Archive of Our Own

i.

1996

Ken’s calling. Stewy groans, rolls over, picks up. Presses the block of plastic to his ear, grumbles,

“You’re a douchebag.”

There’s a pause—then a huff, something half-laughed.

“How’d you know it was me?”

“You’re the only douchebag who calls people at—” Stewy opens an eye, squinting at the digital clock on his bedside table. “Four in the morning. What the fuck, Ken?”

“Oh, come on, like you’ve never—called me at four in the morning. Asshole.”

I haven’t, Stewy thinks, but doesn’t say. Instead he shuts his eye again, leans back in bed, phone cradled between shoulder and ear.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in, like, England? Having tea with the queen or some shit?”

Another pause. A cleared throat. Some muffled shuffling noises. He’s speaking quietly, Stewy realizes. Not quite whispering, but almost.

“Yeah, so, uh. The trip sort of…ended early? Um, some, like, stuff came up, so…yeah. I was calling to see if you wanted to hang out?”

“If I wanted to hang out.”

“Yeah.”

“At four a.m.”

“Yeah.”

“Gee, Ken, you are so thoughtful! What’d I ever do to deserve a friend like you?”

“Shut up, you fuckin’….dick. Just. Do you wanna hang out?”

Stewy shifts, phone pressing harder into his cheek. He can feel the tinny vibrations, buzzing in his ear when Kendall speaks.

“Hm…let me think…”

“Dude. Come on.”

Stewy rubs a hand across his face. He’s grinning.

“Yeah. Okay. Whatever.” He pushes himself upright, starts to crawl out of bed, “Where? Your place?”

“Um.”

Kendall clears his throat again. The sound buzzes against Stewy’s ear.

“JFK.”

Stewy pauses, grin melting like ice cream in the sun.

“Like…the airport?”

Silence. Stewy takes a breath. Fits the pieces together. Trip ended early. Stuff came up.

“Jesus, Ken,” he blows out the breath, “Um…okay. Is Rome with you? Shiv?”

“No, just…me.”

“Okay. Um—yeah, okay, I’ll. I’ll come and pick you up.”

“We’ll hang out,” Kendall says, quickly. Too quickly. Like the words are some sort of band-aid that he can slap down before the blood trickles out, if he just moves quick enough. Or a card trick, a sleight of hand. Like if he says that he’s just calling Stewy from JFK airport at 4 a.m. to hang out, then he’s just calling Stewy from JFK airport at 4 a.m. to hang out, and he’s not calling Stewy from JFK airport at 4 a.m. because his soulless fuck of a father abandoned him there for—some reason. Whatever reason. Logan always has a reason, though god knows he never seems to feel the need to share them.

“Yeah, Ken,” Stewy says, rubbing sleep out of his eyes, “We’ll hang out.”

They hang out at the beach, which is empty this early—won’t be for long, though. Summer’s in its death throes, August sun rising to bake New York City every day like it knows it doesn’t have much longer left, and the tourists are flooding the streets, the sand, the water, everyone trying to cling a bit tighter before September sweeps it all away.

Right now, though, there’s just the occasional jogger. A few old ladies doing some sort of stretching routine. A guy passed out on a bench. Stewy had the driver drop them off, gave him the address to take Ken’s luggage, said to pick them up in two hours. Ken looks exhausted, eyes ringed in dark circles, but he doesn’t want to go home. Stewy doesn’t have to ask—he knows. Ken doesn’t want to go home. Not yet.

They walk along the sand. Kendall stares out at the saltwater, eyes glued to the horizon, reflecting back the orange light of sunrise. Stewy throws an arm around his shoulders, swallows surprise when he realizes Ken’s gotten taller—they were the same height in June, when he left, but now things have shifted, and there’s the slightest stretch across Stewy’s deltoids, the trapezius, when he tries to reach. He looks up, calculating—half an inch? A quarter? He’s cut his hair, too, and the sunrise catches in the dark strands, the same way it does in his eyes. His ears stick out, like they always have. He has a face made for frowning, and he’s frowning now.

Kendall turns, and Stewy looks away.

“Dude,” he says, dragging him down the beach, getting him moving before he can plant himself in the sand and do his whole Kendall-Roy-Melancholy-Brooding schtick. “Do you remember Ramona Hortens? Goes to Spence? Taught Ricky how to shotgun a beer?”

Kendall nods, eyes still stuck on the water. “Um, yeah…”

“Wait ‘til you see her tits! It’s like they fucking—ballooned, dude, I’m serious…”

He doesn’t ask about England, doesn’t ask about the trip or the stuff that came up or the airport. Doesn’t press for details. Instead he chatters, mindlessly, about the kids they go to school with and the kids they party with, how everyone spent their summers, the gossip and the rumors and everything else Kendall’s missed. Over the course of two hours, he gets seven half smiles, four full ones, two laughs. A lot of eye-rolling and huffing and accusations that he’s making shit up—which, yeah. Maybe he is. But by the time the driver comes back to pick them up Kendall no longer looks like he’s ready to pitch himself headfirst into the water, so. That’s something.

They’re quiet on the drive back. Kendall leans his head against the window, closes his eyes. Stewy chews on his lip, watches Ken’s adam’s apple bob each time he swallows.

“Hey, Ken,” he says, when they’re a block away, “Your dad…”

Ken stiffens, immediately, eyes snapping open. He stares at Stewy like a snake, something coiled and defensive and cold-blooded.

Stewy fists his hand on the seat. Changes tactics.

“Are you sure you don’t wanna come back to mine?” he slaps a smile back on, wiggles his brows. “My parents are in fucking—Bali or Fiji or some shit. So…”

Kendall relaxes. Deflates. Smiles, though his eyes stay cold.

“Oh. Nah, um—my family’s gonna. They’ll, like, wonder where I am, so…”

The car slows, pulling up to the drive.

“Okay,” Stewy nods, “Sure.”

He doesn’t push. He never pushes—learned that lesson early, back when they were just-thirteen, friendship still something new and bright and fragile. The first few times he’d been over to Ken’s house, Logan wasn’t around, but that couldn’t last forever. It was only a matter of time before they walked through the door one evening, laughing about some stupid school assembly they’d had to attend, and Logan rose from an armchair, gaze falling like a hammer, breathing all the air out of the room.

He wanted to play monopoly, he said. Come on, boys, he said, It’ll be fun, he said, Don’t you have time for your old man? He said. And Stewy looked between the two of them—Logan and Kendall, father and son—and watched his friend turn into a kicked dog, something drooping and hopeful that flinched away from its master’s touch even as it moved closer, helplessly, as though unable to stop wanting it. Logan Roy was less a person and more an inescapable magnetic field.

They played monopoly. It was a test. That much was clear, from the very start. Logan kept asking Stewy questions—about his parents, their jobs, his heritage. Needling comments about “your sort of people” that Stewy had to smile and swallow every time he passed GO. If Kendall noticed, he didn’t say anything. He barely spoke at all, attention riveted entirely on the game.

He still lost.

After that, it was a new game. Dinner’s for Winners. Logan shooed away their staff, sat Stewy down in Kendall’s seat, called Rome and Shiv to come eat.

“Your brother,” he told them, in that gruff, matter-of-fact way of his, “Is a loser.”

Dinner’s for winners. Ha.

None of the siblings acted like there was anything weird about it—Rome and Shiv both seemed to enjoy it, telling Kendall to refill their glasses or bring more food, smiling with a glint of cold cruelty that couldn’t be hidden, entirely, by their childish features. It felt disconcertingly…routine. Because it was routine, Stewy would learn over the years—one of Logan’s favorite games, something they all seemed to take for granted. Kendall with his eyes cast down, balancing plates of food, not eating a single bite. Logan glowering at him, lip curled, like he was a piece of gum on the bottom of a new shoe and not his son.

After that first time, Stewy paid off one of the building’s maintenance guys to go buy them beer. They drank it on the roof, gagging at the taste.

“God,” Stewy scrunched his nose, staring ruefully at the can, “He probably bought, like, the cheap stuff. This is fucking—peasant beer.”

Kendall, tipsy already from drinking on an empty stomach, thought that was the funniest thing in the world. He sprawled out on his back, giggling, saluting the moon with his beer can.

“Peasant beer!” he crowed, “Peasant beer!”

Later, when they were both a little drunk and lying on their backs, staring up at the stars, Stewy heard himself saying,

“I get it, you know.”

Kendall turned, slightly, still smiling, to look at him.

“Hmm?”

“Just…” Stewy smiled back, shrugged a shoulder, like it was no big deal. “My dad, like. Doesn’t love me either, or whatever. So, I get it.”

Kendall recoiled, a sharp motion, as though he’d been struck.

“What?”

“No, I—” Stewy sat up, tongue clumsy, searching for words, “It’s not, like, a big deal. I’m just saying, I—”

“My dad loves me.”

The words were said quickly, pushed out all at once, like a shield lifted before the sword can come down. Stewy blinked.

“I…just…”

“No, that’s—why would you say that?” Kendall was standing, now, pushing himself lopsided to his feet, waving the beer can for emphasis. “Like, why would you think—that’s bullshit.”

“Okay, man,” Stewy raised his hands, surrendering, “Okay, sorry—”

“No, you just—” Kendall shook his head, pacing a few steps. “You don’t, like, get it. Like, I know he’s a lot, or whatever, but my dad—my dad is hard on me because he loves me. Okay? Okay? Like, he needs to be sure—like, I have to run this shit one day, okay? So it’s like—he does love me. If he didn’t love me he’d just, like, Connor me.”

Stewy stared at him, baffled.

“Connor you?”

“Yeah. Connor. My older brother.”

“You have an older brother?”

“Well, half-brother. But like—yeah, see, exactly. That’s my point.”

“Okay,” Stewy said, again, regretting bringing it up, regretting saying anything. “Okay, man, I get it. Sorry.”

Kendall nodded, once, twice, hesitating, as if waiting for the argument to continue. But when Stewy didn’t say anything else, he untensed, slowly, making his wobbly way back to the ground.

“My dad loves me,” he said, like it was some sort of threat. Like he was daring Stewy to say anything else to the contrary.

“Yeah, dude,” Stewy said, “Cool. Okay.”

Now, in the car, he watches Kendall disappear inside the familiar building. He watches the door shut. He drives away.                     

ii.

1998

They do coke for the first time in Elliot Bachauser’s bathroom, during the graduation party that he throws at his parents’ cottage on Long Island. (They call it a cottage—there are six bathrooms. The one that Stewy and Ken do coke in has a tub the size of a jacuzzi, and some sort of modern-art-sculpture sink that neither of them can figure out how to turn on.)

“Your cocaine, sir,” Stewy says, bowing, giggling, because they’re already both drunk, and Kendall nearly tripped on his way into the bathroom, and Stewy had to catch his arm and shush him, and that made him laugh so hard that they both nearly fell over again.

“Why thank you, sir,” Kendall replies, putting on a snooty British accent—Stewy’s pretty sure that he’s imitating his mom when he does that. His heart does a jackrabbit kick in his chest. Kendall’s hands are warm, when he passes over the little plastic bag.

There’s a lot of fumbling, a lot of shushing, a lot of giggling.

“Don’t we need, like, dollars? Or—razors, or something?” Kendall asks, and Stewy says, “Dude, I don’t fucking—know, okay, I procured the shit, you figure out how to do it!” and Kendall says, “Oh you procured it? You procured it?” and Stewy laughs and says “Shut up!” and shoves his shoulder and leaves his hand resting there. Kendall’s in an old t-shirt, fraying material, trying hard to look like he’s not trying. The material is thin enough that Stewy can feel body heat against the palm of his hand. If he moved his fingers, just a little, they’d be pressed against Kendall’s pulse point, and then he’d feel a heartbeat.

They bend, sniff. Hard.

It feels like—woah. It feels like the lights are brighter, the thumping bass from outside the door even louder. It feels like he could run a marathon, like his blood is fizzing, like he’s more awake than he’s ever been in his life.

“Dude,” Kendall says, and then his hands are on Stewy’s arms—one at the shoulder, one at his elbow, and Stewy can feel his laughter all the way down to his bones. “Dude,” Ken says, again.

His pupils are dilated, black and shiny and sparkling, and his cheeks are flushed, dotted with acne, pink and red and texture that Stewy can see in minute detail. He’s got sweat at his temples, on his upper lip. Stubble that he hasn’t shaved. It would feel like sandpaper, Stewy thinks. He shivers, though his skin feels fever-hot.

“Yeah,” he breathes, dizzy, “Yeah, fuck.”

“Fuck,” Kendall agrees, and his voice—his voice dropped again, this year, deeper in his chest, baritone clean and dark like the notes of a cello. Stewy lifts his hands too, off-balance, stumbling slightly. One ends up at Kendall’s hip, fisting his t-shirt; the other curls around his forearm, the one holding Stewy’s elbow. They laugh again, connected, swaying slightly as Stewy uses Kendall to regain his balance. His fingertip brushes ever so slightly against a bare strip of skin, just beneath where he’s got the t-shirt fisted in his hand.

Stewy wants—he wants—

“Fuck,” Kendall sighs again, leaning forward, pressing their foreheads together. The hand on Stewy’s shoulder comes up, circling the back of his neck, holding him in place. Kendall smiles, shuts his eyes.

“Dude,” Kendall says, voice cracking like lightning all the way through Stewy’s bloodstream, “This is insane.”

“Yeah,” Stewy breathes. He wants—

Kendall lets go, all at once. Stewy nearly loses his balance again, stumbles against the stupid sink, cold shock of pain through his hip where it knocks into the corner.

“Come on!” Kendall says, bright-smiling and eager-eyed, “Come on, let’s get back to the party!”

“Yeah,” Stewy says, smiles, feels cold in the palms of his hands, “Yeah—be out in a minute.”

The door shuts behind Kendall, and Stewy is left buzzing, burning, alone.

He shuts his eyes. Takes a breath. He can’t remember the last time he’s seen Kendall so happy, so—weightless. They’ll have the summer, vacations and beaches and long, hot days, and then Harvard, in the fall. He’ll finally be out of that fucking house. They’ll be roommates. They’ll share a bathroom, which will get fogged in the mornings in the aftermath of showers with the scent of Ken’s aftershave, his shampoo. They’ll sleep in twin beds on opposite sides of the room, slumming it, laughing about their tiny mattresses. Ken will pull his shirt over his head, the way Stewy has seen before—on the beach, at the pool, during the rare, impromptu sleepovers—revealing pale skin, the lines of his shoulder blades, the mole near the small of his back. At night, in the dark, Stewy will fall asleep to the sounds of him shifting, sighing.

In the mirror, Stewy’s pupils are dilated. His skin is flushed. He fights with the sink until it finally relinquishes water, splashes some of it onto his face, dries off with an embroidered hand towel.

When he gets back to the party, Ken is making out with one of Elliot Bachauser’s cousins, so Stewy goes to find another drink.     

iii.

2000

“Come on, man,” Stewy groans, watching Ken bang around the room, “You’re gonna kill my high.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Ken mutters, brow knotted up, frown in his voice, “You already killed my high. Just—where’s my fucking—”

Stewy sighs, rolls his eyes. “I don’t get why you’re being such a dick about this.”

“I’m being—you’re the one who’s being a dick!”

Kendall finds his coke, hidden in the back of his sock drawer. He slams it shut, turning to point his frown in Stewy’s direction. “I told you I was into her!”

And the thing is—yeah. Yeah, Kendall did say he was into her—her being Jessica Roberts, some doe-eyed brunette who was there with her friends at the party. Kendall said he was into her, yeah, but it’s not like he said he liked her, not like he said he cared about her. There were plenty of brunettes at the party. And Stewy decided to try molly, and maybe he went a little weird or something, but next thing he knew he was talking up Jessica Roberts, and she was like. Definitely feeling him.

Until Ken came over, said they needed to talk, dragged him away. Turns out talking meant yelling, and then it was on Stewy to calm him down, take him home, tell the host that Ken just needed to sleep it off. Only now Ken’s on his second line, so. Doesn’t look like he’s planning to sleep anytime soon.

“Dude,” Stewy sighs again, shaking his head, “What are you doing?”

“I’m gonna—go back—”

“Dude,” Stewy laughs, tries to break the tension. Grabs Ken by the shoulders, shaking him a bit. “Come on. We already pissed them off—you really think they’re gonna let us back in? Just chill.”

“Don’t tell me to chill,” Kendall mutters, sourly, pupils already dilating again. Stewy rolls his eyes, holds his hands up. Ken brushes past him to hide his coke again.

“Fine,” Stewy surrenders, still keeping his voice light. He’s really not in the mood for an argument, so he keeps his tone half-joking as he says, “Look, it’s not my fault girls like me better. Guess my dick’s just bigger than yours.”

Ken sputters, snaps his head around. “What?!”

Stewy smirks, wiggles his eyebrows.

“You heard me. It’s not my fault, Ken—my dick is just soooooo huge—”

“Shut up,” Kendall throws a sock at him, “You’re not fucking—bigger than me!”

“Oh yeah?” The smirk is a shit-eating grin, now, “Wanna bet?”

“Um, yeah, sure. Sure, I’ll fucking bet, you piece of shit. Fuck off.”

“Okay,” Stewy says, laughter stifled in the back of his throat—along with something else, a slow heat crawling up his spine. “Deal. I win, I get to fuck whatshername—”

“—Jessica, oh my god—”

“—Jessica. You win, you get to fuck her. Deal?”

“Yeah, whatever. Deal.”

The word hangs between them, and suddenly—suddenly the air feels heavy, the way it does before a storm. There’s electricity sparking up and down Stewy’s spine, every nerve ending alight, heart pounding. He watches Kendall, smile plastered on like an emergency exit, like ha ha, this is all just one big joke.

“Okay,” Stewy says, after a moment. “Come over here.”

Kendall does. He walks across the room, and then they’re—breathing. Both standing there, breathing, shallow, through the mouth.

“You got a ruler?” Stewy asks, and Kendall laughs, rolls his eyes.

“Fuck you, dude.”

“In your dreams.”

Stewy settles back against the wall, arms folded, projecting a confidence that does nothing to stifle the churning in his stomach, the fireworks in his brain.

“Well? Take it out.”

Ken glances down, once, then back up. Licks his lips.

“You first.”

Fuck, Stewy thinks, heart cartwheeling inside his chest, Fuck, are we actually doing this?

But Ken’s not calling the bluff, standing so close that Stewy can feel his breath, chin raised in some sort of silent challenge. His pupils are wide, wide, dark. He smells like beer and sweat and someone else’s perfume.

“Fine,” Stewy says.

He reaches down before he can think about it, unbuttons his jeans. The sound of the zip feels loud, feels physical, a vibration in the air between them. Stewy lets his pants hang open, shoulders still tilted back against the wall, hips canted slightly forward. He can feel his own heartbeat in the palms of his hands as he pushes the elastic of his underwear down, sucks in a breath at the drag of fabric as he frees himself.

“Okay,” he says, managing to keep his voice mostly steady, “Your turn.”

Ken glances down, then up. Swallows. Doesn’t seem to know where to put his eyes. Stewy can feel that electricity again, running up and down his spine. His skin feels feverish, hot; already his palms are sweating, blood rushing, and if he’s the only one standing here with his cock in his hand then this is going to get very embarrassing, very fast.

But then Ken moves. His hands go down, to the button of his jeans, fumbling. There’s the sound of another zipper. The rustle of fabric. Stewy looks down.

“Well,” he says, trying hard to sound less breathless, “Obviously mine is bigger.”

“Fuck you,” Ken snaps, but there’s no venom to it—he sounds just as breathless, just as desperate for air. “It is not.”

Stewy’s mouth is dry. He licks his lips.

“Well,” he says, aware that his voice has dropped, that they’ve gone from speaking at full volume to murmuring, words trapped in the space between them, “I mean, if we actually want to measure, we’d need to be hard.”

Ken’s eyes dart up to his face. He’s breathing shallow, quick, lips slightly parted.

“Wh—you mean, like…”

“Here,” Stewy pushes off the wall, before Ken can follow that thought, stepping so close that their knuckles brush. “Hold up your hand.”

He raises his free hand, as if in demonstration, holding it near his chin. After a moment, Kendall blinks, then copies him.

“Now spit,” Stewy says.

He spits into his own sweaty palm. Watches Kendall obey. It leaves a line of spit behind on his lips, turning them shiny and pink. Stewy’s heart is a jackhammer, pounding so hard he swears it’s gonna break his ribs, swears it’s gonna break something—the silence, this spell, whatever the fuck is happening here. He resists the urge to hold his breath, waiting for Kendall’s glassy expression to shatter, replaced by anger, repulsion, disgust.

But it doesn’t. His pupils stay wide and shiny, lips parted and shiny, palm spit-slicked and shiny. It only changes when Stewy moves his hand down, pushing Ken’s hand away, circling his cock with his own spit-slicked hand, squeezing gently. Then—then Ken’s mouth falls open, brow furrowing, eyes sliding shut, and he makes a small noise in the back of his throat.

“St—Stew—”

“Come on,” Stewy whispers, fervent and fevered, “You too.”

And then—and then Kendall is touching him, long fingers curled around Stewy’s cock, and Stewy hisses through his teeth. He speeds up, and Ken follows his rhythm, and—fuck. Fuck. He’s never been this hard in his life.

It’s the molly, he thinks, probably. The molly that’s lighting every nerve ending on fire, that’s making him feel every tiny detail—the ridges of Ken’s fingerprints, the pulse in the palm of his hand, the delicious pressure when he turns his wrist like that—just like that—

“Stew—” Ken gasps, voice cracked, “St—I’m—ah—”

His hips stutter forward, sudden, off-balance, and then his hand is gone—moved, instead, to grip Stewy’s shoulder. He’s got his hands steady against Stewy’s arms, curls forward to press his forehead down to the space between Stewy’s shoulder and neck, nose pressing right above collarbone. Stewy can feel him gasping, feel his breath. He lets go, too, steadying himself, stumbling back into the wall. Ken’s leaning on him, hard. Stewy laughs, breathlessly.

“Jesus, Ken, you get so sensitive on coke.”

He spits into his palm again, shoves it back down, this time wrapping around both of them. He can feel the sound against the soft skin of his neck when Ken cries out.

It’s messy, uncoordinated. They’re both thrusting, now, fucking against each other, into the palm of Stewy’s hand. Ken’s fingers dig into Stewy’s shoulders until it’s almost painful, breath hot on his neck, and Stewy feels delirious, feels like he’s burning from the inside out. Ken keeps making noises, hushed grunts and stuttered moans, and Stewy presses his cheek against Ken’s temple, lips brushing the shell of his ear.

“Well?” He asks, and his own voice comes out panting, breathless, “Who’s bigger?”

“Shut—ah, fuck—”

Ken jerks, once, twice, and Stewy can feel him pulsing, hot and wet, over fingers, palm, cock. He moves faster, doesn’t stop moving, not even when Ken half-gasps, half-sobs,

“Stew, wait, I’m—ah, it’s—”

Ken shudders, buries his face in Stewy’s neck, and then—bites, a sharp shock of pain, like a lightning bolt down the spine. Stewy gasps, and then he’s following over the edge.

In the aftermath, they’re silent for one heartbeat, two. Then Ken is stumbling away, fast, tucking himself back into his jeans. Stewy does the same. Grabs a tissue to wipe the drying cum off his hand.

They’re silent for three heartbeats. Four.

Then,

“Look, man, you should know that, like—I’m not, like—”

“Oh my god,” Stewy’s laugh is too loud, too harsh, “Dude, come on. Don’t even—do we have to have that fucking conversation?” He laughs again, forcing the sound off his tongue. “I’m like, fucked up, dude. I took like, fucking, molly.”

“Yeah,” Ken’s nodding, “Yeah, okay, um, so…”

Stewy rolls his eyes, throws the tissue in the trash. Grins, like it’s all just one big joke. Prompts,

“It’s not like you’re fucking sober, either, right?”

“Yeah,” Ken sniffs, rubs at his nose, “Yeah—no, dude, I’m like. So fucking high.”

Stewy leans against the door to the bathroom, pushes it open with his back.

“Just don’t be a fucking…bitch about this, alright?”

Ken nods, pupils still dark, still wide.

“Yeah,” he says, like a sigh of relief, “Yeah.”         

iv.

2002

“So,” Kendall says, clearing his throat, “Um. There’s something that’s, um. Come up.”

Stewy looks up. They’re two weeks out from finals, a month from graduation. No longer slumming it in a campus dorm—they share an apartment, now. Kendall’s hovering in the middle of their open floor plan, between the nebulously divided kitchen and dining room, and when Stewy looks up from the textbooks spread across the table the kitchen light casts a halo around Ken’s head.

“What?”

“Um…”

Ken clears his throat again. He’s got a glass of water in one hand, the other shoved into the pocket of his jeans. Harvard t-shirt, because he’s an asshole.

“So, I’m, um. Going to Shanghai. After graduation.”

Stewy blinks. Frowns. Nearly snaps the pencil in his hand.

“What?” He blinks again, shakes his head. “What happened to New York?”

Kendall nods, quickly, ducking his head, doing that stupid half-shrug thing he does when he doesn’t want to look you in the eye.

“No, yeah, New York is, like. The New York thing sounds great, so…”

“Uh, yeah, no shit. What the fuck, Ken?”

“It’s just that…my dad thinks it would be good for me to get, like. A more global experience.”

“Global experience? Fuck off—you go to Europe, like, every summer.”

“Okay, well, it wouldn’t be a vacation.”

Stewy snorts.

“Ooh, yeah Ken, Big Boy job at daddy’s company in Shanghai. Yeah, I bet they’ll really have your nose to the grindstone over there. You know, I bet they’ll put the boss’s son in, like, a little windowless room.” He gasps, dramatically, “Oh—do you think they’ll give you paperwork?”

“Fuck you, man,” Ken frowns, shoulders drawn up defensively, “We can’t all just fuck around all the time, you know. I have to like—learn how to run an entire company.”

“Oh, yeah. Can’t learn how to do that unless you’re in Shanghai. Do they even have companies in New York?”

“Fuck off.”

“Seriously, man—what the fuck?”

It’s a struggle to keep the half-smile on his face, an exercise in self-control to leave the confusion and anger buried beneath six feet of sarcasm. They’re a month out from graduation. They had jobs lined up in New York—they already picked out a fucking apartment in the city. Stewy can feel resentment boiling in his gut, taking in the guilty look on Ken’s face; he’s probably known about this for months, just didn’t have the balls to bring it up until the last minute.

Fucking coward.

“What, daddy got sick of seeing you in the city? Wants to send you as far away as he can?”

It’s dangerous territory. Kendall’s eyes flash; the frown on his face turns sour.

“Shut up, dude.”

Stewy props his head on his hands, makes a pouty face. Goes in for the kill.

“Is this, like, a Connor situation?” he stage whispers, “Out of sight, out of mind?”

“Fuck you,” Kendall spits, knuckles white around the glass, “This isn’t fucking—he wants me to spread my wings, alright?”

Bingo, Stewy thinks. Achilles fucking heel.

Then he processes what Ken’s just said.

“‘Spread your wings’?” The sarcasm’s gone, now. He leans forward, studying Ken’s face.

“This isn’t, like…is this because of winter break?”

Ken stiffens.

Winter break was at a ski resort in the Alps. All the Roy siblings, a big happy family, Logan and a bunch of his people in suits and one of Shiv’s friends and Stewy, tagging along. They made a half-hearted effort to actually navigate some of the slopes before spending most of the trip in the hot tub, at the resort bar, doing coke in their suite bathroom on the evenings that Logan was absent (most of them) before going down to the lounge to flirt with the rich tourists.

On one such evening, a few Canadians convinced them to hit the slopes again, and they came back to their suite flushed and a little sweaty, peeled off their snowsuits with the sun setting outside the window. Ken collapsed in an armchair, slouched, started messing with the tv, flicking through the channels. His shirt was white, cotton, long-sleeved and riding up slightly, a bare strip of skin above the hips. Stewy threw himself down in the other armchair, sprawled, dumped his legs in Kendall’s lap, and Ken muttered, “Fuck off,” but not like he meant it.

He kept flicking through the channels, eyes glued to the screen. Glassy, pupils not so dilated anymore. Stewy moved his foot, slightly, nudging, and Ken’s breathing got shallow, and he didn’t look down, and he kept pressing buttons, and neither of them said anything. The flush crept slow across his skin, down his neck, and Stewy pressed a hand to his mouth, leaned back in his chair, moved his foot slowly, steadily, back and forth. Watched Ken’s pupils dilate, again, and liked it—liked knowing it was him doing it, and not just the coke. He pressed down a little harder, and Ken hissed through his teeth, opened his mouth like he was going to say something, and then—

And then Shiv burst in, shouting,

“Ken, dad wants to have din—”

Stewy moved so fast he nearly fell off the chair, dragging his legs back, and Ken moved, too—but still, Shiv stood there, staring at them. The fucking snakewoman, with her snakey eyes and a little snakey sneer on her face.

“Dad’s back early,” she said, “He wants to have dinner with all of us. Now.”

Then she turned, left, and they went down to the dinner, and none of them ever mentioned it again.

Now, in the kitchen, Ken’s staring at him like some sort of prey animal, something caught in a snare and breathing fast.

“No,” he says, quickly, “No it’s not—it has nothing to do with…that.”

Right, Stewy thinks.

“Right.”

“I just—”

Ken turns, now, looking away, and the conversation’s taking on some new shape, something Stewy isn’t entirely sure how to navigate.

“I was just gonna say. You could, like. Come with me.”

Stewy stares at him. Standing there, in the kitchen, in the apartment that they share. Refusing to meet his eye.

“Do you…” he says, slowly, testing the words like a branch that might break, “Want me? To come with you?”

“I don’t—” Kendall shrugs, a violent, jerky, movement, like a puppet on a string. “It’s not—I mean, it’s not, like, a thing. Like, don’t make it a thing, it’s not like—that. Just…you could. If you wanted to.”

“Do you want me to?”

Kendall still won’t look at him. Stewy can’t see his eyes.

“I dunno, man. I mean, it doesn’t—it doesn’t, like. Make a difference to me. Just…if you wanted to, you could.”

“Right,” Stewy says, voice dead in the water, “Yeah.”                             

v.

2004

Nate, Kendall tells him, works for a think tank.

“Wow, man,” Stewy says, “A think tank. What do you guys think about?”

Nate laughs, good-naturedly, with his Mr. All-American smile, his baby blue eyes. Prick.

“We do a lot of work with economic policy, environmental justice—”

“Oh, wow, economic policy. Well it just warms my heart knowing we’ve got guys like you out there thinking about economic policy for us!”

“Shut up, man,” Kendall says, laughing, reaching over to shove his shoulder. “Sorry, this guy’s an asshole. You know this is the first time he’s visited me in two years?”

   “Aw, babe. Did you miss me?”

If Nate picks up on the bitterness underlying the words, he doesn’t say anything—just laughs again, so cool, so chill, so down with it, and excuses himself to go get another drink. Stewy sits, alone with Kendall for the first time in two years, strobe lights flashing overhead.

The truth is, he wasn’t going to visit at all. The truth is, fuck Kendall Roy, and fuck his half-assed non-apologies and his bullshit excuses and his daddy-made-me-do-it hangdog victim complex. They graduated, and Ken went to Shanghai, and that was it. Stewy was done with it. He had better things to do with his time than fly halfway across the globe to visit Kendall fucking Roy. There were other brunettes in New York.

But Ken kept calling. And Stewy kept picking up. And telling him to fuck off, mostly, and stop driving up the phone bill for no good reason, and also waking him up in the middle of the fucking night. And Ken would say something stupid, like, fuck you, you fuckin’….cunt, and Stewy would lie in bed with the phone against his ear stifling a smile.

But he didn’t visit. That was the line, and he wasn’t going to cross it.

Until.

Until Ken was having a bad time. A really bad time. Until he called and woke Stewy up and drove up the phone bill and said,

“Come on, man. I want you here.”

Well, Stewy’s here. Stewy’s here, in a fucking club in Shanghai where he can’t read the menu and all the music is mind-numbing EDM and the flashing lights are designed to give people seizures, and Kendall seems to be having a perfectly fine time with Nate, who’s like, his new favorite person on the planet, apparently. Think-tank Nate, who’s gonna save the world by thinking really, really hard about economic policy. Yippee.

“Hey, man,” Kendall says, throwing an arm around his shoulders, leaning in. He’s got his head tilted, mouth to Stewy’s ear. Because of the music. Probably. EDfuckingM.

“Did you bring, like…did you bring some…stuff?”

Stewy nods, slowly. He can feel Ken’s breath against his jaw.

“Yeah, dude. Did you…wanna…?”

They crowd together into the bathroom, where everything’s black, for some reason. Black toilet, black sink, black tile on the floor and walls. It’s like the entire place is designed to fuck with people’s eyes as much as possible.

“So,” Stewy says, while Ken’s sniffing, “Nate, huh.”

Ken laughs, waves a hand.

“Oh, yeah, Nate—Nate’s a piece of shit.” He laughs again.

“Uh-huh,” Stewy nods, sniffs. Feels the blood start jumping in his veins. “Well, you two seem like besties now. Do you guys, like, have sleepovers? Braid each other’s hair?”

“Come on, man,” Kendall says, eyes bright, pupils wide. “Hey—do you have any more?”

“I don’t like this bathroom.”

“Then let’s leave.”

Ken’s crowding him, grasping at his arm, pressing their foreheads together. Stewy swallows. The sink presses into his back.

“Come on,” Ken says, “We can go back to my place.”

“Uh-huh. What about Nate?”

Ken wrinkles his nose, waves a hand.

“Fuck Nate. Nate’s boring.” He presses closer, lips at Stewy’s neck. “You know how to have fun.”

“Ken,” Stewy says, head spinning, because—he sounded bad on the phone, like actually bad, and this is…Stewy doesn’t know what this is. “Ken, dude, I’m not…”

“Come on,” Ken breathes, and his hands are moving now, and Stewy knows—Stewy knows he’s just reaching for his pockets, but it feels…

“I missed you,” Kendall says, squirming one hand into the pocket of his slacks, letting the other one hover at the waistband. Stewy closes his eyes.

“Yeah,” he says, “Okay. Let’s go.”  

vi.

2006

“Hey, dude,” Stewy says, like they’re still in college, like it hasn’t been almost a year since they last spoke. “Heard they sent you to Iceland.”

Kendall smiles, tense and strained. He looks awkward, uncomfortable, standing in the corner and watching everyone else mingle in their suits and ties like a kid waiting for his parents to come pick him up.

“Yeah,” he says, stilted, “Well. You know. I’m back now.”

“Oh, yeah. Back in the motherland!” Stewy slaps his back, leaves his arm curled loosely around his shoulder. “So are you, like, boring now? How does that whole thing work—like, they just suck all the fun out of you, or…?”

Ken didn’t want to go to rehab, according to Rome. Wouldn’t have had to, if he didn’t show up strung-out to an investor meeting that Logan sprang on him last minute. Another game with his dear old dad, and wouldn’t you know it? Dinner’s for winners. Rehab’s for embarrassments.

“Ha, ha,” Ken says, blandly, eyes fixed somewhere across the room and it’s—jesus. It really is like they sucked all the fun out of him.

And it’s not like—it’s not like Stewy’s a bad friend. Because he did know things were bad. Or at least, he had an idea. Ken said he had it under control, but—yeah. Rehab was probably, like. A thing that he needed. Except maybe on his own terms. Maybe not in fucking Iceland. And maybe somewhere where Stewy could actually reach him, because he doesn’t know what happened except that a year’s gone by and Ken hasn’t called him, not once, not since getting out. And it’s not like Stewy can call first. It’s not like he’s Kendall’s fucking dog.

It's just…fuck. It’s just that he wishes the first time they were seeing each other again wasn’t here, at this stupid bullshit fundraiser for like, orphans or the arts or some shit. He wishes that Ken would at least look at him.

“Hey, man,” he says, dropping his voice. “You know, if you want to, I’ve got a little something. Like, for old time’s sake…”

He sees it, sees the spark in Ken’s eye, the flicker of interest. Feels him go tense, head start to turn, but then,

“Kendall!”

Connor’s waving, from across the room, trying to get Ken’s attention. Ken’s eyes snap away, brushing Stewy off, shrugging out from under his arm.

“Yeah, man, not tonight. I’m, um, just…maybe some other time, okay?”

“Uh-huh,” Stewy says, “Sure man.” He stands, watching suits walk by, watching Kendall walk away.         

vii.

2008

He kills it with the bachelor party. Kills it with the best man speech, too, at the rehearsal dinner, has the entire room in stitches, because he is just so goddamn likeable like that. Even Rava’s laughing, sitting with her head on Ken’s shoulder, her arm around his. She’s pretty, with those big brown eyes, that long dark hair. A beautiful couple. Truly—a beautiful fucking couple.

Stewy goes back to his suite, alone. Told Ken he didn’t need a plus one—nah, man, I’m just gonna fuck your mom—so he drinks by himself, a little bottle of complimentary champagne that the resort left in every room. Cheers! He moves over to the picture window, leans against the glass, looks out at the moon over the water. Getting married on the beach—how pedestrian. But then, maybe that’s just weddings. Only so many beautiful places to tie the knot.

When the knock comes at his door, he’s not surprised, but he’s not not surprised, either. He wondered—he did wonder. It’s not like they’re as close as they used to be, but…

Still. He’s Kendall’s best man.

He opens the door, hating the way his heart kicks when he sees Ken standing there. In a few hours, he’ll be standing at the end of an aisle, and Ken will be standing in front of him, watching pretty Rava in her pretty dress walk down the pretty beach. But right now he’s standing, backlit, in the hallway of the resort. Stewy’s got one lamp on in his suite. Other than that, it’s only moonlight.

“Hey,” Ken says, “Can I…”

“Yeah,” Stewy says, stepping back, “Come in.”

The door locks, automatically, behind him. Ken moves forward, pacing, stops abruptly in the middle of the room, like he’s realized he doesn’t know where he’s going. Stewy leans back against the door, holding the bottle of champagne by its neck.

“What’s up, man?”

Kendall turns, half-shadowed, not quite meeting his eye.

“Nothing,” he says, “I just, um…”

Stewy raises a brow. “Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet? I was so looking forward to sweating my ass off in that suit all day.”

Kendall laughs, once, miserably, and then folds down onto the bed, buries his face in his hands.

“I just…I dunno, man. I just don’t know…”

“Okay,” Stewy says, carefully, moving over to sit beside him. “What? What’s going on?”

“I love her,” Kendall tells him, earnestly. He lifts his head, eyes wide, staring Stewy down like he can transmit the truth of it from the depths of his pupils. “Like—fuck, man, I really do. I love her.”

“Uh-huh,” Stewy says. His tongue is a detachable instrument. He plays it like a clarinet. “Yeah, man. Of course you do.”

“But it’s just—I just—I dunno. It’s like…am I doing the right thing? Is this the right thing?”

“I mean…” Stewy extracts the words, like pulling out a splinter, “You said you…love her, right?”

Kendall nods, nods, nods.

“And, like. She loves you?”

Kendall hesitates. Stewy rolls his eyes.

“I mean, she agreed to marry you, didn’t she?”

Kendall nods again. “Yeah,” he mumbles, “Yeah.”

“Okay, so. I mean, generally speaking, when two people are…in love with each other. Marriage seems like kind of the logical next step.”

“I just—I dunno. What if I fuck it up? What if I’m just, like…bad at it?”

“At what?” Stewy snorts, “Being married?”

Ken shrugs. Looks away. He’s still wearing the outfit he had on at the rehearsal dinner—suit pants, white button-down. The jacket and tie have been abandoned. The top two buttons of the shirt are undone, collarbones a collage of shadow and moonlight.

“Then you’ll be bad at being married,” Stewy says, blithely, “Fuck, man, I dunno. Get married, don’t get married. Who gives a fuck?”

Ken’s lips twitch. He smiles, ruefully.

“Thanks, dude. That’s like—that’s really great advice. Really helpful.”

“Right?” Stewy leans in, slightly, nudging their shoulders together. “Feel like I should start a blog or something. Monetize my wisdom.”

Kendall huffs a laugh. “You are so full of shit.”

Stewy’s grinning. He’s still grinning, stupidly, when Kendall turns to him, the full force of his eyes, his stupid smile.

“Hey, do you…” his eyes dart away; he licks his lips. “Do you, like. Have something to take the edge off? A little bit?”

Stewy’s heart is a rock at the back of his throat. When he doesn’t respond immediately, Ken adds,

“Just—for tonight.” A small, self-deprecating smile. “Special occasion.”

Stewy swallows. “For old time’s sake?”

Ken nods, immediately.

“Yeah,” he says, “For old time’s sake.”

They do the coke in the bathroom. For old time’s sake. And then they finish the champagne. For old time’s sake. And then they sit on the end of the bed, talking shit, for old time’s sake. And Stewy puts his hand on Ken’s knee, for old time’s sake, and—

“Hey, man, I’m not…”

Ken stands, abruptly, moves towards the window. “I’m not, like. I didn’t come here to, like…”

“Yeah,” Stewy nods, standing, following, “Yeah, of course not.”

“I’m just saying,” Ken says, as Stewy presses him back against the window, tugs on his shirt to untuck it, “Like, with Rava…”

“Uh-huh,” Stewy says. Ken shivers when he drags his fingers along the edge of his waistband, moves his hands down to unbuckle the belt.

“I shouldn’t…” Ken breathes, as Stewy drags the zipper down.

“Ken,” Stewy murmurs, rubbing slow, over cloth, “You’re not married yet.”

“Yeah, but I just…”

“Ken,” Stewy says, pushing cloth aside, now, “Shut up.”

He kisses, hard, hard enough to press Ken’s head back against the glass of the window. And Ken melts, like he always does, like he always used to do, mouth falling open, muffled noise punched out from the back of his throat. Stewy swipes his tongue across teeth, sucks at Ken’s bottom lip, moves his hand slow, at first, and then faster. Ken gasps, eyes fluttering shut, hands coming up, one clinging to Stewy’s hip, the other pressed back against the window, palm flat on the glass. His head tilts back, so Stewy kisses down to his jaw, his throat. He’s gentle, careful. He doesn’t leave a mark.

The next day, he stands three steps behind Kendall, watching Rava walk down the aisle in white.                         

viii.

2018

Ken’s calling. Stewy groans, rolls over. Cracks an eye to look down at the glass screen, at the name, the time.

An arm snakes around his waist, lips pressed to the nape of his neck.

“Ugh, don’t answer it.”

Nick’s voice is sleep-roughened, drowsy. They’ve been seeing each other for a few months—nothing serious, of course, but it’s nice. Good. Nick gets it, understands how things are, though he did ask, one time,

“So, none of them know that you’re…”

“A faggot?” Stewy supplied, and Nick sighed, rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, sure, Stew. Whatever.”

“No,” Stewy snorted, “Of course not.”

“See, but like—why do you say it like that? Like, it’s not the 1950s. What do they care who you sleep with?”

“Oh, you sweet, naïve man,” Stewy shook his head, mock-sympathy and sarcasm, “I wish it was the 50s. These people? It’s way before the 50s—it’s like, fucking, feudal or some shit. They still like, burn witches at the stake for fun.”

Now, staring down at the screen, Stewy says, “It’s Ken,” and Nick groans again.

“The ex you’ve been fucking for twenty years?”

“He’s not my ex.”

“Sure, Stew. Whatever you say.” He yawns against Stewy’s neck. “Don’t answer it.”

“I have to.”

“It’s like, 3 a.m.”

“I know, but he’s like—he’s got this shit going on with his dad.”

“Uh-huh.”

Stewy props himself up on an elbow, drags a hand through his hair. The phone is still buzzing.

“It’s all this bullshit with the fucking company. I keep—trying to tell him to just fuck it, get out, but it’s like…pathological. His dad is like his fucking…white whale. Like he can’t stop chasing after him until he finally says he’s like, proud of him or loves him or whatever—like that’s ever going to happen. It’s just…bullshit.”

“Huh,” Nick mumbles, sleepily, “Guess I finally know what you two have in common.”

Stewy draws away, pushing off Nick’s arm. The phone goes silent, screen lighting up with a missed call notification.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Jesus, Stew, it was a joke.” Nick yawns again, rolls over, shifting around as he gets comfortable. Stewy opens his mouth, skin prickling with irritation, something squirming in his stomach—but then the phone starts to buzz again.

Ken’s calling.

He picks up.