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bowieandqueen11 · 2 years ago

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Kissing Roman Roy Would Include...

Request: oh my god! your kendall roy kissing headcanons were adorable! would it be possible to get some for roman as well? i just know that man is touch starved and definitely had an awkward time kissing the reader early on in their relationship. obviously, you can choose to ignore but thank you!

Awww yes of course you can get some my love this man is 100% touch starved you’re so right <3

LADS OKAY I’M COMING BACK TO SAY THIS IS NEARLY 7K AND MY LONGEST FIC BY FAR LMAOO BABYGIRL CODED anyway comments are much appreciated because I am so tired lol ty ty ily all! :)

Warning: mentions of injuries/ blood, childhood abuse, and some swearing! Also MAJOR spoilers for Season 4!!

(I do not own Succession or its characters, all rights go to creators. Gif credit goes to @xihatiancai.)

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°

We all really took one look at Roman Roy and went wet pathetic disgusting meow meow man I love you, and I really love and appreciate that for all of us. Because like... if not babygirl, why babygirl coded?

The first time you guys ‘kissed’, you were both around seven years old: on the tennis court, Shiv had sent a ball flying at Roman that had bent his hand backwards, and left quite a nasty gash of blood running down his arm. Instead of comforting the brother she had just bruised for the umpteenth time, the set of Roman crawling down to sit on the grass while cradling his arm just made her furious, and she went storming off towards the kitchen for some chocolate milk to cool down. You had been watching from the doubles side line, dropping your own racket as soon as Roman began to snivel, squeezing his skin back together and wincing as warm blood gushed out onto the grass. You run over to kneel in front of him, the harsh rays of light blushing across your head like a halo as you grab onto his elbow. You press the back of your shirt against it, hoping it will do until a nurse or one of the waiters comes running out with a first aid kit; as you glance up, the furious face of his father comes pacing past the balcony doors, and so you turn Roman’s head to look at you instead, praying that he won’t spot him. It will only make him whine more. It surprises you when he curses curtly instead at the feel of your fingers pressing down hard against his wound, but when you mumble an apology he finally stops scowling down at the ground and looks up: it’s as if he’s seeing you properly for the first time. His eyes light up as you gently lean down and press a kiss against the bloodstains; just the slightest hint of pressure, and tingling warmth of your your lips is enough to send a flourish through his body and make Roman Roy feel nourished. No longer withered, no longer left to rot. Roman gazes up at you: past the dappled sunlight, past the dotted clouds, past the earth and skies and heavens, and past it all he sees you.

You’re the first and last person he’s ever wanted to kiss. Like craving poison, he knows it will pass through and destroy him if he allows himself to indulge. But by god, if it wouldn’t taste so sweet as it pours down his throat and overwhelms every dilapidated part of his body.

The first time he works up the nerves to kiss you back, is in one of the pool storage huts just past the outer boundaries of his father’s estate. Shiv had finally convinced her father to allow her out into the city to go shopping for some new suits, and Ken had been chained into a business meeting to take notes for Logan, so Roman had been left all alone to wander around the ostentatious shadows and lonely halls of the house he hated to call home. Feeling trapped, like he couldn’t breathe, he wanders towards the ‘safe space’ the two of you had created a couple of years ago: a small nook you and Roman had spent the day nestling out (and nearly breaking his arm shoving unused surfboards and pool cleaning chemical boxes) in the dim, and slightly damp room. Finally feeling at home as he stepped into the mildew-steeped scent cloud that enveloped the square box stuffed full of things his father had wanted out of his sight, his heart is allieved to spot you already there. You don’t even have to look up from your book as he comes dawdling towards you like a puppy afraid it’s about to be kicked. When you open your arm up to him willingly, the true him comes leaping forth: like a darting hummingbird, he comes flying into your side, nestling his chin on the hard part of your shoulder so he can scan the words lazily past your head. After about half an hour of him gripping onto your shirt, as sweet and softly as infant spring, he glances up towards your face and an overwhelming urge overtakes him. Before he can stop himself, before he can make sense of his decision, before he can chide himself for his weakness, he lifts his head up and presses his lips firmly, if a little harshly, against the side of your cheek. Your book crashes to the floor with a thunderous slap, lifting a small cloud of dust as you raise your fingers to the wet spot in surprise. He immediately shuffles backwards at the noise, before making an awkward, fumbling excuse and running out the door.

He never brings it up again, but whenever you’re round at the Roy residence after that you can feel the intensity of his eyes land on you far more often. He blinks away and scratches the back of his neck nonchalantly whenever you catch him, or sometimes scrunches his nose up and starts biting the edges of his fingernails if he’s really nervous. But the love is there. He just can’t say it yet.

Once, when you were the only person in the house besides Connor and Logan, you were asked by the second-born eldest son to help him find Romie. With a concerned sigh, Connor wanders off to check behind the bathroom door off the living room, his lips forming a tight line as he disappears off down the corridor. Turns out, Logan had found out that Roman had been the one to spill his ice cream cone in the car on the way back from his fencing lesson, and Roman had run off cursing and crying when he heard the roar reverberate out from his father’s office at the news. You know where he is, instinctively. Of course you do: you don’t even need to think as your feet guide you towards his bedroom, and your body shrinks down to scoot under the bed and lie on the pristinely clean floorboards. He’s hiding behind the tendril weeds of his fear, making himself as small a target as possible as he balls himself up, trembling like heavy branches when lanced with frost. From behind his raised elbows that protect his face, he’s sniffling, his feet leaving the ground every few seconds from how harshly they shake. You lie down carefully on your side beside him, so hyperaware of any part of yourself brushing against him, in case the wounded creature decides to bolt. Thankfully, he comes sliding towards you, only stopping when your chest does the job for him; being as physically close as he can get to you, he huddles into your embrace while you stroke back the few curls by his ear. Once you’ve finally managed to choke back your own tears, your lips latch onto the spot of skin by the lobe of his ear, eyes closing and ticking his skin. He warbles against you, shivering, and the kiss just makes him whine more harrowingly against your chest.

Romie’s always around you. Always. He finds it difficult to actually be physically intimate, so it says quite plainly (even if you can’t understand it yet) that you’re the love of his life when he comes barrelling down the front stairs of the veranda and straight into your hug whenever your first foot falls onto the estate. It also means that during family dinners, when he’s finally mastering the skill of slouching back in his wishbone chair and tuning out all the horrible and spiteful things wrapped up in faux sincerity his family are saying about each other, he turns instead to kick your feet under the table. The brush of his ankle against your shoe is soon followed by the heavy pressure of his fingers reaching over onto your lap and entangling with your own. When the two of you are finally excused, you decide not to go back inside straight away. Instead, the two of you go for a dander around some of the verdant fields around the edges of the property: a few green patches here there that are filled with the scent of honeysuckle and freshly blooming rainbows splattered amongst the dirt. You decide to stop and sit for a while on the edge of a cobbled stone wall, laughing as Roman nearly falls off the uneven patch as he settles down beside you. He shrugs you off with a wave of his hand, but he’s smiling as you pluck a daisy from between the blades and tuck it behind his ear. For a while, the two of you just exist: watching the sunset brew violet and lilac gleams across your eyeline, talking shite and poking fun at each other, until Roman shyly takes a break from his rapid talking to blink slowly. He leans his torso forward, and after a bashful burn flickers over his cheeks, he squeezes his eyes shut and plants a wet kiss against your cheek, just like he had done all those years before.

He climbs into your room later that night, and you nearly hit him with a baseball bat when you come strolling out of your bathroom to see a teenager laying splayed out in a heap on your rug, a few pages of your homework flying over your desk from where he had banged his knee and tripped. With a lopsided grin, he decides to just stay lying there (once you had convinced him that you weren’t going to actually hit him). Sometimes Roman just likes to watch what you’re doing: to observe as an outsider what normality, what contentment should and could feel like. As you sit by your lamp and finish off your english essay for the next morning, you notice with furrowed eyebrows that Roman is moochier than normal tonight: he keeps squirming, rolling about and whining as if he’s debating something in his mind. That’s why when he’s gripping onto the ivy and finally climbing back down into the darkness later that night, you grab onto the collar of his sherpa jacket and heave him up through the air like a flustered bird towards you. After his initial surprise at the feeling of you pounding your lips against his own, he melts into you: clumsily, messily, desperately, but with one hand gripping so hard onto your window frame that he splinters the wood. His top lip refuses to let you go: capturing onto your bottom lip over and over and over again, the sweet taste of cherry flooding your senses as you bite down on the lip forcing its way into your mouth. When he pulls away, he looks so uncharacteristically serious for a moment as he hovers a few inches away from your face. His eyes never break from your lips, as if he he looks away the miracle he’s been graced with might fly away and he’ll be left with the hellish nightmare of his normal reality. But it doesn’t, and so you let him go.

He burns a crimson red and starts muttering incoherently as his feet work their way back down the garden lattice, but he’s got this giddy smile and a spring in his swishing walk the whole way home.

I mean, like, of course Connor invited you on the camping trip. And man, I mean the tension that had been expanding between you and Roman over the last few years was becoming more and more obvious to his brothers, and it pierced Roman’s heart with a stroke of fear when he realised it was to him as well. Connor’s little fishing expedition by the river turned out a little differently than he expected: instead of a placid moment between family, learning and teaching new skills together and bonding over one activity they could all share in, it was more of a ‘watch little gremlin Roman flirt obnoxiously with Y/n and, once again, ignore everyone else’ fest. Kendall sat on the shore, itchy against the reeds of grass and sighing every time he looked down at his watch. Connor was still having fun, though, from where he was wading his brand new, and never worn again wellies into the shallow end of the creek. It was just that every now and then he would have to trip over his fishing line and scoot to the right to avoid large splashes of weedy water landing on him; Roman had decided a much better use of his time was to try and pull up handful of mud and chase you around the river side with it. Your squeals, as you ran around the tamarack trees and peered around the sides like a meerkat, could be heard from the campsite. So, too, could Roman’s hyena laugh as he went laughing around the bend after you, and Connor had to spend half the night ignoring your shared snickers as he apologies to camper after camper.

I don’t even know how, but somehow the two of you managed to convince Connor that it was a great idea for you and Roman to share a tent. Thanks to Kendall’s pointed warning for the two of you to behave and ‘not embarrass the family name anymore’, you were both surprisingly well behaved during the night. Mainly due to the fact that before you fell asleep, you leant over and left a chaste kiss against Roman’s cold forehead, before turning onto your side facing him and wishing him a goodnight. He wiggled down into his sleeping bag like a little worm as the electricity from your touch spread down like firebolts through his body. That man did not sleep one wink that night. Not one. Instead he rolled onto his left side, and chose to spend his time contemplating you: taking you in. The milky buzz of twilight flooded through the loose zip, the chirp of bouncing crickets on the darkened rocks outside match the intense thudding of his heart. Fumbling his fingers up so they rested underneath the side of his jaw, he made himself comfortable as he observed the way your chest rose and fall: the way your nose crinkled up in disgust when you were in the throes of a weird dream, the way your mouth mushed as you turned more into the stony ground. How much he loved you. How happy he could be if he could just summon the bravery to tell you. How fucked he was. How, if he did, his father would immediately utilise it, weaponize his love against him.

Roman wasn’t stupid, but he was. He didn’t know if he could find a way to escape this cage. Deep in his heart, he knew there was no key to this dog kennel, to this bird cage, to this leash. But he lay there, still, dreaming of freedom.

You get invited along on their family holidays a lot, mainly because Logan spends his whole time on phone calls and not mentally being present so he doesn’t really notice you’re there. If you and Roman aren’t spending the afternoons sitting together on a sun lounger, reading aloud softly to him by the pool side, it’s spent actually in the pool. A freshly seventeen year old Roman had seemed nervous, besides the usual annoyance at having to wear nothing but swimming shorts: shaken all day; when you touch his pinkie finger and grip onto it, silently asking him with your stern expression if you were okay, only the most miniscule of grins could cross his face in response. He still seemed unsettled in the water, besides the fact that Shiv’s foot nearly thwacked him up the face as she and Kendall wrestled each other under the water, both unrelenting in their accusation that the other had lost their splashing match. While you watched on in horrified curiosity, you nearly jumped when you felt Roman softly touch your elbow and lead you away from the affray. You think he’s trying to guide you towards the Jacuzzis as you bob across the water, or perhaps back to his room to escape the antics of his family. Instead, Roman leads you further into the deep end for a moment; after a sharp turn right, you’re surrounded by a small well, a shallow area just out of sight of the main swimming area. The imposing walls loom over your head as you take a perched seat on the brick bench that runs around the semi-circle, and Roman’s breath trembles as he follows suit, sitting maddingly close to you. You open your mouth to ask him what’s going on, but before you can get a squeak out he’s lunged at you, fervently enough to make you nearly bite your tongue. It’s not super romantic, and it’s incredibly clumsy as an inexperienced Roman Roy mashes his lips against your bottom one until he can feel his teeth clash against yours. You can taste a touch of pineapple from the inside of his mouth as he sloppily raises his cupid’s bow, and soon after the tang of chlorine as he falls too far forward and sends you both tumbling backwards into the water. But when you come back up for air, heaving him up by his underarms and staring dumbstruck at him as he pants heavily and tries to look anywhere else, you burst out giggling. Roman’s smile grows brightly enough to blight the sun as he looks incredulously at you, the laughter only stopping short on his lips when he catches the squinting look of his sister watching the two of you from the boundary edge.

It’s the first and last time Roman Roy kisses you for a while, terrified that one of his siblings will go squealing to daddy and he’ll take you away from him. And then, suddenly, the two of you have grown up. Roman’s still stuck to you like glue, but the repression festers away in his stomach until he feels as if some kind of scaly tooth monster is gnawing away at his insides. He feels the leather tighten around his neck whenever he’s standing like an affronted ostrich in that office with his father, his master, his demise, his ghost, him.

So, Roman starts to try and avoid you whenever he’s at Waystar, worried that the grief that never seems to leave his mind will strangle you if he lets you in. Terrified that his father will die, but also that his father will never die. That this is just another cage. Eventually, after weeks of him turning on his heels with a manic jolt and running out of every board room he spots you in: after months of the child dressed up as a man putting his phone to his ear and having nonsensical phone calls every time he passes you in the corridors, you manage to nab him when he’s walking out of the break room. Even though a stuttering cousin Greg thinks you’re trying to kidnap him when you grab Roman by the collar and start dragging him to the elevator, you refuse to let go until Greg’s waving hand is firmly shut behind the metal sheets. You let go, and he fumbles backwards onto the hand-rail that runs around the small rectangle with a bemused ‘what the actual fuck’, but you just cross your arms and stare at him, refusing to talk first.

Your austere façade quickly drops, and you’re quick to slam your first into the emergency button on the panel, gripping onto Roman’s sleeve as the elevator lurches to a stop between the twenty-second and twenty-third floors. A kind of acceptance has washed over Roman, some kind of known and familiar claustrophobia from having spent his whole life locked up, his whole life thrown about sets in. He picks at his fingernails as his eyes dart about, wild and brutal and crushing as he looks around for an escape route. It’s only when you put a hand on his shoulder and draw him in for a hug that he breaks down; he squats down so the two of you are resting a few inches off the floor, his face buried just atop of your heart as he shakes and he cries and he allows himself the security to just crumble. To melt down. To kick his feet and hope his father feels the wring of the shackles against his own ankles. He hopes for the first time in his life, as you stroke the back of his head and shush him comfortingly, that they hurt him.

Something changes between the two of you that day. You’re kinder to each other, and slowly to yourselves. It’s not outspoken, or rushed, or ravenous, but it begins to grow and grow and grow until it’s not only confusion and anguish that lies at the pit of Roman’s rotting core.

It starts with him becoming more comfortable showing affection to you around his family. Like you sitting on Roman’s lap at Shiv’s wedding reception, not listening to the speeches but trying to hide your giggles in Roman’s palms as he’s busy trying to take roses out of the centre piece and pin them through your hair. Or his full weight against you during the professional photos out on the balcony, and not even Shiv flicking her brother or Tom waving his hand at Roman to try and get him to behave could stop him from leaning backwards and planting a kiss underneath your jawline once the man said he was taking the final photograph. The two of you go out into the gardens later that night, trying to escape the ear-hammering loud beats of the D.J., and to try and make an early escape from the growing fight that seemed to be coming between Tom and Shiv’s old work acquaintance. With two beers and slightly tipsy heads, you sit down and talk on the dew-ridden grass, shoulders swaying against the other’s in time with the falling pine leaves. You felt like children again, and against the smouldering clash of fireworks that brandished the sky in bursts of red and gold, you both felt undying as well. He kisses you then, his hand reaching up to brush against the side of your cheek, his bottom lip teasingly tugging at your bottom lip and making you swat him away with a laugh. As you take his hand in your own and press a promise filled kiss against his middle knuckle, he hopes that one day he’ll be able to kiss you at your own wedding.

When you know he’s having a rough day at work, you like to try and sneak into his office and wrap your arm around his stomach, peppering kisses up and down his spine. Although he tries to shake you off like a startled starling at first, when he realises that you also managed to close the blinds on your way in without him noticing, he quickly relinquishes himself onto your barrage of adoration. He becomes all whiny, and soft, and needy, and all the things he’ll never allow himself to be outside of the security blanket of this closed off room. Although he still isn’t comfortable with anything too sexual, you won’t find him complaining as he wrestles you to the sofa. Once you’ve had the wind knocked out of your lungs, and Roman’s satisfied with how fully you’re splayed out on your back before him, he’ll go scuttling over to the end of the sofa and kneel down beside it. With a mischievous glimmer in his eye, he’ll swish his hips from side to side and come crawling up the sides of his body like a wolf slinking towards its dinner. Then he attacks: his tongue heavy and slick as he draws a hickey out just under the pulse point on your neck, pressing him firmly against you if you try to squirm away, chiding you with a warning. When it becomes too much, he lets you grip him up by his tie and walk him backwards until his thighs hit his desk. He jumps up to perch on it, and you stand between his legs as they tighten around you. You’re slow and careful as you loosen the material between your fingers, opening the first button of his shirt, and only the first so he doesn’t become too uncomfortable, with a satisfying loud pop. He whimpers as you lean over to scrape your teeth against the exposed skin, working your way up until your lips are tantalisingly hovering over the stubble on his jaw. He can feel your breath, hot and unsteady as it pants against him, but he still can’t stop the shiver that racks through him as he takes your hand and guides them under his shirt. With your hands firmly planted against his abdomen, you look at him quizzically, worried, but he just keeps his fingers on top of your own and answers you by sweetly pressing his top lip over his own. Just once, he wanted to feel safe, to feel okay with the love of his life touching his body.

The two of you have this game where you try to steal kisses from each other during the most inappropriate and annoying times possible. Oh, Shiv’s trying to talk to you in her kitchen about how her trip to England went? Roman barges in between the two of you, nearly making Shiv chop her thumb off, just so he can interrupt his sister by smirking against your mouth. Kendall wants to run through a presentation the two of them have to give the next morning? You’re grabbing onto Roman’s head as you run through the office, nearly giving him a heart attack as he scrambles backwards and allows you to drop his head back onto the cushion. With a full plant landing on his already pliant lips, Kendall’s left with a fed-up ‘hey’, yet unsurprised look of disappointment on his face as you run off back to your own desk.

When his father called Romie a moron in Prague, the look of desolation that crossed through his teary eyes was enough to make an angel weep. But it broke you even more when he pattered out of the dining area, walking shoulder to shoulder with you, but not saying anything. He was just staring down at his hands as if they were blotted: stained with specks of blood, and he would have to spend another sleepless night scrubbing them out of his skin. It wasn’t the first time he heard it, but it was the first time you were there to hear it too, and you weren’t going to let him get comfortable wallowing in that fearful acceptance. You grip onto his shoulder and steer him away from the milling crowd of sheep, stuffing him into a bathroom stall of the east wing of the hotel. Crowded together, Roman’s hamstring bumps against the porcelain as the two of you scoot about until you’re standing facing each other as best as you could. He looks at you, bleary eyed, and you look at him, bleary eyed. He breaks. Choking, gasping, breathless sobs, drowning in his misery. He grabs onto your shirt, clawing into the meat of your shoulders as if he’ll sink if he lets go. He keeps babbling through bubbles of spit about how he just wants to make his father proud, how he wants to be just like him, how he wants to prove that he can rule all this too. How he can never replace him. But he can. He wants it all to burn, but he wants to stand on the ruins and be the one to plant the foundations again. To make a better world, in honour of his father: in honour of the god of war that rages within his head. You press quick kisses on his sweaty forehead whenever you can, doing your best to dodge the quick turns of his head and wiping away the trails of tears with your thumb. All you can do in that moment, as you press your lips against the side of his ear and whisper it to the most intimate, lost parts of himself, is to let him know that you’re proud of him, no matter what happens next. You always have been, and even the ghost of Logan that possess Roman can’t stop that.

The sloppy kisses he gives you the next morning omg. When the two of you are sitting on your bedroom steps, and you’re biting your bottom lip in concentration as you try to do up the buttons of his dress shirt and make him look presentable in front of his family. Like a feral dog, he uses all of his leftover energy trying to nip and bite your fingertips, catching them on his tongue and pursing them against the roof of his mouth whenever he can.

You cannot convince me that Roman isn’t a jealous bitch. Like at Kendall’s fortieth birthday party, when he finally gives up trying to get up into his special little secret treehouse club, and Shiv has left him to go ham on the dance floor instead. You finally manage to convince him into relaxing for a fricking minute, making him join you at the bar. If someone tries to grab your waist, though, or butt into your conversation while the two of you are hyena giggling and seeing who can spurt more beer into the other’s face, Roman will full on goad them into fighting him. I mean, chest puffed out, crazed look in his face, hands up by his side until they send a weak shove in their general direction. It only ends when Roman either: near topples you to press a bracing kiss against your lips, or you dragging him off and having to hold him through the brackets of his arms. In the corner of the room, over by the sheets of warbling fire that seems to be coming from a central room, you stand behind his feet and wrap your arms up his chest. You can feel the fury roll off him, allowing him a moment to blow off the steam, until his head finally falls like putty and begins to synchronise his breathing to yours again after you hold your lips against the nape of his neck.

The kisses when he comes back after being held hostage (I am doing this so out of order apologies) omg??? He clambers sombrely to sit beside you on the deck of the boat, looking so out of place and serious as he leans back against the cushions. His siblings make fun of him, and tease him, and although he realises it’s harmless and he’ll see it as a key bonding moment a couple of years down the line, in the inside the typical Roy storm is brewing. He can’t say anything: just hides behind the jokes and snide comments so the words don’t choke him. You just feel his weight fall against yours little by little, until his hand reaches out and takes your own so tightly you know it’s going to bruise. The muscle in his jaw tightens and he squeezes his eye shut in an enduring pain at the sight of his father’s helicopter coming in to land. So, for that kind second before his life comes crashing back down around him again and he has to revert back, to hide behind the brick wall again, you take him over to the railings. It’s just the two of you, the warm sea salt stinging against your grimacing faces, and the ungodly sight of a near-naked Cousin Greg lying stretched out beside the slide below you. After a few goes, you manage to unlatch his claws from the white metal and replace them with your soothing palm, rubbing semi-circles against the back of his hand. You’re here. You’re here, with him. You’re not going to let him go it alone again, if he wants.

And he does. He could cry, he so desperately does. Some of the tension falls from his shoulders as he raises your joint hands to his lips and kisses them, gracing over every inch of skin his mouth can latch onto.

You both know, in that moment, that it’s enough. It’s a promise. You’ll stick together, no matter what. You’ll love each other through everything, no matter what. You’ll stay around, no matter what or who he becomes.

Which brings me to... kissing him when you find out about the passing of his father. Standing on that boat, on the most joyous of occasions, feeling as if the whole world is shattering around you. Feeling miserable at the knowledge that deep down, some part of you is overjoyed by the news. Feeling even more downtrodden to realise, as the streaky eyes and thousand-stare faces of the Roy siblings flash back and forth in your line of sight as they pass the phone to each other, that Logan will never really be gone. They’re talking to his lifeless, empty shell through the speakers, but it doesn’t matter, because he’s here in this room. He’s staring through their eyes. Talking in their quivering, harsh voices. Pounding through their feet. Tearing them apart as they try to cling onto each other. In their accusations that burst through their mouths innately. In the ordered instructions hurled out to keep business running smoothly. Hidden between the cracks of their voices as they sharpen their words and seethe them out between clenched teeth when the slightest chance of Logan even being dead is raised. He’s here, right now, as you let go of the death grip Kendall and Shiv have on both of your hands and catch sight of Roman rocking backwards and forth on the floor.

Giving a final squeeze of apology to Connor’s arm, you take Roman out of the room before he combusts. The whole air seems to be chilled: still, like something’s lurking unspoken between the threads of air. Like you’re leading Roman through the cold remains of a morgue. He wanders around for a minute, not even hearing the click of the door as you close it behind you. Not even crying. Not even speaking. For the first time in his life, he looks so much like his father. Too much. It scares you. Until eventually he just closes his eyes and trods over to the wall, thumping his forehead down on the cool metal until it burns. He holds his hand out to you, cufflinks gleaming like the edge of a knife past the ceiling lights, as if he’s offering a contract out to you. Apprehensively, your tentative hand creeps out and places itself gingerly on top of his own. He takes it, his dry lips latching onto you until the bridge of his nose is resting now upon your hand. The deal is done.

When you get back to your apartment though, and Romie finds out that Matsson wants him to fly out and meet him in Norway... that’s when Roman gets weird. Devastated. Freaks out. Grieves. You come out from your shower, wearing one of his suit shirts as your pyjama top, and he doesn’t even give a whistle of appreciation. Instead he’s crumpled on the floor by the canopy of your bed, cradling his knees to his chest, swearing into his kneecaps furiously. But you - you, oh god, you’re the only thing that can stop him from being swallowed up by Logan’s fury. You tilt his chin up during a tangled rush of expletives I don’t dare to copy down here, a scowl setting itself into his face like stone. It begins to soften when he realises you’re touching him, when he can feel the scrape of your nail around his jugular. You do your best to warble an unconvincing smile as you turn his head to the side, so you can better wipe your bottom lip against the edge of his throbbing mouth. You mould yourself to him, working at his pace as he winces at first, before slowly falling more and more easily into your grip. His hands loosen from his arms and fall onto your triceps as he deliriously tries to come back to himself through searching through the velvety warmness of your mouth: by swiping against your tongue and choking back his grievances as you pant into his open, waiting mouth.

You wake him up the next day with a fond kiss against the tip of his nose, and for the first time in a long while he smiles before he wakes fully up. The morning light cradles his bleary face as he sleepily runs a few fingers over the edge of your cheek, before cradling himself into your side again. He feels safe, weary, anguished, loved enough to fall asleep again, after pressing a few gentle licks behind your earlobes to try and hear you laugh again. Even through it all, his main concern is you.

You trace his features while he restlessly dreams, although he squirms from time to time and alludes you to the fact that he’s secretly awake. A kiss here, between the junctions of wrinkles on his furrowed forehead. A kiss there, on the patchy stubble just underneath his left ear. A few there on the dark circles underneath his eyes, until you’re balancing over him and holding yourself up by the hands splayed over his pillow. He just needs to be reminded he’s beautiful from time to time. That he’s perfect. That he doesn’t need to try and be someone else. To encapsulate his father.

But also like, Roman fucking hates Matsson. The way he looks at you during the whole field trip, like a hunter about to swallow its prey whole. Although the continuous comments about his family, and the two new Co-Ceo’s, and the legacy of his father make him burn down to the pit of his stomach with a white hot fury, he can deal with them if he would just leave you the fuck alone. He doesn’t take kindly to anyone but him looking at his soulmate with such adoration and lust in their eyes, so if that overgrown yeti gives you the up and down check out one more time he might actually just deck him in the middle of the retreat. He bites down on his tongue so harshly that his taste buds begin to bubble and prickle with blood, deciding it best to storm off and collect his thoughts before he lashes out and does something he can’t take back. You finally manage to track him down a little way off the beaten track, winding your way over some cobbled steps to find a branched alcove with nothing but a bench and a breath taking view of the gushing river down below. He’s hunched over with his fingers knotted over his knees, his lips so tightly drawn together that at first you don’t even spot the droplets of blood until he turns with a raised eye to look at you.

He knows it’s not your fault, so there’s no convincing or apologies when you join him. Just Roman finally getting all of that pent up sorrow and distress out. After an awkward moment of bouncing your foot up and down, you decide your best course of action is to just open your arm up to him again, like you used to do when you were children. At first he raises a confused eyebrow, before the realisation dawns over his face, and his features crumble. His lips purse, his throat bobbing as he heaves the tears back down, but he can’t stop his lips from trembling as he falls into your side. That kiss was the sweetest, as he leans his chin familiarly against your shoulder and bumps noses with your own. He frowns, sobbing at the knowledge that he can kiss you, finally, in the way he’s been yearning for all his life, and yet it all feels so wrong. So upside down. So far away from what he had dreaming. The freedom feels like a tether, and yet he juts his chin out and latches placidly onto your bottom lip anyway, the tears trickling down and falling between your mouths.

It’s an act of defiance. A key sliding into the lock. He still can’t say it, but he won’t allow himself to smother the feeling anymore. The first sip of poison gliding down his throat, and Roman prays as he presses his forehead tearfully against your own, that it would kill the Logan part of him first.

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mandobatemans · 1 year ago

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intrigue (Tom Wambsgans x f!reader)

warnings: infidelity, fingering, unprotected piv sex, soft!dom tom, size kink kinda, biting, greg, do NOT have sex with the head of conservative news organizations irl!!!, i am a shivcel fr anything negative abt shiv in here i didn't mean it ily siobhan 🫶, NSFW UNDER THE CUT

word count: 4,740 (i got carried away)

A/N: this is loosely based on s4 e7 but there's no real timeline so it probably takes place like somewhere around season 3 or 4? this is my first succ fic so...enjoy 🤗 & also this took me SO long to write i'm so deeply sorry to anyone who was waiting

also posted to ao3

Tom had never been a fan of the whole “open marriage” arrangement. When he thought back to that fateful night (fateful night…who else would say that about their wedding night?) what he remembered most was the look on Shiv’s face when she told him that she wanted an open marriage. On their wedding night.

It was more for Shiv anyway. Tom rarely thought about actually acting on the arrangement, whether it be out of love for Shiv or loyalty to her father, he wasn’t sure. Sure, he had kissed someone here or done oral there when high on coke, but he had never actually fucked anyone else.

Something was different, though, tonight. Firstly, they were hosting a Waystar/ATN event at their apartment, and despite being chairman of ATN, he wasn't even sure what the evening was for. Shiv had told him about it last minute, casually mentioning it as they were being driven to work, like it was dinner at Logan’s rather than hundreds of media moguls and politicians to host. Actually, dinner at Logan’s felt equally, if not more, important than tonight. A better equivalent for how nonchalantly Shiv had mentioned it would be Connor inviting them somewhere.

Secondly, Shiv had suggested, outright, that they both find someone to hook up with at the party tonight. Earlier in their bedroom, after getting dressed in silence, Shiv had turned to Tom while putting her earrings in to share the idea. He knew she would be acting on it whether or not he did, and why shouldn’t he? It had been a while since he had gotten laid and was verbally (and physically) assaulting Greg a lot more as a result.

Did he just pick someone? How did you approach someone and say, “Hey, I’m in an open marriage but I’ve never actually done anything more than get my dick sucked with anyone else…anyway, let’s fuck!”

Tom fidgeted with his glass as he surveyed the room.

Despite your personal beliefs and the endless human rights violations that Waystar was affiliated with, their (and by extension ATN) events were some of the most lavish you'd ever attended. As a political journalist, it was standard for your company to send a journalist or two to whatever soirée the Roys were throwing. Everyone took turns, and this time you had drawn the short straw. It hadn’t been too bad so far, you thought, although perhaps you were jinxing yourself. You had kept to yourself mostly, chatting with other journalists you frequently saw around the city on assignments, snacking on the hors d'oeuvres, and listening to the ridiculous conversations political and media bigwigs were having.

You had been to an event hosted by the Roys before, but they were usually at ATN, Waystar, or some expensive venue. Being invited as a member of the press to Shiv Roy’s apartment felt strangely intimate. You were certain this was some calculated business move on the part of one Roy or the other, but you honestly didn’t really care. Whatever drama was happening within Waystar Royco was contained within the Roy family. You were simply here to supplement a piece your coworker was writing on the atmosphere of this political season.

It was only an hour into the party when you had collected all the quotes and interviews you needed, and sampled almost all of the hors d'oeuvres. Your boss expected journalists to stay for most, if not all, of the night for these things, in case some political bombshell were to happen. You were pretty sure nothing too monumental was going to happen in this room full of suits, especially with all of the Roys notably absent from the festivities. Even Shiv, whose house it was, looked like she wasn't paying any attention to what was going on in her home. In fact, she had been in the corner all night, talking to some prominent New York and D.C. women, important enough that you knew their faces but not important enough for you to attach any names to them.

You checked your phone for the time. You could probably get away with leaving in another hour if you made up some family emergency as an excuse for your editor. Even another hour seemed like ages. Maybe you could re-interview some people? Speak to some guests whose quotes would never make it in the article just to kill time? Sighing, you opened your messages, thumbs hovering over the chat with your editor, putting your journalism degree to use by brainstorming an excuse to get you back home in your bed before ten o’clock. When you turned around to pace while you typed (a nervous habit), you found yourself face-to-face with one of your hosts.

It felt like a fucking cliché. Literally bumping into someone at a party? If one of your writer friends wrote something like this, you'd tell them it was bullshit and things like that didn't happen in real life. Yet here you were, inches away from–

“Tom Wambsgans, Chairman of Global Broadcast News at ATN.” He introduced himself, reaching out a hand for you to shake.

You returned the handshake, grateful that he wasn’t offended by you bumping into him. “I know who you are.”

“And I know who you are.” He paused. “That sounded stalkerish, didn’t it? I meant, I know who you are because I’ve read your articles.”

“You have?” You were surprised. Your company and your articles in particular were considered left-leaning, the very opposite of the stories ATN ran.

He nodded. “Gotta keep up with the competition. I’ve seen some of your features on the network, as well.”

“Really? I would have thought you would just watch ATN all day,” you teased.

Tom made a face and then shook his head. “No, no, no. Plus, I wouldn’t really call any of our journalists ‘journalists’ so much as pretty faces. You do your own research and look good on the camera. That’s impressive.”

You raised an eyebrow and Tom’s eyes widened, processing what he had just said.

“God, I do sound like a fucking stalker.”

You laughed, “Just a little bit.” You let him cringe for a second, then smiled to reassure him. “No, but I’ve seen some of your interviews since you took over ATN. You look good on the camera, too.” You paused, before adding, “Maybe that makes us both a little stalkerish.”

His eyes lit up at your response, earning a genuine laugh (the first one that night not faked for some suit, he noted).

“Uh, sorry for bumping into you. I wasn't looking where I was going,” you explained, waving your phone in your hand for context.

“Ah, cell phone. The curse of the twenty-first century.”

You furrowed your brow involuntarily for a moment. He wasn't how you expected the spouse of a Roy to be like. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, you weren't yet sure.

“I’m making a huge ass of myself, aren't I?” He sighed. “I’ll leave you to the party–”

“No! It’s okay. Stay,” you heard yourself say. It was Tom’s turn to raise an eyebrow. Okay. You found him attractive. And even despite his eccentric comments, you also found yourself wanting to talk to him more. You were, however, purposely avoiding looking at the wedding ring on his finger.

To Tom, it all seemed too perfect. You, for example. He was being honest when he said he had seen and read some of your work and that he enjoyed it, and he did sometimes watch other networks to get an idea of the competition, but he had left out the fact that there was something about you in particular that made him watch the entire segment when you happened to be on air. And the fact that sometimes he'd scroll through your articles online and imagine you reading them aloud to him. But he wasn’t a stalker. And now you were here, in his house, on the night that his wife had all but shoved him into the bed of anyone that he wanted.

But still; one pleasant, slightly flirtatious conversation didn't mean you wanted to ride off into the sunset with him. Or, more accurately, go upstairs with him.

He scanned the room for Siobhan. Although it had been her suggestion, and he knew she had acted on the arrangement before, he still felt like it was somehow a trap. Like she’d hire someone to hide behind the bedroom door that night and catch him with his pants down (literally) to use as blackmail.

But sure enough, she was across the room, laughing at something some lobbyist had said, and resting her hand on the other woman’s arm slightly longer than a casual touch would last.

The longer he thought about it, the more confident he felt. If you were interested, he wanted to spend the night with you. And maybe more. But he was getting ahead of himself.

“It's kind of loud over here. Come on,” he gestured with his head toward the opposite corner of the apartment, one not occupied by any guests save for an elderly politician snoring on the couch.

You followed him, nodding when he asked if you wanted another drink before picking a champagne flute off of a passing server’s tray. He handed it to you once you reached the corner, your hands touching during the exchange. It seemed like even more of a cliché to feel sparks fly at this tiny touch, so you ignored that, as well.

“You host these kinds of things often?” You asked, leaning against the wall and taking a sip of your champagne. The room was full of very important people, though none of them seemed to be talking about very important things. You couldn't quite wrap your head around why a high-level executive who had married into one of the largest media conglomerates was wasting his time talking to you (flirting with you?), but you had seen stranger things in this city.

He grimaced and shook his head. “No, no. I’m usually just a guest.” Tom laughed and took a sip of his drink. “And not a very important one, at that.”

“I’m sure that's not true. I mean, how many people watch ATN? And you’re in charge of what airs or doesn't air.”

“1.89 million,” he replied, taking a sip of his drink, “Outside of the office, nobody’s really worried about what I think.”

“Not even your wife?” You stopped after you said the words, giving your brain a second to catch up with your mouth. “I’m sorry, I didn't mean any disrespect, I–”

“No, no, no, no, it’s okay,” he assured you, reaching out to rest a hand on yours consolingly. Tom leaned in closer so only you would hear him, unnecessary considering the secluded corner you two were in.

“But no, not even my wife.”

Your eyes darted to his hand atop yours, suddenly aware of how large his hands were. They almost completely covered yours, and they felt so comfortable and right there, like–

“We have an open marriage,” he suddenly said.

“Oh.”

Tom seemed disappointed with this reaction, quickly removing his hand from yours and adding, “That’s just to say that, our marriage is, uh, unconventional, so her not caring what I have to say isn’t that unusual.”

You were still processing the feel of his hand on yours, much less the revelation that he actually might be flirting with you and that it actually might go somewhere. By the time your thoughts caught up with you, it seemed like he was about ready to excuse himself and go scream at his reflection in the bathroom.

“Well, I’m sorry about that,” you responded, mirroring his gesture from before and resting your hand on top of his to comfort him. “You don’t deserve that, really.”

He scoffed. “You don't know what I deserve.”

You looked up at him, taking the time to absorb the look in his eyes that revealed just how much he was going through.

“Uh, Tom?”

Tom rolled his eyes and turned away from you to snap at the source of the interruption. “What, Greg? Can’t you see I’m having a conversation?”

“It’s just–well, Shiv is leaving with someone.” The taller man gestured at the door, where sure enough, Shiv was weaving her way through the crowd toward the elevators with the lobbyist from earlier, her hand guiding her by the small of her back.

Tom bit the inside of his cheek. “Well, Greg, we do have an open marriage. So, everything’s fine. Now, scram.”

Greg looked between the two of you and hesitated for a second before nodding and disappearing back into the bustle of the party.

Tom turned back to you. “That’s Shiv’s cousin, Greg. I’ve sort of taken him under my corporate wing, so to speak. Showing him the ropes and all that.”

You nodded, finishing your champagne.

“Well,” he said.

“Well,” you echoed.

He paused for a minute, though it seemed to last much longer than that. “You’re writing an article about this party, right?”

“Yeah,” you responded, unsure of where he was going with this.

Tom leaned in, lowering his voice. “What would your editor say if you got a behind-the-scenes look at the party?”

You raised your eyebrow.

“Of course, you'd have to come upstairs…” Something shifted in his tone. You were well aware of what the change implied, and you’d be lying if you said you didn't want to jump at the offer. This wasn’t you, though. Sleeping with a married man? On top of that, not just any married man, but the host of the party that you were covering for work. It sounded like a problem you’d encounter on an Intro to Ethics exam. But any moral qualms you had about the issue were pushed out of your head when you registered the way Tom was looking at you.

“Of course,” you repeated, nonchalantly, setting your empty champagne glass on a nearby table.

Something flickered in Tom’s eyes. “Shall we?”

“Lead the way, Wambsgans,” you replied, gesturing dramatically.

Neither of you spoke for the entire walk away from the excitement of the party to the quiet of Tom’s bedroom. It looked much like you had expected it to look: modern, chic, and impersonal. You were sure Tom (or Shiv) had some personal items somewhere in the house, but the bedroom was so clean and styled that the only indication anyone slept or dressed in there was some of Shiv’s makeup and jewelry strewn haphazardly on the vanity.

When he had closed the door behind you, Tom stepped closer to you experimentally, as if he was afraid you'd flee like a wild deer if he moved too fast. You stepped closer as well, which seemed to give Tom the permission he was looking for. Within seconds, his mouth was on yours, his hands cupping your face, all tongue and teeth. There was hunger and desperation in the kiss, but it was hypnotizing, beckoning you deeper and deeper. He was almost doubled over to reach you (god, he was tall), so you shifted your weight to stand on your tiptoes.

Tom broke the kiss, leaving you with a confused look on your face.

He shed his suit jacket, throwing it carelessly on the floor. Next, he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt to his elbows. Tugging on the length of his tie, he loosened it enough to undo a few buttons at his collar, revealing an inviting expanse of chest hair.

“Turn around,” he told you, snapping you out of your male-stripper-fantasy gaze.

You did as he said, something in his tone going straight to your core. You felt him run his hands from your shoulders down your arms, then down your hips and up to your waist, the action bunching up the fabric of your dress. He moved your hair to the side, pressing hot kisses to your neck that made your eyes roll back.

“Can I take this off?” He whispered, his lips trailing up to your ear.

You nodded in response, trembling momentarily under his touch. Tom unzipped your dress, helping you push it down your body and step out of it. He unhooked the back of your bra without moving further. It occurred to you then how wrong this was, to be sleeping with someone else’s husband in their own bedroom, but to your surprise, you didn’t care. The only thing you cared about was the heat of Tom’s gaze on your bare back. You took your bra off the rest of the way and discarded it on the ground next to your dress. Once in only your underwear, you turned back around to face him, watching his eyes follow every curve of your body to drink in the newly exposed skin.

“Wow,” he said, simply, reaching out to grab you by the hips and pull you closer to him. “You’re gorgeous.”

Grinning, you stood on your tiptoes to kiss him again, cradling his face in your hands. You felt him smile back into your kiss. Before you knew it, he had you pressed against the wall, totally enclosed by his larger form. He went from kissing you on your lips to your neck to behind your ear to your chest, as if he couldn't decide which spot deserved the most attention or for how long.

One of his hands slid down to the waistband of your underwear, the cold metal of his wedding ring a shock against your hot skin. You made eye contact with him as his hand slipped between the fabric and your skin cup your cunt, whining when you felt his touch. He seemed to get off on that, capturing you in a kiss again at the same time he slipped a digit into your wet heat. You were too hot; you pressed your hand to his chest to stabilize yourself and pushed your underwear down your legs and kicked them off. Tom smiled at this, getting right back to pumping his finger in and out at a pace that almost made you melt down the wall.

It was probably a power trip thing, you thought, you totally naked and him almost fully clothed. You didn't mind because it was kinda hot, but it wasn't what you had expected from Tom based on the unassuming, Midwestern image of him that was circulated in columns and by the Roys themselves. But, then again, you hadn't expected to find yourself in this position at all when you left your apartment earlier that night.

The pace of his fingers felt so good, so intoxicating, that now that you had him, you needed more of him.

“A-another one,” you whined between kisses.

When you opened your eyes to look at him, Tom had a smug look on his face. Sure, it was arrogant, but it turned you on, so who really cared? “Yeah?” he asked, “You want another one?”

“Tom,” you hissed, gripping onto his shoulder as his finger curled in just the right way that it made your legs go numb.

The look remained on his face, but he added another finger nonetheless. Tom appeared to inhabit both extremes when it came to sex: he really wanted to pleasure you but he also really wanted to do what he wanted. Luckily, those two wants aligned.

He was making you feel so good that you needed to have more of him. Your kisses got sloppier, each so desperate to be further molded with one another that your tongues tried to push impossibly further into the other’s. Tom shifted his hand so he could angle his thumb to rub slow, tantalizing circles on your clit as he continued to pump his fingers. Your grip on his shoulder tightened–you feared your fingernails would leave dents in his skin–but like so many other things tonight, you couldn’t bring yourself to care. You could feel the pressure rising in your middle, your cunt clenching around his fingers in anticipation of your impending orgasm, but then it stopped.

You opened your eyes that you hadn't realized were squeezed shut to look at Tom, who had his hand in front of your face, fingers glistening with your slick. “Open,” he encouraged. You obeyed, accepting his fingers into your mouth and licking them clean with a ‘pop.’ He stared at you like you had hung the stars in the sky. He jerked his head toward the bed. “Sit.”

There was authority in his commands, but you didn’t fear him; from the short amount of time you had spent with him, you knew he was at his core a sweet man. You would admit to yourself that you had been curious how his awkward, nervous energy would translate into the bedroom, but once alone, he seemed to be a different man.

You watched him strip off the rest of his clothes eagerly, smiling up at him once he rejoined you on the bed totally naked. He must’ve noticed you staring, because he asked: “Do you want me to put on a condom?”

You shrugged, shifting your eyes back up to his own. “No, it’s okay. I'm on birth control.”

He sighed in relief. “Good. I don't even know if I have one in here.”

“Then why’d you ask?” You laughed, encouraged by the smile that crossed his face when you did so.

“Seemed like the gentlemanly thing to do. If you said yes, I would’ve sent someone to go get one or borrowed one from–”

“Tom?”

“Yeah?”

“Just fuck me already.”

“Alright. If you say so,” he teased, leaning down over you to kiss you. Both your lips were red and puffy from all the kissing and some biting, but it didn’t matter. You could feel his cock pushing against your stomach from the angle, so you reached down to take him in your hand and pump his length.

“Fuck,” he murmured against your skin, face buried in your neck as he pressed kisses to the every inch of available flesh, “Fuck…Can I?”

“Please,” you responded, noticing a little desperate hitch in your voice that you ignored. Tom licked his hand and cupped your sex with it, running the pads of his middle fingers through your folds a few times to collect the wetness between your legs. Gently, he guided his length into your opening

inch by inch, watching your face for any sign of discomfort before bottoming out.

You should’ve expected his dick to be big from his height, the size of his hands, his nose, whatever, but you hadn’t considered just how big. It was quite a stretch to take him fully, but he gave you all the time you needed to adjust and get comfortable. When you were ready, you bucked your hips up into his to give him the okay.

Tom took your permission to move and ran with it, grabbing your left leg and placing it over his shoulder before pressing you down further into the mattress with his body weight so he could thrust into you at a deeper angle.

You lifted your head to meet him to return to making out, the sensation of his tongue down your throat even more erotic now that he was inside of you, as well.

His thrusts were deep but not as aggressive as he had been with his fingers. He wouldn’t vocalize this, or even admit to himself that he was thinking this, but he wanted this to last. As much as it was supposed to be a hookup–emotionless sex–he found himself wanting it to happen again, despite his attempts to push those thoughts deep into the recesses of his mind.

One arm was thrown around Tom’s neck, hand gripping a fistful of his hair. Your other hand went down to your clit, beginning to rub circles to match the pace of his thrusts.

“You wanna cum again?” He teased, “Again, when I haven't cum once?”

You narrowed your eyes at him, playfully, slipping your finger down from your clit to lightly stroke the length of his cock that wasn't fully inside of you.

He let out a moan, eyes twinkling as he snapped his hips a little harder, snickering when you gasped in response.

Tom caught you in another kiss, resting his weight on his forearm that was positioned next to your head. You arched your back up into him, urging him deeper, which he obliged. “Touch yourself,” he said, disconnecting his mouth from yours just long enough to give the command.

You smiled into his lips, rubbing your clit again as his thrusts became sloppier and jerkier. He was holding on until you came again, despite his earlier cockiness. The moment he felt your walls tighten around him, he let go, spilling inside of you with a grunt.

He pulled out, rolling off of you to lay beside you.

Tom was still catching his breath, and you watched his chest heave for a few moments. “Hey, you okay?” He asked. “Everything alright?”

You smiled, nodding and reaching over to kiss him again. “I'm good, yeah. You?”

“Perfect, actually.” Tom smiled back at you. He found himself lost in the moment, lost in your eyes, lost in the connection you two had just had, and it was too much for him. Quickly, he sat up, ready to change the subject. “You need to clean up?”

You furrowed your brow at the sudden shift in his demeanor, but going along with it nonetheless. Despite him just having been inside you, you didn't feel like it was your place to mention the change. “Yeah. Can I?” You asked, gesturing vaguely toward the bathroom.

“Yeah. Oh, yeah. Go ahead. Towels are above the sink.”

You flung your legs over the side of the bed and stood, heading toward the bathroom. “I’ll just clean off real quick, then I’ll be out of your hair.”

“No, no, no. I mean, you can stay the night. If you’d like, that is. I could call you a car, though, if I’ve made some awful faux pas and you don’t want to look at me for another–”

“Tom.” He focused on you again after his brief spiral. “I would like to stay.”

He grinned. “Great, that's great.”

“Just let me–” You waved your hands around your lower body, “–clean all this up.”

“Yeah, of course, sure. I’ll be here.” He added the last part in a quasi-sing-song voice.

At the sound of the shower turning on, Tom rose to locate his clothes and try to clean up. He pulled his boxers back on, taking his dress shirt, pants, & jacket to be thrown into the hamper. They really should be dry-cleaned, he considered, but found that he couldn’t be bothered. As for your clothes, he wasn’t sure what exactly to do with them, so he laid your dress across a chair in the bedroom and left your bra and underwear on the floor. He was still considering whether he should pick them up or not when you came out of the bathroom, towel wrapped around your torso.

Once you had dressed in your undergarments again and Tom had given you an undershirt to sleep in, you started to wonder what all this meant. If it had just been a hookup, why were you staying the night? You had thought you’d feel dirty and disgusted with yourself, spending the night in someone else’s bed with someone else’s husband, but you didn’t. You didn’t know what that said about you, what it meant that you were perfectly comfortable talking into the night with Tom, both laughing and sharing stories long after you had agreed to turn the lights off and get some sleep. That almost made it worse, you thought, that it wasn’t just sex. That made it dangerous.

After you had drifted off, Tom spent a few minutes watching you sleep. He tucked a stray hair behind your ear, watching the worries of the day wash off your face while you slept. He knew it was wrong to be more comfortable in this bed with you than he was with his own wife. But that was something to deal with (or repress) in the morning. Here, now, with you wrapped in his and Shiv’s bedsheets, your form against his chest rising and falling with his breaths, he could pretend it was meant to be like this.

@swiftcession @greenwrldsz @zirrocom @lukas-matsson @ledtassoo @bluecruz97 @rita-lean @grainyimag3

#my fic #tom wambsgans #tom wambsgans x reader #succession

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