an assistant's dilemma: a kendall roy & roman roy love triangle

chapter 15

author's note: this chapter is gonna cover stuff from season 2 episodes 2, 3, and 4. the next chapter (aka episode 5) is gonna be a crazy one and will totally change the dynamic between lucy, kendall and rome, so get ready for that👀

Lucy felt like she was losing her grip on Kendall, or maybe Ken was just losing his grip on himself. Lucy had hoped he would rediscover himself after the accident, get clean and cope with his grief. If anything, the more time that passed since the crash, the more out of control he became.

Kendall knew that meeting Lucy's parents went poorly, but he didn't have the energy to apologize to her or try to make amends for his bad first impression. He felt like Lucy constantly wanted to talk about the accident, about how he felt and if he ever thought about the boy, but she couldn't break through to him. He would push her away and then be overcome by tears as a result of the never-ending guilt and anxiety that was digging a burning hole through his soul. Lucy would always be there to run her fingers through his short hair and shush him sweetly.

When she wasn't comforting him, Lucy was trying to keep up with his partying habits and desire for sex. He wanted to go out constantly, to find clubs that seemed to have no last call and spend thousands on bottle service and designer drugs. Ken was just as happy to get drunk or high at home, but to Lucy, that felt pathetic, so they compromised with going out. She didn't have the same taste for drugs that her boyfriend did, and without coke to fuel her, she was far too tired to go out with Kendall almost every night as he requested. Kendall also seemed to want sex constantly. They would fuck before work and again after and sometimes again when they got home from the club. 

Their relationship was making Lucy both physically and emotionally exhausted. She wanted to help him, but she didn't know how. The Roy family didn't do well with comforting each other, but not knowing where else to turn, Lucy decided to talk to Roman at Sophie's birthday party.

"That fucking...broken robot. Can't even hug his own kids," Roman mocked his older brother, shaking his head as he watched Kendall tense up in response to his daughter's embrace. 

"Yeah he's been...off lately," Lucy admitted, grabbing popcorn off of a snack cart.

"Yeah?," Roman asked, grabbing a handful of her popcorn.

"Yeah...I don't know. Since the whole takeover thing he's been different."

"Mm you're experiencing your first Kendall Roy manic episode," Roman said, seemingly unfazed.

"You're not worried about him?," she asked, trying to read his expression.

Roman shrugged. "Not any more than normal, but hey, I've been dealing with this shit my whole life. You're brand new to it. You getting tired of dealing with old Kenny?"

"No no I just...I don't know. I worry about him."

"I stopped wasting my time worrying about Kendall years ago. Wanna go ride the runaway ghost train?"

Lucy shrugged. Maybe she was overreacting about Kendall. "Yeah sure, let's go."

•••

Then there was the shoplifting. It was Gerri that brought it to Lucy's attention. Kendall had been stealing from bodegas — cigarettes, lighters, tubes of chapstick, packs of gum, things he was more than capable of paying for himself. The company worked to brush it under the rug and had Lucy inform Kendall that they had been made aware of his new illegal hobby and that it needed to stop. He nodded along with a blank expression when Lucy told him. She tried to reach him on a human level, as a girlfriend and not just his assistant, to ask what was going on and why he felt the need to steal, but he didn't have an answer for her, because he didn't quite know himself.