Work Text:
Anticlimactic
"You're running again," TJ said. He tried to make himself sound encouraging, or surprised, or like he felt any kind of emotion at all. It was hard to inject anything into his tone though. His mom running again was about as much of a surprise as his nana wanting a drink after talking to his dad for more than five minutes. Some things were just a given.
"I wanted you to hear it from me," Elaine said. "And I wanted you to know that you can say no, Tommy."
"Just say no, huh? Sounds familiar," he quipped, not meeting her eyes. "I'm not going to tell you not to run mom, you need to run, and you should, and we both know you wouldn't not run. But I don't know-" TJ stopped. He was, as always, pulled taut as an over-tuned piano string, waiting to snap as soon as someone slammed too hard on a tender key. His sobriety was always tender and new and it was never going to turn into something solid if he lost it every time his family needed to be important. The need for big things ran through his family's veins, if it wasn't Elaine now, it'd just be Doug in a few years.
Elaine got up, moving to sit beside him on the chaise, her arm around him. "It's not going to be the same this time, Tommy."
"I know," TJ said. He really didn't know that at all, but he said it anyway, because he'd memorized his lines in this little play by now. "I just don't know if I can say the right things and be at the right places and be the right person and still be clean for it, mom. I want to, I always want to, but-"
"So don't," Elaine said. TJ blinked at her and then lifted his eyebrows dubiously. "I mean it," she insisted. "Screw the right things, and you're already the right person. I spent a whole election trying desperately to be perfect so this damned country would accept me, and look where it got us. So here we are again, but if I'm doing it, I'm going to be me. And I'm not going to ask you to be any different. If you don't want to go somewhere, don't. If you want to say something, say it. Just be you, TJ."
It was a terrifying concept. In public, TJ had been putting on a face for the crowds since he was old enough to understand that there were parts of himself not everyone should see. In private, he put on a different face that smiled and said he was fine so no one would worry how close to the edge he was teetering today. He'd had masks on masks and evasions to distract from them all, and then a boatload of coke to live with the lot of it. He'd lost track of who he really was for a while and he was still trying to figure that the hell out. "Just say whatever I want, whenever I want, huh?"
"Well maybe don't go out of your way to call a Senator a boring old pervert." Elaine sighed. "I have your grandmother for that." TJ snorted. He remembered that press cycle pretty fondly. "But other than that … this is my campaign, not yours. You save all your strength for staying sober and finding your way to be happy. The rest - you're off the leash unless you want to come to the park and walk with the rest of us, kid." Elaine hugged her arm around his shoulders, leaning into him. "I love you. No one can fight a war on every front, and I want you fighting the important ones, not the ones you think I need you to win for me."
"I want a cabinet appointment when you win," TJ said, leaning back.
"No you don't," Elaine said, laughing.
"I really don't. But I'd pay good money to see you give nana one." TJ laughed as Elaine groaned loudly and it didn't feel as forced as he'd thought it would be a moment before.
**
Bus Stop Pictures
"This is actually why I'm here, isn't it? You didn't miss my company, you don't want moral support, you just want arms," TJ complained, wincing as the toddler in his arms tried to gnaw her way through TJ's thumb. "You brought me out to a campaign stop in Middle America for spare arms."
"And fashion advice," Anne affirmed, pushing TJ down into a seat on the bus and then shifting her daughter to one of his arms so she could nest the other one into his other arm. Little Hallie promptly spit up and Abbie went back to trying to eat his thumb. TJ silently mourned his pants and settled back obediently, jiggling the twins a bit to keep them occupied. "Which one says 'healthy mother and wife of a future president, who definitely doesn't throw up her meals?'" she asked, holding up two suits that were really much too similar to his mother's style for TJ to have anything positive to say about them.
"The white says 'look, I couldn't hide a stain'?" TJ tried. Anne grimaced but TJ couldn't help but smile. It was a grim connection maybe, but he and Anne had found a lot of common ground once her eating disorder had gotten leaked by asshole tabloid journalists. Black humor recovery stories were an easy source of human bonding, he guessed. He liked to think they were friends now, even without Dougie. She was probably the first real friend he'd made in a long time, since you couldn't count dealers. "Look, you can ignore me, my gay fashion superpowers aren't actually that strong, don't listen to my mom. But you shouldn't listen to my mom's advisors about what to wear. You've got your own style and it'll look great with Dougie. Plus, mom's kind of got the business suit look nailed down already, and no one needs two Elaine Barrishes." Hallie squirmed and then spit up a little more on his pants and TJ sighed. "You're killing me," he told her, sinking awkwardly down into the seat and lifting his legs to balance the babies better so he could free an arm and wipe her face quickly with the rag. "Don't you have nanny arms around?"
"Shut up, you love it," Anne said. "And it's her day off." She worried at her lip with her teeth, looking at the suits again. "You think so?" She groaned. "Now I have to go through the rest of my wardrobe. Is it too late to opt out of all the political stuff and go back to the low-pressure life of a mother, designer, and wife of the Democratic candidate's campaign head?"
"You can try, but breaking off from the party line doesn't work out that well in this family," TJ said dryly. "Here, take a monster and we'll go look through your stuff." Anne hung the suits back on a chair and took Hallie, leaving TJ free to extract his thumb carefully from Abbie. He looked around until he spied their carrier and grabbed it, starting to buckle Abbie carefully into it. She started wailing as soon as he put her down.
Anne made a pained face. "They're having a moment where they don't want anyone to put them down," she said, tired but fond. "Doug stood up all night with one or the other, correcting speech notes on a whiteboard between trips up and down the bus."
TJ hefted Abbie again and stared her down. She stared back mutinously. "Okay," he said. "I have an idea."
He tucked her against his chest and motioned for Anne to wait, then ducked out of the bus. There was an immediate flash of bulbs and chorus of voices and TJ waved his free hand. "Hey hey, keep it down, man with a baby here!" he called. He looked around for his secret service agent. He used to be able to get away without one, but since Elaine nabbed the primary slot, he had his own assigned watcher again. It was sort of nostalgic, having bulky guys in suits following him around again. This one was tall with slightly receding dark hair and enough of a sense of humor that TJ didn't hate him. "You! I need your hands." There were a half dozen other agents around the bus. He could get away with borrowing Paul for a while.
Paul's eyebrows climbed, and a douchebag TJ recognized as being from one of the more tabloid-centric rags smirked, snapping another picture and calling out. "Isn't your mom going to be pissed about you putting your secret service's hands to work on her bus, Tommy?" he asked, voice heavy with innuendo.
TJ felt a spark of familiar anger tinged with shame and started to smile and deflect. It was automatic to try to find the right thing to say - enough of a bite to back them off, enough charm to defuse. But he remembered his mother's earnest face, telling him to be himself. He might not have entirely figured out who that was yet, but TJ sure as shit knew it wasn't someone who smiled at this dipshit. So he smirked back. "Well, we don't pay them enough for their mouths," he said, ignoring the flashing cameras. "Seriously, don't be such a shitbag, my niece is right here and my sister in law is on the bus. Get some class. You can probably afford it, much as you get for those pictures you snap of my family." He smiled sweetly and flipped the guy off, then herded Paul back inside, handing off Abbie without much explanation. Paul looked a little like a man who was about to drown but was bravely facing it down anyway as he gulped in a deep breath and took Abbie from TJ. Outside TJ could hear a low furor building over his comments, but it didn't send a shiver of panic along his spine and he smiled to himself. Maybe he could do this after all.
Twenty minutes later a harried-looking Doug came in to see Paul sprawled across two seats with twins aggressively gnawing on his tie while TJ and Anne argued wardrobe choices. Anne was in her slip and shoes, TJ had taken off his pants to try to steam out the stain. Dougie looked between them. "Do I even want to know?"
TJ stepped back into his pants. "Probably not. But heads up that there might be someone saying something about Paul blowing me."
"He didn't, unless they were really quick and Paul did it while holding the twins," Anne added, then held up two blouses. "Red or blue?"
Paul called out a choking denial as Doug stared and then sighed, running a hand over his face. "Red," he said, and didn't ask for any more details.
**
Past Administration
"I've heard a lot about you." The hand Charles Young shook TJ's with was firm and practiced as photographers snap photos in the background. He's a good looking guy in person, distinguished brush of gray at his temples and warmer eyes than most politicians. TJ's never met more than a handful who can pull off a smile that shows in their eyes.
"Yeah, pretty sure we met once," TJ said. Beside him Anne twitched, barely holding in a laugh. "I don't remember, but you know. Cocaine." He's briefly not sure why he said that at all, but then decides to hell with it. It's true.
"Yeah, I wasn't gonna bring it up," Young deadpanned. "You told me you liked my shoes and wanted to see yourself in them."
TJ squinted. "Was I trying to hit on you?"
Charles grinned and shrugged. "Good to meet you again," he said instead of answering. "Call me Charlie."
"You know, if your old boss was running, I'd probably be voting for them instead," TJ said. He was pretty sure he'd tried to hit on the guy. Dammit. He couldn't even get the LINE RIGHT when he tried? Who said they saw themselves in someone's shoes, not their pants?
"I think he had enough the two terms he served already, so your mom and me will have to do our best," Charlie said wryly, head turning as if looking for a way out of the conversation. TJ got that. He got tired of getting asked about the ex-president he knew, too.
"Not him, Ms. Cregg," TJ clarified quickly. "Doug used to pretend to be her at podiums. I told him he was too short."
Charlie cocked his head and laughed, relaxing again. "Yeah, well. If CJ ran, we'd all just be voting for her. She's happy where she is though." He grinned a little. "Doug doesn't have the legs, either," he added, making Anne laugh again. A few more photographers snapped their shots and someone called out asking about CJ, and Charlie sighed. "And you just got me in trouble. We'll talk later. Good to meet you, Tommy. See you at dinner tomorrow, Anne."
"Your mom is going to KILL you," Anne whispered from the side of her mouth, laughing.
"Nope. I have a free ticket to say whatever I want," TJ said. "Cregg 2028!" he yelled, watching Charlie crack an unwanted smile as he spoke to someone very old and very rich. He squinted. "Shit," he muttered.
Anne shuffled in closer. "What? What's wrong?"
"No, nothing. I just … I'm pretty sure I remember meeting that guy the first time and I definitely hit on him.," TJ said. "Maybe don't tell mom that part." Mostly because he'd been so bad at it. On the plus side, it was definitely not the worst thing he'd ever done while high.