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When Kendall's phone rings, it's three in the morning and he's just sent Jess to bed after noticing that she was falling asleep standing up. He felt a little guilty about that, but 'tired' really isn't something he's capable of right now. He's all live wires and laser focus and it's not like he could say this to anyone else but Kendall's dad dying has left him feeling more like a person than he has in months. It's like his dad is this star that collapsed on itself and for a brief moment he's free of the suffocating intensity of Logan Roy's gravitational pull. Sure, Kendall's sure the subsequent black hole will crush him eventually, but he's good. For now he's good.
He glances at the screen before answering. "Yeah, Rome?"
He's not sure what he's expecting from his brother at this hour. Last minute hail mary ideas to tank the Gojo deal, complaints about Connor's neurotic funeral planning, an apology for the blow-up at Matsson earlier that Kendall isn't looking for, really. What he doesn't expect is Roman's voice to be shaky, a little panicked. "Ken, I think I fucked up."
Something is wrong, but Kendall is a Roy and thus physically incapable of expressing genuine feeling so he says "You think? Yeah I mean, you kind of fucked up us fucking up the deal." And then, because he is worried, "worse things to be a failure at then . . . failing, though, I guess."
"No-" Roman says, choked off. "Well, I mean - yeah, I did fuck that up, sorry about that by the way, but not, I-"
He breaks off again and Kendall is officially scared. He's about to say something when Roman says, like it pains him to do it, "Listen, I need your help. But like . . . don't make a thing out of this, okay? It's not a thing."
"Okay," says Kendall, voice steady but with a growing sense of dread. He quickly slips on a pair of mountain-appropriate shoes and steps out of his guest bungalow/treehouse/whatever weird-ass place Matsson has them staying. "Can you tell me what's going on bro?"
"I-" Roman stutters out, and Kendall knows without seeing him what his face looks like right now, twisted up and embarrassed. "It was a mistake, alright?"
Kendall can hear him lurch away from the phone and the sound of retching. His ears are ringing, everything sounds like it's underwater, and he tries his best not to think about pools or Italy or "how long do you think that boy spent sucking in water". He picks up his pace.
"Be there in a second" Kendall says, grateful that his bereavement-induced outward composure is holding, at least. Roman makes a noise halfway between acknowledgment and choking.
The door to the guesthouse is unlocked. The bathroom is open, lights on. Roman is sitting on the bathroom floor, sweaty and shaking. He very pointedly and unconvincingly tries to sit up straighter as Kendall enters. Kendall, having had some experience in this area, can tell he's taken something before he's across the threshold.
"What?" Kendall asks hurriedly, because his brain is suddenly static. Roman, wincing, looks grateful not to be interrogated any further. He gestures weakly at the counter.
There's a white pill bottle. Kendall scans it. Xanax. Prescribed to Logan Roy for use 'as needed.' Empty.
The noise in Kendall's ears is so loud he thinks he must have gone deaf. "Rome," he says, shaking his brother from where he sits slumped against the wall, eyes lidded. And then, louder and more urgently, "Rome, how many?"
Roman's eyes focus enough to look extraordinarily ashamed. "I-"
He lunges forward again, uncoordinated, to retch into the toilet.
"Roman. Roman," Kendall says desperately. "Brother, I need you to tell me how many you took."
Like he'd rather die than have to say it, Roman chokes out "Not sure. Like - half?" He glances up, sees the look on Kendall's face, averts his eyes again. "Crazy night, you know how it is."
It's a low enough blow that normally Kendall would be wounded by it. But this is decidedly not normal and Kendall remembers him yelling at Matsson, remembers "I'm gone, I'm dead, it's over for me" in the same shaky tone, and he can't feel anything but fear. He finds himself wishing, illogically, masochistically, for his father. Kendall wants the unstoppable, unbeatable Dad he thought he knew before he finally realized who his dad really was. He wants Dad who could look any problem in the face and beat it into submission.
Kendall is suddenly terrified that he can't fix this.
"Okay. Okay," he says and distantly registers that his voice is still level, that his body hasn't caught on to the panic yet. It's enough to force him back to the present, to remind himself that he's not a little boy waiting for his dad anymore. His dad is dead and before he was dead he was an asshole and he was wrong about Kendall because Kendall can do this, has to do this. "I've got you, come on."
He doesn't suggest calling an ambulance, because Roman is right, he does know how this works. So he stuffs his fingers down his brother's throat, filing the memory away with the other shit he wants to never think about again if he can avoid it even as he does it. Listens to Roman gag. Pretends he doesn't notice how Roman is crying when Kendall decides his chances of imminent death are low enough that he can go to bed.
Roman is too out of it to say anything when Kendall settles into the chair across the room. He just looks at Kendall, eyes blurry, face cracked open like an open wound. He looks very young right now, Kendall thinks. Like they're kids again and he's snuck into Kendall's room after getting berated by Dad. Or maybe he just looks scared and lost and that's how Kendall remembers him looking a lot as a kid. He falls asleep like that, wondering where the fuck they go from here.
When Kendall wakes up, Roman's not in his bed. He barely has time to register the icy panic that cuts through him at that, though, before he hears the faucet turn on in the bathroom and turns to see Roman, dressed and brushing his teeth.
Roman, who has most definitely noticed that Kendall is awake, very pointedly does not say anything. Kendall waits while he finishes brushing and rinses his mouth out. The white pill bottle is still on the counter next to him. Roman pretends not to see that, too.
Kendall opens his mouth to say something when Roman steps back into the bedroom, but he doesn't get the chance. "I'm going to grab breakfast. We're leaving at ten, right? After all of the mutually mastubatory congratulations and everything?" He goes for his jacket, draped over the bedpost.
Kendall would rather do anything else than have this conversation right now. But he also knows that if he doesn't say something now this will forever be added to the list of things they don't talk about and Kendall - he wouldn't say this to Roman, obviously, doesn't think he could force out a mushy "I know how you feel" if he wanted to. But he remembers the feeling, in Italy. Sucking in water and not trying to surface. And he doesn't know what to do, but he thinks about not saying anything and Roman going on, drowning, until this happens again and he feels like puking.
"Rome," he says instead of any of that, pathetically.
Roman won't look at him. "Yeah?" he asks, zipping up his jacket with hyper-focus.
"If you need to talk to me or Shiv, you know you always can . . ." he trails off. It's the wrong thing to say. He cannot fathom the right thing to say.
Roman physically recoils at that, twisting away so Kendall can't see his face. Eventually says "I asked you not to make a fucking thing out of it, okay? It was a stupid fucking mistake, it's not like a big deal. So you don't have to do this."
Kendall, remembering his post-pool intervention and trying to think of what Connor would do right now, stares at him. "Dude, come on. Please don't bullshit me. You almost, like, fucking died."
Roman scoffs, looks down. "I'm fine."
"You took an entire bottle of pills, Rome."
Roman finally turns to look at him at that, something desperate in his eyes. "No, I - it wasn't the whole bottle, first of all, and second of all it wasn't like that. It was - I was - I've been having a hard time sleeping since all the Dad stuff and I wanted to relax and I just couldn't and it was stupid and I wasn't thinking but it wasn't fucking like that, so stop saying it like it's like that."
Every cell in his body is screaming at him to end this conversation, but Kendall says, as gently as he knows how, "Okay, it was a half bottle of pills. But you don't take half a bottle of pills to relax, Rome. You take a half a bottle of pills to-" his voice dies in his throat. He can't make himself finish the sentence.
For a second Kendall thinks Roman is about to storm out and they'll never speak another word about this, but Roman just stands there for a moment. Sits down heavily on the edge of the bed, clasps his hands together, looks very much like he's trying not to cry.
"I get that you had a different relationship with Dad than I did," Kendall says slowly, trying to find his footing. "And I know - it's been hard on you. Him dying."
Roman winces, doesn't say anything.
"But like - and I'm not saying that it's like that," he continues, "if you say it's not then okay. But I heard what you said yesterday. To Matsson. About being . . . about feeling like you were dead. And I get - it just happened and of course you're not going to be over it. But you're not. Dead. And you're - we're - going to be okay. Okay? You're going to be okay, Rome."
Kendall is convinced that he is the worst possible person for this conversation and prepares himself for the coming mental self-flagellation over just how fucking bad at this he is. Waits for the door to slam, for Roman to storm out.
It takes a good thirty seconds for him to realize that Roman is crying, silently. Shoulders heaving, curled in on himself. "Rome," Kendall says again, cluelessly.
Roman pushes a hand across his face, shields his eyes from Kendall's view. "I don't know what to do, Ken," he says, so quiet and interspersed with ragged breaths that Kendall can barely hear him. "I - this was all I had, and now - now Dad's gone and she's gone and we're selling and us - me, you, and Shiv, it's not going to work, you know it's not going to work." He gasps raggedly, painfully. "And now I have nothing, no one, and I don't know what to fucking do."
Roman stops, exhales, still crying. The air in the bedroom suddenly feels stifling, like some unspeakable line has been crossed. But there's also something, like being freed from the littlest bit of their father's all-consuming gravitational pull, like he can breath just the littlest bit easier. He can work with this, Kendall thinks. So he says "Okay, it's okay, we'll figure it out," and he hugs his brother and it's something.