i originally posted this to ao3 where you can see the emojis, so if you wanna see them, you can read it there. honestly it doesn't make much of a difference.
The first time Logan Roy asks her to stay for a nightcap, it's the summer of 1984 and they're standing in the foyer of his third home, tucked into the shadowy entryway as the other guests start to take their leave. His hand is on her back, warm and heavy, low enough to put the word suggestive to shame.
She isn't like the interns that filter in and out of Waystar's offices; she's not naïve enough to believe that she's read the situation wrong. She doesn't mistake the look in his eye. She knows what he wants—knows what he's really asking for. She knows that it doesn't matter that Baird's gone to fetch her coat, or that she can see Caroline's silhouette from the corner of her eye, the other woman close enough that she can still hear her laugh when it carries through the open door, out into the hall. It's background noise to Logan, nothing else; infidelity and sexual harassment are just another day in the biz.
Gerri can't decide if it's better or worse than Roman shoving a hand down his pants while they're on the phone together.
"You disgusting little pig," she says, which is what part of her had wanted to say in '84. She doubts Logan's response would have been to moan in her ear, small and soft and pathetic, the little hitch of breath already desperate.
The fact that she'd been the one to bring up masturbation is completely irrelevant.
She says no to Logan because it makes good business sense. Actual attraction doesn't factor into it much; she could take him or leave him, really, like most men that age. There's Baird as well, their relationship new and shiny and not yet marred, but Gerri doesn't lie to herself. He's not the real deterrent.
Saying yes to Roman is more impulsive; it's a game of chicken that goes wrong. She expects him to tuck tail and back out, but he never does. It's the opposite, if anything. There's one call, and then another, and then a third. He's always desperate, always wanting, always aching for more.
Yes. Yeah. What else am I?
She's no domme—she's as inexperienced in this as he is—but she's got an arsenal of vitriol under her belt, a lifetime of pent-up frustration that's happy to finally break free. It's easy to give him what he wants.
You're revolting, Roman.
The smart thing to do would be to stop it. It's an objective truth, Gerri thinks. Clear and logical. Roman's not known for his subtlety, but even if he was, there's no world where degrading your boss' son while he jerks off can lead to anything other than awkward orgasms and career-ending disaster. No world, except, maybe, for Waystar.
How fitting, part of Gerri thinks.
The other part is scheming, thinking, the pieces already falling into place. Things are changing, anyone can see that. Logan won't be around forever and when he's gone, it's the kids they'll have to deal with. Kendall's out already, had crashed and burned, the man that haunts the halls a shadow of himself, and while Shiv's on the rise, Gerri doubts it'll last as long as it needs to. Kendall was groomed from birth, was schooled, taught; she doubts Logan has the stamina to do it all again.
Roman, though… Roman followed his brother's footsteps because there wasn't anything else to do. He got the MBA, if only because Logan paid for it. He sat in offices with Frank and Karl and even fucking Baird, spent months being a menace all over the building before Logan got sick of it and shipped him off to LA. Gerri knows that on paper, Roman's a reasonable candidate, that he could very well be the spare-crowned-king.
It's what he's like off paper that's the issue.
The thing about Roman, Gerri thinks, is that Logan never really knew what to do with him. It's different to Connor. He wasn't discarded, he just wasn't necessary. He's the middle child, the mummy's boy, the weaker dog—a pointless stop on the road between the Chosen One and Daddy's Little Girl. It doesn't matter that Kendall and Shiv no longer fit their roles, the damage has already been done; Roman has been left needy, greedy, desperate. A perpetual little boy, always craving attention. It means he clings to it, ready to do anything, everything, just to keep it.
It means he's malleable. Susceptible. It means he can be moulded.
Gerri thinks of Roman basked in fluorescent hospital lights, stressed and tired but endearingly sincere as he offered her the company. She thinks of him sitting at her feet in a guest room in Hungary, floppy and petulant and pathetic, his features softened by the glow of natural light. She thinks of, What, you? and she thinks of, Let's fucking game this out. She thinks of watching, dread thick in her throat, as Logan put him on show. You're a moron, he'd said. It's a word that's been thrown Roman's way all his life; quietly, Gerri disagrees. He's rough around the edges, sure, ill-practiced, ill-mannered, immature, but he's got potential. She can see that now. All Roman really needs is proper direction, a guiding hand, someone that's firm but fair.
"What else?" says the voice in her ear, soft but strained, impatient, but obedient.
Gerri smiles.
She keeps track of Roman's training even though she doesn't have to. Business kindergarten, that's what Logan calls it, but Gerri thinks it's more than that. Roman was born into the world of business but never taught to navigate it. Now that he's learning, she can see the way he acclimates to it; his growth is fed to her first by the people in charge, and then by Roman himself. She gets texts every day, calls just as often; it's hard not to notice the spike in his self-confidence, the way some days he calls her just to preen, fishing for her approval. He wants the pat on the head, she thinks, wants to be told good boy as much as he wants to be called a revolting little worm.
She gives it to him sometimes, withholds it more often than not. She's not stupid; she knows better than to overuse her best move.
Roman's quiet when he comes. It's all hitched breath and choked off moans, his voice shaky, unsteady, overwhelmed. He's quiet in the aftermath, too, awkward and embarrassed as he mumbles his way off the phone. It's like he thinks lingering after the act is what will take it too far; like that's the part he won't be able to handle.
Gerri lets him go, always, but secretly, it's one of her favourite parts. Roman's oddly endearing when he's unsure of himself; she likes him quiet, sated, likes the idea of watching him squirm under the weight of his embarrassment. It's not something she'd expected to feel. She'd thought it would be boring, had imagined the initial adrenaline rush would dissipate, her quickened heartbeat and spike of interest fading away to detached indifference.
She doesn't expect for it to never go away. She doesn't expect to look forward to her phone ringing, doesn't expect excitement to thrum under her skin whenever the screen lights up, wisps of arousal unfurling in her abdomen as she listens to Roman turn into a panting mess, whiny and desperate and perpetually bratty, her name on his lips a breathy little beg. She didn't think she'd waste so much time thinking about it—had no idea she'd start wondering what Roman must look like when they do this, if he'd be shy in his submission, face flushed dark red, lashes fluttering, his mouth open, unrestrained, his little noises endless.
She doesn't expect to find herself reaching for the lube in her bedside drawer, hand slipping beneath the hem of her skirt as the call cuts off, the echo of Roman's voice, wanton and wrecked as he said her name, spurring her fingers into action.
They get invited to Tern Haven, the whole lot of them. Logan calls Roman home early to help work the deal, and Gerri wonders when, exactly, he starts to wish that he hadn't. The helicopter, maybe, where Roman's voice breaks through any attempt at silence, his knee bouncing up and down as he sits between her, his father, his girlfriend. Or maybe it's the so called hyena laugh that does it. Either way, Gerri knows Logan's regretting it when the words 'electric circus' leave Roman's mouth, Tabitha's admission that Roman doesn't fuck nothing but the final little cherry on top.
There's no time to linger on Roman, though, not when Shiv drops a bomb on the table, overzealous, heavy-handed. Gerri watches Logan's expression shift and knows instinctively that this is the kind of explosion that takes the bomber out first. She does her best to ignore the tension as it settles, so thick it's a wonder they don't choke on it. This isn't her first rodeo, after all; she knows her role. She knows the most important thing is that she continues to play it.
Mark Pierce goes on and on and on about the stars, and Gerri listens, trudging through wet grass. She can hear Roman not far behind her, keeps catching snippets of his whining, can tell without looking that he's spiralling. She waits for her phone to vibrate, but it never does; there's a knock instead, slow and melodic, dramatic enough that it couldn't belong to anyone else. She's not surprised to see him, but she is, a little, at what he came to ask for.
The bathroom is a split-second decision, impulsive and poorly thought through. It gives her the barrier she wants—the barrier she needs, really; she's nowhere near ready to tend to Roman face-to-face—but there's still the issue of him leaving.
He has to come out eventually, she knows that. It takes a while, but when he does, his eyes are bright, wide, the little wet sheen shining under the low light. He tries to hide it, but it's no use; his lashes are damp, dark and clumped together. His cheeks are pink, skin flushed, temple still shiny with sweat. He looks wrecked, Gerri thinks, looks small, needy. His gaze doesn't stop flickering around the room, his expression cautious, hesitant, his dark eyes never on her for more than a moment. It's like he wants something but can't bring himself to ask for it.
Gerri bites her bottom lip. She's not as unaffected by this thing between them as she'd like to be. It's messy, these feelings, these uncertainties. She hasn't been an amateur in anything for years; it's still not something she fancies for herself.
"Rome," she tries, fighting the way her fingers twitch, the urge to reach out and touch so strong that she almost gives in.
Roman flees before she can say another word.
When she tries to sleep, it's the afterimage of Roman, slack-jawed and doe-eyed, heat rising in his cheeks while his chest heaves, that's burned into the back of her eyelids.
Roman's back at management training soon enough. He's uncharacteristically quiet on that first day, a little unsure on the second, back to normal by the third. The texts resume, Gerri's phone chiming at all hours of the day: in meetings, at lunch, in the car, when she's on the phone with her daughters. It's a good thing she's always so fucking busy, she thinks, or there's a chance someone might've actually noticed.
Been doing research, the most recent notification reads. There's a photo attached, and when she opens it up she realises it's a screenshot of Roman's browser, his open tabs on full display. There are only three of them: the furthest back, she thinks, must be irrelevant. It's the latest think piece on Kendall, the website some jarring pink and white monstrosity that's reminiscent of the forums Shiv used to feature on about a decade ago. The PornHub browser open to the MILF category is more of what she'd expect, and the Healthline article that reads An OB-GYN's 3 Strategies for Making Sex Better After Menopause just makes her sigh.
It's not lost on her that this is the first real sign that it's her Roman's interested in, not just what she has to offer.
She leaves him on read.
Roman never asks what she gets out of it, never mentions her at all, not in any way that matters. He says her name, sometimes, choked off and muffled, or so small it's barely a breath. There are the texts, too, filthy, fucked up fantasies written out in little block letters, but they don't count. They're not real. It's all posturing, Gerri thinks. Attention seeking. It's the calls that matter, and those are about him. What else am I? Roman likes to ask. What else am I? Yeah. Yes. What else am I? It's like he's begging, so desperate for the answer that he might just die without it.
Gerri thinks he must withhold his other questions for the same reasons she does hers. She never asks him why it's this that gets him going, why a tongue lashing, of all things, is something he wants—something he seems to need. She's not sure she wants to know the answer.
She expects things to change when Roman returns to the office, thinks maybe it'll be different without distance as a safety barrier, that maybe their conference calls won't come so easy when they actually have to face each other.
Roman proves her wrong in less than a week.
He likes to push his luck, likes to test her patience, likes to call her from his office, text her during meetings. She ignores him for the most part—she does actually have things to do, even if he seems to think that she doesn't—but he never seems too hurt by it. He just gets more creative, more daring, more disgusting.
WebMD says you old gals need a little extra help, the latest text says. She's sitting in a meeting pretending to listen to Karl as he drones on, her phone held strategically so no one can see the screen over her shoulder. There's another photo, not a screenshot this time; it's Roman's hand curled around a bottle of cherry flavoured lube, the receipt curled around his fingers. A small string of emojis accompany it.
[emojis suggestive of P in V sex]
Gerri feels a flicker of a smile as she types out her response.
[vomit face emoji]
Karolina forwards her a screenshot of Roman's Twitter page two days after the Argestes panel. The tweet's recent, barely half an hour old, the selfie captioned with nothing but a grinning emoji, it's smile wide, big, bright, beaming, all it's teeth on display. In the photo, Roman's looking down at the camera, his hair slicked back, sunglasses on. There's a jawbreaker in his mouth, bright pink and covered in spit. His lips are twisted around it in what she thinks is an attempt at a grin.
? is what Karolina's written. There's another text underneath: Should I be worried?
Gerri sighs. She doesn't know how much Karolina knows, doesn't know how much she's been told. She doesn't respond—will pretend, later, that she just didn't have the time—but she finds she can't ignore it. She spends the next twenty minutes finding work in her to-do list that she can distract Roman with, realising with no small amount of surprise that she's worried. It's strange, really, to feel the anxiety pool in her stomach, concern mixed with guilt and something else that's softer. It's surprising how genuine it feels—how unselfish. Roman's different to his siblings, his scandals fewer and further between, but that doesn't mean he's easy. When he spins out, she knows he tends to put Shiv and Kendall and Connor to shame.
Gerri opens up her call log. It only takes two rings for Roman to answer.
"Yeah?" he says, the word lightly slurred. She wonders if his mouth's still swollen; the picture wasn't focused enough to tell.
"Alright, Rockstar," she greets, smiling around the nickname, the memory of him sitting in the half-dark, his feet swinging. There's a challenge rising in her voice. "It's showtime. I've got some stuff I want you to look over."
There's a hum, small and soft, tinny through the speaker. "Now?" Roman asks. She can actually hear him perk up, like a dog whose owner just said 'walk.' She thinks it's ridiculous that that makes her smile. "Your office? I can bring you lunch."
It's a nice offer, considerate by Roman's standards. Still, Gerri shakes her head.
"No," she tells him, staring at the glass walls of her office, gaze focused on nothing in particular. She waits a beat, surprised by what she's saying even as she says it. "Tonight, my apartment. You can bring dinner."
It's impulsive, she thinks, but not really. Not enough. There's a risk here and she's elected to ignore it. This isn't a move that makes professional sense; it's barely a move that makes personal sense. If it all goes up in flames, she won't be able to absolve herself of the blame.
And yet there's no regret, just a slow-building excitement, her abdomen tight with anticipation.
She gets the final reports from the training programme a few weeks after it ends. Roman finishes as a stand out—a guarantee either way because of his name—but Gerri thinks he might've actually deserved it. She congratulates him anyway, makes a shitty 1% joke, her mouth twisted in a smile as the answering cackle filters through the phone. The Oppo research reports are fine, too; she expects them to be worse, but aside from a few big ones, there's not much that concerns her. It's not exactly shocking to learn that Roman doesn't have skeletons in the closet so much as he just has a closet, at least three quarters of the file she'd been handed details on men who Roman might've fucked or who he maybe had fuck his girlfriend. She's always thought it was an open secret, known but not discussed; it doesn't bother her.
It's Rhea that she's worried about. Gerri watches, cataloguing, calculating, the clever, competent filing cabinet, invisible in the background.
It's somewhere between a marriage proposal, a senate hearing, and a hostage situation that Gerri admits to herself that she might be in a little too deep.
She used to worry about her call logs, about what someone might think if they ever saw her text thread with Roman, the frequency with which he reached out to her. That was before the worst of it started, before the filth infiltrated, the evidence of their depravity scattered throughout their phones, damming and undeniable. It's not that she's unconcerned now, it's that there are bigger issues to fixate on. She got herself into this mess and she can't see a clear way out of it; it's concerning, but what's worse is that she's not actually sure she wants out of it.
Roman has surprised her in more ways than one. When he was younger, she used to brush him off as immature, unserious, the glib demeanour off putting. He was irritating white noise and not much else. She's not above admitting that she'd read him wrong.
He's still annoying, of course, immature and unserious, too, but there's more to it. He's surprisingly sincere, almost sweet. She likes the way he makes her feel. Likes the way he trusts her, admires her, her competence not a question in his opinion but a simple matter of fact. It's heady, that power rush, the ego trip. She likes being seen, but more than that, she just likes him.
It's no more apparent than when she hears 'Roman', 'hostage', and 'casualty' in the same sentence.
They get the news late—it's over by the time Logan learns of it, his panic short lived when it's immediately revealed that Roman is fine, already up in a hotel, seemingly no worse for wear. His attention shifts to the deal almost immediately, his next question about the money. Gerri listens, but she's not all there. Her initial panic lingers, her stomach a deep depth of dread.
On the yacht, she lets herself get caught up in the absurdity of it, the relief at seeing Roman step on board easing the way. The dread doesn't disappear, though, not completely. Not until he comes knocking.
He waits until the early hours of the morning, comes slinking down her hall when the others are all asleep, the horizon outside her cabin window ink-blue, the span of it streaked with hints of orange, pink, purple, gold. There's a subdued air about him as he steps inside; it's like he's been deflated, his body curled in on itself, a poor imitation of the man she's used to. He looks sad, Gerri thinks, his body full of tension, his anxiety written clear across his face, in his body language, the way he doesn't putter about and make a mess of her things.
She's not usually one for regret, but it burns just under the surface, the memory of how she'd greeted him too fresh for comfort.
Gerri sighs.
"Come here," she says, surprisingly gentle. She sits on the edge of her bed, pats the duvet beside her.
Roman moves like he's been pulled by string, appearing at her side in seconds. He looks at her hand, and she watches as he ignores it, chooses to drop to his knees instead. It's like it's natural, like he needs it; it reminds her of the night in her apartment, where she'd let him sit at her feet in her living room and watched, fascinated, as his focus rapidly declined, his pants bulging with evidence of his erection before she'd ever even said anything. She'd watched, then, but hadn't touched. In the aftermath, he'd collapsed against her couch, loose limbed and breathless.
She lets him lean against her now, lets him bury his face against the soft warmth of her outer thigh, and watches as he breathes, just breathes, slow and shaky but growing steady.
There isn't anything to say, not this time, not yet. Maybe later, Gerri thinks, as she watches the tension seep from Roman's body, but not now.
Now, she drops a hand to his head and allows herself the indulgence, her fingers sliding through his hair in slow, small strokes, the hours they have until they're due at breakfast nothing but a distant afterthought.