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Kendall hears Stewy come inside before he sees him. He’s huddling on his balcony, desperately trying to wrap the blanket around him tighter. It’s so god damn fucking cold.
“Hey,” Stewy yells but he doesn’t come outside. He hears him rummage through his cabinets, opening and shutting through drawers with more force Kendall thinks is necessary.
The sliding doors open with a click.
“I heard rumors about you going sober but I didn’t want it to be true.”
Stewy sits down next to him on the ground, kicking the leg of a chair out of his way. Kendall turns his head and finds him much closer than he thought he would.
He’s also wrapping up a joint.
“Where did you get that?”
“From your kitchen Ken. How old is this shit?”
He looks at him. Watches his fingers roll up the paper. Bring the joint up to his lips and light it up with matchsticks. There's a sweet smell that follows his deep exhale.
It’s easier to follow what he’s doing than the conversation that he’s trying to have. Shoulder pressed against shoulder, he thinks about how young Stewy looks. How they used to do this all the time. When it was just them, fresh from college, when all their dreams seemed like they were real. When he had felt real. And Stewy had been more real than anyone. He had always followed him wherever he went, behind every corner Stewy had led him to, blowing weed into his lips and smirking like the devil as he sunk to his knees and took him into his mouth.
He doesn’t remember when that stopped being enough.
Suddenly, he misses Stewy like a limb, even when he’s right there.
“Ken?”
“What?”
“I asked how old this shit was?”
“I don’t know. College?”
Stewy lets out a rambunctious laugh while he coughs into his exhale. He offers it to Kendall. He doesn’t think much as he takes it. He inhales and it calms him down a little. Lets him loosen his hold on the blanket.
“College? That can’t be right.”
“I wish we were still there," Kendall mumbles.
“What? College? Ugh, don’t be maudlin.”
Stewy’s not looking at him.
He’s seen him cry. Stewy never cries but Kendall’s been there when he fell down on the soccer field and broke his leg and when his mother died and he was in pieces. He’s seen him cry.
He’s tasted his lips and his come and he remembers laughing with him so hard he's ruined their lines of coke. He remembers jumping fences and running from his father’s bodyguards. He's trusted him with his life. He's trusted him with his money.
He knows him.
He throws away the bud and stares him down long enough for Stewy to turn and look at him too. Their noses almost touch.
”Do you think we could get any of it back?”
Stewy doesn’t say anything for a while. Kendall holds his breath and wonders if he might be swept up in the wind if he holds it long enough.
“I don’t know, Ken.”
He looks down and coughs. Scuffles his shoes back and forth on the ground.
“With you. I mean like it used to be with you,” he adds, even though he didn’t ask what he means.
Stewy sighs.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Kendall risks a glance at him. Stewy smirks a little when he sees him but his eyes are sad.
“Crazier things have happened.”
Kendall chuckles.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah man. Logan Roy is dead. Anything can happen.”
Kendall turns back to stare at the horizon. He can see the Hudson River. It’s still and quiet. There’s blanket of mist hovering over the water.
He thinks about drowning.
“I’ve been thinking and I- I need- Waystar. I need to like fucking. I need to do this. I need to.”
He doesn’t exactly know what he’s asking. He doesn’t want to push- Shiv and Roman they’re finally good- they’ve never been this good and that must mean something but it’s. Yeah.
He does know. It’s inevitable. He’s untethered and Stewy’s hand is the only thing he can think of to grab.
“Uh-huh.”
Stewy doesn’t sound convinced. It’s upsetting.
“Cos- cos what the fuck was it all for? You know? If I don’t? All of the bullshit and my life’s in tatters, I mean what the fuck am I even- it can’t have been just-“
He chokes out. He doesn’t know how the sentence should end. He doesn’t know anything. He feels tears gathering at his eyes and he’s had enough. He’s so tired of crying. He leans down and brings his hands to his eye sockets and presses. Hard enough to hurt. Hard enough to stop crying.
He feels Stewy bring his hand on his shoulder.
“I know.”
He grabs Stewy’s hand and brings it between his own two fists. Presses his face to Stewy’s knuckles.
“I need you with me. I need you here.”
Stewy sniffs.
“You keep inviting me to watch you set yourself on fire. I’m not that into it.”
Kendall knows what Stewy thinks. He’s always known. What Stewy really wants to do is set Waystar on fire. With his dad’s rotting corpse in it.
There was a time when he was convinced he could change Stewy’s mind. At Waystar we’ll be kings. The whole world served to us on a platter. Stewy never believed him and so he stopped trying. He never stopped to think about why Stewy hated it so much.
He presses his lips to Stewy’s hands, absentmindedly.
That’s a lie.
The hand that isn’t trapped in his grabs Kendall by the head and forces him to look at him. His fingers curled into a fist go lax. Stewy steadies his gaze on him. The hands on his face are warm. He doesn’t remember the last time someone touched him like that. It’s nice. He closes his eyes.
“Hey, no look at me. You’re asking me to be an accomplice to your murder-suicide. You get that right?”
Kendall opens his eyes. Stewy’s face is set in stone but his voice wavers.
“We’re in a sinking ship. You’re asking me to punch holes into lifeboats and hold your hand while I do it.”
“I just want peace.”
“Fuck you. You’re in all my nightmares.”
Kendall kisses him. It’s a soft kiss, lips barely touching. He tries to move forward but he’s stopped by the relentless hold Stewy has on his face. He doesn’t stop moving his lips on him, relishing how warm Stewy feels against him. How real. He’s so cold but Stewy is a furnace underneath his touch. Want grows in his stomach like a dark hole and he whines. Stewy’s breath stutters and then the hands on his face don’t let go but they bring him forward. He kisses him properly, lips bruising, swallowing down his tongue. He scrambles to get on him. Sits astride in his lap and grinds down. His skin feels like it’s on fire.
“I missed this,” he mumbles into Stewy’s neck.
“I hate you. I’m a human being.”
Kendall lifts up from his neck and watches him. His breathing is hard and his cheeks are blotchy and red. His hands have drifted down and he’s pressing bruises into his waist with how hard he’s holding him. His hips are moving with him, incrementally, even now that Kendall’s stopped.
“Do you believe in me?”
“No.”
Kendall puts his hands on Stewy’s face, on his cheek. Brushes his fingers on his eyebrows and searches his eyes, as if he needs to in order to find the truth.
“But you do.”
“Fuck off.”
“I love you, man,” he says, to make Stewy feel better. Really, to make himself feel better.
He does love him. He does.
He’s not ruining him for nothing.
He takes Stewy inside and lets him fuck him, his face pressed into the mattress so hard it’s hard to breathe. He feels like passing out. It feels better than anything he has felt in such a long while. He feels high, high like he's gotten offered the best deal and the best drugs and he thinks if he could only keep Stewy in him like this he would be good. He would be so good.
“Life would have been so much easier if I never met you,” Stewy whispers, pressing his lips between his shoulder blades.
Kendall doesn’t let it sting. Not now. Not when his heart feels so full.
“But would it have been fun?”
Stewy laughs.
“I love you too, you fucking asshole.”
Kendall smiles. Afterwards, he holds onto Stewy’s hand around him and tries to hold onto his feelings.
But it’s useless. He never manages to hold on no matter how hard he tries.
When morning comes, he feels cold again.
**