#rather than giving greg just slightly more luck than he canonically had

[tomwambsgans]

alternate timeline where greg managed to get just enough of a grip on tom's sleeve when he was being shoved to the ground for trying to tell him about shiv's affair, so tom falls with him, and it becomes actual mutual grappling and greg feels now that he has nothing to lose so he pins tom to the ground and shouts "she's cheating on you, tom! and you know it!" and tom is therefore forced to reckon with the knowledge and not run away, and he feels himself starting to cry so he impulsively pulls greg down by the neck and kisses him. and he's shaking and still kind of crying into it and he makes it last and then when he finally has to breathe again he says "there, now i cheated on her too, so it's fine. get off a'me, would you, greg" and then runs away

and bc he's justified it in his mind this way now, tom doesn't confront shiv about nate and there's no formal discussion of an open marriage. but he does start having greg pop into his mind more and more during sex with shiv and lack thereof, and the more he actually goes to greg when feeling bad about his marriage the more he realizes how much he actually prefers sex with greg and wants an excuse to go to him.

meanwhile bc greg doesn't feel particularly pushed away by tom he doesn't bring up the documents to kendall at that particular moment, and therefore doesn't have the opportunity tell kendall about andrew having drugs, so andrew doesn't die and kendall doesn't need logan's protection and he goes ahead with the hostile takeover and it works (possibly with greg's help later on) and tom's position thanks to him siding with kendall becomes so incredibly stable that he also no longer needs to even depend much on his relationship with shiv so he's now got an excuse to pursue things he really wants, like true love, and when their affair comes out the blast damage is minimal, shiv's own affair(s) lowkey cancel it out, and tom and greg live happily ever after. all because he grabbed tom's sleeve.