Chapter Text
Though his ego needed no fluffing, they had done him a kindness and let Connor fly them in his shiny new Bombardier Challenger 350 to the conference in São Paulo. The Challenger held nine passengers, and when the Roy family luxury jet went down over the Atlantic, it went down with Logan Roy, Gregory Hirsch, Siobhan Roy, Willa Ferreyra, Connor Roy, Gerri Kellman, Roman Roy, Thomas Wambsgans, and Kendall Roy aboard.
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Engine Failure, 6 July 2019, Investigation Number: DLDD05.03.20.18
4:36 PM
They’d only just gotten past the Virgin Islands— “Gregory, would you like to stop and visit home?” “Oh, no. Uh. No thank you, Roman.”— when Tom created a fine fucking mess.
Tom. Siobhan’s worm of a husband, forever wriggling on the end of someone’s hook, usually knew when to keep his mouth shut but occasionally got too comfortable. For example, comfortable enough to wait for a lapse in vital conversation between Logan and Gerri, his fucking tail thumping eagerly on the leather jet seat, to insert his opinion.
“I think, sir,” he said, all feeble and hat-in-hand about it, “just with all the talk, the chatter if you will, of, er, what did you call it, Greg?”
“Um, misogyny?” offered the Hirsch boy from a row up, the next limp slice of white bread crammed into the bag. Ewan’s genes.
Tom nodded. “Right. What with all the chatter of misogyny within Waystar, well, perhaps Shiv ought to be the one to speak at the panel tomorrow? I think it went over pretty splendidly at the conference in Argestes, having a woman speak.”
Siobhan touched her temple. Logan figured that must be where his son-in-law lived in her mind, just below her consciousness, his little fucking cupboard under the stairs.
“Yeah, Tom, that’s the role I want in the company. The vagina at the podium. Thanks,” she drawled, knowing good and well that she and the two knuckleheads fucked it at Argestes, leading to this goddamn torch race of damage control appearances in the first fucking place.
Between Logan and Gerri in the side-facing row, playing it cute the whole flight like Logan didn’t know his pervert son was fucking the General Counsel, Roman sank down in his seat, giggling.
But there was no choosing favorites among your children. After all, Logan couldn’t have if he’d tried. His eldest had proudly brought his prostitute aboard his toy plane. Kendall thought he was getting away with snorting dope in the jet bathroom. And the vagina at the podium had married this fucking guy.
“Honey, you have a beautiful brain and I’m just trying to get you out there for the rest of the world to experience.” Tom raised his hands off of his salmon trousers in mock supplication—then again, the little creep might have really meant it. “I’m a Shiv-pusher. I’m a Shivophant. I confess!”
“You’re pushing me alright,” she muttered, wrenching her chin to flick that honey slice of hair around, an embarrassed little twist to her mouth. She had no one to blame for making baggage out of that midwestern clown but herself, but Logan couldn’t very well see his offspring humiliated at a strange hand. Besides, it only ever took one crack of the switch to send Tom scrambling back into the doghouse.
He cut Wamsbgans off mid-sentence, flapping lips about his other ideas to give Siobhan (and, more subtly, himself) a greater role at the conference, always trying to fill the silence.
“Con!” Logan barked.
Connor twisted around in the pilot’s seat to look into the cabin. “What’s up, Dad?”
“Free up the cockpit. I’ve got an experiment.”
“Oh man. I really shouldn’t. We can’t have anyone goofing around in here, even during cruise.”
“Christ, you fucking love this, playing captain. You know your little RC plane flies its fucking self. Come on. Do as I say.” Logan beckoned with his finger and thumb. Hesitating, Connor twisted out of the seat, sheepishly ducking out of the cockpit and into the cabin. Logan gave him a friendly clap on the back. Connor stumbled. “Take a dump. Have a cocktail.”
Roman feigned interest, gasping, “If Doolittle’s sacked, then who’s flying the plane?”
As he was shoved— no, nudged — backwards into the cockpit, Tom blanched. Those pathetic, lachrymose eyes were the last sorry sight they endured from him before the cockpit pocket door snapped shut under Logan’s hand. It didn’t matter that the lock was on the inside; Tom scrabbled at the door a little, but he was no animal. He was soft-handed. He wouldn’t fight.
“If you’re such a revolutionary, if you’re goddamn CEO material, Tom, why don’t you get us the rest of the way to São Paulo? Demonstrate some of your marketable fucking leadership skills.”
Tom’s voice was muffled through the slick wood, skipping like a scratched record. “I- I apologize, Logan. I spoke out of turn. Let’s get Connor back in here and just… forget I ever said anything.”
Logan’s face split with a grin. He glanced at his daughter’s eye roll, her lips curled up in amusement. “Dad, c’mon,” was all she said, clearly curious if Tom would maintain his composure or get that crumpled, red-faced, basset hound way he sometimes did.
He was a fine boy. Helpful, good to Pinkie, grateful and only quietly greedy in a way that Logan’s flesh and blood children were not. As he was, though, and try as he might to posture otherwise, Tom was a corn-fed crybaby and a fucking embarrassment. He would never be a Roy, but if he wanted to be part of the family at all, he needed to toughen the fuck up and do it soon. Luckily for Tom, Logan was generous enough to help with that.
Gerri kept her gaze fixed on her iPad, lips pursed, shaking her head in quiet disapproval. But no one fucking cared what that old bat thought. Connor and his prostitute stared out of the same window, pretending not to see. Ewan’s yellow-bellied boy was hiding behind the pages of a women’s magazine, peeking over its plate of goddamn peppermint bark. And Romulus watched with his switching, bugged eyes, an unsure smile. Logan knew him, knew the sensitive way he could be. He could hardly believe that that kid was his, sometimes. He could hardly believe the fucking circus on this jet was the best his sperm had to offer.
“Logan, please,” whined Tom. “I don’t think I should be in here.” Logan ignored him, held the door shut.
“Here it is. You’ve finally got your chance to drop your balls, to prove yourself to me, and you’re looking for a way out. Fly the fucking bird, Tom! Show me you’re worthy!”
A breathless, humiliated laugh. The air spewing out of the inflatable dancer when all the deals were done. “This is a- a bit absurd, Logan. I can’t. You need to open this door. Please.”
Roman, having decided at last that it tickled him, too, shouted, “Aw, skywrite us some of your poetry, Tom! I especially like the one where you fucked the horse on your family’s farm. I believe you described the experience as a ‘carnal warmth you have never known in a woman?’” Siobhan laughed and clapped a hand over her mouth.
Ken was just gliding out of the bathroom, clearly high as a fucking kite, when the jet first spluttered. Nothing but a fucking fart in the engine. It was nothing. In the cockpit, the jet responded with an 8-bit little siren and a vibration, a complaint about the bump at best.
“Something’s wrong!” cried Tom, of course. “I think Connor needs to get in here! Something’s really not right!”
Recovering from a brief moment of fright, Siobhan suggested, “He does this every time he sees his shadow,” tilting her head toward Roman for an answering laugh. Her brother gladly gave it to her, even if he was just as distracted by the blip of turbulence. Thick as thieves, those two. Logan never forgot to watch out for that. Just in case.
The jet rattled again. His children went suddenly pale.
“Please, seriously! Please, please!” wailed Tom, pounding his fists on the wood.
Logan stood his ground as Connor met him at the cockpit door, demanding to be let in with only stern eyes. Logan scoffed.
“Okay, Dad. Let him out. He’s had enough,” Siobhan decided, a waver in her voice. So paranoid, those kids.
“He’s telling fucking tales, Siobhan. He’s crying about monsters under the bed. Let him learn a lesson for once in his life.”
At the plane’s next fierce tremble chattering all through the little aircraft and a frightened yelp from Tom, Connor brazenly pushed Logan to the side. Logan might have smacked the manners into him if he hadn’t needed the hand to steady himself. Every day he saw their mother’s influence on them; spoiled brats. Rotten.
Connor made to release poor Wambsgans, but the bullied little door stuck. Each tug on its indent seemed to wedge the pocket door further off of its track until Connor was pushing at the equivalent of a board nailed into the doorframe.
“Tom,” said Connor, as calmly as he could manage. “The, uh, door’s jammed at the moment. Is there anything on the dashboard that might be telling you exactly what’s wrong?”
“Ah, what?! Oh God, I- I don’t know! But it really doesn’t feel right, and there’s that awful noise... Did you say it’s jammed?! The door’s jammed?! You guys aren’t still fucking with me?!”
“Don’t worry about it, I’ll get it open! But just in case, Tom...” Connor’s lips were pressed thin and white as the plane shook again, the shock of it traveling from the yoke to the cabin. “As far as I can tell from here, the jet's fucked. Both engines are out and once we’re past these islands it’s nothing but ocean, so on the unlikely chance we can’t get this door open, I’m gonna need you to get ready to put us down.”
“What?!”
Connor glanced back at the cabin, nodding to express his seriousness. He was not fucking with Tom. The prostitute, Willow or something, was already buckled up to begin with. Roman, Siobhan, Gerri, and Cousin Greg hurried into their restraints, looking green, and Kendall stumbled blank-faced into a seat and slowly strapped himself in because everyone else was doing it. No fucking telling whether he was confused or suicidal. Then he put his headphones on. Jesus Christ.
Logan made toward his seat, but had to stop and grip the headrest of another as a phantom fist gripped his chest, squeezing. Fucking planes.
“I’ll talk you through the landing, okay Tom? Hey, okay, buddy?” Connor was attempting to soothe, pressed against the cockpit door, trying pointlessly to wrench it open. "There was a land mass up ahead, an island. You see it, Tom? We’ll glide for maybe a hundred miles before we start going down, and then I figure we'll come up on the island in about… fifty seconds.”
Tom was off his fucking nut in there, and burst out laughing in hysterics for a moment before he screamed, “What?! What?!”
Connor shook his head, getting louder as the jet did too. “Get strapped into my seat, okay? Then you'll want to grab the yoke and disconnect auto-pilot—"
“No! I- I can’t! I fucking can’t, you fucking psychopath! Oh my God, let me out!”
“Yes, you can! You only have a few minutes before we drop, Tom, so listen: I need you to use the rudder and turn us toward the island, push on the yoke to get us low, aim for the open beach but keep her nose up, and drop the wheels! Then brake! On the pedals, just like a car! Got it?! You’ve driven a car, Tom, you can do this!”
“Oh, fuck you! Fuck you! I should call someone on the radio! Can’t I call, like, the- the fucking airplane people?! The air traffic people?!”
“Besides the fact that we’ll be underwater by the time you figure out how to turn the radio on, our engine’s out in the middle of the ocean! What do you want them to do?!”
“Oh, I’m sorry for hoping somebody might actually fucking help me!”
“Well, I’m trying here, if you’d just take the damn yoke!”
Even as he persuaded the poor sucker to take to the pilot’s chair and wrestled with the cockpit door, Connor’s eyes were flicking nervously toward the cabin. He was weighing his options. Trust Tom or abandon all hope and strap in. Logan knew what he’d put his own money on.
“I… I can’t fucking breathe!”
“There’s O2 in the overhead compartment! Keep it together, Tom!”
“We’re all gonna die,” groaned Roman, white-knuckling his seatbelt. The jet shuddered again. Logan faltered, still hanging onto the back of Cousin Greg’s seat.
“Dad, what the hell are you doing?!” cried Siobhan, jerking her head at his empty seat. Logan clutched his chest and grimaced, paralyzed by the pain. Familiar pain. What the fuck? Now?
Connor swore, wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sweater sleeve, and made his decision. “Look, Tom, I- I have to strap in now! Do everything I said! Time it so we glide onto the island! Stay clear of trees! You’re gonna do great!” Connor turned to somberly address the occupants of the cabin. “He’s not hitting that island. Get your floaties on and come to God. We’re fucked.”
Cousin Greg cracked in half like a glow stick and scrambled quite spectacularly under the seat for his floatation device, whispering frantic prayers to no deity in particular. Kendall began to laugh a frantic laugh and couldn’t stop.
Over sirens and the stick shake shuddering, the last thing that Tom whimpered through the door was, “Shiv, are you there?” Siobhan opened her mouth and no sound came out. Tom went silent after that. Most of them did, besides the little cokehead.
Once upon a time, Logan still had hope for one of his sons. That was Kendall. It was a few years ago now.
But Logan Roy loved all of his kids. Of course he did, otherwise he would have sent them all off to New Mexico and just enjoyed his goddamn life. They weren’t made for the world. They were good for nothing but a laugh. Maybe that was Logan’s fault. But probably Caroline’s. He’d keep trying to sculpt at least one of them into something that could hold the fucking world on their shoulders like Logan had. Like Logan did.
Fuck. He couldn’t think straight, couldn’t move. It was the fucking altitude. Logan watched his slack-jawed children, his idiot nephew, his usurping fucking General Counsel watch him back wide-eyed, none of the ingrates willing to leave their seats to save their maker.
But someone, one of them, was reaching for Logan. They managed to drag him down into a seat and pull part of the harness over his throbbing chest. Then, suddenly, the sea seemed to come closer in the windows and they were plummeting from the sky. The rescuing hand vanished, there was a thump across the aisle. Logan’s harness uselessly dangled— hadn’t quite come together.
It occurred to Logan that he was dying with seconds to spare. He clenched his teeth and screwed his eyes shut and hoped there was no afterlife, because he couldn't bear to see how they'd fuck everything up that he built. And then Logan Roy croaked.
Fucking Tom.