying that soup?"

"Wh—oh, um, yeah." He nods, faces another kick from Tom, and corrects himself. "Yessir!"

"Thought so—you were slurping it quite loud. We're not in Japan, but I'll allow it. Let's get you another, shall we?"

"Oh—but what about—I mean, won't I be too full for the main course? Heh..."

"You'll have plenty of room!" Logan claps for someone from the corner of the room to come forward. "Another, what was it? You oughta know, Karl, you're the kraut—"

"Klachelsuppe—"

"Klachelsuppe for Greg. Pronto!"

Greg glances carefully to Tom, who tightens his lips and gives the tiniest of shrugs, and back to his uncle with the best smile he can muster.

"Uh... thank you—"

"The Spanish Flu had the same death toll as the second war, did you lot know that? I caught it, I was bedridden for weeks. I saw a great many friends and colleagues die from it. But I survived. I came out stronger, even. I got RBN through the fucking Depression. I have survived... the likes of which none of you could possibly understand. I'm wily. And I'm smart. I've always got a plan up my sleeve. I'm in the chair for a damn reason! Superstitions... bah, a fucking number doesn't mean shit to me. It's laughable! Don't you all agree? In fact..."

Logan lifts up his glass, beats on it with his fork, and raises a toast to survival. Each guest follows his lead, some with a more convincing face than others, and downs at least half their drink. Just in time for Greg's second bowl of soup to arrive. He curbs the dreadful noise in his throat.

An old childhood trick: smearing any solid bits around the bowl to create the illusion of emptiness, when at most he's scarfed down half. It does the job somehow. Greg's dish is taken with everyone else's, unmentioned further, and replaced by a long plate of schnitzel topped with caramelized vegetables. It's as authentic as it gets, he hears. Veal.

Now to make that room. Swallowing a bunch of nothing likely won't help.

He figures it best, watching Tom, to go on as normal. He leans back and calls down the table to Kendall when he feels justified. Getting hardly any acknowledgment from his cousin stops him even less than it usually would—some displaced restless energy has come over him and Greg just can't stop. So long as no one is forcing him to, anyway. Tom does just about the same with the more corporate of the guests, as well as Logan himself.

It feels like the man is trying to talk to anyone but Greg.

And things seem to go fine, for a bit, other than the occasional stretches of rough water. When the room rocks and something sloshes out of its container, Greg catches absolutely no one, not even Roman or Kendall, saying a word. Napkins are dabbed silently and thoughtlessly to stop any spills, and that's where the acknowledgment ends. If anyone so much as chuckles during the turbulence, especially as it comes faster and faster, it's the head of the table alone. Maybe a little from Frank.

"Hey, Tom," Greg finds himself saying, at what would be a normal volume if not for the increasingly overwhelming rush of the river outside.

He doesn't know how he intended to continue, and it turns out not to matter. He just takes some comfort in briefly meeting Tom's gaze again in the moment before there's another tilt and Logan shouts.

"DAMMIT! Bitch..."

That superstitious woman looks twice as horrified as before. And Logan looks like he's been shot, both in the face and in the shirt, as what may have been a mouthful of red wine soaks through. She's blubbering—in German, but undeniably something about an accident, and the boat. Nevertheless,

"Just—leave the bottle, dammit! Guess I have to do everything around here..."

Frank's laugh, perhaps just close enough to Logan to be allowed, perhaps self-assured out of an equally old age, comes out a little choked.

"Jesus, Logan, we are on a boat..."

"And you'd think that she'd have her sea legs by now, wouldn't you?" he snaps back. Then, to the rest, "If you want any pinot, go on ahead and get it, you're better off pouring it yourself!"

Roman makes some comment about how he may as well join the proletariat even as he does so. Greg goes for it next, desperately needing something to help his appetite. When it seems that everyone who intends to grab some has done so and sat back down, the host once again clears his throat and takes the reins of table-chat.

"See? We can all do things for ourselves now and again, can't we?"

"Hear, hear!" Tom agrees, lifting his glass.

Mere clinking of silverware follows. He starts drinking to hide the lack of reaction from his own eyes, and his shame from everyone else's. To some degree he's spared by Logan continuing, after a beat.

"...You know what, I'll cut the shit. We all know why we're here. Pierce. Morale. I want to know—honestly. Are we all feeling the morale?"

That may be the most successful the man has been in garnering mass feedback all evening. Still, all twelve overlapping answers are about the same. Affirmative, but lacking in verve. Vague oh sures and yes of courses. Definitely, says Gerri. Hell yeah, says Kendall. I'm as moraled as it gets, says... someone, who is not Tom.

Logan's smile means nothing.

"Great! I'm relieved to know that I can trust you all. I've got my top minds here, yes? Right! I'd like to go down the line. Frank, you start, hm?"

"Mm—" Frank finishes chewing, wipes his mouth. "Start? With what?"

"I want everyone's individual opinion on the Pierce acquisition. As a group. In a circle 'round the table. Go on."

"Ah... well, I hate to be put on the spot so abruptly, but sure. You've got a long-standing grudge against the family, that we all know... Really, I'm not sure why you haven't tried to buy 'em sooner."

"Alright," is all Logan says. "Next!"

Laird, as Logan's personal financial advisor, speaks exclusively to the fiscal benefits. Karl lies through his teeth. Karolina does the same but, as a woman and Logan's assistant, more effectively. Mark's claim of being thrilled to be part of the chase may very well be true. Whatever. Tom's heartbeat by now could power a city's generator for days. He's thinking so hard, he almost forgets the sequence.

"...Go on, Tom."

"Right—yes!" He tries to laugh. "I guess I would say that... well, what you said before—about how we've each got our own corners, RBN and Pierce? I think that's smart. I think... definitely, yes, let's get 'em together. Use the competition to our advantage and... whatnot."

"I sure am glad that you think it's smart," Logan chuckles. "...Now let's hear from our boy genius. Greg?"

He can't help it. He looks to Tom first.

"I mean—I'm really not, though," Greg follows his instincts and admits. Just douses himself in humility. "I just knew that one thing... Otherwise I'm like—I'm just an assistant, right? I'm not that qualified to give—"

"Oh, that doesn't matter. Maybe I want a common man's perspective."

"Oh... yeah, sure. Um. I guess—could I just say 'ditto'? To Tom? Because that—yeah. You basically already listed all your reasons, a-and... I agree with them."

"Next!"

Christ, Greg, Tom wants to say. Regardless, it's relief that he exhales as it moves along.

Ray kisses ass as artfully as Mark. Gerri, uniquely, confesses to not being entirely convinced yet of the legal implications. But she adds swiftly that her job is merely to consult, and she won't try to stop him. And the remaining three have their piece without a detour. Sid keeps it short, and Logan's sons act precisely like his sons.

He nods, satisfied, and seems to think on it over a few gulps of wine. Then he turns to Frank.

"I have to say, old friend, your take was one of the worst, wasn't it?"

"Hah... I didn't know it was a competition." He seems to mean to stop there, picking his fork back up, but Logan stays like he is. "...Well shit, Logan, you had me go first. Bit of an unfair disadvantage, isn't it? Everyone else knew what they had to top."

"Mm... that's true, that's true. Well."

For a split second it feels like the boat has met rapids again—but it's Logan's hands that vibrate the table, nothing outside. He slams them down and stands up with no other warning.

"Dinner's over, put down your forks. Not another goddamn bite. Outside, on the deck! Now! It's time for dessert!"

Logan goes first, and with no other choice, they all follow. He keeps on shouting, over the rushing water now, about what a real treat this'll be! and nothing else. Everyone from closest advisors to biological children are openly, loudly puzzled. Out of some habit Greg still asks Tom what's happening.

"How the fuck should I know?" he hisses, so close to his face that some spit flies, catches enough lamplight to be seen in the dark. Fear catches fear in those few inches.

And then Tom rushes ahead, ignoring the hole at his side, to ask Gerri what's happening. She's got nothing either. But they all get their answer once Logan has led them to the bow. He climbs a couple steps, turns and surveys the group, seems to count heads, then—god, the man was born with a megaphone for a mouth.

"If you truly back me on Pierce!" he begins, startling several spines straight, "Then you should be willing to prove it! I've worked too damn hard and too fucking long to build this company, and I am not marching forward if I've got a rat on the ship. So who's first, huh?"

No one knows what to do. Except, from here Logan is backed by so much empty night, a very simple solution to all the confusion and dread inevitably presents itself. Tom stiffens himself further to warn away any thoughts of being the one to carry it out.

"First to do what, Logan?" asks Frank, finally.

Tom never spent much time around the man before he was fired, but it feels starkly like a first that his voice shakes like that.

"Well shit, I thought I was up here with all my top minds! You can't use context clues? Fine, how's this for a clue: I say jump, you say where."

"And you say... off the boat. Right. Surely you can't be serious... Dear God, you are."

"Come now, it's just a splash. About... what, nine of you had to have been in a fraternity at some point. It's like a hazing! Brave the jump, prove yourself, and put me at ease!"

More like I'm surrounded by rats, so drown yourself, you rats, Tom thinks. A single comfort in the moment lies in the collective lack of willingness to play this game. Rather than straight on over the others' heads, he stares with a heavy chest at Greg, letting the man cling to him.

"What the fuck, man," he whispers, wobbling, pulling Tom's arm closer. "What the fuck..."

"Dad—c'mon, I know you don't actually think this is reasonable," comes Kendall's voice. He's the first person to actually approach his father. Hearing him feels like eavesdropping.

"Oh, I don't?"

"You can—can't, you can't possibly make everyone jump."

"Like hell I can—!"

"And then you'll be left alone on the ship," Gerri pipes up. "With twelve people to assign the staff to rescue. Can you imagine what a bitch that would be? How delayed we could get?"

Logan pauses and seethes. For a long and hearty moment, Gerri's logic is undeniable. Then it's over.

"...Someone is fucking jumping! I... need to know that you are with me! Is anyone? Huh? I suppose I'll just have to pick..."

"Couldn't someone like—get sucked under the ship and die?"

Greg surprises everyone, especially himself. But no one else was saying it, and it's been scratching at the back of his throat this whole time. His mouth just opened.

"...Because of the motor?" he continues when every pair of eyes is on him. "And then the current would drag you like, way behind the ship. Because we're going against it. And there's no telling how deep the water even is at any given point either, is there?"

In the next few beats, during which Tom internally rejoices even as he knows it's too soon, Logan seems to think about that.

He calls one of the boat staff over. Tom and Greg alike had hardly realized they were still here. After some inaudible exchange of words, the man runs away.

"Greg talks sense," Logan says, and Greg himself exhales a breath of relief, only to breathe it right back in—"So the captain will stop the motors, and the anchor will be thrown down. And I have to suppose, since it is one man's fears I'm accommodating, that I have my volunteer."

"W-what?"

"Come on up, Greg!"

He snaps his head over to Tom, whose grip is already threatening to take the bone of his arm clean off the joint. Who can't do a thing but shake his head, deny the nightmare as passionately, though quietly, as Greg was trying to minutes ago. Logan urges him up again.

"Tom," he says.

"Fuck, Greg," Tom says back.

"Greg! Greg! Greg!" chants Roman, who fucking else—except a few elses inexplicably do join in.

A buzzing that they'd all grown deaf to suddenly leaves the air. For that matter, the air changes entirely. The wind turns backwards, almost up. One night on the river dies, sputtering out, and another is frighteningly alive. Seconds later a metallic groan shakes across the entire ship, well into their ears and their teeth—and the jeering stops.

"There you go, Greg... Haven't got all night!"

On cue, pairs of hands—Ray, Sid?—pull him forward by the shirt, push him to Logan's feet. He looks back and can't find the horrified faces anymore, he only sees delight, and only hears the resurgence of Roman-led chanting. In front of him, then, is his uncle. Unaffected.

"Well?" the man shouts no less, even with him this much closer. "I made it all nice for you!"

"But, but... the depth? That's still—"

"What the hell's the point of this without any risk, huh?" Logan extends his hand, but doesn't touch him. Just waits for Greg to take it and grows visibly impatient with each microsecond. He shakes it in his face. "Don't be fucking ungrateful!"

He'd rather grab the railing and pull himself up, and that seems fine by Logan, who immediately steps down. But one look down at the water rushing between the hull and the coast—he can't.

"I..."

"Jump! Jump! Jump!" The chanting shifts, and gets louder. Whether it's more joining in or just a matter of passion, he can't tell.

But Tom can. He swings his head around, calling on any burst of energy that his body will allow, and finds Kendall and the two women present the only others with their mouths shut, their arms completely to their sides. At least Frank's is weak. But fucking Karl...

He hears Greg's protestations underneath the deafening encouragement, watches him put his foot up and back down at least five times, and with the same burst as before finally breaks free of something. He throws himself forward with a ragged shout.

"Greg can't swim!"

The attention turns to Tom, and the noise fades, and all at once his panic is replaced. So long as it all stays on him. He himself doesn't dare look in the other man's direction.

"He can't!" he yells to Logan in particular, arms open and pleading. "I'll fucking do it, alright? I'll jump."

While he fixes his head downward, his eyes to the deck, it's yet to mean anything. The same goes for who and what surrounds him, who in spite of Logan's lack of protest don't yet resume celebrating. Tom has fresh air in his lungs and a beating heart and that's what matters while he takes off his shoes, and then his socks, and his belt and his watch and his ring and his sweater, and—

"Leave the rest on," Logan says when Tom tugs his shirt out of his pants. "No one wants to see any of that..."

And that's what seems to give the rest permission to decide, on a new jovial note, that it really is him. Tom stands fully and gives his belongings to Greg. In that face he finds the least understanding by far.

"Tom," he barely hears.

"Here, put these on my bed. Wait." He pulls the socks out of his shoes and empties his pockets, dumps the contents in there, and then puts the socks back in. "Can't get those wet, hah..."

"Tom!" Greg tries again, louder, clearer above the other shouts of his name. Despite everything he hasn't left the bow—he's doubly resolute when Tom steps up onto it. He grabs him, leans in, and speaks under the waves. "Tom... I can swim."

Anywhere else, he'd laugh. Greg's trembling lip would add to it. He'd fucking cackle harder and longer than he'd even want to.

He just shoves his sweater-wrapped shoes closer to Greg's chest and lets reality sink as deep as it can onto his own face.

"Don't let anyone else hear you say that, you idiot."

Tom's gonna jump! Tom's gonna jump! Go for it, Tommy! Try not to get swept out to the German side of the river, eh? They'll shoot ya!

As the man passes him on the steps, Greg follows him back up one. That's all that Tom will let him.

He watches Tom's knuckles go white on the hand railing, Tom's bare foot grip the bar on the bottom for a single staggered breath at a time before coming back down. From this end it's no less terrifying than doing it himself. It would be worse, however, to turn and face what's behind them this way. Greg doesn't take his eyes off of Tom for one second as he sets the bundle on the floor and hops the next two steps.

Tom doesn't hold an arm out this time. He's too busy staring down the drop and trying to lose the nausea.

"This is some—some James Bond shit, Greg..."

He manages some stilted approximation of a laugh.

"You know you don't need to do this, man," Greg implores. "You're not James Bond."

"Like I need you to tell me that, fuck off—"

"I'm serious, Tom! I'm—you don't! You just don't! You don't have to!"

You don't understand anything, Tom wants and needs to tell him, but doesn't have the breath to spare to say it. He listens to Greg repeat those words, feels Greg's hand reach out and grab his wrist—refuses to let his own grip on the rail loosen, in some free-flowing spite. But he caves and turns to see those dark, pleading eyes. Wind whips his hair around. Mostly in the very direction Tom is meant to go.

"This is insane, Tom," he's still trying to tell him. "Don't jump."

Tom no longer hears the goading voices below. He just hears the water. He thinks of who isn't here. He tries not to think at all, nor to look anywhere but ahead. With his right hand he rips Greg's fist off of his left, and with equal, indiscriminate force he pulls Greg's knuckles to his lips, and that split second before tossing his hand away gives Tom all the bravery he needs.

Greg watches Tom haul himself up and push off with his foot, and then dive all the way down. The noise that escapes his chest is lost in the cheers behind him.

He stays long after everyone else leaves—until he can see with his own two eyes that Tom has made it to shore.

Hours later, Tom finds the door unlocked, and he leaves his wet clothes in a heap in the bathroom, and he cries from the comfort of pulling on a warm, dry t-shirt. He crawls, shivering, into the wrong bed, where the other man is very clearly still awake. He doesn't crawl back out.

*

A signal has come for Logan through the emergency radio, they hear. Suddenly he's demanding that the ship speed up—that not just the captain but every last worker on the ship do whatever they can, somehow, to get them to Salzburg as soon as possible. Now.

They might have already been there rather than being an hour out at noon. The plane is waiting for them already, certainly. No one dares tell him that.

Through all of Logan's new tantrum, Greg doesn't dare to so much as look at him directly. He doesn't believe that he'll ever painlessly do so again. Tom lifts his head out of a flash of worry that it's something to do with Shiv, but quickly discards it. The notion that such information would be kept from him is just too silly. It's easy not to dwell on it when there's so much else he's now occupied with against his will.

He and Greg pick at the remnants of their brunch at a round table just outside the breakfast parlor, away from most of the others. Frank and Karl alone share the space. They hold quiet conversation on the other side of the wide-open doors, through which no one is entering or exiting for the foreseeable future. The two of them, meanwhile, have hardly spoken a word since waking. To anyone.

At a particularly loud, wordless shout from Logan indoors, they hold their breaths and look at each other. Greg glances down at his still-decent pile of scrambled eggs, and back up and down again a few times before clearing his throat. He drops the fork and reaches into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes.

"Want one?"

Tom breathes. "Fuck. Thank you."

The thrum of the ship's motor has gone sharper, and they watch the banks of the Danube pass by with twice the speed. By the time that they each start a second cigarette, beautiful cliffside castles begin to spot the previously blank, green scenery.

Chapter Text

A stack of papers from the New York Times is waiting for them back home in the states as early as the landing strip. Gerri is thrown one first, then the rest. Everything overheard on the plane—every mention of Nixon and CRP, in particular, comes into full understanding as soon as Tom sees the headline.

Vɪᴇᴛɴᴀᴍ Aʀᴄʜɪᴠᴇ: Pᴇɴᴛᴀɢᴏɴ Sᴛᴜᴅʏ Tʀᴀᴄᴇs 3 Dᴇᴄᴀᴅᴇs ᴏғ Gʀᴏᴡɪɴɢ US Iɴᴠᴏʟᴠᴇᴍᴇɴᴛ

Upon the first extended moments that he gets to himself, after Shiv has exhausted everything she's got to say on the matter and then asked him how the retreat was, and eventually gone to bed... Tom wanders his home like he's a stranger to it. More of one than he frankly is, anyway. He runs his hands along the walls and the shelves, appreciating their sturdiness, finding details that in past months had escaped his notice. He grips the warm carpet with his feet and slowly, properly regains his land-legs.

All Tom told her was that her dad was paranoid about no one supporting the Pierce acquisition—that he got a little scary, ha, ha. If either of her brothers tell her the truth later, she should understand why he wouldn't want to tell the whole story.

She should, but will she? He can hear it already. The insistence that such an example of instability in her father is something that could affect this deal, the company, her career, and therefore she deserves to know. The nitpicking once he defends himself—that you say you were so scared, but you jumped when you didn't have to?

His stomach turns over at the thought. At any thought. When she wakes up, he decides. He'll tell her to ask Gerri. That soothes his insides well enough.

So effectively, in fact, that when his feet touch the cold tile of the bathroom and a bright red lacy thing catches his eye, his heart rate doesn't change whatsoever. But he does approach the dirty clothes hamper and stare down into it, propping himself on the wall. Sheer panties and their matching brassiere stick out of the top, flagging him down.

What did you get up to, he'd tried to ask before the Pentagon Papers story was shoved in his face, and again when it was done. Shiv shrugged and called it a lazy weekend. What sort of lazy activity she'd wear these for, Tom wonders.

Why she wouldn't try harder to hide it, he wonders even more fiercely.

Why no particular devastation is kicking in, no impulse overtaking him to run these to their bedroom and wake Shiv up and demand an answer... Tom is made to think of his time sitting on the shore of the Danube, waiting and waiting to be picked up, and being unable to muster all that much relief that he'd survived. Because—one thing that Shiv won't know, because he won't be the one to relay the night's events, see-on his way down, in the seconds before hitting the water, he was comforted to think of how sorry the lot of them would be if he did die. If the water was too shallow, or if he hit a rock, or drowned. How the horror would cease to be his.

But he didn't. And it didn't. Now he's staring down at his wife's lingerie which she wore without him present, just staring and staring, willing it to mean nothing. He stares until red is only a color, the fabric is just fabric, and shapes are just shapes, and everything else is the same, too.

*

Word is, Logan's meetings with him are a decently sized chunk of Nixon's decision to call for an injunction. The man won't talk about it openly—not where Tom is present. But it makes sense. As much sense as can be gleaned from his boss's relationship with the president.

Nixon was initially leaning toward neutrality on the Pentagon Papers in spite of the total illegality of their leak to begin with, given that none of it has anything to do with him. That much was reported on and televised. He went on record saying that he has no issue with criticism of the corrupt presidents that came before him. But within a few days he had to retract that statement, having seen reason, having been made one way or another to fear the precedent that would be set if he didn't stop them from being published. No one wants the executive branch of the national government to face a massive-scale inquiry at a time like this. It wouldn't stop with the Times. RBN and affiliates would be hit right alongside it.

And given Logan's personal relationship with not only Nixon himself but some past presidents too... who knows if his name, or at least his company is in there somewhere. Shiv brought that up when Tom had wondered aloud what exactly her dad and Tricky Dick were talking about. That, and the very same thing that makes up the first announcement Logan makes that Tom is permitted to know:

Five days in, Pierce begins publishing excerpts. He comes back from DC seemingly just for that—to tell them all that they've got no choice but to move up this meeting. He's pulled all stops. Must be why Frank is in the room and half the rest aren't.

As far as Pierce has to see it for this to have any chance of success, and thus as far as any specifics on the choreography should be passed around, it's not company to company. It's family to family. And yet.

"Your morale better be fucking boosted," he says. "Because this is our one chance. We cannot wait for that injunction to be fought. We're doing this. This weekend. Be ready."

**

The pitch is that they are more alike than different, so they've got a Roy or Roy-adjacent for every Pierce. Fortunately there is no one that Frank knows of who would be a particular match for Greg. Unfortunately, Tom overhears the way that Roman re-words this to his father:

"I'd sure be surprised if they also had an estranged cousin who Nan's daughter's husband was keeping as a pet..."

Greg is out of the room and nothing but glad to not bear this responsibility two weekends in a row. However spiteful Tom then feels knowing that the other man gets to stay home and smoke grass while he gets on yet another plane... he doesn't wish at all that Greg had to be here. If anyone most wants the plan to be shifted around in a way that might actually allow for some stretched match, it's ironically Shiv and her insistence that she, alongside Logan, should be paired against Nan. Her father unsurprisingly ignores this. He won't entertain the notion that he's more analogous to the deceased Dad Pierce than he is to the current CEO, nor even that Shiv's womanhood is a useful angle. Says he's got Marcia for that.

At the same time, that refusal seems so ludicrous that Tom doesn't have an issue granting Shiv's request to talk to Logan for her. She's got a liberal-leaning political career, after all. She's had her own time in the spotlight. She consulted not long ago for a grassroots campaign of which Pierce published articles in support.

Tom still isn't surprised, not at all, by Logan's counter: And if we use that, she'll have to explain why she quit, won't she?

He simply turns and shrugs in her general direction.

"I knew your father, you know," is how the speech starts, after Logan has performatively clarified to the room that he's no good at speeches. "Great man, Hank... In fact, RBN owes some of its first financing to him and his bank, from back before he even bought your predecessors and turned it into the small empire you've got..."

Shiv turns to Tom and mutters, low as possible into his ear—"Yeah—only because he couldn't get a loan from Hearst." Tom smirks and chokes the laugh that rises in his throat.

"...So I suppose you could say that we owe you. Heh. Quite honestly—what I'd like to say here to set the tone, really... is that that's precisely our gamble. We owe you. We do. So I only hope, Nan, that... Well, that you like us enough to let us give back. Thank you."

The room does their cheers, and Shiv leans in again after sipping her drink.

"Break bumper my ass... It's a fucking old-fashioned."

"It's—it's not a bad one, though," Tom says lightly. "...You think they all bought that?"

"...Eh."

The crowds aren't quite one-to-one. Most every Pierce is a cousin of some sort, or married in. But they're close-knit nevertheless and in some ways are simply uncanny stand-ins. Tom watches Connor and Maxim in particular, with the same graying hair and taste in ties and deep knowledge of world events—even if they disagree on interpretations. Roman and his girlfriend and Naomi, in the nook by the window, all do the same bohemian sort of lean.

Tom's own assignment, Mark... well, the strangest part of all is that the other man brings up the Looney Tunes mirror joke before he has the chance to say it. They laugh together easily, with no need to grease the wheels, and nod along to each other's career stories. Following the instruction from Frank to avoid actually talking about the news, Tom sticks mainly to his time at Waystar and before. His days of working up.

"Ah!—a real live bootstraps man, I like it," Mark laughs, patting him on the shoulder. "I envy you. No really—I do. I find things far more interesting when they don't come easy... That's why I'm working on my second phD, hah..."

He tells Tom that he's working through Brown at the moment but when he was young attended Dartmouth, the mention of which has Tom delighted. He so rarely has the opportunity to play upon their football rivalry with Cornell anymore. Only problem is that Mark isn't at first aware that it's all tongue-in-cheek, and he flinches at the fake fisticuffs that Tom throws up, and Tom must then awkwardly reassure him.

"There a fight going on over here?" comes Shiv's voice while he does. "Should I break it or pull up a seat?"

They all laugh appropriately—though Tom can tell at once that Shiv's presence has made Mark uncomfortable. He takes it upon himself to tell her what Tom just explained to him, but after that, when she sticks around, his tone changes.

She's meant to be with Marnie, who Tom does admittedly notice little resemblance beyond their statuses as educated women. But it's Logan's orders. While Mark talks and Shiv audibly listens, Tom glances back to check whether or not there's an excuse for Shiv having abandoned post. To his relief, the woman does seem busy with Gerri. Then he returns to the conversation at hand and finds himself late to a quip from Shiv that does not land.

Mark quickly changes the topic.

"So—how long have you two been married? Any kids on the way?"

"I thought you wanted this deal to work, Shiv."

"And I thought you didn't?"

"So wait—you were intentionally blowing it with Mark?"

"Blowing it? I did fine—!"

"Well—"

"We were having a perfectly normal conversation until he—"

"Sure, but he didn't like it. He didn't like it, Shiv. As a man, I could tell what—"

"Oh, as a man... right, right."

"Yes, as a man! He—I'm not saying it's a good thing, Shiv—"

"And I'm sure you provided nothing but stimulating dialogue yourself—"

"—but just, listen, I pretty easily got the sense that Mark isn't..."

"Isn't what?"

"...You know. Particularly... interested in what women have to say. At least about the field he's in."

"Oh! Well in that case—"

"Obviously he's capable of being polite about it. But you did kind of just—join without warning. He thought he was having a regular conversation of equals and then all of the sudden—"

"Of equals! Oh, of equals..."

Tom regrets most of what's said in that sidebar—by either of them. It's bad enough with Logan coming down as hard as he is on strategy. It's his own fault, really. He picked the worst possible time to be a man, he supposes.

The alternative is nevertheless mortifying. He bows his head and kisses Shiv's hand and apologizes and wants nothing more than to just be home. Away from all these beautiful paintings, these Georgian revival mansion halls, this old money that he was living in minutes ago... He would give it all up in an instant for his square, gray bed.

He tries to tell her that he just does not feel that the risk of undermining her father's plan right in front of him—or anyone who will report back to him, for that matter—is worth it. And she should have heard the details about Austria by now. She should know why.

"Just be smart about it," is all she tells him.

*

There are no strict seating arrangements at dinner, other than Nan's "official" spot in the center left. So it's with incredible ease, nevermind the reluctance, that Tom picks up the pace and grabs himself and Shiv the seats across from there. When Logan chooses his own spot seconds later, it's the lack of organization that bothers him most, thankfully. Before Nan herself actually shows up he's relatively unsubtle in questioning why Mark of all people gets an end seat.

"I like being as close as possible to an exit," the man says frankly. "I spend so much time around flammable things—books, you know. The catastrophe of a library fire is on my mind constantly. Just like to feel safe!"

"And Nan... accommodates that," says Logan. He puts on a doglike smile. "How nice."

The woman of the house arrives soon with a platter of roast goose and... little appetite, apparently, for schmoozing. Not from him. Shiv can pat Tom on the leg all she wants—there's no interrupting Nan's decision that they're all getting dinner and a show.

Naomi delivers a Shakespearian monologue that the Roys are utterly unprepared for. While they begin to feast, buffet-style, several of the Pierces are suddenly equipped with questions designed to either humiliate Logan's family or goad them into humiliating themselves. Some of them work. Peter makes a point of asking across the table about Tom and Shiv's plan for children, the answer for which was preemptively coached by Frank to ensure that the group appear of similar mind—maybe in a couple years, we're not sure, we want to make sure that it doesn't interfere with our careers, you know...

It makes Tom feel a bit nauseous to say, especially when Mark knows what was said before and can certainly hear them now. But it's a hell of a lot better than hearing Shiv laugh at the notion that she'd ever be a mother while he simultaneously grinned and said hopefully soon.

They haven't talked about it. They haven't had time.

Nan leans left down the table to get Logan's attention perhaps a fraction of a second after Shiv pokes Tom in the side to signal an opening.

"It's been a lovely evening with your family so far," she tells him with her perpetually bright smile. It's the shape of her eyes. "But I must say there is a frank question on my mind that I'd like answered straight from the horse's mouth, because otherwise I'd have no clue. You said earlier that you owed us. What precisely, then, would you be giving us?"

Logan takes a moment to glance around with some incredulous humor.

"...You mean other than money?"

"Of course. The money is to buy us. I'm not talking about price, here. I'm asking what you would give us."

"...Ah." The man wears a decently convincing face of amusement. "Well... at risk of being too candid, I'd say that your outlet would enjoy a tad more... off-the-books freedom? Mm?"

Several mouthfuls of air are exhaled across the table.

"Oh! My... If you're suggesting what I think you're suggesting—"

"Oh, I won't tell you what I'm suggesting," Logan chuckles, then pops a bite in his mouth.

"...then I'd have to say I'm also very certain that Pierce would face an equal amount of restrictions on what we publish, due to a new executive bias. I would like my paper to maintain certain integrity, Mr. Roy."

"I've never seen a newspaper without an executive bias... Pierce must be very special not to have one."

After an impressively short pause, and with a level voice all the same, Nan tells not just Logan but the room: "I think we are quite special. Pierce has had its investigative reporters in Vietnam—not just flying above it, but in it, and coming back with real, uniquely firsthand truth. I should then ask, what has RBN done?"

Logan breathes.

"Well... it hasn't sent young, healthy men to get a bullet inches from their face for the sake of a few photographs."

"Our reporters are brave. Yours go no further than 5th Avenue."

"To each their own need, isn't it? I won't argue with you that our methods are different... but it is my stance that diversification is valuable. Your brave reporters would become our brave reporters. I'll still have my faces fit for televisions and for the magazines, and you can absolutely keep recruiting the ones with a death wish. I'll just be the one paying 'em! And you won't lose your pretty white house."

The audience on either side clearly agrees that Logan won a point there. Nan still comes back.

"Mm... why us? That's another thing I'd like to know. Why not the Journal? Why not branch out further, expand your reach the same way you've done with your studios? LA Times, The Globe, The Guardian... Is it because you're already each of their eminence grise unbeknownst to us?" It's now her turn to chuckle, and she allows a few others to follow. "...Are we just the final fish to fry?"

"Ha-ha, no, no... I'll admit to you, Nan, I had naively believed that... that newspapers were a thing of the past."

Shiv squeezes Tom's thigh as if to say oh, he's 'admitting'...

"I've realized, however, that they are crucial to the public's perception of the state of the world. So many are turning off their TVs all of the sudden. Can you believe that? Well—you probably can. You've known forever that a paper can be rolled up and kept in your pocket. It's news wherever you go. Marvelous thing—it's a wonder that I grew up with it and managed to forget for these past couple decades, eh?"

"Oh, it sure is. Though you still haven't said—"

"Why you? Because I respect you! It's a classic underdog story, yeah? You're comparatively small even after all these years, I want to help you grow. The chairmen in your own company underestimate you, I want to back you. The Times is staring down at you through a straw while you're at the bottom of a fucking glass—excuse my language, I want to spit in their eye! Pierce is doing great things. Let's take on the world hand in hand, I say."

One wonders if it's the vulgar slip that does it.

"...I have no intent to take on the world," Nan says, head bowed to her salad. "I just want to report on it."

"And if the world takes you on? I think we all know that a certain powerful arbiter of it would like to." Logan already sounds gruffer, more frustrated.

"Mm... That's strategy talk. I think that's best avoided at the dinner table, wouldn't you agree?"

In place of dessert wine, the Pierces expect them to carry around glasses of mousse with tiny spoons while they mill about. It's not bad. Tom just feels silly. Taking his final chance to talk to Nan while holding a spoon that makes him feel like a giant is silly. At Shiv's advice, he just hurries to finish it so that his mouth won't be full.

While he does, he tours the walls at a more reasonable pace. It allows him to happen organically upon the hostess, at which point Tom tells her, truthfully, that she has a lovely home. She thanks him, and he goes on,

"It reminds me of my grandmother's. You actually remind me of her, to be perfectly honest. Oh—not that you're particularly old," he laughs.

"Oh, no, I am!" she insists. "I'm certainly getting there! Though I have many years to go... A lot more than Mr. Roy, at risk of sounding morbid. I don't suppose that you've got any idea when he intends to step down, or who he intends to announce? It must be soon. He seems a master at avoiding the question..."

"Um—"

Tom blinks and swallows and resists the urge to look for his wife, whatever corner of the room she's keeping an eye on them from. It feels suspicious that this opportunity should have walked right into his lap rather than sit out of reach until he dug his way through. Nan Pierce smiles at him over a polite spoonful of mousse. Tom smiles back, rosy-cheeked.

"Ah, well... I don't think he's actually told anybody... but—"

"You are the Chairman of RBN, correct? I don't believe we've actually talked."

"Ah—a chairman, yes." He doesn't know why the hell he had to specify that. He moves past it and sticks out his free hand, introduces himself by name, and then as—"son-in-law to Logan Roy."

"Oh, I've done my research, I know. That's why I asked."

"...Right. Well. As far as... stepping down... Logan is just, very prideful about his health, I think."

"Mm. So many men are."

"And I think he doesn't want to appear to be weak, or admitting defeat by making any sort of plan to step down. I'm sure he will, he just..."

"I understand. It's not surprising that he's secretive even to his own family... Well. S'pose I'll have to ask myself. Unlike you lot, I have some leverage."

"But—but whenever he does," Tom rushes to say, when it seems Nan herself has forgotten the whole of the question she asked, "I would say... I really can't say anything at all. For certain, anyway. But there is a... working theory."

"Oh? ...Amongst the court, as it were?"

Tom chuckles, still unsure if he should say but deciding that he has little choice anyway.

"Amongst myself. And my—Siobhan. She—we believe there's no chance it won't stay within the family... and, also, I'm sure you've noticed for yourself that neither son is exactly leadership material."

"Logan's found himself a real lion in winter, then."

"Hah—yes... Very lucky for all of us that we're only a media conglomerate and not the twelfth-century monarchy!"

"Absolutely. What would that make me, do you think? I suppose a small, independent kingdom... King Logan would simply lay siege instead of offering me riches."

"Exactly. Progressive times, as they say... um, speaking of, Nan. At risk of speaking with too much authority... what I can tell you to expect, regarding Royco's leadership, is that... perhaps you could look to your own marriage."

Her eyes widen with the most genuine surprise that Tom has seen from her all day. Then they soften again, before she responds:

"My marriage, huh? What do you know about my marriage?"

She bristles for the most imperceptible moment. Her tone is challenging, but still friendly. Tom doesn't know what to do except to speak plainly.

"I... only know how it ended, I suppose. My condolences."

"Mm. I appreciate that, Mr. Wambsgans. I was very lucky, you know, to have had a marriage that was first a good partnership... So many people don't realize how necessary that is. You see couples getting divorced left and right these days—some say it's an awful time, but I say the leading cause is young, stupid people rushing headfirst into marriage in the first place, basing it on passion alone... Then the passion fades, and they can no longer stand each other."

Nan utters this observation with a shrug so casual, and oddly dismissive, that it feels like truth.

"...I'll let you in on an open secret, Tom," she continues when he nods. "My husband—of blessed memory—was truly my best friend. Well—that's no secret. But what a lot of people don't know, outside of my immediate family, is that there never was any passion between Ted and I. And we never tried to pretend that there was."

"You... nothing?" Tom frowns, but Nan's smile across him doesn't waver. "At all?"

"I notice that you're not asking what the point of marriage was... Good sign for you and Shiv, I hope." And she glances over to where the woman in question is, which almost makes Tom start. He glances with her and for that split second finds his wife smiling. When she looks back, her face changes. "...Before I leave you to it, let me ask you something, Tom."

His imagination runs instantaneously with all that Nan has already been saying. He swallows.

"Alright."

"With all that I was saying about RBN at the dinner table, why didn't you chime in? You're a chairman. That should mean you oversee the goings-on more directly. Or does it?"

"Of course it does," he says, at least half-honestly. It's far easier to answer than what Tom thought she was going to ask. "It was just... well, not my argument to have."

That tells her all that she needs to know.

In the morning, with Shiv's presence requested by Nan, Logan promises that Nixon is going to be finicky, he's gonna stall, but he will give the papers up to Congress, and journalistic freedom will win. For now. He's looking a lot further into the future than that.

He tells Nan to go ahead, wait until he's proven right, and then she can give him a call to let him know she's changed her mind.

Pierce has conducted some polls, however, and support for Nixon is looking pretty wobbly. Nan isn't convinced that he'll even be re-elected.

"Oh, he'll be re-elected," was the last line of the meeting, Shiv tells him.

**

After years of leaving his world up to TV and the flesh-and-blood people around him, Greg buys a newspaper. He buys several. Every edition from every printer that's allowed to exist before the injunction. His apartment floor is littered with them for much of his intended weekend of leisure, as he mistakenly takes a pep pill for a distraction and only winds up manically reading whatever he can get his hands on. For all his time spent in the protests, all the time he spent either high out of his mind or viscerally scared, the war was even worse than Greg ever thought. And it was his own government's fault. And they were lying about it for decades.

If they could just lie like this, he keeps thinking, with no ending, no conclusion—if they could just lie like this, if they could just lie...

Who knows what they're lying about right now, he eventually decides without satisfaction.

He's working for a company that's trying to buy one of these fucking papers.

Who knows what anyone will be allowed to know, if his uncle gets his way.

*

"I know. I know you said. I guess I just thought... things might change? When we actually did marry for—for the right reasons."

"The right reasons...," she sighs, and when Tom looks to her, she's staring at some corner of the wall. "...Yeah. I just—listen, Tom, I'm not saying that my mind is made up for good, but I cannot promise anything."

"Right."

"Because I... the idea of letting that happen to my body, and... and me? Being a mother? You met my mom, you know I'm... I don't want to repeat that. I've already told you all that."

"Right. I understand."

Somehow the same sort of hope that he just laid out has stayed, unwavering, until Shiv's explanation. It seems now for the first time that Tom looks ahead to a future where he never progresses from husband to father, just stays a husband and nothing new ever comes...

"So really—seriously, don't hold onto hope for that, Tom," she says.

Then why the hell am I here? sits poisonously on the tip of his tongue. He has no way to get rid of it.

"...I get it, Shiv, honey, I do. I didn't marry you for your womb. Don't worry about it."

*

At the very end of June, after it's been determined that neither RBN nor the big man himself are referenced in any capacity—judging by Logan's shift in mood around the office, all of the leaked Pentagon documents are formally released, and all outlets may legally resume publishing.

In the same day, Tom is told by Logan that no RBN channels are to do any televised equivalent. They report on events, not gossip. If their viewership wants to read the documents, they can buy a copy of the Washington Pierce, and their anchors will tell them that.

The next morning, word of upcoming celebrations reach Tom's ears by way of Gerri. Nan has made the call.

The way that the implications of the news constricted Greg's chest, combined of course with amphetamines, is missing from his time at Uncle Logan's house party. It's relatively small, with the simple luxury of good food and drink that he's got no reason to still be awed about. But he finds it easy to give up his qualms and just be there. Logan is in fact so jovial as to pat Greg on the back like he truly is his brother's grandson, like he likes him. Like his own nightmare less than three weeks ago was exactly that; the monster that he met lives in his head. At least for the evening.

His workdays in general aren't nearly the catastrophe that he'd envisioned in that deeply affected state of mind. He always becomes convinced that he's built from straw, then... He forgets how strong the force of mundanity remains every minute that he's not sitting right in it. If anything, the actual tasks become easier.

Tom clearly recognizes his competency because he's leaving him alone to do the work more and more. The man returned from DC with his first ever open curiosity about any auditions that Greg might have gone for while he was gone, and then the smallest flicker of delight when Greg had nothing to tell. But not much else.

That not much else, to a disappointment so vague that it outright resists conscious thought... lingers. Even at Logan's party Tom was withdrawn. He remained by Shiv's side and stayed silent even there, and felt to Greg like an entirely different man.

It's a pervasive emptiness, an echo of the weeks following Tom's wedding as it makes it to the office. A jump through time of some sort. This struggle that Greg finds in maintaining any eye contact with Tom, and this decline in interaction altogether as long as no new developments are made with Pierce, feels simply unsuited to these days. Or any. The panic of a supposed shooting was in some ways, guiltily, preferable.

Greg can't sit nor sleep with the discomfort, so he avoids thinking about it. Austria or Tom or his job or the world around it. He does the nine-to-five that he once dreaded so dearly and comes home and lights up, and if he steps out into the street and takes a look at any agencies' bulletin boards, it's so lazily that he practically ensures nothing will stand out.

Helped by the shame of falling once again into old habits, he languishes and does not look at the calendar. He feels incredibly stupid when, the next time he checks, hardly a week has passed.

It feels later like Kendall has waited specifically for the news of Jim Morrison's overdose to die down, particularly on their own channels, before knocking on Greg's door again. This time he's brought a friend. She's familiar in the way a celebrity looks, with her long lips and fashionable mullet. Before quite taking her in Greg insists that they close the door, lest the moderately cold air get out.

"Naomi Pierce," she introduces herself. That explains it.

"We hit it off," Kendall tells him. "And yes, she knows I'm married—I saw the look in your eyes, Greg, I knew your little candy-ass was getting ready to 'accidentally' spill it anyway. Don't fuckin' worry. Everyone knows it's unhappy. Why lie? Anyway, I told her all about you. Mind if she gets high with us?"

"Oh, uh—"

"Cousin Greg the movie star...," she says to herself, pulling away from Kendall to look around the pad.

"Ah—hah, I'm not really..."

"Come on, 'course you are, Greg," says Kendall, securing his place in Greg's schedule.

*

Mid-July and Pierce has been quiet. Tom has little else to offer Logan on the budget-cuts front. He asks for Greg's advice on the matter sincerely albeit across the room, one elbow planted on his desk and the same sweaty hand sticking to his cheek.

"How hot of a minimum do you s'pose I can put on the thermostat before we get riots in here?"

"Seventy-five," Greg doesn't hesitate to answer. His chair creaks with the abrupt correction of his slouch.

Tom nods, thinking at the same time of suit jackets on the backs of chairs and shirtsleeves rolled up to elbows, and afterward thinking of money, and signs off on seventy-seven.

*

Naomi has something to attend to overseas, but she still manages to act as a second guest. Greg has to admit it's kind of nice seeing Kendall have something to be happy about. She seemed nice herself. She was honest that her cousin intends to draw out this acquisition if only to keep her options open, and that those options will likely remain open until after this whole business with the Pentagon leak has passed. And she complimented his posters. And without her Kendall is all of the sudden the talkative one, with Naomi said this, Naomi wants that, Naomi was telling me, Naomi knows this guy...

"You hear what I said, Greg?"

It was beginning to run together, admittedly. He exhales a cloud of smoke and promptly blames it.

"I was telling Names about that movie idea that I started on acid, remember," Kendall repeats, and Greg's ears proceed to relay everything else late, so he knows where it's going but the other man tells it cleaner now—"and she basically demanded that I find those script pieces out of the garbage, so I did, and she liked them, I thought she was being nice but she really insisted, and she made these suggestions on the fly, this—this road scene, and some commentary on Nixon, and... maybe even my dad? It's risky, but—that doesn't matter yet. She's kind of a creative genius, Greg."

"And she...?" Greg starts hacking before he can finish, but still meets Kendall's eyes at the end.

"Wants to fucking help fund it, man, yes. If I just, y'know. Can get a script together. Honestly... I should get it done here. I could. It's a good atmosphere, fits the vibe I'm going for... and if I can just get a few good days and an ounce of coke for each..."

"Jeez, a whole ounce?"

"Why not? Guaranteed productivity right there. In fact—as long as we're on dope, I wanna make the most of it. Good drug for outlining, yeah? Gimme something, Greg, let's..."

"Hash out some ideas? Eh?" Greg offers, alongside a pad of paper. He laughs more than Kendall does.

*

It's a mean joke that diverts eyes from Tom to Greg at the start of a meeting, it's a hand gripping his shoulder later as he's turned away, it's a nice lunch once a week, it's timeless stretches of professional silence in-between.

*

Shiv has convinced her father to anoint her with the informal title of consultant and bring her in for select corporate decisions. She's undeniably qualified to help come up with words. That's so much of what this job is. Finding words.

Her first task is to aid in spinning the DoJ's announcement, after all this time, that they won't be investigating the Kent State shootings. RBN needs to make that fact seem less than horrifying. Rational, even, if at all possible. Anything that'll throw a wrench in the ongoing process of defaming Nixon's administration.

Tom, keeping a vivid mind of everything Shiv has contributed to that exact process in private, can hardly bring himself to watch her now. He has to wait until they are, again, in private to express any pride that she's made it.

"Not really," she shrugs, voice turning sour. "He's still holding me at arm's length—just bringing me in when it suits his needs and saves him money..."

Tom really doesn't know what to tell her. He's trying. She starts and ends every conversation. If he starts it, she changes it. He's getting tired.

Eventually she convinces herself, with a bit of his help— "Pierce taking their sweet time could be a good thing, really. By the time they come around my dad will have had no choice but to see me prove myself again and again, and... it'll make me look plausible. I think it really will, Tom."

It's the driest weeks that he's had in years, all without particular disappointment, and one night that Shiv seems to want to make up for all of it, during which she breaks him in half.

*

It's late August, and Greg is brought back like he always is—feeling that twinge of self-hatred for being so stupid, so stuck in time, so easily tided over by a touch... and then it continues. The tension with which he leaned in is gone, rolled between Tom's palm and his thumb, met with the other hand on the opposite side. Greg drops his pen, lets go of a breath.

He's afraid to say anything in case it ends. In case whatever pity that Tom is harboring dissolves into annoyance. Hatred. Whatever else. He doesn't know anything these days. He didn't even think he was so obviously in need of this.

Tom's big, strong hands work his shoulders and neck so well, though. Greg forgets everything. He can't help it.

"Mm—that's really nice..."

It's so little of a surprise when it ends with no warning, Tom gone from the room entirely in the same second, that Greg finds himself unable to even blame the man. He's busy.

*

"Semi-erotic art," she insists. "It's not pornography, Greg."

"Yeah—it's just... using the human body as a tool, to draw the attention of the masses to important issues."

"Exactly!"

Kendall eases his worry just slightly. Greg tries to nod. Looking at this rough draft of the script, though...

Keeping it from being too obvious either that the subject of this satire was specifically Kendall's own father, or that Kendall is involved in the production, was well-established as a must. Meanwhile despite Naomi's influence on the method of narrative it still seems to Greg fairly on the nose. The Logan stand-in having Nixon in a cage... it's not exactly an out-there metaphor, is it? It would be the same sort of thing if they made a tiny Nixon doll and had Not-Logan put him in his pocket. Furthermore—

"Right, right, but... my human body...?"

"Don't get insecure on me now, man," Kendall laughs. "This is your big break! This is the acting credit that's gonna boost your portfolio, put you over the line—make you viable to those director friends that I told you about, yeah?"

"Don't worry," says Naomi, more sympathetic, "you won't be completely nude even in the erotic scenes. And most of the real sexual attention will be on the girls, anyway, if that's what you're worried about."

"Oh, um. Truthfully, I guess I'm more worried about... getting in trouble? Like, if Logan sees this—"

"That's what the aliases are for, dude. Keep up."

"Sure, but like... my face? I still look like me. Someone could recognize me, probably... right? "

"Greg—if and when this gets big enough for someone to recognize you, you won't even need to be at RBN anymore. It won't matter. Isn't this what you want?"

Naomi and Ken both are staring up at him skeptically, now, and Greg is holding the result of their efforts in his hands... and nevermind his discomfort, what he's read so far is more compelling than all of Willa's play. And a smaller stack of paper, too. Less words to memorize. Of course it's what he wants. He's gonna be a fucking movie star.

"Yeah—I'm sorry," he says, pouring out as much gratitude as he can muster. "Just... dotting my tees. Y'know. Hah... When do we start filming?"

*

The uprising at Attica Prison has got a weeks-long stranglehold on every news outlet, surely, but RBN has objectively garnered the most protesting outside their building in the wake of it. Discrepancies between their coverage and others, framing of the narrative, bias toward the state... the usual sort of thing. But bigger than average. Daunting to even drive past. Looking down at the crowds from the top floors churns Tom's stomach in a familiar direction. Greg, noticeably, refuses to do it at all.

Tom finds the excuse, then, without looking for it, without having any idea how happy he'll be to deliver it until he does, accosting him right in the middle of the bullpen.

"Listen—Greg, short notice, but I need you to go out for me."

"Oh. Coffee?"

"Hah—a little bit further than coffee, bud..."

Tom gives him the address to an office in Connecticut. He's determined it as the sole location of records of certain expired accounts that are unlikely to be urgently needed anytime soon, but... better now and safe than later and sorry and all that.

"Actually, you're already going home in a couple hours," Tom says, when he's yet to catch a shine of understanding in Greg's eyes, "why don't you go tomorrow. And, you know what... maybe drive."

"Um—really?"

"I'd rather compensate you for the gas than the plane ticket. Who knows how long it'll take you to make those copies, anyway... even your hunk a' junk's more reliable than an airport wait. I want those accounts the morning after, Greg. No later."

He still doesn't realize, somehow, not through a day of fresh air, of quiet roads through thick woods, of nice old ladies and sweet-smelling cedar in the paneled walls of that office... not even on the way back, several salaried hours of daylight to spare.

No, Greg has to revisit the struggle of navigating Manhattan streets and remember that he has every right to head straight home—that Tom gave him until tomorrow. That it's not until then that he'll have to suffer that crowd again. He has to try and find that he can't bring himself to dread how dense it may still be in the morning.

He inhales his freedom first upon closing his apartment door behind him, feeling beautifully awake and uncalled whatsoever toward his stash. By the TV, either. The whim that Greg acts upon carries him to his bookshelf, and then to his bed, where he remains indefinitely.

Tom is handed the documents with a thanks, man, and it's all he needs for a while.

*

Part of Greg, for all the weeks of waiting, and memorizing the script, and letting his cousin use his place to write and get high... part of him did know. The inevitability was there, stretching itself over every solid thing that the idea garnered. It just felt horrible to give into. He wanted to get over it. He should get over it.

That's a prevailing thought, in his diaphragm more than his head, when he finally sees the fruits of Kendall's labor all in one spot. They've got this warehouse for two weeks, the man says. Almost everyone is cast—straight from the agencies, if not off the street. Sets have been built. The lights are up. Outdoor scenes can be done later. They've got a few big names scheduled for bait cameos. Accounting for small, probable hiccups, the rough cut is projected about six weeks out.

He wants to be an actor. He wants to be famous. He wants his face on the big screen. He does. He's desperately trying to grab ahold of that want all through the rehearsals.

Does he want his face attached to Toy President, is the question that blocks him.

Up to a point, Greg can do things that he doesn't want to do. Running lines with co-stars to find a rhythm is easy, even with the underlying knowledge of what the scenes will actually look like. Initially taking his clothes off to be fitted for a nude cover is easy. Simply not looking at the camera, or anyone behind it, is easy.

Convincing himself of his character—the young not-Logan opposite the multiple busty, female not-Nixons... was much, much easier before it was happening. Even then it was achieved through irony.

It's hard for him to tell how well he's actually doing in his first scene. Having started with the middle of the plot he's utterly ungrounded—he knows his lines, but he can't comprehend them. He feels so sure that Kendall should be demanding new takes. The lights beyond the room set are painfully bright. It doesn't matter that he doesn't look at them.

A manicured hand loosening his tie is what does it. He'd expected that exact sort of thing to mark the end in every corner of his mind since getting the script, conscious and otherwise. For a split second he wants very badly to push past, widen his boundaries, walk away with at least that pride... but some impatient thing inside of him refuses. That sultry, make-up laden face doesn't get any closer than inches from his own. It feels right for that to be the thing that does it.

"Sorry—cut!" he shouts, humiliation exploding with relief, dipping at once from the set and rushing back to the dressing room. "I just, I can't do this..."

"Greg, what?" he hears from multiple people, but mostly Kendall, who shouts after him: "You can't say cut! I'm the director, Greg, I say cut! Greg!"

A minute later, his cousin walks in on him pulling his jeans back on. The thrill of exiting the situation fades a bit. But he keeps dressing. He's feeling real again.

"I'm really sorry, Ken," he starts without looking at him, "I didn't realize until—I'm sorry, I just can't. I'm just, I'm not that kind of—"

"C'mon, Greg, you're not serious," Kendall laughs. "You were fine. Just get the fuck back out there."

"I..." Greg stares through the curtain, his confidence sparked up—but it reaches its zenith at less than halfway to the point of changing his mind, then falls again. "...Listen. I'm really sorry that I couldn't just say it before, but I—"

"What's going on here? Are you trying to tell me that you're backing out? After everything? I thought we were on the same wavelength. What the fuck."

"We are! Politically—obviously. I'm just uncomfortable with, with being the guy, you know? I tried to tell you, kind of, I just can't—"

"Oh, you're uncomfortable. Wow. Greg, you—"

"I just can't! Ken! I can't do it! I'm sorry. I am. I fucking am. I'll do something else on the movie, but I can't... I can't play an erotic parody of my own great uncle, which he might see, directed by my own cousin! Okay? You—"

"Uh—that is a gross mischaracterization of my vision and this project and you know it—"

"—call me a pussy, whatever, Ken, I just can't. I know you auditioned other guys for the role. Can't you use one of them?"

There's a chance, a foot of wiggle-room as far as Greg feels it and therefore pauses before grabbing his bag, that Kendall tells him no, there's no one else, you're the best man for this job by far. He still doesn't know that he could do it. But he might try.

There's another chance that Kendall tries to claim he has to, for which Greg is prepared to bring up the counterintuitiveness of taking his contract to court.

"I can't believe this," the man says instead, scarily calm. He almost smiles. He's definitely on something. When isn't he, these days. "You know that you're giving up your best shot by far, right? This was your ticket, and you're throwing it away—and for what, because you're scared? Gangly sexless baby scared of his own body? Huh?"

Greg just folds his neck in and frowns, more taken aback than personally insulted.

"Jesus, man..."

"Well fuck you. I don't need you, Greg. Not as much as you need me. You're this city's biggest fucking wannabe without me."

"Right—got it." And Greg reaches for his things, now, with his decision settling deeper and deeper as he walks out, Kendall still yelling after him the whole time.

"You spoiled fucking kid! You really think you'll be making any auditions that weren't handed to you? You think you've got a better shot moving up in the company? Wake the fuck up, Greg!"

"I'm sorry, everyone!" Greg yells out to the rest of the cast and crew, waving but too guilty to look. "Sorry!"

Kendall barks a laugh not dissimilar to his father's, behind him.

"No he's not! Don't believe him, any of you! He's not fucking sorry... Hey fuck you, Greg! You could've been a jewel in the crown of counterculture! But no! Oh hey, by the way, I'm sure it goes without saying but if you breathe a fucking word—"

It does go without saying. He's got the same insurance in return and feels confident of it, somehow, before the slam of the door cuts the other man off. He breathes so much better outside.

The only regret that follows him out of that warehouse, creating no new weight as the grief simply replaces any other shame, is for the previous six months.

*

Fully expecting Tom to put up a fight in giving him the week off, he was honest that it was for a gig. He figures now that he might have liked the excuse to not go at all. Something like Tom won't let me, he says he needs me, might have preserved some rapport between him and Kendall.

He still did make some promises for his already completely earned vacation days. And he doesn't foresee Tom forgetting about them just because he decided to come back to work early.

Fuck Ken, Greg decides. He's got six days off and something to prove.

He's been asked before at these agencies.

"Are you available for adult performances?"

It never occurred to him, once he got the clarification that it meant sex or the illusion thereof, to answer anything but no. Greg thinks about it now. He still says no.

But he thinks about it more after he leaves, and he thinks about being gangly and sexless, and he eventually parks his aching legs in Central Park and strips yesterday of the potential career suicide, of the tangential whiff of incest, of the baffling and terrifying shape of a naked woman... and he's left, he thinks, with a fairly insignificant nugget. If that was the only thing to get over, then maybe...

Maybe if he wasn't a mere political tool or proxy for a pervert audience. Maybe if the onlookers, ironically, were paying attention to him. If the interest were more than mechanic. If he wasn't just a necessary role. If he was just it.

Sweat sticks Greg's shirt to his stomach. He unpeels it to waft some air in there, dry it out, and the piece of him thinking of his own body, then, scans over the nearby trails. One man does make a few seconds of eye-contact with him but jogs away. It doesn't matter. He's not Greg's type. It might not even matter if he was.

If he was the point. If someone just saw him, specifically him, and wanted to craft their art around him...

To be someone's muse. Even if it didn't put him in the mainstream—even if it only appealed to other people like him. Success changes shape. Away from Hollywood, exclusively independent. Maybe he looks at it like he's blacklisted, like he's got no choice. Maybe he chooses instead to see a reason to go to Europe. He thinks he might like that. Or he might not. It can't hurt to just see.

He's got five days and a city full of arthouse theaters at which to catch an underground flick, and surreptitiously leave a copy of his portfolio. Hell, why should he limit himself? He's got an indefinite number of weekends.

**

"It's not like it's a round number, Tom."

"Hah, yeah..."

"You're forty-three. That's nothing."

"Uh-huh."

"We did that whole getaway thing last year, anyway—"

"I met Paul McCartney—"

"Exactly. We can push it. It's no big deal. We're adults."

"...Yeah, no, obviously. When you get back let's just have a dinner, or—"

"And it's really not even my choice, Tom. My dad picked now for the trip. It's important."

"I know. Yeah."

*

"Hey, Greg. My well-oiled tinman. What are you doing tonight? Going anywhere to show off that new haircut?"

He smiles at the acknowledgment before he remembers what tends to lie behind a grin like that from Tom. The angle that the man's limbs make with Greg's desk bodes worse. Regardless, his cheeks stay pink while he processes the question and hesitates to make sense of something so simple.

"Not really, um... just seeing a movie, probably."

It's not a lie, however much it feels like one rather than the more innocent valuation of a private joke. Greg couldn't possibly relay how he's become in past weeks a regular Pink Narcissus. He's unsure that he could even avoid making that niche allusion which has formed the framework through which he thinks of all these ventures, if he did. The more specific claim that could still omit the more shameful meat—that his new moviegoing routine is largely supporting independent filmmakers and attempting to network—feels the moment it first sparks into Greg's head as even more deceptive.

That is, it would invite further questions, and then Greg would have to tell in total a larger number of lies. But in avoiding too many blatant untruths he'd also have to admit to a lack of success in what he's been pursuing. And why?—then, inevitably, another lie. Or else he confesses a lack of real effort, in its place the exact self-obsession that Tom has accused him of and which Greg has denied, quite genuinely in each moment, so many times.

Really, he thinks of how Tom asked about that gig when he got back from his weeks off, and he told enough of the humble truth then.

"Oh, perfect, yes," Tom says with a beat on the desk, "let's go see a movie."

Greg blinks. "Let's? Like, together?"

A bit of life quickly leaves and rejoins Tom's face.

"What, were you planning on going with someone else? You got a date, Gregory?"

"Uhm—" he wants to laugh, turns it into a cough when the implications occur to him—"no, um. Nah, I was... gonna go alone?"

"Well that's sad. Guess I'm doing you a favor, then—good," Tom says, patting him on the shoulder and charging off toward some unnamed obligation.

A Friday shift ends and evening plans begin in a manner both incredibly appropriate and unreal. It's been so long. But it's normal. These past months were dragging them down, and it's the noble thing of Tom to do, he believes, to step forward and cut the cord. They can just be fucking normal.

So he refuses to say a thing about this being the very first time that he's been in Greg's car—and Greg doesn't either, he just drives as asked, and he apologizes for the state of his car being not even particularly messy or old but just unlike the chauffeured rides that Tom is used to, nevermind that Tom is the one who decided this was simpler. If we don't take your tacky little Valiant now we'll have to come back for it later anyway.

"It's Friday," Tom does announce very shortly after the engine starts, as he produces and lightly shakes a tin from his pocket, assuming Greg will recognize it. "And Shiv is in England. You want some?"

"O-oh." He does, and he does. "Should I stay parked?"

"No, I'd love to just spill cocaine all over my suit and yours, Greg."

"To be honest, I do want to change out of my suit before we go anywhere?"

"...I missed ya, buddy," and in the same beat, far more deliberately than his words so that it might swallow them right up, Tom scoops out a bump to snort from his hand. Without question but a similar burn that he seeks to quash, if only because it seems like the thing to do with it, Greg follows suit.

"What d'you wanna see? Something new? I heard The French Connection is good."

"Mm... fuck the French."

"From the trailer I saw I don't think the movie is necessarily applauding the French—"

"Nothing foreign," Tom says, unrelated, just a rule.

He's trying to think. Greg has an easier time. Death in Venice is out, he supposes, even if it were appealing to sit through nearly three hours of no dialogue a second time on coke. Or if he wanted to risk that with Tom.

"Uh... does British count as foreign?" he asks. "I kinda wanted to see the Monty Python movie."

Tom gives him a look. He's surprised that Greg knows about them at all. The drip begins and he tries to close his throat.

"No comedy. And no—no fucking war movies, either."

Greg shrugs. "I'll watch anything. We could just drive around? See what's playing. Plenty of theaters play older stuff."

By older he means films that have been out for a few months. Who is Harry Kellerman, The Love Machine, and some other dramas reach Tom in the passenger's seat from their posters and inspire disappointment as their only useful feeling. After some prolonged minutes of stewing in it, or perhaps minutes of simply reaching a certain point of his high, he realizes what he's actually craving—

"Let's go see an oldie. Fifties or earlier. I wanna watch something black and white."

Greg snorts. Tom's head whips over.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing—just, the juxtaposition, I guess? Cocaine and then a classic."

"Those actors were all on coke before it even was coke, Greg. It was normal back then."

"It's fine—"

"If we see something with Brando in it? No way he's not coked up in the movie. It's not weird—"

"I'll watch anything, man," Greg repeats.

He's always loved the thrillers and the play adaptations of the early golden age. Slapstick and other silent movies never did much for Tom even as a child. But Hitchcock and Capra—Stewart, and Grant, and Peck... they never fail at a night of nostalgia for a time he never lived. Not as an adult, anyway. He's found the best escapism in the formulaic dialogue and rigid decorum of likely inaccurate depictions of Victorian and Edwardian-era polite society. Imagining that he might live then is a comfort in spite of everything.

The more rules there are about what you can or can't say, he's found vicariously, the more others pay attention to anything you might be talking around. Save for pre-code, there's a music that everyone is attuned to in those films. Tom wishes he could dance to it now. He thinks he would find it more intuitive than the language he speaks now.

"You choose," he tells Greg. There's just a few options at this theater. But again, he's told that the man will watch anything. This time Tom rolls his eyes. "It's no fucking fun to watch a movie with someone if they don't want to see it. Take the burden, Greg."

That's kind of rich, Greg doesn't say. He sighs. "Uh... you sold on black and white? No technicolor?"

"Why—you thinking Wizard of Oz?"

"Not... necessarily, there's—"

"I saw that when it first came out, you know. When I was nine. Imagine seeing that transition from sepia to color when you had no idea that was even possible yet. I think it was the first understanding I ever really had of filmmaking as an art form. Before I—in my dumb kid mind, obviously, I thought all movies just existed, not that there were people who actually worked hard to create them... S'what made me want to get into it all."

Tom remembers, his brain buzzing, sitting in that chair between his mother and father and finding himself so viscerally in Dorothy's place. He felt like he himself was seeing in color for the very first time. His world was brighter when it was over, when he stepped outside. He re-read the book the next week. He went and saw it again, by himself because he was embarrassed to ask his parents or any friends, when he felt the effect had worn off.

Tom hardly realizes how much he ran his mouth until the lone shuffling of feet on theater carpet goes on too long, and he looks away from the posters to Greg, who immediately says,

"Why didn't you?"

"Why didn't I what?"

"Get into it. Movies."

"What are you talking about? I was literally in the industry for most of a decade. Did you actually forget already, you—"

"No, but like, movies specifically," Greg clarifies in a haste that comes without trying, at this point. "Like films. Like you were just saying."

"Productions did plenty of films, Greg," Tom tells him.

He knows perfectly well that said films were all specials for pre-existing shows or 60-minute holiday episodes or animated shit for kids. Nothing particularly artful or with any high production value. Just following easy money. He can't seem to find anywhere to push those facts to.

His best effort is in forcing out a laugh. "It's basically the same thing anyway, TV and movies."

"...I guess so."

Greg breathes a little too loudly, and Tom is reminded that they're losing time. He points out a title that he doesn't recognize, or which is perhaps just too vague for it to have stuck in his mind if he's ever seen it, and drags his finger in the air toward the time.

"May They Talk starts in five minutes," he says, and heads at once to the desk for their tickets.

While Tom at least acts oblivious, Greg catches a brief, sharp eye from the lady behind the glass. He says nothing about it. Whether the other man didn't see the poster or simply doesn't care—it makes no difference to him. He's been willingly carted along this whole time. It's a kind of reprieve somehow, knowing that whatever happens in that small, dark auditorium isn't up to him.

No more than ten minutes past the opening credits, the romantic nature of the plot becomes so obvious that Greg has to glance over. Overtly amorous string instruments swell, and he feels certain that Tom will be changing his mind any moment now.

A glance is returned, but not in the shifty manner that he'd expected. It's as lazy as the rise and fall of Tom's chest.

He refuses to move, thereby ensuring that neither will Greg. His attention returns, unaffected but for some small interest, to a young Ingrid Bergman on the screen. It's practically unheard of for her to be playing anyone but a leading woman in this era, and instead she's the leading woman's older sister. One should then think to pay special attention to her character's role in the plot. Still staring ahead, Tom folds his arms and leans close to the other man to tell him so.

When Greg responds, Tom shushes him.

Greg checks—there aren't any other audience members to be courteous to. It's just Tom.

In the subtle fashion of days gone by, the love interest plays a game of cat and mouse with the main character on her family's estate. She wordlessly steals away, waiting to be spotted and watched down a corridor or past a pillar on the grounds, and after the man has caught sight of her with her guard down for long enough, she does it again, day after day. In the presence of her family, meanwhile, she finds every excuse to criticize him. It's all very English. Very Jane Austen but not.

For weeks he has associated the big screen with build-up but no catharsis, with drifting eyes and silent, unanswered requests for a hand to slide somewhere darker, with isolated and singular points of recognition that made it all worth it for the time being. And now, by a technicality, he has the one thing that he couldn't in all that time: the sad-eyed man who calls him obscene names when his coffee is too hot.

He's the only person that Greg would have to tell, and the last person that he would want to, were someone important to pick up his portfolio.

On top of the ambiguously presented class divide, and her already arranged marriage, and familial conflicts, she has every reason not to like him. He brings even more strife to the family than there already was. But she must, or the story wouldn't exist. It's as unremarkable as it is bizarre. That this film wouldn't stand the test of time makes complete sense.

"Today's my birthday," Tom mutters like it's no more than another piece of trivia.

Greg shifts, and looks, and looks back, deciding then to stare raptly at a truly bland, washed-out shot while he scoots closer.

"Happy birthday," he manages, without being shushed. Looking.

May they talk indeed. There's so little opportunity for them to speak directly to each other. The family and the staff do most of the talking. Greg abruptly decides that he gets it, that retroactively the past hour or so was in fact genius. He sits up straighter only to sink back again, slightly more parallel alongside Tom.

"When I first saw you I thought you were—" The man stops himself, distressed, pacing around a candlelit drawing room.

"...Were what?" the woman presses, desperate clearly to everyone but him.

There is silence in more than the film alone. Breath is held in the seats below. Hands fall between them.

"That you were beautiful," he tells her in a low, northern rumble.

A wonder that he could be heard across a room of that size. Suspension of disbelief and all that. Greg watches them cross the distance and feels a slow weight creep over his lap.

"I think I should like... very much... to kiss you," comes her aristocratic whisper, at the same time that Greg realizes that the fingers splaying out warm over his thigh are not his own.

His tight, shaky gasp is lost in the score. Faces meet onscreen, half-obscured, arms wrapping passionately around bodies but with no proof nor likelihood to begin with that lips have actually met, and yet Greg cares that it's happening. Something loosens in him and he accepts the miracle. A confidence that he's never known flows through him, correcting his posture again, unfolding his arm, working it over top the seats.

For a moment, his own hand splays out over Tom's opposite shoulder.

It ends before the scene does, with the man removing himself from the seat entirely, roughly claiming bathroom. The broad, dark shape of him passes over the screen and takes the climax with him, which cuts to black and fades into the last fifteen minutes of tying up loose ends.

Tom doesn't miss anything important. But he returns heavy and determined to leave a foot of space between himself and Greg.

Chapter Text

Even the Pierces are invited. They were asked to come to Christmas Eve as well but refused on principle of faith, nevermind that Hanukkah had already ended. A lot of nasty words were thrown around about it in the office, some centered on Nan's continued unwillingness to set a date, some clearly just for the hell of it. Nothing that Tom is willing to do more than paraphrase to Shiv.

Logan's own odd-numbered age passed with next to no fanfare compared to the hassle of last year's, and all holidays since have felt depressingly tedious. A series of significant dates coming and going with still no progress on the company's current major deal. No fewer riots or celebrity deaths to report on than in the more traditionally mundane stretches in the year, either.

Tom wonders if it may be simply the first December in a long time that Christmas hasn't absolutely claimed his career. He'd mention it to Greg if he didn't hate the idea of admitting the guy was right, that even at its most hectic he does miss entertainment—if Greg was even there.

No, he flew out to LA to visit his mom at every turn this season. Thanksgiving included. He said he missed her. He said he was worried about being in close quarters with Logan. The family accepted those excuses without being told them. Tom ground his teeth together in lieu of asking whether they'd even sent out an invitation for the guy.

This is the last of them and should therefore be the best of them, in its utterly undenominational elegance. Festivities project to be indistinguishable from the Gilded Age but for the lack of tophats and ascots. Every surface sparkles, just short of gaudy so long as enough black suits fill up the negative space. And they will, surely, by Logan's design to eschew any notion of exclusivity.

Tom arrives early before it quite can and, with an acceptable amount of champagne and his wife in the next room with her brothers, watches the door. He watches until a very tall man squeezes himself small through the threshold so as not to disturb the tinsel on all sides. And he finds the already silver and gold-laden room so suddenly and annoyingly bright that he must seize the opportunity to be the first to greet him.

"There he is, traipsing in here like some young, lost debutante... Oh." Just then Tom notices the much shorter, sterner, older woman that Greg has brought in tow. Delight overcomes him, and he sticks his hand out. "Ah... my mistake. I see he's actually the escort to this young lady."

"Uh... hah." With his mother's hand inches from a perfunctory kiss, the man himself in all his obvious discomfort keeps Tom's actual gaze. "Mom, this is Tom, Tom, this is... yeah."

Greg soon has the lot to pick from—Royco higher-ups of all flavors, local politicians, some not-so-local, their plus-ones... His mother has already escaped him to find the bar and after that likely a chair in a private study, somewhere. He couldn't picture her playing the socialite if he wanted to; by her own admission, she's grown out of the wild girl that Greg has heard she once was. The promise of free booze in this instance simply outweighed the risk of Ewan threatening to cut her off for good.

"Good place for you to find a rich wife," she noted of the growing crowd, too, before disappearing.

Coming from her, it's real advice more than it is a joke. A certain air of disappointment lies behind it that keeps Greg spitefully pursuing only what he recognizes for some time. That could be the only reason for him to stride across an open space upon seeing Roman of all people, just as the man is left alone by Gerri, and ask how he's doing.

"How am I doing? Uh... well, Greg, I'm fucking fantastic. Glowing within me is a spirit of success that the likes of you will never ever achieve. That's how I'm doing. Bye-bye."

For as long as it takes to chew and swallow a cocktail weenie, he wonders if it would be much better striking up conversation with Kendall or Naomi, seeing if maybe he hasn't totally burnt those bridges. It might be a matter of just how sober either of them are. Though Greg isn't sure how he'd clock that without first trying to talk. One of those frustrating paradoxes.

Most of the technically familiar faces, he realizes, he still hasn't spoken much to in a while. He's down many a bridge. Throwing some lines out once and for all looks now like far less ache than rebuilding.

Shiv's talk with Nan—and whomever else Tom chooses to imagine her getting unavoidably caught up with over and over, in what may be an entertaining comedy of manners if only the view were unobstructed—lasts so long that he just resigns himself to dragging around this empty arm for the evening. It's when he least expects it that she returns, slithering around his elbow and making him jump and jostle some lights.

"I startled you?" she laughs.

"You snuck around the tree!"

"I did not. You were standing too close to the tree for me to have another choice. Should I have crossed to the other wall before circling back?"

"Look at that," Tom says instead of answering, and points toward the foyer where his attention has been. "Isn't that Senator Buckley? With—?"

"With cousin Greg? Wow. Maybe Ann is trying to spice it up in the bedroom."

"He looks enthralled."

"Which one?"

"Greg!" he promptly calls out, striding forward the moment that the man looks back.

Unheard over the general hum of chatter, Greg says something to Buckley and jerks a thumb in their direction. He receives his go-ahead in the form of a handshake and a touch to the shoulder that makes Tom speed up; Shiv lets go and meets her cousin one step behind.

"Climbing the political ladder, I see," Tom says, eyes bright. "Think he'll propose a new bill for you? Require all government buildings to have higher ceilings?"

"Hm?" Greg glances back. "Oh—no, actually, it's funny, I didn't even realize until we were already talking that he was—"

"It's a bit early for him to go about schmoozing for votes," Shiv remarks. "That door's shut."

"Which means Greg accosted him. He's a bit of an expert in trapping people in conversation—aren't you?"

"No, no, I just, ah..." He's horribly unaffected. "Actually, he asked me how I knew Logan, and I—obviously, I said, and then he asked what I do, and I said something about—I mean I told him my job, but then also said how what one does being just a career question seems silly to me, and he agreed, you know? Said underneath all the political stuff he'd really like to be an author. And being a... big reader now, I guess, we just got to talking about books? Mostly."

Tom frowns, nods, sips on that as deliberately as his wine.

"...Yeah, Greg, the picture being painted in my head is you just talking his ear off for so long that the poor man couldn't even get a word in about being a Senator."

"No, seriously, Tom. You should talk to him. I think 'read any good books lately' is his, like, go-to icebreaker—"

"Exactly. He doesn't actually care, Greg. The polite thing to do is tell him you were thoroughly haunted by In Cold Blood, ask him the same thing—which I'm sure you completely forgot to do—and let him share his piece, and then move on."

Tom knocks back more champagne while Shiv chuckles next to him, and Greg shakes his head with a tough, open smile.

"He—he was nice," he tries to insist.

"Maybe for now," Shiv says. "He's as conservative as they come."

Tom hums, and tips his glass and widens his eyes toward Greg. "Let him actually get to know you past this room and he'd gladly put your head on the chopping block."

"What? No..."

"That's high society for ya."

"Speaking of—" Shiv finishes off the flute glass in her hand and gives it immediately to Tom. "I should go see what my dad has said to him tonight... See if there isn't anything to fix."

Tom is left with two empty glasses, an empty space on either side of him, and empty lungs just to bring it all together. He has nothing left to say to the man in front of him and has no desire to maintain a stare until he invents something. He wants even less to look past him and watch Shiv with the Senator, or to keep his eyes on the floor.

Some noise comes out of Greg's mouth that he doesn't make any sense of, then, as he flashes a smile and pawns off the glasses on the other man's single empty hand, telling him,

"Catch you later, buddy."

Maybe it's something in the residual Christmas spirit, peeking through wintry crooning on the radio and marble-white everything. Or there's a decently suggestive power in everyone talking about their resolutions, and Greg isn't as pathologically stubborn as he wants to be.

He feels more silly than anything when he sees Willa approaching and finds that the sense of urgency he's had almost all year is completely gone.

She doesn't look mad, anyway. She hugs him, says she's missed him lately, tells him happy new year. She's smiling even when she brings it up:

"You've completely missed out on the chance to be in Sands, by the way. Everyone's been cast."

"Oh wow, that's great!—I mean, obviously, great that it's coming together, you know, not that..."

"Yeah, Greg," she laughs.

"Yeah. Congratulations. You're really doing it... you and Connor. Seems like that's—that's getting serious too, yeah? Where is he, anyway?"

"Ah..." She glances around and seems relieved when she doesn't see him. "Last I left him I think he was talking to your mom, actually? But he might have moved on. He's going around ranting to everyone about the unfair connotation of the Bourgeois. It's just a thing he's in right now."

"Oh. Right..."

"Or—technically he's been in it since we moved to the city. He just recently decided to make it a movement. He wants everyone to start saying UHB instead."

"UHB?"

"Urban-Haute-Bourgeois. He says there's more clarity of meaning, or something. Just wait until he gets to you and he'll explain. Anyway... you must have a thing, right? Got any gigs?"

Because otherwise surely you'd have had the time to actually tell me you weren't interested in the play, Greg hears, even if Willa is too nice of a person to actually say it.

"I—I did, yeah," he says, nodding too fast and nearly spilling his wine. "Just a couple... small ones... A couple commercials. Actually, to be honest, I've put a bit of a pause on the whole acting thing? Not—y'know, not permanently. Just, work work has been crazy, and I got real busy with moving, recently... finally got outta Greenwich..."

Thus the air is cleared and the subject is changed, and Greg feels free to tell her all about it. She gets more intimate details than he's offered most others. Beyond the fact that he has less of a need to live a budget-friendly lifestyle since he got a raise, it was getting suffocating between those yellow, postered-up walls. He wanted real barriers for each of his rooms. He wanted any decor he put on his walls to be for the sake of that thing and not some peeling paint that needed covering up. He wanted pipes that weren't visible.

"I really would have done it sooner if I didn't... I guess I just felt like I couldn't change anything up because of other people's expectations?" he tells her, careful not to implicate Kendall even as he sincerely doubts that she would do anything about it. "Like... I guess it felt like my responsibility to be stable. But that stopped being an issue, so... yeah. I didn't even go too far. Just Chelsea. Still so much better..."

"Sometimes a change of environment really is everything," Willa heartily agrees. "You scrub down the outsides, you scrub down the insides."

Greg realizes just seconds after she's walked away that he probably did talk for too long. He spins around, grimaces, tries to forget it—and hides, from no one in particular, behind his drink. His half a mind to find the snack trays again is cut quickly to no mind at all, however, with a tap on his arm.

"Pardon me, I didn't mean to eavesdrop," comes a weak, but eager voice, "but did I hear that you were an actor?"

The girl isn't the sort that would normally look twice at him—or Greg wouldn't guess so. Blonde ringlets frame her face in a way that gives him the distinct impression of some very important man's daughter.

"Uhm—yes, yes you did hear that," he confirms. He straightens up and grins, letting the rush overtake him, and aggressively ignoring the impulse to clarify the more humble details.

"Wow..." She briefly, overtly eyes his left hand. So much so that even Greg knows what she's looking for. "Anything that I might have seen you in?"

Half of the spare rooms have been opened up and turned into lounge areas with rented camelbacks and club chairs. The other half have been left alone, one the designated mattress-room and the rest, likely, to allow for any of Logan's powerful but unsavory guests to be allowed to steal away for some passion. Tom amuses himself with the thought of what kind of favor could be lost, were any option for debauchery to be completely locked away.

The most comfort Tom has found all evening is in wandering the upstairs halls alone. Years with the Roys and his mental map of this townhouse is still in its infant stage, having seldom felt unsupervised enough to create it. So much space, so little that's appropriate to explore.

Last Christmas saw him in a relative cage, a single path between the main area and his and Shiv's guest room allotted to him. Now that precise room, first on the left, is unoccupied. It's strange to see it without the bed, almost impossible, but the wallpaper is unmistakable. Faint stag-heads just a single shade darker than the base blue. Shiv said that it was all too dark, that her father must never come in here or else he'd have it changed. Tom liked it and still does. The floor-to-ceiling windows opposite the door, curtains entirely drawn to allow for a view of the fireworks, allow the walls to blend smoothly into the skyline outside.

With nothing in particular to look at, yet, he takes a seat facing the window. He wonders how many will actually be here in a half-hour to watch it all light up. Even if it hadn't been ages since Tom last felt genuine excitement about fireworks, he wouldn't dare express that sort of childlike glee in front of Logan.

It must have been Marcia who suggested it. She could convince the man to consider the wives and daughters of his guests.

Tom begins to smile to himself, coming so close to fully reveling in his lonesomeness when a familiar gait meets his ear from outside the door. Without needing to look he stands—but hesitates to meet the face on the other side.

"Chairman of RBN couldn't make it 'til midnight, huh?" Logan huffs. "Is he a widdle tired?"

"Sorry, sir."

"Oh, no, don't mind me. No one's forcing you to play socialite, Tom."

"No no—I'm okay," he says, fast, striding past his father-in-law and out the door.

From halfway down the stairs he spots Greg at the edge of the drawing room and feels a sudden wind carry him the rest of the way.

"Hey Greg—who's this?" he picks up the pitch to ask, noticing mid-sentence and from just an arm's length that there's a girl facing him. She's wearing pearls. Real ones. Tom scoffs and faces her instead of giving the man the chance to answer—"And what lies did he tell you to keep you from running?"

"Haha—don't listen to him," Greg tells his lady friend with haste, but still smiles at Tom. "This is... um. Uh—"

"Carol," she says, to both of them.

Tom gives her a brief, tight smile before settling a fiery pair of eyes back onto Greg.

"Forgot her name?"

"I think we'd both just forgotten to give names, actually...."

"No," says Carol.

"No I—I think we did?" Tom watches him gesture, and her eyes roll and shrug. "Anyway, Carol and I just met by the library, and we were having a, ah... lovely conversation about Whitman."

"That's very interesting, Greg—and boy have I got a few things to say about Whitman, but haven't you forgotten something?" Raised eyebrows abound. He doesn't remember. "...Introduce me, idiot."

"Oh—right, right—"

And so he does, and he calls Tom his boss and cousin-in-law, and Carol reacts with a curiosity that Tom dismisses before Greg can, saying it's very common in our industry and abruptly circling back to the real topic at hand.

Minutes ago Greg was arguing for what he believes Whitman would have to say about the modern world, against Carol's notion that his prose would be unrecognizable and therefore ostensibly not Whitman when stifled by the current state of things. She nodded along with folded arms while he pressed that several poems could stay the exact same, and surely many others could remain in essence, analogous, with simply a different war as a backdrop. Now, when Tom recites a stanza from To Think of Time and proceeds to explain why all the big-name analysts have it wrong, he quickly lets that go. He nods, and listens, and tries to keep up.

Greg is a fledgling in the world of Whitman, only having read a handful of poems and none of them more than once let alone enough times to have memorized anything. Funnily it feels easier to feign knowledge opposite Tom. He feeds him the lines to opine on right in the moment.

He also disagrees with many of Greg's opinions, but it's a back-and-forth regardless. And with the sloshing of wine they both grow relaxed. It lasts.

"I didn't know you were very into poetry," he finds slipping out.

It visibly stings the other man's face red. Greg preemptively grieves the moment.

"Well—I had my nose rubbed in it in college," Tom grumbles, shifting his gaze to the floor for apparently the first time in a while. He blinks and makes no attempt to hide his satisfaction at the absence of a third pair of shoes. "Oh look, your girlfriend's gone."

"She's not... we just met, man."

"And now she never will be. Your appalling takes on her favorite author scared her off."

"I mean... no offense, I think you did? Not your specific opinions but like, y'know... taking over the conversation and everything."

Tom watches Greg glance lazily around for where Carol might have gone, whenever she might have gone, and scowls.

"You were talking to her first, Greg. If anyone had more responsibility to include her, it sure as fuck wasn't me."

"...I guess," he concedes, turning back to Tom in the next beat.

He can't find it much in him to care that Carol is gone. Though he's a bit annoyed with himself for it. If Tom just never interrupted them, Greg could still be in ignorant bliss. He wouldn't be so warm, but he also wouldn't feel so stuck, so reliant on the other man's next words. He just tries not to show it.

"...Whatcha drinking? I don't think I ever see you with reds."

"Oh—yeah, I guess... I kind of figured that champagne was all but a requirement for a party like this, so I've been... I dunno, going along? But honestly, it's... like, not bad, but very yeasty? In a way I get tired of. I just grabbed this, I—I think it's a Franc. I like it a lot better. Very um... rich."

"Ooh, you've got a preference now," Tom can't help but laugh, and he follows the subsequent impulse, too, to announce to the room: "Watch out, we've got a sommelier in the house!"

And while he keeps grinning, so hard that it hurts him, Greg's face doesn't change. He just stares back, tired and hopeless if not very slightly amused. Tom gathers all of himself, in the next moment, at the base of his own throat.

"You know—I should advise you, Greg. When you're drinking so much of someone's wine, in their house, at their party, that you have been graciously invited to... it's very impolite to avoid the host."

Greg's face finally twitches, then, in response to his pointed look. Tom breathes a little.

"...I mean, even if he noticed, I guess I think that's kind of worth it? Considering...?

"It's not about the man's personal reaction, Greg. Custom demands it. And you have—" He seeks out the nearest clock and points. "Ten minutes. Before it starts to look like a total afterthought, anyway. You ought to go right now. Seriously, Greg. I'm doing you a favor!"

Greg lets the shove, then, carry him, all while Tom has no fucking clue why he's doing it.

*

He makes it away feeling damned both as if he had and hadn't, having interrupted Logan's conversation with someone probably important, in retrospect, only to say thanks for inviting me and thanks for the wine. He knows what Tom would say if he complained—that obviously it wasn't that urgent, use your common sense... whatever. It's over with five minutes to spare.

Until exactly what, Greg is reminded when he's caught by a girl he briefly talked to earlier. They shared a few pleasantries after that first girl lost interest, and he made up an excuse to leave when she asked about his acting career.

"Greg!" She's a lot more excited to see him again than he is. "Do you have anyone to kiss at midnight yet?"

"Oh—I, uh, no," he says, and that seems to settle it.

Tom sees him with her, and Greg sees him looking and for most of the remaining seconds locks eyes with him over the crowd all loudly counting down. He enunciates louder and wider as if to convince Tom's closed mouth to join in.

There's an oddly strong, anticipating grip on Greg's wrist from the girl he's not looking at. Shiv is nowhere in sight, with surely something far more worthy of her attention than a silly tradition—some real business to attend to in a guest room somewhere. Twelve seconds to go until 1972, there's no use in checking around for her or anyone else. Tom's hands are glued inside his pockets and his elbows are tucked tight. He's staying where he is.

"Three!"

Some fleeting thoughts of getting used to this in the long run, that it really doesn't seem so terrible, buzz in Greg's head and tear his eyes away from Tom.

"Two!"

They're then lost to the simple feeling, when she pulls him in, that it's the thing to do.

"ONE!"

Tom's body feels immediately useless—strung out, white-hot, humiliatingly transparent to all the terrible things inside of him. He endures the slightest glimpse of Greg's eyes opening during his prolonged kiss before the threat of tears urges him as far away as he can get from every other happy, moving body.

*

He's out on that balcony, gulping down cold air while the fireworks turn to droning in his ears for several minutes completely, thankfully alone. No one wants to seem childish by watching lights in the sky, so no one will see Tom's arms shake or his grip on the railing or the blurry, wet shine of his eyes.

At the creak of a door he's prepared to unfold himself into an innocuous lean and wipe everything dry on the ridge of his hand—

And it's Greg. Of course it's Greg. That shouldn't change anything.

But it does. Tom sniffs and turns to hide his face, but bends back over the railing the way that he was when he hears the doors click entirely shut.

"...You okay, Tom?" Greg asks, unbearably soft. He's just loud enough to be heard over the display out there.

Tom lets out this choked noise that could be mistaken for the crack of his neck as he turns to him, glaring through red eyes.

"Of course I'm okay, why the fuck wouldn't I be okay?"

"I mean..." Greg scratches the back of his head and stretches the words he wants to say between puffed cheeks. "Well, I guess I noticed Shiv... um. You know. Not there. When the clock struck twelve."

"...Right." Tom almost wants to laugh at himself. "Yeah, okay—you're right, she wasn't there. So why didn't you abstain out of solidarity, Greg, huh? I thought you were my friend."

He can't tell whether or not Tom is serious, as sharply as all that comes out. There's just always a bite to the man's bark. Against all better judgment Greg steps closer—if only to be heard more easily.

"I'm—sorry, man, I didn't really... I didn't think—"

"Exactly, you didn't fucking think, did you?" Tom snaps, but his voice drags, and it doesn't stop. "No one fucking thinks about me! Not my wife, not even... It's got to be obvious, isn't it? Everyone knows. I know and I know she knows I know—do you know?"

Greg holds his breath and shakes his head.

"That she's still cheating on me?"

A tiny noise punctures Greg's throat.

"And it's—you know I don't do anything about it?" Tom lets a full, horrible laugh rip out of him now. Everything's ripping out, in some cracked, impossibly sober, tight-jawed imitation of joy. "Yeah, Greg! I—I just... I let it happen! Because what can I do, huh? What should I? There's nothing good waiting for me if I do that. You understand?"

"Tom—"

That's enough—

"Everything, everyone... around me, Greg, just—just keeps falling away, and the only thing, that remains, every time... is you. You. And even then I still have to fucking watch you walk away from me. Over, and over again, you just... you can't... I can't keep fucking watching, Greg!"

He's poking his index finger into Greg's chest, sending him half a step backward, and a second later gesturing violently, all but grabbing him and reeling him back in.

Greg doesn't move from where Tom has placed him. He just stares, and slowly regains his breath, and holds a hand over that spot on his chest like the other man just left a hole. What he lands on first in his bafflement—in making sense of Tom's rambling, then, is that he can decide once and for all... Tom doesn't hate him.

It feels stupid to have ever believed that, but at the same time, what else could Greg have thought? Not this. Before this instant Tom wouldn't let him think this.

"Okay but—"

The words get ahead of him, but Greg jerks and gathers the space, and swallows, and heaves a breath big enough to carry every explosive thought from the both of them. He finds himself angrier than he thought he was about to be. Or perhaps—with a swinging knee, and a brief wry smile, just more mirthful.

"...Okay, Tom, but—but you have to stop walking away from me, too?"

Tom suddenly breathes cleaner. His face smoothes out; agony falls away to leave behind a normal frown while he straightens up.

"You can't just... you keep taking me to the brink, and then leaving me there," Greg tells him. Closer again. Arms pleading, raw. "I kind of, I can't take that anymore, Tom? I don't know what you want from me."

"What I—want from you," Tom repeats, tilting his head back like he's ready to ridicule the notion, call it a stupid question.

Greg's fear of him doing just that comes through plainly in a sickening flash on his face. Tom looks away from it and instead out to the city. Pink lights in the shape of a champagne glass dissolve in the distance.

"I don't..."

Tom nods to himself and wipes his face, ironically before his eyes get hot again. He can't do anything but smile through it, let the spasms come, and just continue to admit what he's thinking because he's already gone off the deep end, it can't get worse—

"I don't fucking know, Greg, I... I really don't," Tom heaves, and ducks his head and laughs with what occurs to him next, watching his own tears drip down rather than the other man, "Do you know I—I drafted this letter, when... when you were gone this last week. No, you couldn't know, could you? I, I just felt compelled, Christmas Eve, and I saw no reason not to, I got out the fountain pen and everything, hah... And I wrote it all the way, just... holiday wishes, things I thought were funny, and maybe things..."

He gestures imperceptibly with one hand in the air, and it's as clear as he needs it to be.

"...I don't fucking know, I don't remember, I didn't read it over, I just—I got to the point of signing it and all of the sudden I just, I didn't fucking know who wrote it, you know? Does that make any fucking sense? Probably not!" Tom's voice reaches a pitch where his convulsion is a distinct cry, and he pushes his fist hard into his face but keeps laughing through it anyway. "And I... I tore it up! I just fucking ripped it up and threw it in the trash, because... because I just don't fucking know. I don't know, Greg... Why—why not you, huh? What do you want?"

The demand carries more vitriol for Tom himself than it does for Greg. It's in the man's desperate, shaking arms, in the half-willingness to face him, most of all when Tom wrenches his mouth into a smile. That's what gives Greg such easy reins, he thinks, over the suffocatingly heavy beats of his heart.

"I want... you to look at me," he says, on just the cusp of a question. He manages to pull that much hesitation back.

And Tom does. Almost instantly. His face is still, now. From where Greg stands the man could be a beautiful, tired statue if not for the rise and fall of his chest. Tom takes him in the same way, finally without an excuse to avert his gaze.

Then he blinks some remaining tears away, and swallows, unable to mind any longer that it hurts. Tom just wants his voice to stop coming out ragged. If he can only say it like this, he wants to be able to fucking say it. He shrugs crooked, like he's forgotten how with all his effort in the opposite direction.

"...Okay, I'm looking at you. What else?"

Greg's first thought, before the man pressed for more: he wants Tom to be happy. God, does he. He's been wanting that for all of these excruciating minutes playing voyeur to Tom's abject misery. He always has. He almost says it, but then sucks in his cheeks, remembering the last time—and all the run-arounds that that put him through.

He doesn't regret it. He just wants to make it better this time. Fear, then, gets the better of Greg in the most meaningless of ways.

"I... I think I should like to kiss you."

Accent and all. Amusement escapes Tom like a sneeze, compressed on all sides by something bigger that squeezes his cheeks up and his eyes shut, which threaten to go blurry again while this incredible, trembling breath leaves him—and it dizzies him, leaves his mind and body that much more precarious, that Tom is struck with the worst fear of his life that it's about to be too late.

"Then kiss me," he dares in the same breath.

In the darkest corner of the balcony, well hidden from the glass doors so long as no one lifts up a curtain with the intent to spy, Greg presses cold hands to Tom's face and warm lips to his.

Where it last felt like too much to crash right together, now Tom feels him gently, and deliberately, with room to breathe... and his heart is pushed somewhere new altogether. His hands follow, tentatively reaching out—for anything at all to hold onto while Greg keeps kissing him, and they land on Greg's side. Tom's fingers curl around the same rough fabric that he's touched hundreds of times and finds it utterly foreign. He's kept steady in spite of or perhaps by new shockwaves under his skin, beyond where they already connect.

Greg feels the same—that he has never touched nor kissed anyone before now. Tom's lips, accepting, sucking into his own, give more fire to the core of him than he could have imagined in his most painful daydreams.

His wet cheek under Greg's thumb, not getting any drier with each swipe... god, he feels stupid.

Tom feels more than stupid.

"I'm so—so sorry," he gasps into Greg's mouth.

One of his hands makes it up to Greg's hair, gracelessly tangling at any cost. A couple of heavy eyes open at the same time, an inch away, and know. They close and they kiss again. Greg presses Tom against the stone wall, getting a cruelly brief moment of his hard body. The door clicks behind them.

A pair of women who do not know them, who've come out with one in tears herself, almost certainly saw nothing before Greg jumped back. They generously say nothing, either, likely even making the reverse consideration as he and Tom straighten their hair and return to the party indoors.

Chapter Text

Tom wouldn't be the first married man he's gone with. He was a lot of other firsts at that party even following the whole prior year of little independent moments, mostly inside of him, that Greg can pinpoint when he thinks about it—but where a pre-existing unhappy marriage is concerned, regrettably, Greg has a bit of a type.

He thinks it's him who's the type, really. It's just how it keeps happening. It's how he was tired of it happening, years ago, before he ever stepped foot into his great-uncle's townhouse.

The men who liked him enough to have more than a single night with him, especially enough to pay his way or buy him any gifts, were the same men who later decided that the risk wasn't worth it. They got their thrill, they took a chokehold on Greg's feelings in the process, and then after weeks or months of keeping him a dirty little secret, they chose their wives. The risk was too much. Or maybe they really did love them. Each of them showed up with so much road in-between, in California, in Vegas, in Quebec... Greg just kept forgetting. He had this stupid hope that things would be different.

Things are different now. He's known Tom for so long. He's too close, and has been too close, for Tom to hide away. He's been here since before the wedding. He's seen all the reasons that it should never have happened in the first place. But Greg wonders—this impulse he's trained in himself, to find the worst possibility and even if he does nothing about it, to wonder—if he isn't trying too hard to focus on the differences. If it serves only to distract him from what's the same.

Those thoughts swirl around Greg's head the next morning, all before he gets out of bed. Giddiness and panic, battling it out. In spite of glances shared between himself and Tom as the party came to a close and everyone filed out, he feels struck most of all with a terrible truth: that any optimism, now, is a mistake.

And why does it feel so true, he wonders hopelessly, sinking into his mattress.

The moment that Greg actually sits up, he decides the answer: on account, simply, of being terrible.

It's in and out. He goes to work with this fear that they won't talk about it—but he can't bring himself to say a word. What does come his way amongst the dreadfully normal tasks are more lingering touches than looks. They should be a relief, and they are for as long as it takes for Tom's hand to slide down his arm as he passes. Not long after, Greg keeps convincing himself that he's misreading it. Just keeps self-inflicting the same pain he felt the night of that movie.

Then a few days pass, and Tom smiles at him when he hands him his coffee, and his forearms are exposed over his desk, and a needy impulse makes Greg reach out first. He keeps hearing the man's soft gasp all day.

Late that night Tom calls him just to ask how he's doing. Greg cradles the receiver to his face when he says he's good. He's going to bed. He hears Tom breathe. Hears him say well, goodnight.

The stretch between then and the next time that Tom touches him behind closed doors and drawn blinds, nevermind how impossible it is to be shorter, is unbearable. A hand on his shoulder evokes those much longer, crueler stretches but drifts immediately, softly, to his neck. He trails his thumb along Greg's nape and makes him shiver, and places his other hand on the table as he leans over.

But he doesn't do what Greg thinks he's going to do—for a good second he just looks at him. It's just as worthy of breathlessness. It feels like the first that Tom has met his eyes and stayed there since the party.

It's absolutely the first in a long time that Greg has been close enough to note the sheer length of his eyelashes. Even then he couldn't allow himself to properly admire them. He wishes that the silence would last now.

"Hey listen, Greg," Tom breaks it, professional, but with little body to his voice. He clears his throat and regains it. "There's this... media conference on the twenty-second. It's upstate, by Lake Placid. I've seen pictures of the venue, it's very nice, there'll be cabins, and a lot of very important people will be there and—honestly, I'm getting fucking tired of meeting important people, but, hah... I have this scheduled talk. So obviously, you're coming. So's Logan and Ken and Rome... uh, but not Shiv."

Tom's eyes get a little brighter while he practically swallows her name. Greg hesitates to grin too wide.

"...Oh."

"Yeah, it's very exclusive. Top floor only. Like I said—important people. So ah..." Tom squeezes his arm, pats his back, gets ready to move past. "Yep—just letting you know ahead of time. You're gonna want to dress for snow."

*

He finds it difficult to look at Greg directly, lest a storm of feeling rise up and take over his conscious mind now that it's got no reason not to. He's never felt more like work would just not get done if he stayed in the same room as the man too long. He's living in a goddamn pulp novel.

The way that he felt in the first minutes of the new year—the way that he has felt so many times next to Greg, underneath however many layers of confusion and shame, some of which have still yet to peel away but he's trying, god, he's finally trying—Tom wants nothing more than to feel that way again. But he just doesn't think that he can until he and Greg have the chance to be completely alone. Fantasies of locking his office and making use of that privacy, or just going down to Greg's car downstairs, or showing up at the man's door after hours, all keep ending in catastrophe. It's not enough. A jolt wakes Tom up from the dream. His impatience kills him, but worse is the thought of ruining this.

So he spends over a week half-hoping that Greg will take the burden from him. Unfortunately, Greg seems to understand perfectly.

He understands so perfectly that, when they arrive at the conference lodge and get their first looks at the cabin right before brunch-hour, he doesn't move. He grips the rounded end of a bedpost and with his eyes alone begs Tom to rush him—

Which he does, pulling him in with rough palms on either side of Greg's face and a shuddering breath, and feeling as though he's only resuming what was interrupted before. He takes kiss after kiss in quick, hot succession, feeling awfully greedy but unable to help himself the more he knows that it's wanted, with no hesitation whatsoever on Greg's end. He clutches at his back and whines into his lips. Tom must summon the resolve of a soldier amputating their own leg in order to pull away, even then managing at first only a second at a time.

"Tonight," he gasps, and kisses him again and again, repeating even after Greg's uh-huh, uh-huhs, "tonight. Tonight. Please."

It's a mistake. Greg is all he fucking sees during his talk. If his encouraging smile in the audience isn't there, then another, flushed image of him is.

Greg's own roused expectations, meanwhile, come with fewer consequences. The cold stamps out most of his body's capacity to incriminate himself. His body also seems to stamp out some of the cold.

He spends the day, especially any hours where Tom is busy, in a kind of equilibrium that way. He finds a couple of the same executives that he met on New Year's Eve and strengthens those connections. He shakes some hands. He spots Logan tight-mouthed across a table from Nan Pierce and decides not to worry about it.

He bites his knuckle across his and Tom's own table, at dinner, when it's announced that everyone should get to their cabins soon before the snow piles too high.

A map crafted from the few fierce minutes that he had of the room, earlier, is vivid in all its vagueness in Tom's head. He's gone over it obsessively. Once the latch is up and the puffy outer layers are off, and Greg is looking at him with that hunger again, Tom is frantic.

"Oh my god, Greg, wait, just let me..."

And he needs so much less precision than he'd thought, to grab pillows and blankets from one of the beds and lay them out on the floor in front of the already-lit fireplace. But the satisfaction and readiness is the same. He didn't expect for a second to be completely prepared, not even for Greg to light him up with a kiss, for the third time now, in the middle of the room.

More than before, it soaks in that Tom is standing yet leaning his head back to kiss someone. That the cheeks pressing against his own and the jaw underneath his hand are covered in stubble. That it excites him so, that he's on fire anticipating the smooth chest that follows when he lets his hand trail downward, even with multiple layers in the way...

For all that the occasional person has seen through him—especially Roman, by means that Tom might have suspected if it wouldn't have put him dangerously close to thoughts about himself, for years seeming to always know the worst possible time to cut in and say oh, didn't I see you at the piers? didn't I see you at the baths?—which, even if he did, why the fuck were you at the piers, Roman... but no. No, Tom has done nothing of the sort. He's never had the option to be blindto the world since leaving St. Paul, he has learned of these places and walked through them like everybody else in New York City... He just couldn't ever look. He told himself that it was disgust and couldn't even accept that because he couldn't deny, then, what direction the disgust would be going. That it was envy was just the far worse option to believe.

That Greg is the first man Tom has touched in this way, now, who Tom is touching in this way, has worked all the way around so that he feels a whole new shame—not just for being what he is, but not even knowing how to be what he is.

His fingers stutter so badly in Greg's buttons. And this should be the easy part. Tom keeps his embarrassment lodged in his throat despite the pain.

"I'll buy you a new one," he warns him, and rips the flannel off.

"Oh my god," Greg groans.

He gets a good look at the heady want in Tom's eyes for the first second in all this. Tom gets a good look back. His arms shake trying to urge the sleeves down Greg's.

"God, Greg, I want—"

"Can I—?"

"Yes."

Tom feels the divot of Greg's chest through thin white cotton. Greg sends Tom's buttons scattering to join his own and yanks him closer by either lapel.

"Oh—"

"Tom, I wanna... I, please—"

He tugs Tom's undershirt out from his pants and slides a long hand over Tom's bare stomach.

"Greg, Greg, I—"

"—you're so—"

"—fuck, Greg, I, I don't know what I'm—"

"I know," Greg breathes, nodding, sparing him, kissing him again. He kisses and touches him until Tom melts. "Fuck, Tom, I know."

He doesn't let Greg entirely lead. He can't. He wants too much from him. I want to make love to you, he manages to tell him, all breath, once their bare legs slide together on the floor.

Just, any maneuvering, any whim at all from Greg is perfectly, excruciatingly welcome.

Tom licks and drags his teeth over a spot on Greg's neck that has taunted him for quite some time, and he lives in the soft sound that it draws from him, and in the next moment he lives somewhere else—in the hand that's reached between them and slipped past his waistband. Then, in the force of Greg's shoulders that pushes Tom from his side onto his back.

Above him, Greg glows in the firelight and licks his glistening lips. It's almost distracting from the fingers wrapping around his cock.

"I really want to," he says, choked already.

Tom can only let out a wordless noise. After that he loses it.

Greg loses it. If he didn't, he'd explode. He wants so badly what he can't feasibly have, and the fact alone makes him try with all the more enthusiasm to take it, and when he still can't, he whines and flattens as much of his tongue as he can reach over the underside of Tom's cock, holding it steady with his hand so he can at least taste every inch. I knew you had to be huge, I knew it, he hears himself saying—but he hears Tom's fucks and feels Tom's hands in his hair so much louder.

Every last carnal thought that has any business coming out of Greg's mouth seems to. Many that don't, mostly incomprehensibly, follow when he pops off and marks a trail upward Tom's body. He feels led by something that's already there, this warm, heavy scent of him that wants Greg to breathe it in, that has begged him to breathe it in for so long, so fucking long...

He drags his mouth across the hair on Tom's chest, and were there ever any real doubt of his inclinations, fuck, they buckle. He falls atop him and drags his hips, too—it's all he can do.

Tom says his name and seamlessly moans into his lips. Greg scrambles for his face, his neck, his collarbone. Pushes up on his knees and slots his cock between Tom's and the jut of his hip, fully groaning into the next, wet drag. If the cabin walls were connected, it would surely echo for some other poor attendees. Knowing it won't, he takes every excuse.

Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom—

It may very well be the thing that does it for him the most, hearing him.

"Can we just keep doing this," he whines needlessly, wetly, jerking desperately up into the knowledge, first and foremost, of Greg's cock, "it feels so good, you—feel so good, Greg..."

Tom spares immeasurable time to every part of Greg that he can reach, a landslide to the curve of his ass, but then wraps both arms tight around his back and doesn't let go until the end.

A short break, and then not again until morning.

**

When a blanket by the fire can no longer serve them, earlier worries dissolve into a more logical approach. In the office Tom enjoys much less confidence in how their relationship appears to others now that it is one, and employs ironically more care than ever in how much he openly touches him; any reprieve is a reprieve. Greg's apartment works perfectly for the both of them.

Tom brings a bottle of Franc as a housewarming gift, knowing how unlikely it is that Greg would think to stock up on his own time. He abandons it on a table almost immediately after showing it off.

"I'd heard through the grapevine that the first place was a hell of a pad—what happened?" he jokes in his first meeting with some surprisingly bare, though papered walls. What outright shocks him, then, is one of the few things that does obscure the tulip pattern:

"How on earth did you find a poster for that film?"

Greg watches Tom, with warmth that grows from multiple directions, trail his fingers over the bland lettering of May They Talk. When the man faces him again he blushes, but shrugs.

"Some record store had it in their bargain bin. It was a crazy coincidence, really... I couldn't not get it, when I saw it." Despite everything, he doesn't say.

"We should see more movies," Tom tells him.

Sooner that evening than anticipated and without even yet popping that wine, they learn that Greg's personal bed is in fact such a fantastic bonus, and feels so much more like a proper nest for Tom to push him into, it would feel worth ten times the actual risk at their heels.

*

Logan felt so certain that recent developments with Nixon would seal it. Ordering wage increases, withdrawing a good number of troops from Vietnam... Even most previous naysayers, Tom included, had let go of a lot of doubt.

But Nan just couldn't be convinced in the very end. Not by money or friends or a few good politics.

What's understandable is the frustration that the woman took half a year to formally see through the offer—but everyone knows that Logan would never have let her definitively say no. This tantrum was bound to happen regardless. No telling if sooner would have been better, or if Last-June-Logan wouldn't have given every single executive a ridiculous deadline for coming to him with five suggestions for new counters to the takeover, acquisitions or otherwise, and oh, if someone else says your idea first, it doesn't count, so to be safe you really ought to come with ten.

Some like Gerri and Karl can be worked with for the sake of loosening the boss's icy cold grip on the inner machinations of his biggest moneymaker. Others, like Sid and Roman and Ray, are too spiteful against Tom personally to care. The simple fact churns inside of him until he's sick. He can't think. He follows a not-so-old instinct and demands Greg do half the thinking for him.

And Greg tries, with all of his limited, assistant-centric experience. He really doesn't mind an opportunity to showcase his ideas. Maybe he could make a difference, he thinks. Even through Tom snapping about how he could possibly have spent all this time at RBN and think that's a good idea, or does he really think that Logan would like that, be fucking serious—

He tries not to let it get to him, because he knows what Tom is working under. Because they've discussed their public lives and he knows not to expect work to not be work. But it's hard.

When he leasts expects it—quite late, after hours of strife, all it seems to take is Greg admitting that he's frustrated, Tom. And the man reaches for his hand under the table and bows his head with all the sincerity of a knight before a vassal. Relief floods in even before his words.

"I know," he says. "Fuck this. Can't brainstorm on an empty stomach. Let's—let's get lunch."

Seeing Logan pass through the bullpen seals it, though Tom waits for every trace of him to leave before he does, like prey hiding paralyzed in the bushes.

Let's get you out of here, Tom thinks, and keeps thinking.

*

"Your hair keeps getting shorter."

"Mm... yeah, that happens when you cut it."

Greg hums smartly, leaning into the hand that flexes over his scalp. He's unsurprised when it moves to flick his ear in response but flinches anyway, and opens his eyes to Tom's badly hidden amusement.

He slides his fingers back through the short locks on the back of Greg's head at his whined behest. Though—god, Tom would do it no matter what, the way Greg's lips part and his neck exposes itself when he does it. He dips down to kiss at the hollow until he hears the man hum again. Then he mutters more firmly and directly into Greg's stubble.

"Would you let it grow out again?"

"What, like... long long?"

"Not necessarily." He thinks of a place that he only ever saw in a frame, of beauty that he couldn't yet handle. "Maybe."

"Would I be allowed to? I feel like Logan would have me shot if it got past my shoulders."

"Grow it to your shoulders, then."

There's a pause, partially due to the teeth scraping along Greg's jugular. But then—

"...Is it because you think the short hair is too masculine?"

Tom creates an equal pause before sitting up and frowning down at him. "What makes you say that?"

Greg sits up with him. He sucks in a cheek. "So you do?"

"What? No. I like—"

He hasn't outright admitted anything of this sort yet, he realizes. Tom's hand darting out for the sideburns that frame Greg's face ought to say it well enough without words. He still tries to find some, for their own sake. In the meantime he trails a feather-light touch over the marks that he's left on Greg's chest.

"...I wouldn't want you to be a girl any more than I'm sure you'd want me to, Greg."

"Which is—not at all," Greg clarifies at once, leaning in.

Tom smiles, but keeps his gaze on where his touch goes. "Good."

Greg lets him keep going, perhaps a bit selfishly, for a minute of silence. Tom ghosts over his now-flaccid cock, which might seem hesitant if his mouth weren't eagerly around it not very long ago. Remembering that, Greg's worry feels silly. He chews his lip and asks, once Tom has migrated to somewhere less sensitive,

"Did you know?"

His eyes meet Greg's again and flutter.

"...About me, before," Greg goes on. "Uh... that I was, you know..."

It's easier for Tom to spit out when it's a matter of doing what someone else can't.

"A homosexual?"

Greg makes a noise, glancing away. "I wouldn't—I was just gonna say gay."

Tom thinks about it for a moment and feels odd calling himself the same. But he supposes that must be what he is, isn't it. Somehow the more clinical, even the more derogatory words are simpler to wrap his head around even now.

"I guess I must have," he tells him, quiet. Smoothing the pads of his fingers over the ridge of Greg's foot. "...I knew something."

Greg nods, cycling rapidly now through the satisfaction that Tom could see him, and the sickening notion that most probably figure it about him. The dizziness ends with arms snaking around his middle and lips on the middle of his chest as he's pushed back into the mattress.

Tom needs it—to buffer years of pain bubbling up where he'd prefer to just put a lid on it and start anew—to smother himself in echoes of earlier, in the thrall of Greg's body and the ecstasy of being inside of him, and moreso, of watching a pleasure he's only just discovered existed stretch Greg's face. He obeys an impulse, and in the process fights something else, to bring his hand down below and slide a pair of fingers where it's still slick. Greg squirms and yelps against him.

"Oh my god—"

"Did you know about me?" Tom wonders aloud, now that he's made the room. It's a straight shot from his core to the soft hairs that sprinkle Greg's chest.

But he doesn't make it easy to respond. Greg stutters until Tom's fingers move like fire over his groin and back up to his stomach.

"I—I hoped..." Then after a pause, during which he has the chance to really think, "Sometimes I thought you must be. Then all of a sudden I, I'd have no idea. Any given day was ah... kind of a gamble, man..."

Though accompanied by minor embarrassment, and not helped by the pitch under Greg's breath, that makes fair sense to Tom. The information settles without any real fuss. Truly, he knew that he was different long before he had any word for it. Sixteen, twelve, five year old kid in St. Paul, with half a mile separating him from any other boys before all that land got developed, he knew his soul was in a different shape. He started going to school and one way or another it was undeniable. But maybe, just maybe, he'd always thought, it didn't matter. It had to not matter. He'd jam that circle block through the square hole if it was the last thing he did.

Tom sighs, feeling suddenly very old, and sets aside a few precious minutes to worship Greg's collarbone. He draws the very sounds out of Greg that he wanted.

"So you're okay—with all this?" Greg eventually musters the voice to ask. It feels like leaving his body to allude to the reasons why Tom might not be, and he doesn't care for it. He hates to take Tom out of it. Even if it's just directionless touching. But he needs to know—for all the time that they're not necessarily in bed. "Like you're not... you're fine, right?"

Tom wants to think that that's a stupid question.

"Am I fine? ...As in what, with the sodomy of it all...?"

As he shifts and slots them together, Greg chokes.

"Jesus Christ, Tom..."

"Oh, am I just riddled with shame about what we're doing?" he goes on, hardening while he mocks him, "or can I not handle being what I am, do I hate myself when I take what I want—do you think I'm worried about God? Is that what you're asking?"

"Jesus—"

"Oh sorry, you think I'm worried about Jesus. Well I'm not, Greg."

"Well... good," Greg says. He doesn't not believe it. Not that bit, at least. A roll of Tom's hips distracts him—by design.

"I'm not," Tom repeats anyway. "I think I'm handling this with impressive intuition for someone in my situation. Seriously, Greg, I'm perfectly fine. Could I do this if I wasn't fine?"

He wobbles his head indecipherably, and pulls Tom tighter by his lower back, and at the same time forces the pink fog away.

"I just," he all but moans, stitled, "I just wanted to make sure you accepted yourself, Tom? is all..."

"Of course I fucking do... I am what I am. I want what I want, I... love what I... I love you. I fucking—I love you. Greg. I love myself. I do. I do, I know it's fine, I'm not worried about being... being a ffff—fucking..."

Oh, Tom.

Greg shuts him up for his own good, tasting salty tears join their lips soon after. He holds the back of Tom's head—hair longer than his own by now—and takes every last muffled noise from him as readily as he takes the pointed writhing of skin on skin. He bears a remarkably short wait for Tom to spill between them.

"It's okay, it's okay," he tells a gasping, shaking Tom. He's moments away himself. He almost forgets all that he heard. "It's okay—god. I love you. It's okay."

*

The sentiment remains indefinitely; Greg tries to convince Tom that he doesn't need to prove himself. Tom insists, honestly, that he wants it. That's it. It's been relentless in the back of his head. At home, at work, everywhere. He heard how much Greg loved it and he trusts him to make him feel the same.

Greg can't argue with that. Do you want to felt at first like a test, invoking past mistakes. I've been thinking about it, I've been thinking about it pulls him on top of Tom more than the man's own strength does. It puts this vivid picture in his head, of Tom missing him every second that he's gone, Tom lying forlorn in his own bed, touching himself, exploring where he's never put his own fingers before, thinking of him, just wanting to feel good...

From the moment that his fingers are first pushing inside of Tom, he doesn't have to imagine it.

"I've thought about this," Greg moans back.

It's truer than he'd even want to explain. As far back as it goes. If anyone has ever wanted his cock so badly before—so badly that they let their life unfold to get it—he's forgotten them. They couldn't have been half as gorgeous beneath him. They weren't Tom.

The one second that Greg spares to responsible thoughts, then, is a waste.

"No rubber," the Tom inside of Tom gasps out. "I want you."

He doesn't care what it makes him when his knees touch his shoulders. Greg is flush with him, his cock as deep as he can go. He could feel nothing else if he wanted.

A splayed out, quivering, blissed Tom with drops of come still in the bush of hair on his heaving stomach and chest... isn't an image that would normally inspire such thoughts. It most often doesn't occur to Greg at all except when Tom calls him from home at an ungodly yet thrilling hour, or when he outright tells him that Shiv's out to allude to a night together, or when their passion is ruefully ended with the man getting re-dressed. He just finds himself going back to the beginning, now, when this ends. Thinking of Tom at home. Tom who, unlike him, most nights leaves work and shares a bed with someone else.

He doesn't have to think about it too hard to mostly feel bad for him. But there is a sort of sweet spot of mentally turning it over that Greg has to do. Too little or too much... well. Jealousy is an irrational beast.

And he's yet to say a thing. But they've gotten some other things out of the way. Greg holds back until the light in Tom's eyes betrays some regained personhood. Until his finger drawing shapes on Tom's arm draws out a sigh and makes his head roll over.

"Hey, out of curiosity, um. You and... Shiv, uh, aren't still...?"

"Oh—no." Tom chuckles. A little too much. He didn't think it would be a question. "We haven't since—since at least September."

"...Oh. Wow. That's before—"

"Yeah."

"Wow."

"Uh-huh... Not for lack of her trying, either... Or, somewhat of a lack. But I've still... rebuffed her, each time. Made up some excuse or other."

"...Wow." Greg endures a more than sleepy look from Tom and realizes he ought to say something else. "Uh... that's—"

"Something you're glad to hear? Hm."

"Ho-onestly... god... yeah, Tom. It is. I kind of can't stand the thought of you with her?" Some energy possesses Greg to heave his aching body up, again, and straddle him, propping himself up on either breast. Tom uses what remains of his own strength to hold his naked thighs. "Is—fuck, is that okay to say?"

"Yeah, it's okay... hah—why wouldn't it be?"

"I dunno. I just... feel kind of insane about you..."

Tom stares upward, hungry. The breath inside of him changes.

"What if we just left, Greg? And we didn't tell anyone? What if we just... took to the road."

"Are you like... trying to prove that you're more insane than me?"

"I'm serious."

Something about his eyes makes Greg believe him.

"...Is that even possible? I mean—even I let people know before I just walked out of college."

"Well, maybe you shouldn't have."

"I did have friends to say goodbye to. You have friends here."

"...I'm not really serious, Greg. Damn."

"Oh. You're not?"

"Did you want me to be?"

"Maybe I... y'know, want you to talk me into it. Or to have to talk you out of it."

"Who says you just didn't?"

"...Maybe I wanted it to be harder? I kind of... like it, honestly, when you're stubborn..."

"Oh... Do you really?"

"I guess it's kind of what you're doing right now, isn't it."

"You're kind of a freak, Gregory..."

"I just like you."

"You just like me?"

"I wanna run away with you. Now."

"Now?"

"Mm... just try and talk me out of it."

*

Tom knows well the sort of lie and subsequent guilt that eats one alive, or which can only be survived by smothering it. It feels funny to have one that sits with him as a pain no worse than indigestion—he can't help but feel bad for not feeling very bad.

But should he? Shiv did it first. Hell, in spite of that Tom thinks more often than ever, these days, of those first few months when he and Shiv were great friends. He sees the man that he was with new, blinding clarity and imagines easily that Shiv knew it, too. He piled feelings upon feelings onto something already perfectly good just because it felt like the thing to do. He lacked something that she couldn't really give him. But she could help him forget about it for a while. In the long run it doesn't matter whether there was awareness on her end or not—in the same way that there's a relatively painless path that Tom never knew, that he wants to mourn, but he can't.

Could he have ever met Greg there, he thinks. The chance does occur to him. Some hot summer night, a crossing of paths in LA... He'd have seen that clean-shaven hippie on the street and never gotten him out of his head. His eyes would have shined out at Tom in his car, framed by that hair blown back by the Santa Anas, and that would have settled it.

Or maybe Greg would have stayed during a visit to his mom long enough to audition for an RBN show. Maybe Tom would have been there to cast him on sight without yet knowing why.

A million not-so-distant points and a million twisted lines that extend from them run together until becoming gnarled and hardened into that shape in Tom's mind. Some grief for it comes and goes; he decides they're better left that way. Each new night that he's able to spend with Greg, whether they stay in or go to dinner, convinces him further of it.

Part of Tom doesn't know why he even bothers to be the one who sneaks around. It's really not those nights with him that feel like the lie.

**

Ironically given their collective disposable wealth as well as the lack of projected financial success otherwise, Connor gets the whole family free tickets for Sands. Greg chooses a seat near the middle, and Tom takes the one next to him, Shiv in tow to settle on his other side.

"Prime spots," he says, facing him and then his wife. "Not so far that you seem impolite, not so close that you can't make fun of it..."

He gets a small laugh out of Shiv. Greg is too cautious to make any noise. But he guesses what Tom is doing and nudges their knees together.

At over three hours long, Willa's play really is about as engaging and makes as much sense as expected. Unrelated, three hours of footsie with the house lights down is a fine preamble to their upcoming trip.

Marcia is as responsible for the organizing as she's said to be for most affairs where Logan's personal life and his company are one in the same. Behind every great man, as they say. She's got this unequivocal sense of decorum for familial publicity, and it's for this reason that Tom wholeheartedly agrees with speculation amongst the Roy children that she's some lost child of a monarch. A French-Lebanese Anastasia sort. And possibly the one person who can successfully convince Logan Roy that something he vocally does not want to do is, in fact, the best choice.

"Oh, yeah, he hates going back home," Shiv tells him. "I suppose because everyone he ever knew here except Ewan is dead."

They all wait for an hour, outside of Logan's childhood home, for their very own monarch to arrive and get photos for the newspaper. It'll be Dundee local first and then international distribution, to paint him as down-to-earth. Just as human as anyone else, just a man who pulled himself up by his bootstraps fifty years ago today, and who is therefore deserving of your money.

Tom watches him grumble and draw back multiple times all the way from the car to the front door. He looks not unlike he did crossing the stage at the RECNY ball back when he was still very sick. Still not nearly as difficult as the man can be on an average day around the office.

The school of journalism that they visit next, which is being named after Logan as part of the same sort of grab-bag of publicity, has a lobby bigger than the centuries-old stone-structure venue for the actual anniversary dinner.

*

No one told him that Ewan was coming. Apparently it's also the case in reverse.

"Well, Gregory. I must say I'm sad to see you here."

"Uhm—but you're here?"

"I'm here as Logan's brother. I've known him since he was born. You're here as his employee. Still."

Greg shifts uncomfortably, but tries to just blow it out his nostrils and keep tall. His eyes wind up glued, in a bit of awe, to the tartan wrapped loosely over grandfather's bottom half.

"That's... the most color I've ever seen you wear," he says, hoping to change the topic.

"It's customary for any formal Scottish event. Where's yours?"

He got the news so tangentially that he's really just now reminded—Marcia floated the idea of getting all the men in the Roy clan matching kilts. It was her own personal respect for cultural traditions as a concept; Logan didn't want to do it, citing trousers as what men wear as far as he's concerned. That set the example for the rest.

Greg tells his grandpa a sugar-coated version of that. The gaze across the lawn is no less disapproving.

"Mm... How many other examples of my brother's are you following these days?"

"Grandpa—"

"I heard—much too late, it seems word doesn't reach me very easily anymore—that Logan has just tried and, thank goodness, failed to abolish free speech as we know it."

"I mean—are you talking about Pierce? Because—"

"Also that his good friend The President just yesterday ordered more bombs over North Vietnam. Though maybe you didn't hear about that one. Maybe you're so close to the news now, it all runs together. Maybe you hold your hands over your ears as you stroll through the office."

"Okay—that's not true," Greg snaps. There's a flash of surprise in Ewan's eyes that he relishes, and he tries to keep going before he starts to just feel bad: "I'm not like... stupid, Grandpa, I pay attention. I do. I don't like what's going on any more than you do."

"Well, I think I'd prefer that you were only stupid, Greg."

"...Jeez, okay—?"

"My only grandson, after all I've done, eschewing every single one of his convictions so he could climb an empire of shit—or, I wonder, did he ever have any? I'd like to know, Greg. Did I waste all my time on you?"

Greg notices some others entering the venue glance their way. Probably recognizing Ewan—or simply eyeing the lone, hostile old man in a kilt. He uses that as an excuse to look around, to hesitate, to wait for a lack of bystanders and more importantly, for a wave of hurt to wash away. He wants to point out the very little time that Ewan has ever really spent with him. He wants to find names for a million other grievances that he never could before. But he also wants not to dignify something like that, right now.

"No offense, Grandpa, but—but you really don't, like, know what I've been through, to be here?" He hushes himself and steps closer, and glances around some more so that he doesn't have to look the man in the eyes. "...I have to look out for myself, don't I? All I want is like—safety. And comfort. I really didn't know what that was like before."

Ewan narrows his eyes, and makes it look effortless to tell him, "Oh, you did. You've always been spoiled."

Greg feels his throat constrict, his face twitch against his will.

"If this is the route you're taking to secure yourself," he continues with all the same ease, "then I've decided I'm not going to take any part in spoiling you further, Greg. Least of all posthumously."

He starts toward the gate, then, but Greg stops him—

"What does that mean?"

His grandpa sighs, almost like he's reluctant to go into detail. That's hopeful? Maybe?

"It means that you won't be relying on an inheritance to stay a child forever. You're going to live most of your life after I'm dead, so, without it... I only hope that you can become a real man one day. However late."

Greg will not allow him to have his dramatic exit. He stops him again.

"Wait, wait—no—wait... But... you said if?"

It shouldn't be a difficult crowd to find someone in. That just happens to be the case for Naomi before it is for him.

"Greg!" she shouts, pushing past some men by the bathrooms. He startles like a rat has run by his feet—but she looks friendly as ever when she catches up. If not somewhat manic. "Hey, hey—first of all, no hard feelings, right? Because obviously, you know... that was all Kendall."

"Right," he says, loosening up. Just not entirely as he scans for the man in question. Luckily there's no sign but for Naomi herself. "Hey—is it actually... okay, that you're like, here? I thought Logan was pretty mad about the whole... not being able to buy your family, thing...?"

"Oh, honey, that's nothing," she scoffs. "I guess Ken really must be giving you the silent treatment if you had that impression, huh? Sorry about that."

"Uh... yeah, yeah, I guess that's... is that like—did he send you over? To apologize?"

"Huh? Oh—not really. I just saw you towering over the crowd and wanted to let you know, I thought you might be interested—you had the right idea quitting Toy President, because it totally fell through."

"Shit, I'm sorry?"

"No no no—completely unrelated to you." The long space that she covers, then, in wiping her hands through the air, assures Greg less of that fact and more that she's on something. He feels slightly bad either way. "Even though, like—yeah, Ken is totally insisting it was you. But you're not missing anything. There's barely anything salvageable. It's kind of funny, actually."

"...Really? I thought it was your money going into it."

She shrugs. "Half and half. I knew I was feeding a hobby, right? Hey, I'll probably try to produce something else sometime soon."

That feels like prompting. Or preamble to a question that, Greg realizes before there's any chance for it to be said, he has no desire to answer. Has he gotten any other roles, or is he pursuing anything right now... e's made to think that his cousin did send her. That this is some roundabout way of figuring out whether or not Kendall's impassioned ravings were right, if Greg's chances for success truly began and ended at nepotism, if he's just a big coward... which, he decides, at least cannot be definitively true. Not when he's hardly spared the industry any thought in months.

He knows it's not as simple as giving up, either. He just wouldn't know how to explain it even if he thought Kendall or his girlfriend deserved one, beyond I've been busy. Yeah. Busy keeping his bed warm for biweekly rendezvous with his boss's pale inner thighs. Busy spending his new, heftier paychecks on things to make his place feel like a home, and having yet more money spent on him at the same restaurants that any famous actor might already be.

Working around what he can't say, Greg would hate for Kendall to get any kind of satisfaction. He remembers the source of the urgency in his gut anyway and turns to face the crowd.

"That's cool. Nice seeing you. I actually had a thing, though, so?"

Other than Connor's, each speech of congratulations from Logan's children echoes nauseatingly sycophantic over the speakers. Very much pick me, daddy, pick me all around. Kendall gives half his time up to the bagpipe players, apparently hoping that the swell of distinctly highland emotion will stand in place of his past indiscretions. Roman takes advantage of the local idiosyncrasies and lets out all the curses he could never say in front of an American audience, with not much meat in-between that Kendall didn't cover.

And Shiv, ever the politician, has undeniably the best words. Tom is able to breathe a little better in his relief from the secondhand embarrassment, for a minute. But as it goes on—as she tells the room this carefully crafted childhood anecdote, it stirs up disgust within him. Tom has already heard most of it. He got the rough draft at home. Shiv rehearsed it in the same long, unending breath that she advised him on moves regarding Logan.

There's a good, solid rung by which to pull us up, somewhere in here, she said.

Tom applauds with everyone else as Shiv descends from the stage, thinking mainly of how glad he is that he isn't expected, as a son-in-law, to do one of his own. Fifty years strong, how incredible, of course I've only been here for a few of them, but boy do I like cashing in that check, sir. He watches Shiv go to her father. Then he's delighted to tear his gaze away as a hand closes around his arm. The eyes that meet his are wide and shining.

"Tom, I need to tell you about something."

*

"Forty million on the table? Shit."

"Obviously I don't want to just, drop out of all this, or anything, Tom, but that... that's a lot of fucking money—"

"Yeah," Tom agrees with this scraping breath, and checks over his shoulder for the third time by now. As if someone might hear about Greg's inheritance and come snatch it up, somehow, all because he's got his cheek to the cold stone wall.

"I mean, he could live another decade," Greg mutters, mostly to himself. "Or two. So it might, like—if I had to wait that long to get it, I'd fucking wish that I didn't quit. Right? Financially I could... maybe, be just as well off staying? If I invest, maybe?"

"Eh..." Tom doubts it. But he's not really thinking in that direction. He meets Greg's eyes, sharp. "Did he give you a deadline? To resign?"

Greg shakes his head. "Not technically? There was an air of just—within a reasonable time. Whatever he perceives that to be. I'm gonna guess, like... before he finishes writing up his last will and testament."

"Probably within the year, then... You're sure it's not a hollow threat? Who else would he give it all to?"

Greg groans and knocks his head on the wall.

"He said something about this... environmental organization that just started."

Sounds like Ewan. Goddamn. Tom pictures the man's head on a coin, refusing to believe that his brother's is on the opposite side.

"Fuck him," he winds up saying aloud, and promptly searching around once more—hoping he heard it, now.

"Hey. He's still my grandpa."

"Yeah, and he's all but forcing you to quit your—your livelihood, Greg..."

Tom pokes him in the chest. Greg is just barely delayed in hearing what he means to say. He looks down at the floor, at Tom's shoes, and exhales some dignity before unsticking himself from the stone and standing straight.

"If I did quit," he hesitates—he glances, repeatedly, to no one at all, "would you, uh... would you still see me?"

For the same skipped beat, neither of them breathe. Tom chews his lip as if he hasn't been thinking, for this entire conversation, about how the past two months have been the happiest of his life. It's been the undercurrent—the overcurrent, everything. Somewhere in the middle is the capacity for strategy that Greg needed.

This corner feels suddenly so tucked away, so shrouded with unknown faces, that Tom doesn't feel any need to check first. He reaches for Greg's hand which hangs between them, and covers either side with each of his own, and squeezes. Any noise is then so determined to stay in his throat, Tom has to get closer.

"Yes, you idiot. Of course. But—don't make any drastic decisions yet. Give it a little bit, yeah? Let me see about some things."

In his gratitude, Greg could almost kiss him right here. He promptly asks Tom to come outside and have a cigarette. Shiv will be on his ass for wasting time on a smoke break of all things, though, if she happens to notice. He's told Greg enough about the intricacies of his career-climbing that he can say that.

As Greg nods and a pout takes shape on his lips, Tom gets just enough breath.

Fuck Shiv, he whispers.

Fresh air aside, they're not quite alone enough. Their silhouettes would be incriminating to other pairs out here. But it's something.

"What would you do?" Tom asks, bolstered by the view of the ocean. His Chesterfield tastes of salt. "If you cashed out and left, I mean. I guess you'd finally have the time to focus on an acting career..."

"Hah, yeah... I dunno," Greg admits through a drag. "I'm not sure, really... how much room there is for me? It's a rough industry, man."

"Mm... don't I know it."

Tom feels a looming spike of guilt right overhead as he says that, remembering the things he's done and said to Greg that must have helped him feel that way. He's yet to find a good time to say anything about it. That is, a time that he's felt so much as physically capable. But Greg saves him from the responsibility at least for this moment.

"Maybe I could write, or something."

"...You want to write?" He tilts his head, caught refreshingly off guard. "You never told me that."

"That's because I—yeah, no, I don't really know. I've just thought about it. I barely have any ideas. I'm spitballing."

"Oh."

He looks away from the coast entirely in favor of Greg, who does all the looking for him. Whose pale neck extends as he blows smoke into the dark. The half-moon and the lit tobacco shine alike in his eyes. He doesn't acknowledge Tom in his peripheral again until the latter is almost out—and he's already reaching for another.

"I don't... really know what I wanna do, Tom," he says. And it's out, but shame is a wall. "I never really have."

**

Poor Mondale hardly gets to see Tom anymore. He feels so badly for the sheer amount of times that he's passed his pen on the way out the door, leaving him to the sitter who won't come until morning, that one evening he stops, and reaches in to scratch the space between his dog's ears, and decides no more. Shivless nights have always been just that. She's in DC with Logan. It's been a needless precaution, and Tom forgets it with the same severity that he yanks the phone off the wall.

After hanging up on Greg, he dials the sitter and tells her not to come tomorrow. Mondale's cage is unlatched until then.

Some low-simmering part of him, even before it becomes a pattern, does just want Shiv to catch him in the act. So she can have a taste of her own medicine and a real whopper of it, too.

She'd see what real want looks like from him. She would see how much he's given in, how readily he does it all, how he begs for Greg to take him apart and how well Greg does it—and would perhaps be just as amazed as he still is. Nevermind how else she'd feel. Without Tom having to say a thing, let alone explain, she'd know. One glimpse and she'd understand, and she would be the one to end it. It wouldn't have to be him.

At the slightest noise resembling footsteps where there shouldn't be or the turn of a doorknob, he of course panics. What Shiv might actually do weighs heavier than any stupid fantasy of being able to share this thing, to have it exist outside of himself and Greg, to have someone who's known him longer be able to say something about it—Tom doesn't want to know what she'd say. Or what anyone would say. He already knows enough, and it would have nothing to do with him being the same man that he's always been, only happier. No one cares about that except Greg.

*

No Pierce. No other biters. The more demonstrations that plague the streets, the more time Logan spends out of state, and the more his old guard scurries about like rats, gathering pieces to solutions without any frame for the puzzle. Sid steps back to give Tom a turn, since he supposedly needs the opportunity.

Come May they've gotten Greg set up with more stock, which eases some of his worries about Ewan, and by proxy some of Tom's about what exactly he's doing here. He feels deeply selfish when he thinks about it. Not that he typically looks in the mirror and sees a virtuous man. The idea of maintaining it forever just inspires even less of a desire to look in the mirror than his more disruptive, impossible ideas.

Playing the bare bones of a husband and still keeping his status, simultaneously playing lover and keeping... well, everything else? On paper it's a dream.

A sickness that Tom had thought he left behind spirals through him and begins to rot.

***

Five men are arrested in June after breaking into the DNC Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. One of them is a recent CIA retiree. Bugging equipment was found in their bags.

While rumblings of White House involvement start getting published in other outlets, mostly by their sworn enemy, the little guys at RBN are under a policy of reporting on nothing but the initial burglary. Pierce newspapers are banned around the office with the threat of an old man's genuine fit of rage as punishment. Desks are turned over. Even after that, lunch breaks at RBN see crowds of suits around the dispensers on the streets below. Logan either gets word from Roman or simply thinks to look out his window, and then gives Tom the order to threaten to sack them. Make an example of one poor sucker and the rest will take it seriously.

And they do. And Tom goes home to just as much unrest.

And he answers Greg's phonecall, in the middle of it all, in which the man asks him to come over. It's important. All this news of wiretapping has him paranoid. He'd have told him at the office, but Tom had already left.

He had to go back for something after clocking out, and he overheard a shout through Logan's office door.

Nixon's fucking guys. Do you think we can use that, he says.

Public speculation, unable to sway anything without proof, is one thing. Proximity to an actual friend of Nixon's, who could very well face investigation were some brave soldier to take allegations of knowledge of a federal crime to the right authorities, however...

Would it even work, is the lever before the hatch. Will he get the lady or the tiger. If it's the latter, Logan would inevitably find out who blew the whistle and have him executed. Probably by tiger.

Tom tells him, away from any exits or vents in his apartment and already very close to his face, that Logan is more likely to just give himself a second heart attack from all this than he is to be convicted for anything. More than Greg necessarily believes him he trusts the concern in Tom's eyes, and the lump in his throat, when he's kissed and told seriously, do not try anything. In coming days he sinks into a deep dread over just how right Tom is. He's far from the only one on the top floor with brains to put two and two together. Logan's connections, Logan's tirades. It's the world's most volatile open secret.

So Greg returns, for the first time all year—realizing only now what a record that is, either, having indulged so much in other vices that he forgot it was an option—to grass. He takes Tom to the garage at work to ask him if he'd like to join. It seems better than calling and leaving out the pretense again.

"Jeez, Greg, like we're gonna get shot by White House assassins because Nixon heard we're high," Tom scoffs. "...But that's funny, actually, because I was going to suggest coke and a movie."

"Coke right now? Are you serious?"

"Fuck no. My god. Yes, let's fucking smoke."

*

"What is he possibly going to do, cut ties with Nixon? Maybe if your old pal McGovern pulls the biggest miracle since Lazarus, but until then, we're stuck here, Shiv. He's not fucking moving and he doesn't give a shit that everyone else is."

"What else is new? You just need to get your shit together."

"My shit? It's not my fault that the stock is months out from dropping into the fucking gutter—"

"You need to be able to prove you can weather a fucking storm—"

"Maybe I don't want to weather a storm like this, Shiv—"

"—because I know he wants me, and the only way that he can do it is with you, and—"

"And it's your dad, you know, who's the worst part of the fucking storm, why should I just stay inside and wait for him to calm down about the drizzle outside—"

"He will pick you, Tom! But you know he's just—he's stubborn! He just needs to like you if he's gonna take that route—"

"He has NEVER!—liked me!—Shiv!"

He doesn't mean to yell. But god, does it feel good to get her to stop. For just a second. Tom just has to avoid her eyes. He gets his hands to the back of his neck and a single, deep breath out.

"Well you—you need to make him. You're not trying," she says, a hint of shock still in there.

"Don't—don't tell me what I try to do..."

"That's just what it looks like, Tom."

"You don't see me! You're not in the building!"

"Uh—you are supposed to be my place in the building, Tom. Because I can't be. How is that my fault?"

"It's not—"

"That was the plan. You don't even fucking talk about the plan with me, anymore—that's how I know!"

"Fuck, Shiv, that's what I'm trying to tell you! You're not listening."

"What, that you don't want to do this anymore? Because it's getting hard? Sorry, I thought that you were just complaining, Tom, I didn't think you expected me to take that seriously. Jesus..."

And her little walk, god, her dismissive fucking saunter away to the liquor cabinet, because she's the one so deeply affected by him being miserable and trying to actually communicate something to her in spite of the pure stale air that's haunted them for so long—

"Well, I am serious," Tom says, normally as he can. It doesn't get her to look at him. He bristles, and decides to use it instead of sitting in it: "Maybe... maybe this just isn't a company that I want to lead anymore. Maybe I'm rightfully apprehensive about even my current role in the company, let alone moving upward, because the fact of the matter is that this is a sinking fucking ship, and do you know what a captain is obligated to do on a sinking ship, Shiv?"

"You're so dramatic," she finally snaps—though Tom knows he can owe a lack of interruption to her pouring a drink—"you can't just... decide what you're gonna do based on a metaphor, you—"

"That's rich. That's what your whole-fucking-family does, all the time!" He's yelling with much more intent now, enunciating everything, knowing very well how much that will piss her off. "That's what got your dad into this mess! He ought to have a Greek chorus following him around—!"

"You think I don't agree? That's why I want to fix it—fuck, Ship of Theseus, Tom? If you want your fucking metaphor so bad? Just fix it! I thought that's what YOU wanted!"

At the precipice of things, staring at her red face across the dining room, it occurs to Tom that if he's not careful... they'll turn right back around and settle where it's safe, and leave all this to be forgotten for weeks. He already feels his breath abating and he hates it. He thinks of the child that Shiv will never bear, the faceless bundle of joy that might have bore the curse of saving them. And he thanks god it didn't.

"...Yeah," Tom says, working hard to make it plain on his face: "Wanted, Shiv. I thought you wanted me to get it for real and not just be your puppet, but hey. Clearly things change."

She seems, out of spite, to spend the same time on silence as he did.

"You can't be serious. We're almost there."

"We're not."

"We are! In the scheme of things—"

"It's a scheme of things that I am dying in, Shiv!" he pleads, stepping forward—gesturing to his chest, his insides, feeling for a moment as though he's showing her everything. Being completely honest one final time. "...Okay? I don't think this is fixable anymore. It's not, Shiv. It's not."

She looks him up and down, across her goddamned vodka soda. Whatever it is she's seeing, the real him or someone else, it's with disgust.

"I won't let you do this to me."

"Oh—do what to you?" he has to laugh. "You're a Roy, no matter what you'll always be a Roy, you'll be fine. You'll figure it out..."

Shiv decides pretty soon that she can't stand to look at him. In her absence, with a black hole in his gut, Tom figures he ought to make use of the bar himself. It may be one of the last chances he has.

*

"Y'know... all the money we've both got put away... it's not like we'd be destitute."

It slips out in a cloud. Tom lies back on Greg's couch and feels everything bad since the last joint leave him, feels himself weighed down by nothing but the fact that he shouldn't have been so afraid to say it before. He thinks that he just didn't want to admit how much he'd done for nothing. But the worst of that is out of the way now, isn't it.

Meanwhile Greg is delayed in hearing it, in rolling his head over, in opening his terribly dry mouth. He flutters his eyes and scoots closer. It puts his folded knees on Tom's lap.

"...We?"

"Yeah, we," Tom says with less mirth than he wishes he was able.

He wishes so badly that he could have made this moment better as soon as he recognizes that he's in one. Through sheer determination he sits up, and takes the joint out of Greg's fingers and smashes it in the ashtray, and makes up for it all by becoming a vice around Greg's entire waist.

Of course, we, of course.

"I—I could do it," Tom decides once and for all, on the spot.

Greg nods fiercely, into him, right into him.

"Me too, fuck, I mean I—I did it all my life, I can be humble, I like... can't even like, conceptualize what I'll do with all that money?"

"I don't think we'll even have to wait that long. Your grandpa could kick it any day now."

"Hey..."

"No offense, Greg. He's old. Dying's just what old people do."

Greg whines again, wordlessly, but he's quickly smiling. He paws at Tom's chest.

"Mm... I think you want me for my money," he jokes.

"No."

"You just want my grandpa's millions..."

"You want your grandpa's millions. I want you to have them. I have money—"

"I know, Tom, I'm kidding—"

"I love you," he says, and squeezes him, drags his hands down Greg's back, "I hate this. I hate all of this. I want you. I want..."

"God, Tom, I l—"

"I just wanna take care of you, Greg, I'm not—I could live fine. I could settle for... high middle-class, if you could. We could have a nice place. We could... we could be normal rich, you could have nice things, I'd buy you all the fucking nice things, we could live somewhere private, no one would... we could have... fuck, a restaurant? It doesn't matter, we could figure it out—"

"Canada?" Greg gasps, epiphanic, so close to Tom's mouth that he has to close it.

In his high, both the grass and the kiss, any other associations lost—it sounds like a mythic place. He gasps back. Holds him tighter, grinds his hips.

"Yes."

Greg is so transparent against him as he matches his rhythm, so beautiful, so needy for absolutely anything that Tom can give him—he wants to give him everything. He moves them horizontal without a second thought.

"Let me—"

"Fuck, Tom—"

"Lemme suck your cock," Tom groans, and slides one hand up Greg's back and the other past his belt, already fingering the metal prong like his life depends on it. He kisses Greg's stomach over his shirt.

Greg hasn't once denied him the pleasure. How could he. Tom just seems to love it so much.

Now more than ever, he truly, truly does. He isn't slipping through time. There's a future as real as the weight in his throat, the craving it satisfies, the music in his ears.

It wasn't for nothing, he thinks.

*

Anything along the lines of be realistic, you weren't ever going to get it, Tom tries to keep to himself—both as it only fuels something terrible in him, and as he doesn't want it fueling more spite in her.

Sleeping indefinitely at a hotel is a common enough thing for men of his ilk, it gives Shiv nothing but space. It's but one of many transitional periods that he feels have been happening for a while, and which he's got a few more to negotiate.

He loses the hotel room after a week and is honest with Shiv that he's staying with Greg. Mondale needs the space, is the chief excuse. It doesn't raise any suspicions and wouldn't ultimately matter if it did. Paying to have his non-essentials packed away and put in a storage unit "just in case" is no more permanent, so she doesn't have much to say.

All the while Tom cashes in on all those vacation days. Sid can handle the chair just fine. As far as anyone at the office is concerned it's a family thing. What use is there, the point is made, of holding onto a toy that's stopped working.

The point of no return still does stipulate a bit of time. Not too long. They've got the money to make it smooth. In the interim, without telling each other, they've gotten their respective ambulance chasers. Much harder is the holding on until it's over, having no choice but to return to work, occasionally together, and not just bolting from the humiliation.

"I'll do it," Tom says easily. He takes no chance of another explosive fight, of anyone making threats let alone acting on them. "We'll say it was me."

She does, even so, have the audacity to look at him with pain in her eyes when she asks,

"Is it true?"

Biting his tongue then isn't so easy. They've never discussed her own, inarguable adultery, not even now. There didn't seem to be a point, as it really had very little to do with it all. They just need something for the books to make this legal. But god.

He sighs deeply and stares at a picture frame on the law office wall. "...Mhm."

"Is it someone I know?"

The effort it takes him not to laugh keeps him silent just too long. She repeats the question, more certain that the answer is yes, and Tom turns back. All of a sudden he knows who he's talking to again. Maybe she does deserve to know what trusted friend or colleague went behind her back to do this to her. Her own liaisons, he does feel confident, were all out of his sphere.

He still can't tell her. Not now. After everything it feels especially cruel to put her in the same category as everyone else he knows here, but the truth is, as far as risking his security is concerned, she is no different than anyone else. Like the others she'll finally see him once he's a thousand miles away.

"...Look, you don't have to worry, Shiv. Everyone's just gonna feel real bad for you."

She hates that. She hates it a lot.

"It's like you don't even know me," she says. "I'm a fucking Roy. I don't need your pity."

The version of events that Tom calmly agrees to, then, are that she had an affair, and he handled it so badly that he filed for divorce and ran away. Sure, Shiv. Sure.

*

Assuming it was her who told her brothers who then spread it through RBN like a disease until every last corridor is full of prodding, hostile eyes, because what else could it have been, he supposes that he can't fully blame her. It's not entirely worse for him in the end, anyway.

Logan is ready for him before his secretary can buzz Tom in, arms folded behind his back, feet planted in front of his desk rather than behind. He meets the man's face with as much terror as ever. But it's brief overall. He sees the two weeks in Tom's hands for what it really is.

"No," he says coolly. It's the calmest he gets. "Nah—I'm not letting you wait for a reason to change your mind. If you're leaving, you rat bastard, you're leaving now."

What the hell happened, his father-in-law wants to know, though. Not a surprise that he doesn't trust his own daughter to have told it right. Tom wants that to be his problem, but he actually does think that he'll be forcibly kept here if he doesn't dignify it.

"I'm not defecting to some other company, if that's what you're thinking, sir. I've just... had a good long think about my priorities."

"You're a coward. You couldn't take the heat."

"...If that's what you'd like to think—"

"You never could, could you? You just kept hopping from ship to ship as you pleased, and I fucking let you. You never belonged here, but I gave you a chance. And now you do this to me. 'Cause of your fuckin' priorities."

If Logan is baiting him into staying and proving himself, he doesn't have nothing on the hook. But Tom won't take it. He won't. He swallows, and stands his ground, and lets the heat sit in him. He thinks of something to say for so long that he defaults to nothing, which Logan takes as a response like any other.

"Gah—get out. Just get the fuck out! I don't want to see your face in this building ever again, you hear? You don't get to quit on me! You're fired!"

"Yes sir."

"Naturally Greg is fired, too, the little—"

"Naturally!"

*

Downstairs, Greg sits on the hood of his car and twiddles his thumbs. Heat was just building up inside, even with the windows down. When he sees Tom he slips off and doesn't wait, just sprints with the reflex of a stuck bull.

"How'd it go?" he asks, breathless.

Tom answers, in the middle of that open garage, by seizing Greg's mop of hair and taking even more breath from him.

Chapter Text

Greg's own mother won't be surprised by any of it. That he'll never have to beg her for money again is the important thing, wherever he's living. He called her months ago to tell her that he was jumping ship, and that she should sell her stock too before it's peanuts. Meanwhile Ewan sounded no different than usual receiving his good news, but he said he was delighted to know.

If he met Tom across the border, Greg has joked, he'd be glad more than anything to know that Royco is yet another man down.

It could be true. Or it might not. So much goes conveniently unmentioned and has done so ever since he first got the truth, just before starting college at that, about the reason for his dad's suicide. It may very well be strictly the principle of not disrespecting the dead that no serious judgments are ever betrayed when Mr. Hirsch comes up. His inclinations never become a topic. And neither do Greg's, other than the usually sarcastic notion that they've somehow remained an utter secret.

He's said it outright to no one but his lovers, often not even then. His grandpa expresses a harmless bit of hope that it's not the case just about every time they talk. His mom, frankly, he doubts would ever need or want to hear the words. And Greg has told Tom this. He tells him again, not trying to convince him of anything, but just to tell him. Just to occupy his mouth while he drives.

"It's funny, I have no idea how much she really cares, or fuck, even if there's... y'know, resentment? About my dad? Sometimes it honestly feels like I don't know anything about her at all, like... like she was just this lady who was in charge of me, and obligated to take care of me, or something. But at the same time it's like—there's no question, just from the way she talks to me, even about totally unrelated things. I know she knows. Which makes me feel a little better and at the same time I kind of hate thinking about it? That, y'know. She's always known exactly who I am."

None of it helps much for the daunting task of Tom telling his Catholic parents that he's gotten a divorce. He has talked to his mother with certain transparency about his marriage during its last legs, though mostly vague, always with an air of hope for things working out. It's a bit rocky right now, he'd confess over the phone, but Shiv and I have each got a lot to be stressed about.

His mother knows about the suspicion that Shiv has had affairs. He hung up without letting her respond, and she got the hint for any future calls. For the real news now, particularly to his father, to whom he's neglected relaying any less fortunate truths... Tom would be eaten alive from every direction if he didn't do it in person. They'd worry that he's gone insane. Maybe they'll still think that he is. At least they'll know how to contact him.

He takes just a minute to breathe after they park, and kisses Greg on the knuckles, intending to go in alone.

Even after the rounds of shouts and hugs, he's trapped in the foyer while he gives the gist of the surprise visit. The front door stays open so as to allow some fresh air to waft in.

"Who's that in the driver's seat?" asks his mom, poking her head through. She makes a visor with her hand. "Is that Greg?"

"Uh... yeah, he's—he's helping me with the move," Tom half-lies.

"Well he doesn't need to wait out there like a dog, Tommy," his father laughs, clapping him on the shoulder. "Invite him in!"

"Well—he actually is, also, watching my dog."

"Have him bring Mondale in too! I'm sure he'll like to run around out back with Walter after you've all been in the car for what, twenty hours?"

The smart thing to do would have been, while Tom directed him past his old haunts, to make Como Park the last and leave Greg and Mondale there while he got this over with. This retrospection is passed between them through a glint in the former's eyes and a sheepish shrug when they walk through the threshold together, and the door finally shuts behind them. Tom supposes that he would just be answering questions about where his dog was, then.

His parents offer Greg a coke and he accepts it happily, unaware that they mean an orange fanta. Tom smirks and pats him, then gives him this intense look—don't be ungrateful, he means—and sends him on his way to take the tour of his childhood home that Greg surely wants.

He remains halfway present, though, unable to stray further than the photographs and the china on the dining room wall while a handful of questions are directed both his and Tom's way.

"How's all this going to affect you, then?" says Tom's dad.

"Hm?" Greg swivels around.

"You can't have kept your job if Tommy's gone, I mean. Unless—I suppose it is your family."

"Oh—n-no," he confirms, stretching his mouth into a thin, sad line for the parents to see. "You're right, sir. But don't worry about me, I've got, y'know... a safety net, if that isn't too blase."

"Not at all—I'm sure you were just smart with your money, like Tom."

Greg smiles for real, then. In spite of his sip of orange soda. "Yes, sir."

Tom throws him a knowing look, ironically ignorant that his father's attentions are in the moment turning back to him.

"I sure hope you didn't get Greg here in any mess by divorcing his cousin, son. He's a good kid."

The kid in question promptly chokes on a mouthful of soda. In the middle of it he tries to dissuade the man from that notion—

"Not at—all—"

"She's only his second cousin," Tom thinks to say. Without looking at Greg he reaches over to slap his back until he's fine. "They weren't close."

"We weren't close," Greg backs it up, however sorely, as soon as he can.

Tom's mother pipes up with the most powerful, assured voice in the room: "Oh, this is probably the best for everyone. If what Tom said about that Watergate business and Nixon and Mr. Roy is true, then... "

"Oh, I don't doubt it for a second," his father adds with a conspiratorial nod, "that article in the Pierce? The fact alone that they're still investigating after an indictment..."

"Everything aside, this seems like the best chance for you both to just live comfortably. Far away from all these politics... David and I are a bit jealous, aren't we? We love our jobs, of course, but... you know. Oh—Greg, will you be moving nearby? Seems you two have become the best of friends, it would be a shame to see you a country apart..."

"Yes," Tom says before Greg can risk spewing soda everywhere again. "I expect we'll be rooming together for a bit. Ideally in the long run we'll stay neighbors."

Greg feels obligated to force his recovery. "I've actually got other family up there too, so."

He's positive that they're only appearing to take it so well because an outside party is here. Tom apologizes repeatedly for making them waste their time and money on his wedding, and is told in that familiar Minnesotan flavor that there's no need. There's no need. But there is. And he can't feel relieved that they're reacting in a way that can't possibly be real—if they're angry, which they should be, he wants to know.

But he also can't bear to face it. The closest thing that Tom does to asking is just shooing Greg away for real, opening the space up for real privacy. Then he's able to explain himself a little more.

He clings a bit to this idea that he may have unintentionally planted, that him moving up north, "probably into the mountains somewhere, I'm at least going to be staying for some time in Quebec," is a sort of pilgrimage away from the site of his sins. Out to nature to forever reflect. Maybe they assume that he'll live as a sort of monk from now on, never to remarry and therefore never truly do anything extramarital in the eyes of God.

It doesn't stay a comforting thought for long. He always hated lying to his parents. Maybe that's why he had Greg park the car close.

"You seem kind of sick, hon," his mother eventually says, after his father has stepped out.

He tries to deny it, at which she tuts and puts the back of her hand to his forehead, then to either cheek. When she pulls it away it passes over her face at the same moment that a lopsided smile comes on.

"Tummy troubles?"

"Mom..."

I'm in my forties, he wants to say—and would say it any other time, but as she takes him by the arm into the next room, Tom follows without complaint.

"Sit with me on the stairs, would ya?"

One night, he was about twelve, his dad had gotten together with his friends who all put it to a vote and decided that little Tommy was old enough to be treated like a man. Tom himself didn't even ask for it. He was just there, peeking around the threshold to see them playing cards, and his old man pointed him out. Said hey it's about time, dontcha think? His mom argued, to Tom's relief, that it was his bedtime. She was more or less outnumbered five-to-one, however, by a bunch of intellectuals masquerading as rugged outdoorsmen nonetheless, so having her foot down meant nothing. It was summertime. It was reasonable that he could stay up late just this once.

So Tom sat with them, still a head underneath most of the cigar smoke by now so he didn't cough too much. He was allowed a sip of beer and didn't think yet to make any show of liking it—everyone laughed while he grimaced. He tried to listen and nod along to their conversation otherwise, but didn't really understand past the vaguest clue of when it was getting dirty, due to the way they snickered.

Finally, his mom came in again to call for him.

"You'll sleep all day tomorrow if you stay up any longer, Tommy," she said.

"Do you want to go to sleep, son?" his father countered.

And just as Tom began to turn his little head,

"Look at the kid, he's passing out as we speak. He can't even answer you!"

The man of the house conceded. Tom followed his mother out, grateful, and hugged her at the bottom of the stairs. He hugged her for a good minute. It could have been a lot longer—he was so tired. His mom just let him.

And he was twelve, but when he asked her if she could carry him to bed and tuck him in, she did.

"...I really do feel like I wasted your time."

"Honey—"

"I'm sorry, I know you said, but I am. I wasted everyone's time. And I should have known that I was doing it since the wedding. Honestly, Mom... I did. But because I was just too scared to say anything... I've got that on my soul forever now, huh?"

"Oh... Tom, you didn't have a Catholic ceremony, so I don't think, necessarily... you know. It may as well have not even been binding. I believe you have the right."

"I guess that is how you'd defend my case to God, huh."

She laughs, and he laughs, and then she seems to draw on some impossible, motherly power to tap into the core of him and ask,

"Tommy, what actually happened with Shiv, huh? C'mon."

The breath that leaves him makes his whole body shake. His mom starts rubbing circles into his back. She's so much smaller than him now.

"It's complicated," he starts to say, and follows it with several more nothings and half-truths, just slightly beyond what he's already been giving and omitting. Really, the hint that they all give of there being more to it is the most honest he's been with her since arriving.

She interrupts him in the middle of saying that the most important thing that he wants to tell her, even if she doesn't understand, is that he's happier now—

"Does Greg have anything to do with it?" she asks, hushed. Tom can't hide the way his mouth drops open. "Is that why he's really here?"

*

They stay for dinner, and after an inevitable conversation about career plans are given the go-ahead to get back on the road. Tom leaves behind a few Canadian travel pamphlets to sate his parents' curiosity about the places he's looking at. He promises wholeheartedly to call and to say hello to Aunt Pat for them if he passes her way.

"So?" Tom breaks the silence after the car is moving. He's decided it's his turn to drive—at least up until they get near the border. "...Had fun seeing where I grew up?"

Greg was hesitant to be the first one to speak, having caught Tom splashing cold water on his eyes in the bathroom earlier. He didn't figure that Tom would want to say anything real with his mom and dad around, but whether he'd be in the mood now, either, was up in the air. He very gladly takes the permission—really, the request, to be the talkative one.

"I saw this picture of you," he tells him. "I mean, I saw a lot. Your dad was um, telling me how he was really into photography, back in the day when it was basically new?—for the uh, common man I mean. He showed me his old Kodak that he got around the time you were born, which I dunno how he knows which is which because it seems like he saves them all even when they break... anyway. Yeah—I obviously saw a lot of other pictures, too, but this one was funny. You had to be like, ten or younger. And you had freckles, and these little overalls, and you were—you had a bunch of flowers in both hands, holding out to the camera like this."

Greg demonstrates, twisting in his seat and sticking his arms out at a downward angle toward Tom, and already halfway on his face—"With this big smile, but you were missing some teeth..."

Tom only sees what his peripheral allows but blows some air, as Greg all but demands. He decides to be mildly frustrated by the distraction.

"I don't get it, Greg, are you bullying a child? Child me?"

"I'm saying you looked happy, Tom."

"Which you expertly deduced from my big smile."

Greg ignores him. "It's kind of crazy knowing that you were a little boy at some point? You had to be but, just—that you weren't always just a grumpy businessman... I feel like we could've been friends. If we were the same age, I mean."

Tom blinks away some sudden moisture and hums a note. Greg leans close to kiss his shoulder. It's been an exhausting day without much of a chance for anything of the sort. He'd kiss him a little higher if they weren't still under a residential speed limit. He watches Tom visibly relax regardless.

"You know... that picture," Greg mutters. He conjures up every warm thought that nearly made him cry, around likely the same time that Tom was dealing with his own, and he puts his hand between the headrest and Tom's hair. "I swear I got such a vivid mental image, which—like, it must have happened, logically. But... you, just running around in a field, picking all these flowers, and being proud of them... I assume for your mom—?"

"Yeah." Tom coughs. "They were."

"Mm. Did she take the picture?"

"I don't remember."

"Well she... she seems really nice. I mean I met her before, but it's different—"

"I told her about you," Tom admits abruptly. He takes his first glance away from the road to see Greg's oh. And he looks back and forth a few more times as he goes on, increasingly choked, "She asked, would you believe it? She kind of... she really—she was my first best friend, I guess."

"Oh. Wow... wait, but—"

"She said that she wouldn't tell my dad unless I wanted her to."

Tom sniffs, and that's the end of it; he couldn't weep any more dramatically right now if he wanted to. Greg would of course not say a word if he did. But he knows what Tom would prefer by far. Within the minute he makes the executive decision to turn on the radio, stick an unasked-for cigarette in Tom's curving mouth and then his own, and light 'em up.

Greg decides over the next few hours that he ought to be the one in the passenger's seat more often. Once they've got so much state highway ahead of them that the map can be safely folded up, he watches Tom as much as he watches out the window. As if he hasn't already mentally traced the man's profile a thousand times over.

He just thinks of that little boy with fistfuls of forget-me-nots, whose time came at some point or another where he got told that he couldn't do that anymore. Because he had to grow up and be a man.

And when they cross—when Greg, with his dual citizenship and a nap under his belt, takes back the wheel, he feels that old wind hit him again and fill him up for old time's sake. He just breathes better here. He puts his hand on Tom's thigh and imagines the houses in those pamphlets, the ones that remind him of those he'd pass mournfully on his way to his grandfather's. The ones that sit privately atop great grassy hills spotted with color, where Mondale can run free in the rare patches of sunlight out west from the Laurentides.