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human_veilsuccession / romangerri (but really a gerri character study) / ~3k
warning for canon typical sexual harassment
heaven help the fool who falls in love
She likes him, is the thing.
She’s the daughter of a lawyer and a housewife, the sister of a man who killed himself at twenty-five. Quiet and clever and calculating, her birth certificate says Geraldine but she’s Gerri before the ink’s dried, will be Gerri till the day she dies. It opens more doors, that ambiguous androgyny; they can’t turn you away when you force your foot inside. She’s a mother of two, the widow of one. A six-time champion of a darts competition based at a bar in New Haven. She’s never been in love.
“That just seems excessive,” Roman is saying. He’s got a photo of her dead husband in his hands, his face scrunched the same way it gets whenever Caroline introduces a new boyfriend. “I mean, who is he? Fucking He-Man?”
Gerri snorts, she can’t help it. It’s stupid to be jealous of a dead man and yet Roman so clearly is. He’s been messing about with the photos in her office for almost half an hour, his skin a little greener the longer he stands there, poking away at her things. He’s not very good at hiding it. Really, he’s not very good at hiding anything. She thinks he should know better by now: Waystar’s no place to wear your heart on your sleeve, and yet Roman wears his like a full-body suit, bloody and raw and dripping out behind him, messy and so, so obvious. Part of her wants to warn him about attracting sharks, but the point seems moot. It’s not like he’s ever been outside of Logan’s orbit.
“Try eating more vegetables,” she says instead, a dry deadpan. “Maybe that last growth spurt will finally kick in.”
Roman scoffs. “Please,” he says, the photo returned to her shelf. He’s careless, the frame put back in the wrong place. “I don’t expect a woman of your tenure to understand this, Gerri, but I’m what the kids call a Short King.” He walks round to sit on the other side of her desk, his eyes bright, one knee drawn to his chest. “That means I’m fucking—hot, and shit. You know, royal.”
He waves his hand in the air to punctuate it, is already reaching forward for one of her little paperweights.
Gerri watches him over the top of her laptop screen. “Uh-huh,” she offers, and looks away to hide her smile as Roman sticks his tongue out, the middle finger of his free hand held high and proud.
Technically she’s the king now, but she’s not stupid, she knows that’s barely real. She’s the king if the king was a puppet made from human flesh, its conscience intact but trapped, an unwilling second participant to Logan Roy’s ventriloquy act. At the start, she’d hoped she could cut the chords, pull his fist out of her ass, whatever. It’s something that seems less and less likely as the days trickle past.
Roman knocks a file to the floor in his attempt to spin her paperweight, and Gerri doesn’t bother to stifle her sigh as the stray papers span out, the sound swallowed up by Roman’s string of obscenities. He drops to his knees to clean it, at least, already off on his next tangent. She’s used to this by now, his presence in her office a rare but mostly-welcome constancy. When he’s not being annoying, he’s usually just trying to make her laugh.
“You should organise a dinner,” he tells her. “A little Boar on the Floor do-over. You could fucking... Make Frank shit his pants and crawl around in it while he eats sausage out your hand. That’d show ‘em who’s boss.”
The image is revolting. Worse still, he’s more than half-serious. It should maybe worry her a bit, but all Gerri does is laugh, the sound soft, airy. Fond.
Logan might be hoarding the crown, but she’s got the court jester.
It’s not as bad as you’d think.
Baird was eighteen years older, eleven inches taller, her boss beneath Logan. He’d been handsome and amiable and most of all, convenient; it’s not the reason she’d dated him but it is why she’d accepted the ring. They were married by ‘85, had their first child in ‘89. He had a dead wife he never spoke of and a ‘66 Fleetwood Cadillac he’d talk too much about. They were practical, functional, happy for the most part. Picture-perfect, if only they’d had a son.
When he dies, he leaves her the whole of his estate, the title of General Counsel, and a three-tier platter of sin cake.
Roman’s convenient too, in an inconvenient sort of way. In the he-could-make-her-or-break-her kind of way. It’s not really a risk that’s worth taking, and yet she keeps coming back to him. She’d question why, but she doesn’t have to: she knows the answer. She knows she doesn’t need this—it’s not an addiction. It’s not that she can’t pull herself away.
It’s that Roman is right. She’s worked her ass off for years and yet no one’s ever noticed. She’s a mole woman, a competent, clever filing cabinet—invisible until Waystar needs a whipping boy. There’s a seven figure salary and yet there’s never been any acclaim; no one’s ever seen her, not as she truly is. It’s something she doesn’t realise she wants until Roman starts looking, and Roman—Roman doesn’t just see her, Roman wants to fucking devour her. He’s got the eyes of an eighteenth century orphan. It’s uncanny, really. Someone who’s never wanted for anything shouldn’t be capable of that much longing, and yet it’s there whenever their eyes meet, that bubbling, insatiable heat.
Roman looks at her like he wants to worship at her fucking altar, and Gerri doesn’t lie to herself. She can’t deny that she likes it. She can’t deny that she likes him.
“I think you owe me a BJ,” he tells her in her cabin on the yacht, legs criss-crossed where he sits on the floor, back against the wall. “That’s, like, company policy, right? I mean—you send me to Turkey, they shove a gun in my face, so now you have to suck my dick? I’m pretty sure I read that somewhere.”
He’s joking, Gerri knows he is. Roman never asks for sex if he thinks there’s a real chance she’ll say yes, at least not the normo kind where they might actually have to touch each other. She throws the closest cushion at his head anyway, her lip curling as she calls him an entitled little pissant. It’s probably the wrong thing to say, because she sees the way his eyes flash, the way he perks up, more than a little interested.
It’s almost funny, really. Like a Pavlovian response: her little purse dog.
She wonders how he’d react if she told him exactly what it is she does once she hangs up the phone.
Her oldest daughter’s a lesbian. It’s not a big deal, at least not to Gerri (it’d be a bit fucking hypocritical if it were.) It’s not surprising, either. She’d started to suspect back in 1992, when the school called to inform her that little Laura Kellman had kicked a kid for saying her story with two princesses was quote-unquote sucky. She’d got the confirmation thirteen years later, when she and Baird came home to find Laura on the couch with the girl from two doors over.
The actual events have blurred together now, but Gerri will never forget the way Laura had looked at them, her eyes wide, worried. Scared. It’d caught her off guard, the fear in her daughter’s expression, but maybe it shouldn’t have, because Baird had gone silent. Had left her alone to deal with it. I don’t want a dyke for a daughter, he’d told her once she’d put the girls to bed, and Gerri had stifled her shock, had swallowed her anger, had slept in the spare room. She’d taken a sick day the following morning—her first in ten years—and over-paid a man to change their locks.
You can come back once you’ve pulled your head out of your ass, she’d said when Baird came knocking, ear to the door as she pretended not to notice both girls watching. It’s one of the few times she ever remembers her husband getting angry—real, proper angry—and she won’t lie, there’d been a flicker of fear, a fleeting moment of doubt, but she’d stood her ground. There was a point to be made. Not just to Baird, but to Laura, too. She wasn’t just fucking around.
Baird had left eventually, but the change of heart had happened within the week. There’d been a full apology and everything—a little speech about how he’d love Laura no matter what. It was a well-concealed lie at the time, convincing enough to fool the girls but not enough to fool Gerri. She’d let it slide; Laura had believed it, and she’s pretty sure Baird had grown to, too. She thinks maybe that’s all that matters.
It’s still Laura’s favourite story to tell. Gerri’s always wondered what she liked best: the retrospective comedy or the rare tangibility of her mother’s love.
There’s a pool table in the basement of her second home. It’d been a billiards room on Baird’s insistence, renovated back when retirement had been a realistic conversation. She’d rarely ever stepped inside it—it was an Old Guard thing, her husband used to say. You know, Boy’s night. Gerri doubts she’ll ever forget the stink of cigar smoke, the way she’d had both girls’ bedroom doors fitted with dead bolts.
Now she’s got a text thread filled with intermittent iMessage game requests. There’s a notification informing her it’s her turn at 8-ball and another text asking if she’s forgotten about their chess match. Gerri wishes she could—the game’s already spanned three fucking weeks, the longevity a product of bored indulgence and dumb luck. Roman’s winning despite his inability to grasp the rules and it’s driving her insane, that’s why he won’t shut up about it. She’d sent him a link to a website called Chess for Dummies at the very start but has since started to skim through it herself. It’s one of the two tabs open on her phone; the other’s some nightmarish red-on-black assault on the eyes with a title that reads An Introduction to Aftercare. That one she won’t show him, but he’s the only reason it’s there.
It feels a little like playing catch up. She’s not a prude, she knows things, but she’s not an expert, either. She’d never expected to fall into whatever the fuck it is that she and Roman have started, and she hadn’t realised what an issue that might be until she’d watched him stumble out of the Pierces’ bathroom, his eyes wet and lashes damp. There’d been an attempt to laugh it off but it hadn’t really worked; he’d scurried past her as the joke fell flat, his mumbled excuse little more than gibberish.
She’d let him go—and really, part of her had been relieved—but it’s been nagging at her ever since. Ignorance is one thing, but it’s not much of an excuse when she keeps indulging him. She’s never been ill-prepared for anything in her life. She doesn’t like the idea of that changing now.
So, Google.
So—
“Rome?”
She can hear him on the other end of the phone, his quiet panting slowly fading to something softer, his breath a little more level. He hums at the sound of his name, small and sleepy. It’s how he usually gets in the immediate aftermath, in that little window between bliss and embarrassment. It’s surprisingly endearing.
Gerri knows what she has to do and yet the words feel clunky in her mouth. To be tender feels foreign, uncomfortable. It’s not in her nature.
She gives it her best shot, anyway. “You know I don’t actually—” she starts, but it’s drowned out in seconds, Roman’s blegh sound swallowing the rest of her sentence. She tries to talk around it but it’s no use; he’s like a little toddler hiding away from something he doesn’t want to hear.
“Kinda ruining the afterglow here, Ger,” he tells her. It’s flippant, glib.
She probably should’ve expected it.
“I just thought—”
There’s another little blegh sound, some rustling as Roman moves around. “It’s fine,” he says. He sounds more alert, this time. More serious. “You don’t need to fucking—I know you don’t mean it. Fuckin’ obviously.” He scoffs, but it lacks the usual bravado. He’s trying too hard, Gerri thinks. It’s too telling. “I’m the little boy prince of White Collar Crime, Ger. Charismatic and fucking… secretly genius. Of course you don’t mean it. There’s no need to piss your pants about it.”
Gerri sighs. She knows she shouldn’t let it slide—knows they’re overdue a conversation—but she also knows Roman. There’s no working with him when he’s like this.
“Right,” she says into the awkward silence that’s settled.
It’s not surprising that he cuts the call soon after.
She sits the bar exam with mild pneumonia. She takes work calls while in labour. She answers emails at her husband’s wake. Workaholic, Laura calls her. It’s like a pathological need to stay busy.
“You’re a heartless fucking bitch, you know that?” her youngest says, eyes red-rimmed, wet. Her name’s Elizabeth: El for short, sometimes Ellie, never Liz or Lizzie. “His body’s barely cold and you already need to be on your fucking phone?”
Liz had been Baird’s old wife, something he’d refrained from telling her till after the birth certificate had finalised. She’d tried to be angry but it wasn’t worth the effort. There’d been a baby to look after, work already waiting for her. It wouldn’t have made a difference.
She hadn’t wanted another child—truthfully, she hadn’t wanted the first—but Baird had wanted a boy, and. Well. She’d thought the disappointment would be a problem, but it hadn’t lasted long: El had been a Daddy’s girl, a spoiled little princess, the answer to everything Baird had found Laura lacking. It’d been a divide felt by all and discussed by none. It means that Gerri’s fully aware she’s not her daughter’s favourite. She knows that if El could pick, she’d be the one in the casket.
That knowledge doesn’t make it any easier to hear Elizabeth say it.
It comes out too-loud, the sentence ending in a sob, her daughter’s shoulders shaking as she struggles to stay standing. Gerri’s the one to catch her when her knees give out. She’s the one who holds her, rocks her, lulls her into sleep. It should be proof enough, Gerri thinks, that she’s not a callous bitch. She’s got a heart, even if she’s mythicised it. She knows because she feels it breaking.
“Honey, I’m sorry,” she says when El blinks at her, half-awake, and knows without asking that her daughter doesn’t understand the importance of its rare sincerity.
It’s not a good look, Shiv says, and it just makes Gerri angry. It shouldn’t, really—it’s misdirected, for the most part—but irritation crawls under her skin, overshadowed only by the white-hot burn of embarrassment. It’s fucking laughable, if she’s blunt about it. She’d been the first woman in Waystar’s c-suite, for fuck’s sake. It’s not like she hadn’t heard the things men used to say. She’s from the era of solid walls, locked doors; she knows exactly why they’d been pulled down and replaced with glass. A picture of Roman’s dick feels inconsequential compared to those early days, the time before she’d had the relative shield of status, the benefit of a husband in a high position. She can handle her own sexual harassment. She can fucking cope.
That doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to throttle Roman.
“No, you don’t get to speak,” she says when Roman finds her after. She hears the echo of past conversations too late but it doesn’t really matter; there’s no heat to it this time, just icy anger. Roman’s face doesn’t slacken and her heartbeat doesn’t spike.
The worst thing is that it feels sincere, the way he tries to say sorry. Roman’s never apologised for anything in his life and it’s like she’s watching him try and learn how to in real time. His nervous, guilty stutter cuts off at her say-so, and he’s left standing there, meek in his compliance. It’s annoying more than anything—there’s nothing she can do with this. Being sorry doesn’t fix shit.
Really, it’s not the picture she’s pissed about. It’s not even that she’d told him to stop, though there’s that as well. It’s that he’s embarrassed her in front of people she’s spent more than half her life earning the respect of. It’s that he’s jeopardised her career. It’s that this will mark her reputation, will follow her around like a bad smell. It’s that she can’t even take the time to be upset because his viper-pit of a fucking family can’t go three seconds without setting off a shit show.
“Shiv is going to try and use this,” she tells him. “It could take us both out in one hit. I’m going to say it hasn’t happened before, and I expect you to do the same.” His eyes are wide, unblinking, shiny like a little dog’s. She holds his gaze to make her point clear—to try and get it through his fucking skull. “Delete everything, Roman. I’m fucking serious.”
She needs to warn him to save her own skin, that’s what she tells herself. It’s not even a lie.
It’s just also not the whole truth.
Business is business, it shouldn’t be personal. Gerri’s known that her whole life; even if law school hadn’t drilled it into her, working for Waystar would’ve. She might be self-serving, but she’s not a fucking monster. Compartmentalising is the only way to save her conscience.
It’s something no one’s ever bothered to tell Roman. It doesn’t really matter—she’s not sure it’d do him any good. There are no boundaries when you’re a Roy, just murky lines and a rulebook that changes every time you flip the page. There’s no way to win. There’s no happy ending. It isn’t news to her.
When it’s all said and done, she thinks she should have known better.
She thinks he should have known, too.
She’d been too ambitious for her mother, too hard-hearted for her father. She’d taught her brother how to read, how to tie his shoes, how to shoot a gun. She’s got a daughter who loves her and another one who tries to. She put her husband in the ground without shedding a single tear and yet her eyes burn in a bathroom in Milan. She’s a heartless bitch, a cold-hearted bitch, a stone-cold killer bitch. She thinks she might’ve come close, but she’s still never been in love.
