Work Text:
A fragment of a memory, somatic in its onset:
Roman, on his knees, looking up at his brother between the bars, helpless. Confined and aching, yet an ardent, bone-deep satisfaction running through him.
Good dog.
***
He wasn’t really trapped, back in Dad’s office, but Ken had made him feel like he was. Held between Kendall's hard, unforgiving shoulder and his hand on the back of his head.
Not like he is now, the way Kendall grabs him, pins him against the wall forcefully. When Roman is this worked up already and needs it before he can breathe. Roman nods and Kendall’s fingers are in his hair, massaging his scalp for a quick second before yanking his head back and striking his skull just hard enough on the wall to hit the spot, every cell in his body lighting up in tandem. His brain short-circuits like a battery in water.
They’re in entropy, cracks expanding in the wall Roman thought had been meticulously built between him and Kendall, now paper thin.
Roman remembers the illusion of it splitting the same way his face was pressed against him, when he asked Ken to hurt him in the way he knew how— an intuitive understanding that laid bare the door to a history they used to be intimately familiar with. He had done it so perfectly, Roman incapable of doing anything other than submitting to it, a potent shot of adrenaline and ecstasy creating ocean waves in his ears, almost unbearable in its intensity.
The blood he had left on Kendall's jacket made him feel crazed, something laser-etching itself into his brain and morphing into images that made heat swirl low in his gut when he let himself think about them. Thought about his brother leaning over him and striking him open-handed on the side of his face, hard, until spots formed in his vision. Thought about Kendall's hands wrapping around his neck and squeezing until he floated in and out of consciousness…
He sometimes has these dreams—
It’s dark. He can’t really see anything solid, but hears what sounds like water leaking from somewhere. There’s a low humming noise, and an unfocused red tint to the room he’s in.
He can suddenly make out Kendall’s voice. And he can feel Kendall’s hands on his face, tearing away at his skin, blood dripping down his face onto the floor while Kendall digs his fingers inside of him, hurried. It runs in thin, shiny rivulets down Ken's wrist.
He can hear Kendall clearly, now.
You're making a mess.
He woke up then that first time, sweating and tasting metal on his tongue with an ache in his head and a bigger one in his dick. He was shaking as he reached underneath his waistband, stroked a little too rough as he pulled himself off. When he came, it hit hard, his moans coming from deep inside him and catching in his throat.
*
They saw each other almost a month after the board vote.
Roman’s anger settled, dissipated. Worry started to plague him instead. One morning, he got a text from Kendall. He was in Los Angeles and asked to see him, showing up at Roman’s apartment later that afternoon. Roman noticed the way Ken glanced at his forehead after they hugged for the first time in a while, something unreadable in his expression. It had healed, but there was still a mark. Probably permanent.
Kendall updated him on the work he was doing - investment meetings with local subscription news apps. He didn’t think Ken was really interested in them though, felt he was craving some of the normalcy and routine he used to thrive off of, some remnants of power to chase. They didn’t talk about what happened. It was a short adjustment period, made easier with some shitty TV before things were almost normal.
But Roman felt off. Restless. He was more hyper-aware of Kendall than usual, watched him distractedly from behind the counter in his kitchen as he used a knife trying to open a stubborn bag of carrots.
He missed, slipped. It really was an accident.
The cut wasn’t terrible, mildly deep and about an inch long going diagonally across the bony side of his wrist, but Roman’s breath hitched when it happened, his brain going numb for a few blissful seconds before he went to bandage it. For the rest of the day, he found it hard to think about anything else. He kept craving the stinging, insistent ache of it. He was sure Ken noticed him picking at it. He’s sure it was why Kendall told him he wanted to stay over for a couple days and that he wasn't going to argue with him about it.
He still can’t recall the moments before, but at some point during the night, Roman found himself standing back inside the kitchen, knife held in his hand and tracing the fresh wound, ready to press the blade into his skin and open it back up.
Halfway into it, he was caught.
He jumped back. Kendall was yelling at him, frantic, and something in Roman snapped.
“Finish it. C'mon, it's almost done, so,” he urged, motioned to get his brother to take the knife.
“Roman.”
Kendall looked at his arm, at the blood, took a step closer. He reached out for it - tried to be quick, but Roman pulled back from him again. Roman laughed, an awful, desperate sound as his fingers shook.
“It’s okay. Hey... Put it down. Rome—”
“Fuck off. It’s not a big fucking deal. I'm not trying to like, you know...” Roman felt unsteady, panicked, something murky waiting to pull him under. “I might fuck it up though—? Go too deep. You should do it.”
Kendall stared, took another step closer.
“I’m not cutting you. Listen to me—”
Roman interrupted, voice strained. “I think you should. I think you want to.”
There was a beat of silence before Kendall lunged at him. He pinned him against the edge of the bar, and the handle fell from Roman’s fist and clattered to the floor.
Roman wouldn’t look at him. His stomach dropped out when he felt Kendall grab his arm, pulled it into him. His right hand cradled the back of his head while his left found his brother’s cut and waited for Roman to exhale.
Roman sobbed, and the fog in his brain cleared. He relaxed, slumping into Ken’s chest. He floated as Kendall squeezed his arm, his thumb dug into the red, angry flesh, pressing. Pressing.
The soft, pleading noises he made surprised him. Roman closed his eyes. He was so very still, and Ken just held him, firm and purposeful, where it hurt the most and felt the best. Roman became aware of how hard they were both breathing.
"Rome..." Ken said, sounded like a warning.
Then Roman looked down, saw the damage. Fuck. It was dripping. He stared, transfixed. Repulsed. Relieved.
After that, something slotted into place. One thing led to another; a system was made. Weeks went by. They had good control over it, wouldn’t let it get past a certain point. Wouldn’t let it become dangerous. Every once in a while, give Roman his fix. Make sure he didn’t off himself, accidentally or otherwise. Ask him how he wanted it, though Kendall could usually pick up on it pretty easily. Roman knew it was just as satisfying for Ken, although he always pretended it wasn’t. That's fine, it's what Roman preferred— made it a bit easier to avoid opening Pandora’s box.
Boundaries were stretched a little more each time until it was a thing that moved by itself and swept them up in it, the final pieces coming into view to reveal the image in full transparency. Impossible to hide, pointless to try.
A pattern emerging, an exchange deeply synchronized.
For Roman, eye-contact during it remained difficult, forcing him to pick up on something dark and molasses-thick trickling out steady, threatening to surface, but this felt good. They were doing something right. They were getting better; it was helping them. It wouldn’t be forever. But Roman wasn’t totally delusional. He wasn’t unaware of what could happen if he kept playing this game.
*
It’s never went on this long, before.
The degree of self-control he has slips through Roman’s fingers more with every passing second, every moment he's pressed up against his brother, trapped between him and the wall. It's like something switches, an unused program coming online, stuttering in its progression but slowly, surely, it's there.
Roman can't confront himself the way he can with Kendall. It's safe. It's a weird kind of sanctuary isolated from their hollow, made-up realities, all that time spent competing— Sandy, GoJo, CEO, whatever. It didn’t matter. He didn't really want any of it. But if it teased a path to Dad’s love, as corrupt and hopeless as his version of it was, he had to try. It was their center, and almost everything came from that. Now he's left fractured and floundering for any shards of meaning in the emptiness. He doesn’t feel real except for who he is when they’re in this.
There’s love. Suffocating, complicated. But there’s so much that it frustrates him. And he makes him so angry, sometimes. He can’t make sense of it, thinks that over time the lines had to get crossed, easier to channel his feelings about his brother into a competition. Let them be the fighting dogs, play the game, whoever wins gets a prize from Daddy. Punish the weak one, and everyone knows the hierarchy.
Maybe he knew he was always supposed to end up here.
He doesn't feel imprisoned — he feels the opposite. It's a freedom that exists only for them to understand. A bond formed through a broken and polluted past they don’t let themselves acknowledge.
How they look at each other, sometimes. I’m sorry for what he did to you.
The truth is that Roman isn't seen by anyone the way he is by Kendall. He’s torn open in front of him with nowhere to hide. He sees Roman's rot, the decay in his roots. And Roman sees his, too.
Kendall releases his grip.
He's breathing hard. Roman swallows. Can't say it. Needs - something stupid. Dangerous.
The hand in his hair moves again, starts massaging his sore scalp. Roman is lit up with it again, overcome with something heady. Bursting. Ripped open.
They're closer, barely any space between them and Roman suddenly realizes just how hard he is, stiff and aching with it— obvious now, and there’s no coming back from this. A concentrated wave of shame passes through his gut, but the desire he feels is stronger. He might die. He wants. He wants so bad.
He whines, his head falling in the space between his brother’s neck and shoulder.
"Jesus," Kendall says, his voice low and devastating. "You can't help it, can you?"
And he says it like he’s really sad about it, like he feels guilty about something. But he won’t say it. It’s okay, because neither will Roman, probably. Mostly he says it like there’s something hopeless about him, beyond repair. Something that needs mourning. Resigned to it. He’s sick; it’s lodged deep inside him, mutated into a form oversized and now every pathetic inch of him is poisoned. He says it like Roman is one nervous breakdown away from needing to be taken out the back and shot. Euthanized.
The air is suddenly getting thinner, and Roman's ears are ringing. His mouth opens, breath coming out faster.
He’s losing.
Kendall’s fingers grab tight onto his hair and he pulls, hard, fire rushing through his scalp.
It’s too much.
His hips jerk and he lets out a moan, his dick meeting Ken’s thigh through his pants. He shivers. Almost immediately, Kendall drags his free hand past his waist, reaching lower until he’s rubbing Roman's hard cock firmly over the fabric.
What was happening before in agonizingly slow motion is now happening too fast, too real and all-consuming.
Kendall looks at him, and Roman can finally see the heat he struggles to mask, stripped bare in front of him, mirror images of each other.
They kiss. It’s slow, chaste at first, for a second, but Roman quickly has his tongue in Kendall’s mouth, heart pounding heavy in his chest as he clings to him. He'd expected it to be awkward, uncoordinated but they sync, of course they do. Kendall has control of it, Roman’s jaw working to keep up, Kendall mapping out his mouth and teasing bites on his lips. The urgency in it is making his head spin.
Kendall’s hand moves from his hair to the side of his neck, and he’s gently pressing in, fingernails on his nape.
Below, he’s still working him, and Roman feels overheated, frantic energy coursing through his entire body. He could start begging, almost does when Kendall pulls away to press his lips on Roman’s neck, leaving slow, even kisses up his throat and across his jawline.
Then Kendall is running his fingers past his fly, pops open the button and reaches underneath the waistband of his underwear, finally inside and taking Roman’s straining cock in his fist.
Roman’s head falls back against the wall, biting inside his cheek, and has to focus hard on not coming. He wants to let himself have this for as long as physically possible. He had to wait so long for it.
Kendall releases him, bringing his hand back up to press two fingers against Roman’s mouth. Roman opens instantly, the pads of his fingers sliding easy through his lips and rubbing against his tongue, working them in and out as Roman moans softly, indulges in a short moment of slow suction before working his mouth around them to get them slick. He sighs, tries to keep his eyes open. Likes the way Kendall is watching him.
Ken pulls his fingers out, saliva stringing messily from Roman’s mouth.
“Good,” he says, and Roman feels high.
Kendall shoves his hand back inside and Roman moves to open his legs a little wider. He gasps when his thigh slots against Kendall’s crotch, a heavy flood of lust traveling up his spine when he feels it— Ken is hard. God. He wants it. Wants Kendall in his ear telling him how sick and ruined he is in that bored, sad, monotone while pinning him in place and fucking him sharp and relentless into the wall.
He grabs Kendall’s left side near his waist, fingers spreading over his shirt before bunching the fabric up in his fist as Kendall strokes him, gripping tightly, and Roman’s losing himself in the surging heat between them and his own hysteria building to a fever’s pitch.
Roman whimpers and Ken’s hand picks up speed, rubs his thumb over the head on the upstroke. Over and over, at a measured pace.
Kendall’s hand is back around his neck, and Roman leans his head back, makes a clear offering. He’s falling to pieces, moaning openly.
"Please," he says.
Kendall's fingers press into his throat—squeezes. It’s hard to breathe, and there’s a quiet bliss starting to roll through him. He wants to sink into it. His mind blanks.
"Oh fuck," he whispers. “Fuck.”
Roman flies over the edge and spills in Kendall’s hand, jerks and squirms like it's too much. He crumbles in Ken's arms, shaky, broken noises escaping uncontrolled from his mouth as it fully washes over him, vibrating with it. He’s left pliant, raw. Kendall’s still stroking him through it, coasting on the pleasure/pain of over-sensitivity, making his already perfect orgasm life-ruining.
He feels Kendall’s still-clothed hips snap against him, once, twice before Kendall comes. He gasps and presses his mouth over Roman's shoulder, scraping his teeth over the skin.
They hold each other.
Roman is exhausted, he hasn’t really slept for a long while. He feels like he could now, actually close his eyes and rest that way he needs to, brain waves stilling, stabilizing. He shakes as the rest of the adrenaline leaves him, heart-rate regulating. He breathes, relaxed and slow in Kendall's shirt.
It's late, the undisturbed stillness of the night bringing them back to awareness, creating a heavy undercurrent that carries with it something close to unmitigated peace yet bringing devastating clarity, full and vivid. A mix of things. Bliss, security, relief tied in with the guilt, the ever-present shame. It's easy to not think about it, though. It's easy to not think at all. Roman allows himself the bliss.
He sleeps that night in Ken's bed. Lets himself be lulled into weightlessness by Kendall's hand in his hair, lazily massaging the strands.
***
I told you, he likes it.
Connor is watching them, a strange look on his face as Kendall pulls on Roman's leash, gives his command. Roman performs a trick.
He looks at his brothers, shakes his head and laughs, but he doesn't think it's funny.
Roman does everything Kendall asks — He wants to be good. (He promises to never say no.)
Good job, Romey, Kendall says. He reaches down and rubs his head.
Roman beams.