Work Text
The story of the Meyer campaign would be writ large in the American history books, if only for the shocking level of incompetence in its trajectory and the miracles and divine intervention that propelled it to a bumpy win. The Meyer-Furlong train chugs to a stop on the White House lawn despite countless setbacks, and the first thing that happens is that Ben Cafferty quits. Just up and quits, before the rest of the staff’s Election Night hangovers have even faded. Claims he’s moving to Florida to wear Jimmy Buffett-branded sandals and go through a twelve-stage caffeine detox. And so everyone is fucked.So what happens when the most reliable person on your staff leaves in pursuit of happiness and bottomless margaritas? It’s the question that stares Selina down every minute from morning until night for the first three days after Ben tenders his resignation. Amy’s already campaigning hard for the job, and it’s not as if she hasn’t earned it, but Amy's barely been back a week and a half and her level of sanity has still yet to be proven, and so Selina places her in the ‘maybe’ pile and continues fretting.But she needs a chief of staff. She really needs a chief of staff. And one name keeps coming up in the meetings she claims she’s not having with Kent.“I’m not hiring Josh Lyman,” she says, folding her arms and lifting her chin.“He’s the best at what he does.”“He’s a self-important shit. He’s Dan Egan with a moral code. That’s not necessarily an improvement, by the way, given the tone of this administration—”“I wouldn’t go so far as to pay that compliment to Dan.”“The last fucking thing I need is some speechifying Harvard prick running around this office telling me what I’m morally obligated to do.”“He’s well-respected, served three terms under two different presidents, and incredibly aggressive,” Kent says, folding his own arms in a mirror of her stance. “And he’s a good friend of mine. I can vouch for the guy.”“No shit,” mutters Selina. “I’m still not hiring him—”“You should take the meeting, ma’am,” Kent says. “You need the best staff possible going into this term. Consider this an exploratory foray. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. But at least take the meeting.”*So Josh Lyman strides into the Oval Office as if he owns the place, and Selina’s already unimpressed, because honestly, she doesn’t need to hire another self-righteous slob to wander the hall in shirtsleeves; that’s what she pays Mike for.And then he starts talking, and as fundamentally annoyed as Selina is with every word he says, she’s also kind of impressed. Because the thing is, he’s not wrong. He’s irritating, but he’s right when he lays into a tirade about the new House opposition and their plan to box her in and shut her down over the following two years. He’s completely right, to the point where it’s a bit like she’s been placed in an echo chamber constructed from her own anger. The longer he speaks, the less she hears, but she gets the sense that he’s only repeating himself anyway, playing a variation on a theme.A little self-righteousness can be convincing.“Fuck it,” she says, throwing all manner of propriety out the window it was bound to exit through at some point anyway. “You’re my new Chief of Staff. Welcome back.”*Amy doesn’t exactly take it badly, the demotion to deputy chief, but she’s not jumping up and down, either.Selina can sense her disappointment. It’ll take time. She’ll get over it. It’s not her problem.*There’s a state dinner for the visiting leader of some ass-backwards Eastern European country. There’s raisin cake and there’s vodka, which in retrospect is kind of a weird combination.She’s in a red dress that makes Gary practically faint, an Oscar de la Renta gown that screams power, as befits the most powerful woman in the world. Person. Most powerful person in the world. She’ll be fucked if she wears a pantsuit to her first state dinner as an elected president.Josh is waiting outside the residence, chatting amiably with Gary. He’s dressed better than she’s ever seen. White tie suits him. And she can feel his gaze land on her. Which is - well. That’s the power she’s been looking for.“… Madame President,” he says, speech faltering momentarily.She laughs. “Let’s do this thing.”Later that evening, she’s entrenched in conversation with some diplomat from Lithuania or Azerbaijan or Buttfucknya, she feels a hand hover at the small of her back and immediately tenses, waiting for the inappropriate comment or grope. But when she looks up, it’s Josh, drink in hand and a sincere look on his face. “I’m sorry, Mr. Prime Minister,” he says, “but the President’s just received an urgent phone call, she needs to take it.”The PM nods as she’s led away. “I could read the misery on your face from across the room,” Josh mutters in her ear as they make a beeline for an empty spot near the door.Selina pastes on a smile, as is her wont. “I didn’t hear a word that man was saying.”“He did have a particularly distracting mole.”“Oh, Jesus, I’m glad you noticed it. He needs to get that thing biopsied—”Josh settles against the wall and Selina turns to face him, allowing the two Secret Service agents behind her to block her from the rest of the room. She thinks that maybe she wants to be seen. With the Secret Service guarding them like statues, she wants to kiss Josh. It’s a feeling that comes up more often than she’d like to admit these days. There’s a long enough list as to why she’ll probably never act on it, the first being that she’d probably never find a suitable replacement in the district and would end up flying to Florida herself to beg Ben out of retirement. But shit, she wants toShe moves one step closer to Josh, closing nearly all of the distance between them as she lowers her voice. “If I have to have one more fucking conversation about this trade agreement tonight, it will no longer be safe for me to have the nuclear codes.”Josh smirks, tilts his head, leans forward. He lowers his mouth to the edge of her ear, and she feels a miniscule shiver run through her body and hopes to high fucking hell he didn’t notice it. “I’ll handle it,” he says. “I’m not ready to send the country to war over an uncomfortable dinner party.”Selina turns her head, and there’s half a moment where Josh’s nose brushes her cheekbone. Suddenly the possibility becomes glaringly, exhilaratingly real, that she could turn just that much the other way and bridge what distance remains between them. But instead, a jolt of reality makes her pull back.She can’t tell what her expression is, but it makes Josh smile, and she shrugs a bit, tucking a piece of her still-growing-out hair behind her ear. “That’s why you’re the second most powerful person in the country,” she says, only half joking. And then, with another one of those smirks, Josh leans back down to whisper in her ear again.“I thought that title belonged to the vice president, ma’am,” he says, and she laughs out loud at this.“Don’t play dumb,” she says.The want hits her like it ran a red light, fast and without warning. It stuns her, really. She is standing in the White House, surrounded by diplomats and dignitaries and staffers as far as the eye can see, and all she can think about is how much she would like to reach up and curl her fingers around the back of Josh’s neck. The thought makes her pulse race and she risks half a second of eye contact.“Josh,” she begins, but the sentence doesn’t have a predicate.“Ma’am?” Amy’s voice is like a bucket of cold water, and she turns to see her holding her Blackberry and looking as if she’s walked in on her parents having sex (which, in a sense, she may as well have). “I have the UN. The trade agreement isn’t going through, they need you to –”Selina takes the phone and steps back from Josh, who is silently contemplating what’s left of the ice cubes in his glass. She leaves the room quickly, as if she couldn’t get away fast enough.*Josh and Selina, Selina and Josh. People mention them in the same breath far too often these days, often with a knowing little smile signifying nothing. She knows what it looks like. She’s seen the pictures. Josh standing too close, his lips brushing her ear, his nose in her hair, a hand hovering at her side. Incredible, truly, how much the cameras capture while still revealing nothing at all. The images would be damning if there were a sordid truth to reveal.*She’s exhausted, as she always is, sitting in the Oval with her head throbbing. It’s late. There’s a memorandum on urban housing on her desk, one that she’s not inclined to read at all but is certainly not inclined to read tonight. She’s spinning listlessly in her chair, one way and then the other, and if she’s starting to feel dizzy, she believes herself to have earned it.The door opens and she hopes with all her might that it’s Kent or Amy, two of the only three people allowed to walk in without warning at this time of night, but of course, it’s Josh, looking similarly exhausted.“I need you to know,” he says, “that Mike misspoke at the briefing tonight and apparently you’re going to the dedication of a statue of Caesar salad erected by the United Farmworkers’ Association tomorrow.”Selina lets her head hit the back of her chair with a softly padded thump. “What the fuck is happening in this office?”“Freudian slip, I guess. He said he hadn’t eaten in hours.” Josh heaves a sigh, pushes back his suit jacket to rest his hands on his hips. “And I just got off the phone with the vice president. He wants to know why you’re trying to block him from participating in the budget talks—”“Because he knows about as much about the budget as he does about wind-surfing,” Selina snaps. “Tell him to shove his economic policy up his ass and go back to shoving donuts down his throat.”“With all due respect, ma’am, I still don’t really understand why you made him your running mate. Chung would have been a better match for the tone we’re trying to set—”“Because Chung’s also a craven opportunist,” Selina says. “Furlong’s not smart enough to fuck us over playing the game. Danny Chung is, and he’d do it every chance he got.”“Ah,” says Josh. “Pardon me. I thought it had more to do with Furlong having been a pain in your ass for years and you finally getting the chance to put him where he’d be seen and not heard.”Selina pauses, sucks in a quiet breath. “You’re not wrong,” she says.He laughs and leans over her desk, fingers curling into the papers scattered there. “I thought so,” he says quietly.She stares at his hands, spread wide across the mahogany and crinkled documents in front of her. Imagines how they’d feel sinking into her flesh, burning indelible marks there. She’s the President of the United fucking States, and she should be able to compartmentalize these thoughts, but they’re intrusive as ever, four months into the new administration, and she clenches her jaw, grinds her molars and wills them away.*They’re fighting, rhetorically, really arguing just to argue. She’s got her feet propped up on her desk, shoes long discarded and dress wrinkled from the day, while Josh paces in a taut rectangle across the seal on the carpet, sleeves unbuttoned and hastily rolled to his elbow. From the outside looking in, they probably look like an old married couple, which is how Selina rationalizes the sharpness of her jabs.“That’s not the point,” she’s saying, “and you need to get off the campaign trail and play hardball now. Because your argument, that politics-is-about-people thing, we both know that isn’t true. Politics is about winning.”“You’re the one who coined that phrase, ma’am, and for what it’s worth, I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you.”“I know you have,” she says, “old man.”“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”She snorts. “You’re not addressing my concern.”“Your concern is that I’m too idealistic, that I’m pushing your staff in a direction you don’t agree with. That I want this administration to push through legislation based on what’s right for America, not what’s right for our job security. And on that count, you’re damned right. The way I see it, it’s not idealistic to fight against a bad bill even if it was introduced by a member of our own party. It’s not idealistic to call a spade a spade with regard to harmful policy. But what the hell do I know?” He stops pacing. “I’m just a cockeyed optimist trying to preserve the union, here.”Selina pushes herself up from her chair, crosses to stand between him and the desk. “Don’t fucking patronize me,” she says coolly, “and don’t you dare quote a fucking musical while you do it.”He advances on her abruptly, and she counters, taking a step backward for every one he takes forward until she hits the desk. Josh places an arm on either side of her, breaking the illusion of power and personal space they’ve been observing all night. “Do I intimidate you, Selina?”“No.” He does a lot of things to her, but intimidation isn’t one of them.He grins, teeth glinting in the low light of the Oval. His voice is thick and liquid and he’s so close that she can see his individual eyelashes, could probably count them if she cared. He shifts in position, and she sits back on the edge of the desk. Her skirt is crawling up the back of her thighs, and she puts a hand down behind her to steady herself. “Maybe I should change tactics.”“And do what?” Selina asks, as he leans in closer, breathes in deeper. “Try to sell me on your Bartlet-Democrat enthusiasm with your dick?”Selina shivers as she feels his breath against her throat. “Would that work?” he murmurs. He moves his hands from the desk to her waist, his thumbs moving in slow, lazy circles over the fitted fabric of her dress. She can feel the heat of his palms through the wool boucle and reaches up to cup the nape of his neck.“No.”“No?”“No,” she says, and turns her head to meet his mouth.Josh kisses her like he does everything else: aggressive, goal-oriented, aimed for maximum impact. He angles his hips between her spread thighs and cants against her as she meets his tongue with her own. He’s sliding his hand along her thigh when they hear the distinct beep of his phone.They break apart, wide-eyed, breathing hard. Josh’s pupils are blown as he yanks the phone from his pocket and answers. “Josh Lyman.”Selina’s feet meet the ground hard, her legs shaky. She tugs at her dress and tucks her hair behind her ear. Josh is pacing again as she walks back behind her desk. She licks her lips. Her mouth is suddenly cotton-dry.When Josh ends the call, she’s watching him. His body is tense, coiled, a trap about to spring. “Ma’am—”She shakes her head. “You can head home for the night,” she says. “Or you can walk me back to the residence. Your choice.”He raises both eyebrows in a parody of surprise. “Are you trying to seduce me, Madame President?”*“You think Josh and Selina are sleeping together?”Amy glances up from her cup of coffee and laptop at where Jonah's leaning against the doorjamb. “You think?” she asks. “They’ve been sneaking off to the residence at least once a day for the past three weeks. Gary walked in on them in a pantry and looked green for the rest of the day.”“What was he doing in the pantry?”“I have no fucking idea, Jonad. Why don’t you ask him?”He laughs, cocky as ever. “You sound stressed.”“Yeah. Well. I’m dealing with a fuckload of lobbyists who all want a hand in this dark money bill, and now some aide at the State Department is claiming sexual harassment and now I have to make absolute sure there’s no sexual impropriety going on in this office, which of course there is, because the leader of the free world is debasing every pantry, coat closet, and breakfast nook in the White House with her chief of staff, who happens to be my direct superior. So.” She forms a gun out of her thumb and forefinger and mimes shooting herself in the head.“So they’re definitely sleeping together?” says Jonah.“Beyond a shadow of a doubt.”*
fin.