Work Text:
Kendall didn’t always used to be like this. It’s important for you to know that before you make any harsh judgements, to understand that our relationship was built on a very solid foundation.
Despite doing everything he could to live up to Dad’s impossible expectations, despite always following in his footsteps while struggling not to remain in his shadows, he was able to remain a good man. That’s more than could be said for most people in the business. It’s more than could be said for most people I knew.
And he raised me, after all. It was hard to look at the man standing in front of me now, bloodshot eyes just desperate enough to keep me glued in place, and not remember the same boy who snuck me dessert when I was forced to stay in my room during dinner. He was wearing that same sweet smile.
It still scared me to see him this way. It still pissed me off to have a good night ruined by my strung out brother forcing me away from my friends because he had no one else to turn to and I was the last resort.
“Kendall, come on, just go home. I’ll call your driver and he can make sure you get back without getting mugged or fucking murdered, okay? I can’t deal with this right now.”
I swayed on my feet, just the tiniest bit, but it was enough to prompt him to grab my side, pushing me back against the wall just on the wrong side of gentle. “Whoa, whoa, hey,” he laughed out, seemingly unconcerned with how clearly pissed off I was.
This entitlement was so like him. He was the older brother, after all. He was about to start getting trained up at Waystar to be next in line to bend the rest of the world over and fuck them in the ass the day that Dad finally did us all a favor and bursted that vein in his forehead. Kendall tried to pretend otherwise, but he was just as spoiled as the rest of us were.
His hand stayed on my waist, practically caging me in to be heard over the booming of the speakers. Brandon fucking Flower’s voice was pouring out of them, because of course Kendall had also decided to interrupt while my favorite song was playing.
I would’ve shoved him away if I thought he’d be able to stand on his own two feet, if he wasn’t towering over me with pupils blown so wide his eyes were practically black. Even with the waxy sheen on his face, the purple lights in the club accentuating the dark circles under his eyes, he still looked picturesque. Beautiful in a haunting sort of way. Which, to be honest, diffused my anger the slightest bit.
But not nearly enough.
“Fuck you. Don’t be so patronizing.” I slapped his hand away from my waist, trying to prove that I could stand without his support. I had only had a few shots, and he had clearly had at least a few lines before searching me out.
It hardly fazed him, that same easy laugh falling from his plush lips as he looked me up and down, seeming to consider something before finally coming to a decision, his expression dropping back to the far away mask I had seen on him so much recently.
“C’mon, I just need to get my mind off this shit right now. Y’know?” He spoke quickly, urgently, determined to get me to agree with him like my opinion on any of this mattered. His eyes seemed to get impossibly darker, watching my every twitch, breath, like a hawk. “I really, uh, I really need you right now, sweet girl.”
God. Of course he would use that fucking pet name. That, combined with the hitch in his voice…he knew what he was doing to me. Or maybe he didn’t. I could never help but give him the benefit of the doubt.
I sighed, my hard gaze softening as I melted like butter under a hot knife, giving in far too easily. Dad would fucking kill me when he found out I let Kendall stay out like this, but that didn’t matter right now. Nothing did.
Gently, I took his hand, preparing to lead him back out to the bar and ask for a few shots for us. This was the only decent place in the city that didn’t card me, and I was going to take advantage of that.
But he stopped me before I could take a single step, shaking his head with a scoff, that same patronizing grin on his face as he looked down at me, gaze suddenly pinning me to the wall more efficiently than he ever could with his hands.
“No, uh, listen. I have something better than fuckin’, uh, Whipped Absolut,” he said, using his free hand to reach into the pocket of his suit pants that he’d clearly slept in at the office.
I didn’t have the chance to throw back a jab in response to him mocking my drink of choice, because I was too busy staring at the dime sized baggie of white powder he held up in front of me with a slack jaw.
He shook it in front of me as if it were a chew toy, as if it were entrancing at all. I wanted to scoff then, to be the patronizing one, but I couldn’t decide if I was more annoyed that he thought I wanted to do coke with him, of all fucking things, or if I was scared because the idea wasn’t entirely unappealing.
“Dude, no, what the hell? You really wanna be seen doing lines with your 17 year old sister right before you start doing real shit for dad?”
Rather than replying, he turned on his heel and started pulling me behind him, completely ignoring my protests and the way I tried to twist my arm out of his grasp. He pushed his way through the crowd, determination in his steps, all the way through to the back exit and out the door.
“See? It’s fine. No one will see us. Just one bump, alright?” He used his hands to trick me, distracting me momentarily as he talked with them for emphasis. Almost as if this was a negotiation, room for me to make a counteroffer. But he was no CEO, and I had no leverage here. These were two truths about our realities that would never change, and we both knew it, but damn if he hadn’t picked up a few things from dad the past couple of months.
I didn’t know why he was asking this of me, why he didn’t go have his fun with one of Stewy’s friends or even someone he met here. It made sense, in a way, that he would want me for emotional support…but that usually came the morning after, along with the headache and the regrets.
I suppose I could’ve voiced this to him, told him to fuck off to one of those people and find me when the crash came. Knowing what I know now, I know that he wouldn’t’ve listened. But that night, I was just so distracted by those sad eyes of his.
“Ken, I–I’m scared, okay? I don’t wanna do that shit, I’ll have a fucking panic attack and fucking die and they’ll have me in this cheap ass dress plastered all over the front page. You know I won’t stop you, but, like, no, dude.”
“Hey, hey, sweet girl, listen to me. That won’t happen. Why would that happen? This is good coke, safe shit. I’ll take care of you.”
There was that pet name again. That sweet, soothing voice of his, the same one that had read me bedtime stories when we were younger, the same one that had given me praise when dad had been too busy, or just plain cruel, to.
My eyes flickered down to the bag, meeting his reassuring smile with furrowed brows, chewing on my bottom lip as I, for some reason, considered what he was saying. It’s not that I didn’t trust him, because I knew that when he said he’d take care of me, he meant it. But, God, I had seen what that shit was doing to him.
Noticing my hesitation, he took a small step closer to me, taking my chin in his hand and tilting my head back to meet his eyes, that normally warm hazel swallowed whole by dilated pupils that bore into me with an intimidating intensity. His thumb stroked my cheekbone, skin clammy against my own hot body.
My breath picked up almost imperceptibly, and though I still put up a fight, it was probably this moment that I knew, subconsciously, I was going to do whatever he asked of me.
“Trust me. You’ll have a good time, yeah? C’mon, it’s me. Would your big bro lie to you?”
It made my blood boil how he could get me to acquiesce so easily, but only in hindsight. In the moment, I had probably seemed like some lovestruck schoolgirl–or something not so creepy–because I certainly felt weak in the knees when he lowered his voice so effortlessly, the stale scent of American Spirits hitting my face. So familiar.
He had poured some of the coke into the curve of his hand so quickly my head spun, my heart pounding at how suddenly I was put into this situation. His other hand shook as he tried to tap it into a decent line, the white mass the most terrifying thing I’d seen in years. I wanted to appear unfazed, confident, as I looked up to meet his eyes.
Somehow the way he was looking down at me was even worse, like a wolf staring down a lamb that would only recognize the false wool once it was too late, but I chalked it up to the orange glow of the streetlight.
“Don’t I need, like, a dollar bill or something? Or what, you probably use hundreds, right, you dick?” I tried to tease, wincing as my voice noticeably shook, no bass this time to drown it out.
Looking up at me from under his lashes, he chuckled, smiling at me fondly. I felt small in front of him, completely out of depth, transformed back into that desperate little girl who needed her big brother to teach her everything, because no one else was going to.
“No, no. Just, uh, just cover one side of your nose and, uh, inhale. It’ll be messy, but it’s fine. Don’t worry.”
He was always doing that, constantly reassuring me, as if he was the one who actually needed to hear it. But that night, I knew it was all for me, and so did he. I wanted to make him proud, for some reason, to prove that I could handle the same things that he could. I sure as hell wasn’t going to be given a crucial role in the company, and there weren’t many things I could do to prove myself in dad’s eyes. This felt, in some way, like walking in Kendall’s shoes. I had to go through with it.
“Is it going to hurt?”
I could tell he was getting impatient by the way he clenched his jaw. Or maybe it was the coke. Who was I to say? Either way, he didn’t answer, one hand on the back of my head guiding me towards the powder on the other.
“Cover your nose, like I said,” was all the warning I got. Face practically shoved into the coke, getting on my lips and all over my nose as I tried to follow his instructions, tried to snort the gargantuan pile I was sure he could devour in seconds.
It burned. I coughed on the drainage forming in my throat, but he kept me in place, forcing me to keep going until he was satisfied. My mouth tasted like pennies soaked in lime juice. Like blood. He still wasn’t satisfied. By the time he let me up, there was merely a pale residue left on his skin, and I was nearly choking on my own spit.
He grabbed my cheeks with one hand, brows furrowed, still displeased for whatever reason. After licking his thumb, he ran it across my nose, above my lip, then grinned.
“Waste not want not,” he exclaimed like it was the most obvious thing in the world, pulling his thumb into his mouth to get a taste of his own.
He was still talking, always talking, endlessly talking, but I was too focused on the acrid taste in my mouth to catch a single word.
I ran my tongue over my teeth, the roof of my mouth, the inside of my cheeks, over and over in a pattern of threes. Trying to get rid of the taste but to no avail. I could hear my tongue catching on the gap in my teeth, hear the spit sliding over my flesh, like a fish flopping on deck.
I was all the more aware of the bass from the club booming in my chest, putting my hand flat over my boob to check that it wasn’t my heart.
Who knows how long I had been standing there, checking my own pulse when Kendall snapped me out of it? Literally snapped me out of it, hand in front of my face like some disobedient dog. I covered his hand with both of mine, pushing it to his side so he could properly see the furrow in my brows.
“Don’t snap at me! I’m a human being, asshole.”
“Then behave like one and acknowledge me when I’m speaking to you,” he spat, another fine technique he was learning from Dad.
With his free hand, he rubbed his nose until it was raw, the fingers I had just captured tapping out a rhythm against my wrist.
He didn’t wait for a response; he didn’t want a response, just an audience. My wrist was promptly snatched, being pulled back inside just as easily as he had shoved me out. It was always this way with him. He pushes and pulls and I give and I give and I give.
No one seemed to notice or care as he yanked me through the crowd, greeting people with fist bumps and hand shakes, eyes passing over me like I wasn’t even there. I began to feel like a figment of Kendall’s imagination. A make believe friend to keep him company.
So it didn’t faze me much when he dragged me to the dance floor, both of us disappearing into the sea of sweaty limbs. Really, he was all I could see. All I could feel were his hands, feverishly hot where they met my hips. But I didn’t mind. In fact, I was used to his fingers poking and prodding and threatening to leave bruises. He had never been good at sharing what he believed was rightfully his.
I was too preoccupied with trying to dispel my body of the energy coursing through my veins to worry how we might be viewed by onlookers.
I let him put his hands wherever he wanted, mine running over his stiff shirt and the fuzz growing back on his head, like I had just discovered I had hands of my own.
“We should do this more often!” I shouted, completely drained out by the stereo system. I could feel the floor vibrating beneath me.
“What?”
Without hesitation, I pulled him closer. Or pushed myself against him. It was all the same. I cradled the back of his head, lips brushing the shell of his ear.
“I said, we should do this more often! I’m having so much fun! Aren’t you having fun?”
He shivered. I was burning up, sweat dripping down my face, skin salty when I licked my lips. I couldn’t stop licking my lips.
I dragged my hand down the back of his neck, sinking back to my normal height. So of course he was leering down at me, eyes like a hawk, still stone-faced when he was fucked up.
“Oh, look how serious you look! It’s adorable.” His expression didn’t change. Not even as I grabbed his face in both my hands, his stubble scratchy against my palms. Just a slight burn, like the one in my throat. I liked it, feeling his skin against mine, petting him like a patient dog and watching his nostrils flare in response.
He looked pretty in the lights of the club. Bright and flashing, blinding me enough to make me forget who it was I was truly staring up at. I could play pretend.
We were lost in the crowd, pushed up against each other by the countless other wasted washed up rich kids with no sense of space. But somehow he wasn’t moving, save for the incessant tapping against my hip, a twitch he’d always had.
“You’re sweating like a pig roasting over a fire,” he responded, not acknowledging a single word that left my mouth.
I sighed as his hand touched my forehead, proving his point by wiping sweat into my hairline. My skin felt clammy beneath his touch, physically objecting to such tenderness.
“Will you just dance with me?” I slapped his hand away, and he almost robotically placed it back on my hip. Took a step closer. His mouth was moving but he wasn’t speaking, not aloud at least, whatever he was thinking impossible for me to tell.
He pissed me off, forcing me behind a building to snort coke with him just to spend the rest of the night disconnected from me or even himself. I wanted to give him something to complain about, to be distinctly aware of his body and his place and his surroundings like I was when he moved his hands to the small of my back and pressed me up against him. I wanted to blame him for my heart climbing up my throat but I had never been able to say no. Only a fool wouldn’t take advantage of the opportunities provided so plainly. And Kendall wasn’t the fool in the family by a long shot.
I thought cocaine made Kendall irate because he was predisposed to outbursts. The drugs just made him less ashamed of his worst aspects. But here I was, trying to resist the urge to yell at him or slap him or step on his foot for good measure. Why did he need me here with him anyway?
Perhaps I just wanted to make a scene. And perhaps he knew the inevitably of such an occurrence, because of course he did. Wouldn’t it be good for Dad to have someone to look down upon, even if no one else was making him proud? By comparison…
LCD Soundsystem started playing. At that point, it didn’t matter what I had wanted to do to Kendall. I just wanted to dance, with or without him.
I slipped out of his grasp like I always longed to do. His fingertips just barely brushed my back as I turned away. Even if he had called out for me, it would’ve been drowned out under the music.
The city was full of beautiful people, and it seemed like every single one of them was in this club. A woman with sunkissed skin and box bleach hair handed me a shot, so tall in her boots that her chest was level with my face and the chemical smell of her body glitter wafted into my nose through her fishnet top. I downed it greedily and she kissed me on the cheek. I always hated tequila, but it was delightful compared to the taste of snot still pooling in the back of my throat.
And drinking felt good. It was a refreshing wave lapping at my feet, as opposed to the rocky crash I experienced the second the coke made contact with my insides. Kendall always took pleasure in my suffering.
Kendall, Kendall, Kendall…somewhere in the club, probably scheming about how to take back control of my night, make sure I only had as much fun as he had, as he allowed.
Before I knew it, I had made my way to the bar, and tequila was my favorite creation man had to offer. I sucked on a lime, chewing at the pulpy slice until there was just rind left. With seeds in my teeth and salt on my lips, I returned to the dancefloor, still buzzing.
Some pop song I’d never heard of was blasting in time with the racing of my pulse, and I danced with anyone who would allow me to touch them. Hands on shoulders, hands around necks, crotches against asses, every face had the same features.
Everyone in the club, everyone in the world, was my friend. I was elated.
I was used to being touched. The city was a touch tank and I was the population’s favorite creature. So it only felt natural to let the first person who tossed me a sweet smile run their hands up and down my sides, tug at my dress and fondle my ass. I felt fire everywhere our skin met. I loved it. I wanted more, as much as possible.
There was nothing gentle in the way I grabbed them. Hands on both sides of their head like a bowling ball, pulling them in for a kiss, sucking on their bottom lip like I had the lime, however long ago. I wanted more.
They pulled me closer. I realized, quite suddenly, when the feeling of breasts pressing up against my own became apparent, that the stranger I had chosen as my target was the entrancing woman from earlier. I’d never kissed a girl before, but I’d never done coke before either, so what did it matter? Her skin was hot and soft just like her lips and her tongue and I had never felt so good in someone’s arms before and her hair, that bottle blonde hair, was tickling my arms and it was just as soft as the rest of her and I could feel everything, everything, and it felt good. It all felt good. So who cared?
I stood on my tiptoes, wanting, needing more of her. All of her.
She shoved her tongue into my willing mouth and I sucked on it. Her spit tasted like bitter cherries and I savored the flavor. There was no more music, no more lights, just her.
A cold chill wracked my body.
“Here, piggy, piggy,” he cooed, that voice I’d know if I didn’t know anything else, hot breath hitting the back of my neck and raising the hairs that rested there.
His hand was cold when it touched my shoulder, sucking all of the warmth out of my body and replacing it with his natural frigidity as he swooped in, pressing himself against my back.
The woman didn’t seem to notice or care, not that someone else had joined us nor that I had stopped responding to her movements. So I tried to follow her lead. To ignore him. It seemed easy coming from her.
“Have you decided to dabble in lesbianism?” He asked, voice dripping with ridicule. “How do you think Dad will react to you being a dyke?” His lips touched the shell of my ear.
As always, subtlety was not his forte. Having heard him, my former partner finally pulled away from me, squinting at him. I couldn’t move forward, couldn’t move back, forced to remain between their bodies as they squared each other up.
She opened her mouth to speak. In my last brief moment of freedom, I thought she looked angelic even under the harsh lights in the club. Kendall wasn’t done talking.
“Hi. Kendall Roy. I have to borrow my sister for a moment before she does something more birdbrained than it seems she already has. Forgive her, would you?”
Without looking, I knew he had that sickening smirk on his face. So righteous.
And then she was gone. She hadn’t moved an inch, but Kendall grabbed my hand and I didn’t bother fighting. It was useless as always.
He pulled me through the club, through the crowds of sweaty bodies, out the backdoor again, and this time I knew what he wanted. I could tell by the way he clenched his jaw, the twitch of his eyebrow. Or simply the way he sought me out.
“You want some more, huh? It’s good, right?”
I leaned against the brick, letting the wind hit my face, looking up at the sky. I wished I could see a single star, but all the lights made it impossible.
I shrugged. “Does it really matter what I want?”
I didn’t really mean to say it, and despite how good the words felt coming out, I regretted them when he looked at me with those sad, engulfing, black hole eyes. He could suck me back in without trying too hard.
He pressed his forehead against mine. The plastic bag in his hand was rubbing against my arm, itching me, but I didn’t dare move, not with him close to me like this. I blinked and blinked and blinked but he was still there, looking as sorry as ever. Like he meant it.
“Of course it matters what you want. You know that.” He nodded as he spoke. I nodded back.
So it was settled, then. I would do another line.
The grin on his face as he poured the powder onto his hand looked fake, like his face was made of clay. I couldn’t look him in the eyes. But he just kept going, and that didn’t make me feel much better.
When he held out his hand to me, I knew what was expected. It was all for me. And I knew it was too much, but I wouldn’t make a fuss. What I wanted mattered, and I wanted this, or I would’ve gone back inside already.
I took the dollar bill and leaned down. Even as the snot built up in the back of my throat, viscous and burning, I didn’t stop. Even as I struggled not to cough, not to choke, I didn’t stop until it was all gone.
And when I finally did meet his eyes, he was smiling. Really smiling.
The butterflies in my stomach were short-lived. They quickly turned to wasps, to hummingbirds beating their wings inside of me and begging to be let out. I opened my mouth to mention my concern, and emptied the contents of my stomach all over Kendall’s shoes and the asphalt surrounding us.
“Jesus Chri–are you being serious right now, Rose?”
Somehow, his voice was as flat as ever. That was the worst part. If he had yelled, like Dad would, like I knew he could, instinctively backhanded me, I would know the next step. But he was completely still, emotionless.
I stared at the puddle, bright red chunks of half-digested lobster bisque, thinking about how many cocktails I’d had in the past few hours. I was shaking, shivering, but not from the cold.
“Clean it up,” he snapped.
“Wh–how–I don’t…” I stuttered dumbly, processing his command but not knowing how to follow through with it. Malfunctioning without the ability to meet his demands.
He grabbed the back of my head, forcing me lower to the ground. I resisted at first, but he didn’t let up, not until I realized what he wanted me to do. I was on my knees, face to face with his shoes, when he pulled his hands out of my hair, ripping a few strands as he went.
“Clean up your mess.”
I didn’t know if my face was hot from the puke or the embarrassment. As I leaned closer, the pungent smell hit me all at once, like the fancy moldy cheeses Dad had imported from foreign countries I could never pronounce as a child. I wondered what he would think of the two of us now, and it wasn’t the smell, but the thought of our father finding out about this that made me gag again.
My tongue made contact with the tip of his shoe. The chunky bits slid right off, down the side of his shoe, pooling around his feet. My mouth tasted like spoiled milk and hot soda. Tears were streaming down my face, and the saltiness of them pouring into my mouth was the closest thing to a reprieve I could find.
I could hear him heaving above me, practically feel him shaking underneath the touch of my tongue, like he was trying to contain himself. I couldn’t stop crying, but I had a job to do.
Just as I was finishing up his right shoe, his hand was in my hair again, tugging so hard it made my scalp burn, tugging until I was forced to look up at him.
I could barely see him through the tears, but I think that was a good thing.
“You love me, right? Tell me you love me, Rosey.”
It sounded like he was either crying or on the verge of tears himself. Even down on my knees, I knew I loved him, but I didn’t know if I should. I didn’t want to. Or at least, I didn’t want him to know I did. That was more debasing than tasting his shoes.
“Please, Rosey. I need to know that you love me.”
Please was not a word that any of us said often. Maybe it was that. I would tell myself it was that.
“I love you, Kendall,” I replied through hiccups. I still couldn’t see him, but I hoped he looked happy.
He let go of my hair and I finished the job without making a noise. He popped a mint into my mouth and it was fine. We didn’t have to talk about it. I didn’t even have to apologize, and neither did he. It was fine.