Chapter Text
Is it maybe a little hypocritical for Alexander to be worrying about PR when three hours ago he was texting John Laurens, son of his father’s political enemy, overtly flirting? Maybe. But they’ll be fine, as long as they don’t get caught. And after this summer it’ll all be behind them. It’s just a way to get rid of stress during the election. That’s what he keeps telling himself.
“What the hell is going on with Gates?” Washington asks angrily at a meeting, his hand clenched into a fist on the table.
“He thinks he’s better than you,” Alex deadpans, not looking away from his phone where he’s checking one Horatio Gates’ campaign website. Since the beginning of election season, he’s been the only other Democratic candidate who was considered to have a chance. Since Biden, the incumbent Democratic President, is retiring, it’s a race between the two. Yet, Washington has gotten up to 1,980 pledged delegates. There isn’t really a viable way for Gates to get the nomination anymore, unless all of the superdelegates at the DNC vote for him.
This would be great news for Washington, if it weren’t for the fact that Gates still hasn’t dropped out.
“My guess is that he thinks he can get the superdelegates because Biden endorsed him,” Harrison sighs.
“But we knew he was going to do that. Old Joe is a conservative under a blue flag, just like Gates is,” says Anne Bailey, their field director. “They’re scared as hell of letting the party go back to actually being for the working class and opposing murdering foreign children, and they’re not gonna back down until the very end.”
“Surely it’s a waste of money at this point, though?” George asks, his head in his hand. “They threw hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising trying to take my platform down, and yet we’re still ahead by so much.”
“Not a waste of money for their billionaire donors who are petrified of paying 5% more in taxes and not being allowed to exploit their workers,” Alex supplies.
“Capitalism at its finest,” Anne sighs.
“It’s okay. It’s not like he’ll cause that much trouble for us. After the DNC it’s all over for him, anyway,” Alex says.
“Hey, shouldn’t you be like, hanging out with friends or something?” Anne asks. “It’s Saturday.”
“Shouldn’t you?”
She rolls her eyes at him.
“Now that I think about it, Alexander, aren’t your friends coming over today for the Young Democrats meeting tomorrow?” George asks.
“Yeah, but this is more important.”
“Not for an eighteen-year-old who has no official campaign role,” Harrison says.
“You said you guys would let me get more involved!”
“And we are! But you can’t sit in here all day, every day.”
He sighs. “Fine. You guys have fun trying to work out some asshole Neo-Lib’s intentions without me.” He pushes his seat away from the table and stomps petulantly out of the room.
Truthfully, he was meant to meet with Herc and Laf half an hour ago, but he’d gotten distracted with the Gates situation. Political drama can capture his attention more than anything.
He steps out of the campaign office and into the blinding sun, looking around until he spots his two friends, sitting on a bench just outside HQ.
“Alexandre! Nous avons pensé que t’es mort!” Laf exclaims as soon as they spot him.
“Desoleé,” he responds, walking over. “I got distracted. Gates still hasn’t dropped out of the race.”
“I don’t even know who that is,” Hercules says.
“Well, he’s—”
“And I never said I wanted to know.”
Alexander rolls his eyes and sits down next to Laf. “Sorry, guys. I’m so glad you made it down here. I like the campaign, but I really do miss you a lot.”
“C’est pas grave. But you’ve got to focus on some other things sometimes, you know?” Laf asks. “Really, Alex, we know you love this stuff, but…” they and Herc exchange a look. “Well, you are still a teenager. It’s not your job to worry about the presidential race, not yet.”
“I know, I know.” Alex looks away. “I just— some people draw, some people play an instrument or video games or sport— this is my thing. I analyze polls and debates and elections.”
“You’re just a big nerd,” Herc mutters.
Alex rolls his eyes again. “Whatever. What’s up with you guys?”
“Oh, show him your instagram, babe.” Herc nudges Laf’s shoulder.
“Ah, yes, look at this, Alex.” Laf pulls out their phone and opens up their instagram page. “I guess you could say I’ve become a bit of a celebrity.”
Alex looks at the page, which has about fifty thousand followers. “Damn! What are you posting?”
“My makeup stuff. I really didn’t think people would care about it that much. I didn’t even think it was that good. But I seem to have— how you say— blown up.”
“I can’t believe I haven’t come across your page on my feed.” Alex opens up his phone and searches up the name.
“What, you usually get makeup tutorials on your for you page, Alex?” Hercules asks with a shit-eating grin.
“Oh, fuck off. I mean because they’re my friend!”
“Sure, sure.”
“You dick.” He finds the page and follows it, scrolling through some of the photos. There’s a lot of intricate graphic liner designs, some of the stuff that Alexander has seen Laf do before, but a lot of it more colourful and extravagant.
“Hey, maybe do you think I could post a selfie with you? You know, promote the campaign?”
“You mean promote your page? I happen to have a hundred thousand followers, actually,” Alex teases.
“Ugh, t’es un con. Please?” Laf gives an awful attempt at a puppy face.
“As long as you stop making that face.”
“Deal.”
They take a selfie which Laf posts to their story, a caption reading ‘hanging with my favorite politics nerd’.
“Hey!”
“Oh come on, Alex, it’s an open secret,” Hercules deadpans.
They post the story, though Alexander doesn’t get a notification that he’s been tagged because he’s had notifications on all his socials turned off for about a year and a half, now.
“Anyway, now that you’ve finally emerged from the political hell that is the campaign office in the most important battleground,” Hercules says, “We’ve got a booking at a bowling place.”
“Aw, you guys should’ve told me you had a booking! I wouldn’t have been so late.”
“Yeah, you would—” Laf stops short, staring at something behind Alexander.
Nothing, absolutely nothing could have prepared Alexander for the shock of turning around to find Republican Congressman Thomas Jefferson, one hand on his hip and one holding his phone, staring down at the three of them as if he’s just found a pile of dog shit on the sidewalk.
“You.” He says darkly, staring straight at Lafayette.
“Me?” they point at themselves, bewildered.
“Yes, you. You’re the asshole who was at that Laurens event two weeks ago. And now you’re posting all this woke shit online and endorsing Washington? Hanging out with his son?”
Alexander’s heart sinks. Jefferson saw them.
“Okay, and why would you care?” Laf asks.
Jefferson scoffs. “Do you even know who I am?”
“Not really, and I honestly don’t care.”
Alexander tries to nudge Laf to indicate that they really should not be engaging with this guy, but they don’t seem to understand what he’s trying to do.
“Well, come to think of it, your little friends were there too, weren’t they?” he shoots a glance at Alexander and Hercules. Alexander swallows. “You think you kids can turn up and cause chaos just because you’re Washington’s little bitches? Well, unfortunately for you, daddy can’t protect you from real world consequences.”
Alexander still has his phone in his hand. He discreetly double-clicks the on button to open the camera and presses record. He doesn’t like how Jefferson is talking to his friends. If anything happens, he wants it on camera.
“Look, mec, I don’t know who the hell you are and frankly I don’t care what you think of me,” Laf replies, looking almost as disgusted at Jefferson as Alexander feels on the daily.
“If you show up at anything else now that you’ve proven what kind of person you are, I won’t hesitate to deal with you, mark my words,” Jefferson threatens, his eyes fiery.
“Hey, fuck off,” Herc warns, his voice deep. “I don’t give a shit that you’re a congressman, you can’t go around threatening minors like that.”
Jefferson does a double-take. Clearly he hadn’t realized that Laf is still only 17. “Being a kid doesn’t give you an excuse to go around disrespecting legitimate presidential candidates.”
“Being a congressman doesn’t give you an excuse to fucking stalk and threaten us, Jefferson,” Alexander spits back. “It’s not like you have any proof, anyway.”
“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong.” Jefferson smirks. “My father happens to own the hotel that it was held at. So if you happen to show up in any of the security cameras, you better watch that social media of yours.” With that, he turns on his heel and stomps away.
“Fuck.”
Unfortunately for their bowling plans, this is a little more pressing. Alexander drags Laf and Herc into HQ, going back up to the meeting room and bursting through the door.
Harrison sighs. “Alex. I thought you were going out.”
“Change of plans. I need to speak to George.”
“If you hadn’t noticed, we’re quite busy here—”
“It’s really important.” He sends a pleading look in his father’s direction and he can tell that he knows it’s serious.
Washington stands up. “Okay, everyone out. We can continue this later. I need to speak to my son.”
Everyone in the room lets out a collective groan but nonetheless they clear out. No-one wants to mess with Washington when he’s protecting his family. They learned that at the debate.
“What is it that you need, Alexander?”
He only realizes now that he’s sitting down in the meeting room across from his father, his friends sitting either side of him, that he’s going to have to admit to sneaking into the party. Well. At least he won’t have to mention the other stuff that he did that night.
Instead of an answer, he opens his phone to the video he took and passes it to George.
The room is so silent as he watches it that he can hear every word that Jefferson says. It’s extremely awkward. Alexander cringes when he hears Jefferson accuse them of going to the party and George flicks his eyes up to them. When he finally finishes the video, he places the phone face down on the table and looks very seriously back at them.
“Is this true? That you went to that party?”
Alexander looks down at his lap as he nods. “Yeah.”
George sighs. “Why?” He asks exasperatedly.
“Alexandre needed a distraction, and we thought it would be funny,” Laf explains, jumping to his rescue. “I had an invite, we didn’t sneak in.” It’s a half-lie, but not too egregious.
“Invite or not, you understand that that was extremely risky, right?”
“Yeah,” Alexander mumbles. “I’m sorry.”
George shakes his head, disappointed. “There’s nothing to be done to change it now. I’ll write to the Congressman to see if he can be reasonable.”
“But he threatened a seventeen-year-old! Can’t we like, report him or something?”
“Report one of the most famous Republican members of congress in the middle of an election?” George raises his eyebrows. “Even if it did get through, which it wouldn’t, because Jefferson has enough money to buy every lawyer in the country if he wanted, people would just call it a political stunt on my part.”
“Seriously? But we have proof!”
“Proof that also confirms the allegations. I’m sorry, Alexander, there’s nothing I can do.”
Suddenly it feels like everything that was going so well yesterday is down the drain. If Jefferson has this to hold on top of them, they’re going to be on edge for the entire election cycle.
“Look, if he does release footage then we’ll deal with it then. But more often than not hotel security cameras are few and far between, and poor quality at that. If there is something bad then we’ll deal with it then.”
“Okay.” It feels like such a non-answer. Alexander knows that he’s going to be worrying about the possibility constantly from now on. But George is right. It’s out of their hands now; there’s nothing they can do about it.
“Ca va aller, mec,” Laf consoles him as they leave the office. “Let’s just distract ourselves with bowling now, huh?”
He gives a weak smile. “Yeah, okay.”
Bowling was fine, Alex supposes. It was nice to have something fun to mess around with instead of thinking about polls and numbers and running mates and primaries for a little bit. One of the employees even recognizes him and they take a selfie, which always cheers him up a bit. Of course, he’s absolutely dogshit at the game itself, and Hercules always absolutely demolishes both him and Lafayette, but it’s mostly just for the fun, anyway.
“So, how are things going?” Laf asks him as Herc stands up for his turn, lining up for what is probably going to be his fourth strike in a row.
“What do you mean, things?”
“Tu sais. Your amour.”
Alex rolls his eyes even as he feels a hot blush crawl across his face. “He is not my amour. We just… made out a few times.”
“Hmm. Sure.” They’re looking at him with a strange expression.
“What?”
“I just think you should be careful, is all,” they say, taking a sip of their diet coke. “I know he seems wonderful, but he’s still Laurens’ son. What if he’s taking advantage of you?”
It’s almost as if someone had actually stabbed him through the heart. The idea of John doing something like that is outlandish, and he’s almost offended that Laf would even suggest such a thing. “Of course he isn’t! He would never.”
They sigh, a fond smile on their face. “I know it feels like that, mon pote. But you’ve only met him twice. I’m not trying to tell you that you shouldn’t be with him or whatever. I don’t think there’s anything stopping you at this point. But just… be careful. You can’t take another heartbreak.”
Alex is still very much opposed to this theory, although he tries his best to see it from Laf’s point of view. And they’re right, really. Despite the fact that they’ve been talking constantly over the past few days, they still don’t know each other very well. He just has to be careful. And make sure that he doesn’t do anything silly like falling in love. Easy, right?
Besides the awkward conversation, bowling with his friends was actually a pretty good distraction, and by the time he gets back to the hotel that evening, he’s feeling much lighter. There’s still one thing he needs to do, though: call John.
They’ve been texting back and forth every day since John came to the Washington event, and it’s all Alex ever wants to do anymore. He texts John under the table while in meetings, while hanging out with his friends (much to their dismay), and late into the night when he really should be sleeping. It really isn’t boding well for his whole ‘forget this entire thing after this summer’ plan. But that’s a problem for future Alex. And anyway, if he wants to prove to himself that John is good and nothing like his father, then he has to spend more time with him, right?
He shoots off a quick message as soon as he gets to the room, and by the time he’s changed into pajamas John has already replied.
Alex:
do you want to call tonight?
John <3333:
sure :)
In quite possibly the most humiliating thing Alex has ever done, he lets out an involuntary high-pitched giggle when he reads the message. Thank god no-one else is in the room. He almost (almost) makes the noise again when his phone starts buzzing with the call. Flopping happily onto the hotel bed, he answers.
“Hey.”
He’s relieved to hear John’s voice again.
“John! Hi.”
“How’re you doing?” His smile can be heard, even without the image to go alongside it.
“I’m alright.” He sighs. “There is something I wanted to tell you, though.”
“What’s up?”
“So, you know Congressman Jefferson?”
“Unfortunately.”
“He kind of came up to me and my friends outside HQ today. Apparently he saw us at your dad’s event.”
“Oh, crap.”
Alex chuckles darkly. “Crap indeed. He said he would get the security footage with proof of us being there and then release it to the media. He was threatening us and everything, but George says there’s nothing he can do even though I got a video.”
“He was threatening to get security footage?”
“Yeah.” Even though he can’t see John’s face, he looks away from his phone in shame.
“Oh, you don’t need to worry about that.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I heard my dad arguing about it earlier. Apparently Lee, who he’s choosing for VP— oh shit, forget I said that— snuck in like three bottles of vodka in his suit jacket, and so my dad had the hotel delete all the footage just in case.”
Alex bursts into laughter. “Oh my god. I’ve heard that ass speaking on TV. And he’s still picking him for VP after that?”
“Yeah, it was too late by the time he found out. I think it was just a couple days ago. And the RNC is on Monday.”
The stark reminder of the fact that the Republican National Convention is in just two days shocks Alex for a moment. It’s in Milwaukee, so John will be leaving either tomorrow or the day after. He really should not ask him to meet up again. Really. “Oh, crap I forgot about that. Are you going?”
A deep sigh. “Unfortunately I am. My father seems to have thought that the reason you’re popular is because you introduce your dad or whatever, not that you’re a political genius, so he’s stolen the idea. I have to introduce him.”
“Oh, shit. That’s awful. I’m sorry I inspired him.”
“Eh, it’s not your fault.” There’s a pause for a moment. “It’s going to be the longest four days of my life, I swear to god.”
“Are you leaving tomorrow?”
“Nah, at like 5 am on Monday.”
“Want to meet up before you go?” I should not have fucking done that.
“Where?”
“Uh… Maybe somewhere on the outskirts? A diner, at night? Somewhere with not many people so we don’t get recognized. I can find a place and then send you the address?”
“Sure. I’ll get someone to drive me over.”
Alex’s heart is beating a thousand miles per minute at the idea of seeing John again tomorrow. He’s going to make sure they have the best night before John has to go to Milwaukee. And it’s not a date. It’s just… a little meet up between two guys. They agreed that they were friends. Friends spend time together. And John needs support for the RNC. Friends support each other. Yeah.
They talk late into the night, about something and nothing at all, about politics and sea creatures and pop culture and sports, until both boys are falling asleep but neither wants to hang up the phone.
“J’hn?” Alex murmurs at one point, half asleep.
“Yeah?”
“I can’t wait to see you.”
“Me neither.”
They both fall asleep minutes afterwards, the phone call still going.