Chapter Text
He is eight when he learns that his father might actually love him.
It is what he is thinking when he first feels the man’s thick fingers course through his hair. The sensation of comforting warmth that comes with the action, coupled with the discomfort of the cold clack of the man’s rings against his head, is the perfect picture of what it feels like to be loved by Logan Roy.
It happens out of the blue, one day, while they are getting into the car. It was one of their first cars, the one that Kendall remembers the most, a shiny black Benz worth more than his education combined. Kendall keeps fumbling with his seatbelt, trying to clip it in before moving on to secure his baby brother’s in the seat next to him. It is a plastic, cheap looking thing, and has just become the law for children Roman’s age – much to his father’s annoyance.
What does an extra seat matter? He should just sit in someone’s lap like kids always have.
Because of his distraction, he does not yet realize his father has been looking back at him from the front seat – that is, until he feels the hand on his head. His first instinct is to jolt in surprise, and he does so, before he looks up from underneath the thumb and finger carding through his hair to see the eyes boring down at him. It is a look he has seldom seen before – a look spared for when the man first laid his eyes on the newborn Shiv, for when he watches Roman prove that he can be smart despite his usual immaturity, or even one that Kendall caught on his face only once – late at night, in a rare moment when he held his wife with something that looked even like fondness.
It is love, Kendall realizes in that instant. Once again, it is a confusing dichotomy of wonderful and horrible; because up until then, he hadn’t even realized it was a look that he never really received before.
This is what love is. He thinks to himself, tingles running down the back of his stiffly straight spine – afraid that if he moves, that if he even breathes, the hand will pull away and leave him cold once more. My father loves me.
He is eight when he learns that his father might actually love him.
He is also eight, when he starts to learn the magnitude of what that love means.
He is eight when the sparse touches, the gentle pats here and there, become more frequent.
It is the grip on his shoulder when his father leans over him to reach a roll at the dinner table – the hand on the small of his back when he is ushering the family out of the house – it is the pat on the knee when the man laughs at something particularly funny on the television. Each touch is like a hot brand onto his body, a mark that Kendall knows might not be significant to anyone else, but to him, holds the weight of the entire world. These are the touches he thinks about at night, when the au pair tucks him and his siblings in, and he tries to dream.
In his dreams his father hugs him whenever he wishes. Logan’s arms are always open at Kendall’s beck and call, like a grand docking port; similar to the one they visited last time they were in Boston. So Kendall is a beloved ship, welcomed home whenever he falls into his father’s embrace. He is wanted. He is safe.
Because of this, he does not question it when those touches begin to – linger. They remain long, much longer than he has ever seen with his siblings. Longer than he has seen with anyone. It just makes him feel proud, makes him feel victorious even.
He loves me the most. He thinks to himself, a smug grin hiding beneath his features whenever his siblings suffer through their many squabbles. This is proof. I know this now. That he loves me the most.
Kendall desperately longs to brag. He wants to flaunt it, to tell his siblings off whenever they try to make fun of him or insinuate that he might be lesser. But he – doesn’t. He tells himself it is because he afraid that if he says it out loud, that if it is known and it is real, then it will be taken away. This is between him and his father. This has nothing to do with any of the rest of them.
He is the Thomas W. Lawson, gorgeous and towering among the seas, sails billowing high and mighty – while his siblings are merely tugboats, trailing along in his wake.
He has almost turned nine, when his father invites him one night to sit with him on the couch at their Hamptons House. To sit, alone, where it is just the two of them.
He has almost turned nine, when his father escalates those touches into something more.
He has not yet turned nine, when he sits on the couch with his father and the two of them watch TV.
His mother is – somewhere, out, gone; he’s never quite sure. These days, it is hard to tell, and any attempt to bring it up is met with harsh consequences. All he knows is that she hates this house, and more and more finds somewhere better to be when they stay over. His siblings on the other hand are presumably fast asleep, tucked into their beds. The staff has gone for the day, or retired to their respective rooms.
So it is just him, and his father, and Johnny Carson – the crackle of the television in the dark room, a laugh track that veers into white noise, the glow of the screen a spotlight spilling over them as they sit. Kendall isn’t even sure that his father likes this show, approves of it according to ATN standards, but he is just too excited by the situation to care.
This is how it happened. Right as Kendall had been getting ready for bed, his father had walked into his room. In a very uncharacteristic move, the man had gruffly asked if the boy was tired or not,and if he wasn’t, then he might as well join his father for some late night watching. And god, wasn’t that a shock? At first Kendall had thought he had still been dreaming – something like this was just so unprecedented, so it must have been a product of his overactive mind, right?
But then his body moved, and he slipped out of the covers, and when his feet hit the cold hardwood floor, he knew he was awake. Kendall’s body had thrummed with excitement, and it had taken everything in him to keep his teeth from chattering along with it. Still in dressed his flannel pajamas, his heart beating in fervent rhythm like a bird caged inside such a tiny chest, Kendall made his way to his father, and into the lion’s den.
And now, they sit there on the ornate green couch, as quiet as death. That same couch that held a pattern which would remain unchanged for years. Some hideous floral that was clearly his mother’s idea and not his father’s – a man like him has no eye for flamboyant aesthetics after all. No, his kingdom resides in muted tones and golden accents, still obviously expensive, but in a much more classy way. The pattern, nevertheless, is forever burned into his mind. It will serve as an unpleasant reminder every time he is forced to glance at it.
At first, it is all so simple. The show plays, the audience laughs, and he sits ram rock straight just a few inches away from his father. He still does not understand why they are here, why he is allowed up so late, but he doesn’t question it. He doesn’t want to break the spell. He is so, so very happy. Because this means he is special.
But then, without warning, he feels his father’s hand on his leg.
At first, he is thrilled. It feels warm against the fabric of his pajama bottoms, comforting and safe. Like in his dreams. He wonders if he will be embraced.
Then, it moves higher.
This – this is where Kendall begins to feel uneasy. He’s still not quite sure why – hasn’t really had a formal talk yet about where or where not an adult should touch. Even with their expensive private school education, it is still a conservative one, and kids his age are deemed too young to be given the talk.
Even so, he knows that the proximity of his father’s hand to the space between his legs is a bit too close. So, he shifts – just a bit, ever so slightly, hoping to move back a bit so that his father’s hand will be forced down. Now, not only does this not work, but also it also only causes his father’s hand to grip him tighter.
Every instinct in Kendall is shot straight up to red alert. He freezes; urging himself not to make a sound, even while the grip on his leg is hard and painful enough to leave bruises. He knows he has done something wrong. He knows that he has made a mistake. He doesn’t know what it is, but he can only hope that he will not get punished too much.
Then, just like that, the hand retreats. Kendall is so relieved that he lets out the breath he had been holding in for so long. His relief is short lived, unfortunately, the moment his father’s voice overlaps with Carson’s.
“Why don’t you come over here and sit on your old man’s lap? You’re not too old for that yet, are you?”
The words seem forced, even to him. A weird facsimile of what a regular father might say, in a regular fashion, in a regular situation. Kendall wants to be excited, he wants to hear those words and think Yes, yes my father loves me! He wants to believe that Logan wants him to sit on his lap because he wants to be closer, because he loves him.
Instead, he is too scared, too frightened to think any of that.
He does as his father says anyway.
Kendall can count on his hand the amount of times he thinks he ever sat on the man’s lap before. It’s more the thing that Logan allows of Shiv, her being the girl and all – and for some reason that’s an important distinction, for the ways that he’s never really understood. Because of that, the movements feel unnatural to him. He feels stiff, his limbs mechanic as they carefully move and seats himself on his father’s legs.
It is awkward and incredibly uncomfortable. He doesn’t know where to put his hands, and his bony little legs sit not quite centered on Logan’s much larger ones. But his father seems to not mind, and shortly Kendall feels hands around his waist. They pull him close, much closer to the man’s chest, so he is forced flush against him. And when he says he is against him – he means all of him.
Including – or perhaps especially – the uneasy lump right under him.
Now this – Kendall may be young, he may not know that much yet about the adult world, but even he knows what this is. And he is struck, instantly, with a nausea that goes beyond anything he’s ever felt before. He doesn’t say anything – couldn't say anything, really. He’s afraid to bring it up, to take attention to it. So he stays silent, and pretends that nothing is happening.
Something that reveals itself a pattern for both him and his father, evidently.
He waits for his father to move him away, to realize what’s just happened, to at least feel embarrassed or grossed out. He does not wait for him to apologize although, no, he would never expect that. But he does expect the man to feel as horrible and ashamed of the experience as he does.
Logan does not.
In fact, not only does he not pull Kendall away – he proceeds to press him down harder.
This time, Kendall is unable to keep in the noise that escapes him. A pathetic little yelp, formed from both surprise and from horror. His father isn’t happy about that, and shows it by moving one of those hands and slapping them over Kendall’s mouth.
This, this is the moment that Kendall knows he is truly in trouble. He has fallen like a bear into the trap; the rusty metal of its mechanisms are cutting at his limb, trapping him and keeping him limp and inert until all the other horrors may yet arrive. Except the trap is his own father, and so are the horrors and everything else.
Jonny Carson gives a bow, the audience laughs, and Logan Roy rocks himself against the fabric of his son’s pajamas.
Kendall doesn’t even have the ability to cry. He is too shocked, too frozen to do anything but sit there and let his father grind against him. The hand against his mouth is sweaty, and hot, tasting both musky and horrible. His eyes are locked tight on the glowing screen before him, wide but unseeing. He doesn’t think he blinks. The screen blurs until it becomes just a small, little white square in a sea of black.
Later, when his father finally stops, and there is a wet spot against his backside, does he come back to himself. And then he is sent back to bed, just like that. Like nothing ever happened.
Kendall wishes that were the truth.
After all that, he just goes back to sleep. And as he does so, he knows he will never ever tell anyone about this. It isn’t even as if his father had threatened him to keep silent – it’s just that the man simply didn't need to. It was an unspoken warning, in the silence between them while they had walked. One that Kendall understands the consequence of well.
So he lies back in bed.
He is eight – he has almost turned nine – he has not yet turned nine – when he wonders what is so wrong with him that his father loves him like this.