Work Text:
In Ascension, By Descent
“INTO the silver night
She brought with her pale hand
The topaz lanthorn-light,
And darted splendour o'er the land;
Around her in a band,
Ringstraked and pied, the great soft moths came flying,
And flapping with their mad wings, fann'd
The flickering flame, ascending, falling, dying."
-- Edmund Gosse, "Revelation"
The one the twins like best is named Kevin, according to T.J., and while none of the interns like getting stuck on babysitting duty, Kevin usually at least embraces it. His hair was cut too short, like he'd just chopped it off to get this job when they first met him, and his jackets were always too-long and his shoes never had any shine on them. But during the three weeks the family spent holed up in a campaign contributor's lush Californian mansion Kevin played video games with them and snuck them bags of Cheetos. There had been big screens in every room of that house, and no matter which room Doug and Thomas ended up pushed into Kevin would haul out a Nintendo and hook it up for them.
The month in Louisiana is much worse. There are only two working TV's, and they are always where Bud and Elaine or their aides are, tuned constantly to the news or playing tapes of campaign ads. T.J. spends swaths of time at an ancient grand piano in the parlor, his hands gliding over the keys. The intern usually charged with them is a tiny girl with acres of dark red hair and a clipboard in her hands. She mostly just asks them if they're hungry, and if they have anything to read. T.J. likes her because she never notices anything, and Dougie dislikes her for the same reason. The piano takes over all of T.J.'s time because there's nothing else to occupy it.
Doug had taken lessons for a while too, but he'd gotten his mother to let him quit after a year. T.J. and him didn't look that much alike. The older they got, the less Dougie saw an echo of his own face in his twin's. But they had the same hands, the same shape to their palm and length to their fingers. Somehow, Dougie's hands just couldn't do what T.J.'s did, though. Things that came so easily to Thomas were a struggle for Dougie. After his year of lessons, there had been a recital. Dougie went first, and butchered his way through an easy song. Their teacher saved Thomas for last, and he'd come out and played his way through three pieces, barely missing a note and beaming the whole way through. They'd come off stage to applause and snapshots, and their father had tears in his eyes when he clapped T.J. on the shoulder.
Dougie had stood quietly and Bud had seen him, ruffled his hair and laughed. You've got no music in your soul, Dougie. Not anything to worry about - your daddy never did either. His mother had hissed at Bud for it, but Doug had felt better. His father was an important man. He'd be President, someday. And he couldn't play piano, either. So Doug quit his lessons, and stopped hating that his hands had no art in them, and that he was bored by classical music unless he was watching T.J. play it.
But in the dreary Louisiana house that belonged to a cousin Dougie had only met once, where there was no cable and nothing to do, Doug resents T.J. just for being busy at something. The tinkling keys of the piano become a constant backdrop until Dougie wants to yell at T.J. just to shut up already, but almost never does.
Two weeks into their stay the interns rotate back out and Kevin is back. Without a Nintendo to fall back on, he leaves T.J. to the piano and takes Doug around the old house, exploring until they find the game room and the solid heft of the billiards table. Kevin's jacket is already creased and Doug tries to straighten it when Kevin tosses it over a chair, but leaves it as hopeless finally. Kevin's hair is longer, though still short, and he has new shoes that are shinier, but cheaper than his old ones.
Kevin shows him how to rack the balls, and tells him the rules of breaking and shooting that make up a whole new lexicon in the context of a table and cue. The stick feels long and too heavy in his hands, but he's grateful for something to hold and something to do. Kevin shows him how to take a shot, where to stand, and how to use the table to his advantage. It starts to make sense to Doug a half hour in, when he realizes it's all about angles and numbers. The entirety of Doug's world is made up of angles (political strategy) and numbers (polling figures). He's not good at it, but he's not bad, either.
Kevin finds a boom box and is playing college rock Doug doesn't know, but thinks he likes when T.J. comes in, watching from the doorway while Kevin helps Doug line up a shot. Kevin grins at him, and tells him he can teach his brother while Kevin goes through briefs for his father.
T.J. is good with his hands. He's good with games and sports and things that Doug doesn't pick up with the same ease. But he fumbles with the cue and can't seem to line up a shot, even when Doug explains. "Kevin can show you tomorrow," he says, when T.J. misses an easy shot.
T.J.'s eyes drift past him to Kevin, and he looks sheepish. "Sure," he says. But he looks nervous, and Doug can't help a little rush of pleasure that comes from being just a little better than T.J.
***
"I thought your brother was going to teach you?" Kevin asks, head bent over the folder in front of him. He'd set up an end table as a temporary desk, and there's bags under his eyes from not sleeping. T.J.'s used to that. His dad's interns always look like they need a week to recover after they cycle through.
T.J. shrugs, looking down. "He tried. It's okay, you don't have to. I'll just go practice on the piano instead." Kevin's shoulders are hunched over the makeshift desk, and he looks uncomfortable and tired, but happy about it. T.J. never really understand that. People work for his dad (and his mom) for barely any money, until they're worn down and barely eating and they still get yelled at or brushed aside. But they all seem to like it, somehow, even when they hate it. Like it's an honor to do anything at all for a campaign they didn't even know would win. Dougie always said they would win, like he couldn't think of any alternative. T.J. didn't understand that kind of faith.
Kevin looks up, and he smiles. His teeth are very white and his eyes are a strange shade of green. When he smiles, T.J. fidgets, and he thinks he knows why, but he wishes he didn't. Kevin doesn't seem to notice. "I've heard you playing. You're really pretty good. My girlfriend plays," he says.
T.J. wonders who Kevin's girlfriend is. Maybe she has long red hair, like Vicky, the intern T.J. likes best after Kevin. He bets she's pretty. He thinks he probably wouldn't like her. "Thanks," he says. He feels awkward, the way Dougie always does when someone is taping interviews with them and asking questions about their lives. T.J.'s never felt that way before, he's always been at ease when people look at him.
Kevin rolls his shoulders and then stands. "Come on, I could use a break. Just don't tell your dad, okay? One game, and then we'll find Doug and get lunch. Deal?"
T.J. smiles and nods, following Kevin across the hall to the old game room, letting Kevin teach him how to rack the balls, lean over him to show him how to hold the cue. Dougie's shown him a half dozen times already, and T.J. knows what to do. He pretends that he doesn't. When he finally manages a wobbly shot, Kevin squeezes his shoulder and tells him good job, and it feels like when T.J. stood on a stage to take his recital bows. It's a rush of pleasure and accomplishment, and he doesn't know why he feels it at all, when he's playing badly on purpose. But it doesn't stop him from smiling until the last ball is pocketed and Kevin leads him off for sandwiches with Dougie.
***
Dougie memorized all the White House rooms and their names before they even officially moved in. He'd been excited to see them all, to have a space that was his own. But the White House is never ever still, and every place inside of it has already been carved out by someone else who lived there long before Doug was born. He and T.J. would play elaborate games of Hide & Seek, but they always ended the same way. Someone would tell them not to run inside, and the security guards would give away where they were hidden, and it was never any fun.
Twelve years old (almost thirteen) and two years into their father's first term, and Doug had decided they were too old to play Hide & Seek anyway. But that didn't keep them from finding the most remote corners of Camp David their first visit, and then learning how to use them when they needed time alone.
Doug's security name is "Pine", and T.J.'s is "Bark", but Doug knows that they call them "Right" and "Left" half the time. The Secret Service like it best when the two of them are together, because it's easier to keep track and keep them protected when they're in the same space. Doug's used to sudden security sweeps where his assigned Agent hustles him into the center of his bedroom while others cover the windows. He's used to the rank and file order of traveling, when ten men in suits scowl if either of them take a step to the wrong side of a street. (Doug resents it more than T.J., most of the time, but T.J. is more likely to break the rules on the days he's angry about it.)
He likes it best at Camp David, because there's never a lack of eyes on them, but it's easier to pretend they aren't there at David, somehow. They're only here for two weeks, and Bud had promised no business, but then an oil refinery had a fire, and a half dozen other little catastrophes struck. Within a day a half dozen dignitaries were invited to an informal summit at Camp David.
T.J. takes the news in stride, and Dougie tries not to resent it, even though it means the security doubles. T.J. vanishes hours before they're supposed to present themselves though, and their mother sighs and sends Doug to find him.
Doug resents that, too, because it's not like she couldn't just ask the Secret Service. They always tell her. He stomps his way to the planting room, where he and T.J. had discovered a nook they could huddle behind, and when that's empty he tries the room they still share here. (He might like that, too, because his room at 1600 is big and never really his because T.J. has never slept there with him.) It's his agent, Max, who finally loudly says something about "Left" and the service porch that tips Doug off and sends him scrambling off that way. He takes the longest path, to avoid the main rooms where people are lurking with combs and straightening hands to strike as soon as the twins are still.
T.J. is sitting with his hands tucked beneath him, staring at his shoes when Doug gets there. Doug smacks him on the back of the neck. "Tag," he says, just because if he had to go seeking, he should get a win out of it. "Mom wants us."
"I know," T.J. says. He rubs the back of his neck, but doesn't complain.
Doug doesn't understand T.J., sometimes. T.J. smiles for the cameras and he charms the reporters and he never, ever has to think about things before he says them. Dougie doesn't look right in his clothes unless he changes his shirt three times and makes sure his sleeves are crisp. T.J. throws on whatever he's handed and looks perfect. People like Dougie. They love T.J.. Most of the time, T.J. seems to love them back.
But then there are days like this, when T.J. seems like he doesn't want to be seen at all. Doug feels like that sometimes, too, but he always manages to do what he's told anyway. T.J. says the right thing 80% of the time, but the other 20%, it's like he never learned how to fake it the right way and can't even try. Dougie doesn't know why when it would be so easy for him. "We have to do handshakes and pictures. You have to get dressed."
"I don't want to," T.J. says. "I just want to watch TV and eat the cornchips dad had smuggled in." Bud's last physical had elevated cholesterol, which was immediately followed by a slate of public discussions surrounding his health consciousness. Bud was worse than T.J. about eating his vegetables, and Dougie had seen him throw a carrot stick at his body man once for trying to switch his pretzels out for vegetables.
"We can do that afterward," Doug says. "I know where he put them, anyway."
T.J. drops his head back and stares up at the roof of the porch. "I guess."
"You like it when there's people around," Doug says. It's true. Doug has to gear himself for people, most of the time, but T.J. just melts into crowds and feeds off them. At their eighth birthday, there had been a hundred kids, and T.J. talked to every single one, plus their parents and the caterers. Doug hid in the kitchen for half of the party until he'd seen everyone who was there, so he'd know what he needed to do when he met them. He'd been too nervous to eat any cake because he thought he might drop it if he tried.
T.J. flinches a little, but then shrugs again. "I guess," he repeats.
Sometimes, Doug misses when they really were little, and T.J. said every thought that went through his head because he never understood why people acted like some things should be quiet. (Even if Doug hated it whenever T.J. blurted things out, at that age.) "I could tell mom and dad you're sick?" he offers. He isn't really sure why he does. But T.J. looks like he wanted to hide, and Doug knows there wasn't anywhere you could do that, not even here. Not when you were in their family. Doug still remembers spending almost every day wishing he could hide. Doug doesn't like to lie, but he was better at it than T.J. He always had been. T.J. lied more easily, and passed it off as jokes or tests, but Doug could lie without anyone knowing.
Thomas looks at him, and he smiles. "Yeah?" he asks hopefully.
"You have to actually stay in your room and act like it," Doug said.
"Promise," T.J. agrees. Behind them Max and T.J.'s Agent, Peter, hover just far enough back that they're not intrusive. But it's not like they don't hear. They won't tell, though. They only tell if it's unsafe, and they like it when T.J. is somewhere easy to keep track of.
When Doug makes it back to his mother, he's changed for the photoshoot already, and lets Elaine fix his hair. She frowns worriedly when Doug says T.J.'s stomach hurts, but when its reported in that T.J. is in bed, but fine, she lets it go and puts on her gracious smile for the hand shaking.
***
T.J. promises Dougie he'll stay in their room, and he means to follow through. He always means to keep his promises, but they're always so much harder to stick to than he thought they would be. Halfway through the evening he feels hemmed in and pulls his jacket on and heads outside. His Secret Service detail follows, and T.J. picks up a handful of snow to throw at him, but it doesn't ward Peter off at all. He stays the same carefully managed distance away, and only suggests that maybe T.J. should go inside once. T.J. ignores him.
T.J. wants to run but there's no where to go. He wants to go back inside and find his mother and Doug and his father, because maybe people and photos and smiling all the time would be easier than being alone after all. But it's too late and he doesn't want to give Peter the satisfaction, so he doesn't. Instead he walks the edges of the area allowed him, over and over until he's worn a path through the soft white snow where he trudged from one cleared pathway to another. It reminds him of the big cats at the zoo. His mother always liked the elephants. T.J. always remembers the lurid stripes of the tigers and the spots of the leopards, and the way they walk along the glass walls of their enclosure, like they think if they do it enough one day they'll they'll stumble across a way out that wasn't there before. T.J.'s seen stories on the news about predators that break out of their cages and hurt people. But when he'd watched the big tiger pace, it hadn't looked like it wanted to threaten anyone. T.J. thought if it had found a magical hole to escape through, it just would have run.
His lips are blue by the time Elaine finds him. "I thought you were sick," she says. Beneath the thick leather gloves and heavy coat, she is still dressed in the suit she'd worn for photos.
"I am," T.J. lies, but he's not sure it's a lie now because his stomach feels like it's made of knots and his feet hurt from where the snow seeped in because he forgot to put boots on over his shoes. He's cold all over and he half wants to be sick just so he knows what's wrong with him.
Elaine puts a hand on his shoulder and steers him back inside. The Secret Service waits outside the kitchen while she fixes him hot chocolate (from a packet, only the cook and Bud ever make it from scratch), and leans over the counter beside him. "Your brother could have used your help tonight, you know. This was an important-"
"It's always important," T.J. snaps.
His mother stops, and she sighs, shaking her head. "Sweetheart, I know it's not easy, but what your father's doing - what we're all doing is for the good of the world, and this country. It takes sacrifice. But it's getting better. We're getting used to it - learning how to be a family like this."
T.J. hates that word. It makes him think of King Kong, and the girl they'd offered up to a monkey. She hadn't wanted to be sacrificed and neither had Doug or T.J.. They'd just gotten stuck up there, and it didn't get better. It got bigger and busier and less like what T.J. had thought he knew how to be good at. They'd moved to the White House and added more cameras, more security, more everything. They were all supposed to be more too, and T.J. tries, but he didn't know when it was enough. "It could just be two years, right? And then we go home. Maybe dad won't run."
"Your father wouldn't know what to do with himself if he didn't run," Elaine says dryly. "And this country needs him, Tommy."
T.J. wants it to be over. He doesn't want another campaign, another spotlight. He doesn't want four more years and high school spent as the first son. It's easy to talk and to smile, most of the time, but he's going to do something wrong. He's going to be something wrong, and he can feel the certainty of it creeping up on him, making everything seem like a trap.
He doesn't know how to tell his mother that. He smiles and tells her he's sorry for not coming out tonight, but he doesn't lie well enough to keep her from looking worried, either. Dougie's the only one who can do that, who can keep a straight face while he's lying, the way their father can, even when the lies matter. T.J. can only lie when no one cares what he's saying. Doug's more Bud's son than T.J. can ever be.
When T.J. finally crawls into his bed, Dougie is awake but pointedly silent and obviously angry at him from the next bed over. T.J. doesn't bother to apologize. It wouldn't do any good. Doug doesn't know why T.J. can't just do what he promises he'll do. T.J. doesn't know either, so he can never explain. T.J. breathes in and out and plays Chopin in his head until he can finally sleep.
***
Taaaaake me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd;
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack. . .
On the field the Braves are losing and the game is crawling along. Dougie had agreed to this because his parents wanted him to, and that was what Dougie did. But mostly he'd said yes because Adrienne Pinneau was the oldest niece of the French Head of Parliament, and she'd said she'd never seen a game. She had pink lips and dark hair and she laughed at Doug's accent when he spoke French at the dinner they'd both gone to.
But he'd forgotten that T.J. would be there too, and that T.J. in a good mood filled up all the space and didn't leave Doug any. Adrienne is watching T.J. as he cheers and tells stories and tries to cajole the Secret Service into getting them hot dogs or beers.
"Do they even still have this? Cracker Jacks? I have not seen it," Uel LaMotte asks. Uel is a younger version of his father, with the same wide shoulders and straight posture, but he laughs much more easily than the Grenadian ambassador ever does. Uel is smiling as wide as T.J. and he only knew the chorus of the song, so they keep singing it over and over. Adrienne has a foam finger she is waving back and forth in time. They'd gotten the crowd singing along once, but had lost their interest on subsequent rounds.
Doug feels like the designated driver, which isn't far from the truth, since T.J. has two flasks and had been sharing all game. Doug's not sure when being the sober and sensible one became his job, but he wishes it weren't today. Adrienne laughs suddenly and leans over into Dougie's space. "You are too tense, Douglas. Like your mother," she teases. Her breasts are a soft weight against his arm and he squirms a little and can't bite back a smile, but he catches T.J.'s rolling eyes and thinks it's probably a sign that his smile looks more like he's about to throw up. Dougie's not sure he isn't.
But he still feels a hard little center of anger in his chest when Adrienne pulls away, leans into Uel and T.J. instead and pinches at T.J.'s flushed cheek with pink-tipped fingernails.
The game is winding down and the Secret Service and Uel and Adrienne's security are all suggesting they leave before the crowds. Adrienne's security is a tall blond woman with an intimidating glare, and she pulls Adrienne to the back of their box for a moment to hand her a phone.
Dougie hurriedly tugs T.J. away from where he's leaning over the edge of the box and convincing one of the vendors to bring him a box of Cracker Jacks. "Uel would probably like to stay and see the end. Maybe you should stay with him?" he suggests. Doug feels obvious and stupid, but he can still feel the heat of Adrienne against his arm. He's used to people not seeing him when T.J.'s there, but he thinks if he only had a minute he could make her laugh again, too.
T.J. freezes, and he looks surprised and wary. Doug frowns, but after a second T.J.'s eyes slide past him to where Adrienne is still on the phone, and he laughs his big, wild laugh. "I've got your back, bro," he promises with a wink that makes Doug wince and then elbow him.
"Shut up," he hisses. T.J. just laughs again, and his hand curls around Doug's wrist for a moment, holding on too tight. For a second, Dougie rethinks. He remembers the flasks and how easy Uel had been to talk into sips, and pictures his mother's face. She'd tell him to take care of his brother. But T.J. is surrounded by people taking care of him, he has Peter hovering and a dozen other agents waiting. It doesn't have to be Doug's job today, does it? "I could stay, and we could just take two cars," he says anyway.
Doug is already imagining how wrong that will go - somehow Adrienne will end up in T.J.'s car and Doug will end up making small talk with a half-drunk Uel who regrets not being in the car with people who know how to have fun. But T.J. shakes his head. "Nah. Go ahead. Maybe Pete will take us down to meet the team or something. Take her home. I'll owe you a drink if you get to second base."
Doug's not sure what second is, but he knows it's a mile further than he's going to get. "Yeah, okay," he says.
T.J.'s arm is loose around his shoulders as he steers Dougie back over to Adrienne. It was Doug's idea, but it's T.J. who manages to set it up with their ridiculous security and evade Adrienne's pouting suggestion that she stay too, somehow.
T.J. leans over to whisper something in Adrienne's ear just before she and Doug are herded down the carefully cleared halls and down to the waiting cars. She's still smiling about it by the time they climb in, and Max winks as he shuts the door behind Doug. "Your brother, he says that you can thank him later," she tells him, and slips a hand into her jacket pocket, pulling out T.J.'s flask (the smallest one that Doug hadn't even known he brought, which brought the count to three), and then holds it teasingly out to Doug. "He says I should explain the game to you. I did not know you didn't know how to play." Adrienne's smile is crooked and playful, and it makes Doug feel warm and a little hollow, all at once.
She leans into his side and Doug only hesitates for a minute before he takes the flask, tipping his head back to let the strong taste of whiskey slide down his throat. Adrienne grins when it doesn't make him cough and tucks herself under his arm. "What else did Tommy say to you?" he asks her, because he can't quite help it.
She just laughs and leans her head against his shoulder. "You are very sweet."
Doug doesn't think she would have told T.J. he was sweet, but he'll take what he can get.
***
Pete keeps them in the back of the box while the crowds begin to filter out. The Braves lost, and they lost badly, but T.J. doesn't care. He doesn't even like the slow, measured progress of a baseball game. Give him football or hockey any day over even a good baseball game. This one was shit, but T.J. doesn't care about that, either. He can feel the whiskey buzz making his muscles loose and the world feel lighter. Uel is three inches taller than him and his hands brush against T.J.'s arm whenever he reaches for his drink, and that touch buzzes under his skin with more electricity than the whiskey.
T.J. tries to argue his way getting a Secret Service escort down to the dugout to meet the team, mostly because Uel seems excited at the idea, but he doesn't fight hard when he's shot down. Instead he lingers in the box while the stadium empties, tossing Cracker Jacks at Uel's open mouth and missing. Uel finally just grabs his hand and laughs, pushing T.J.'s hand and the Cracker Jacks toward his mouth. His lips are full and soft against T.J.'s fingers and T.J.'s breath catches.
Peter is making pointed throat-clearing noises that say he wants to get them moving, but T.J. makes excuses, ducks into the private bathroom off the box. He's not sure if he's happy or terrified when Uel follows him in, shutting a swinging door between them and the lurking agents.
Uel's smiling, and his eyes are warm, but he's standing two feet away. T.J. doesn't know if crossing that space means he's brave or too much of a coward to deny what he wants, but either way he takes the steps, and his hands fist in Uel's shirt, leaning into him. "My father, he says that you are a bad influence, Thomas," Uel says.
T.J. feels a stab of something sharp and painful in his chest. He doesn't want to be the guy everyone knew always stepped the wrong way. But he smiles, and slips a hand into his pocket, slipping out a tab of E he'd gotten from a Congressman's daughter and popping one out, tucking it beneath his tongue and then putting a second on his finger, offering it to Uel. "Might as well make your dad right," he says. Uel laughs and leans down, sucking T.J.'s finger past his lips and taking the pill.
T.J.'s chest is tight and his heart is racing and he wants to laugh but can't. When he pulls his finger free and wraps his hand around the back of Uel's neck, Uel leans in and his mouth presses dry and hard against T.J.'s. T.J. has done this with girls who smelled nice and felt soft against him, but never made him feel like this. He burrows against Uel until the other boy's back is against the wall, T.J.'s hip wedged uncomfortably beside the sink. He can taste the bitter tang of the Ecstasy on Uel's tongue when it touches his, the sweet-salt tang of the Cracker Jacks on his lips.
Uel breaks away suddenly, catching his breath and pushing T.J. gently away. "They are waiting for us, T.J.," he says. He sounds as wrecked as T.J. feels, and T.J. just wants to press against him again and kiss while he listens to the heavy huff of Ule's breath and the drumbeat of his own heart. He leans in to do just that, but Uel shakes his head regretfully. "We have to go," he says.
The sting of it softens when Uel kisses him again, just once, and then steps away, straightening his shirt. T.J. tries to flatten his hair where Uel's hand had run through it and offers Uel the last of his hidden flask before they leave the bathroom. T.J. stumbles once as they start down toward the waiting car and driver, security flanking them, and Uel catches his elbow. T.J. stops himself from leaning in to the touch, but can't keep the smile from stretching so wide across his face that his jaw aches with it.
***
"I can't believe we're putting on this dog and pony show again," T.J. says. He's lounging in his makeup chair like it's a sofa while a stylist arranges his hair into the kind of careless waves that take at least fifteen minutes to perfect.
"We haven't had to do this since dad's first year in office," Doug says. The stylist had already finished with Doug's hair, and it was slicked back into something solid enough to pass as a helmet. It had been like that since they were kids on their dad's campaign trail and the press had figured out that T.J. could smile and joke and Doug could never think of the right thing at the right time, or have the same charm. Their publicists had shaped natural tendencies until they were practically parodies of themselves - the fastidiously shy twin and his devil-may-care brother. Sometimes it was hard to remember a time when their roles hadn't been so firmly written.
"And this year, dad needs wholesome family values press," T.J. says. He rolls his eyes ostentatiously.
Dougie doesn't say anything aloud. There's really nothing he can argue against that, and most of the time he doesn't even want to bother trying.
T.J. laughs and slaps his back as he stands up, stretching a kink from his neck until it pops. "You've got mom's poker face," he says. "Remember Grandpa sitting us down and teaching us how to bluff?"
Dougie remembered. His grandfather had laughed and said no one could ever get past Elaine's stoneface. Their mother had T.J.'s inability to lie convincingly (but without his need to keep trying anyway), but when she didn't want to give anything away, she held her cards close to her chest. T.J. gave away what he had in seconds without meaning to.
In a few minutes they're shepherded into the Red Room for the taping. The White House is decked out in its Christmas finest, and the chairs set up for their interviews are edged with festive gold that looks tacky in person, but tasteful when Doug looks at them through the monitors set up.
He can't remember what network this is for, and it feels important that he know, but Dougie doesn't want to ask someone something he should have known already. The director is wearing a Santa cap and all Doug can think of is that the Secret Service had to have taken it off of him and checked for weapons, and then given it back, and he can't understand why someone would be that committed to looking ridiculous. Doug smiles awkwardly and T.J. plucks the cap off and wears it through their interview prep.
Their mother is away with their father in Virginia for glad-handing with a Senator, but Elaine had prepped them already the night before. She never could just leave it to the assistants whose job it was to handle that crap. Dougie had already known the history and the talking points anyway. This was a fluff piece, designed to talk about the decorations and Christmas in the White House, and how fortunate they were. They interviewed both twins together at first, letting T.J. steer the bulk of it. Dougie talks about the tree in the Roosevelt room and the handmade ornaments that had been a gift from the French ambassador. Every word out of his mouth has been carefully planned.
T.J. tells a story about Bud knocking down their tree when he was chasing after their dog, when he and Dougie were five. He jokes about them sneaking downstairs to catch their dad trying futilely to assemble a toy fortress they'd gotten for Christmas, only to call in their Uncle to do it for him, and both of them breaking the plastic bits when led to Elaine trudging out in the middle of the night to try to replace it on Christmas Eve. Every story makes Doug laugh and the reporter (a pretty young woman Doug didn't recognize, though he knew her name was Beth) smiles at him.
None of the tales T.J. spins are on the list of talking points. Only one of them is remotely true. (The one slipped in the most quickly, and laughed at the least.) But they are all exactly the right things to say, and Doug only just manages to hide the familiar envy for T.J.'s effortlessness well enough that it doesn't show. When he laughs, the surprise is easy to pass off as Doug being shocked T.J. told the story, instead of a reaction to the bullshit T.J. is feeding them. It's not lies T.J.'s spinning, it's fiction, and somehow that's not enough like a lie that T.J. loses his ability to be convincing. Doug thinks it's because no one really expects this staged interview and anecdotes to be anything close to true to begin with.
The pretty young hostess trades off for an older man with salt and pepper hair for the individual interviews. The rest of the crew are wearing shades of green or red, Christmas pins and cufflinks dotted here and there. The new reporter Doug recognizes, and he can finally at least place the network they're on (NBC), but can't remember his name, either. He's wearing a fitted suit without a trace of personality or festivity. He looks out of place in a room where no one else is unaware that nothing of weight will be said in this room.
They shuffle T.J. off to one side, off camera, leaving him to clean up in his individual segment, in case Dougie's is too dull. (Like their hair and the wardrobes chosen for them, this pattern is long established.) They swap out the chairs and change the camera angle, leaving it looking more intimate on the camera. The look may be right, but it feels much less friendly without T.J. at his side, or the smiling hostess sending questions his way.
The new reporter is more serious. His first questions are about their mother, and how busy the time of year is for them. He hints about stress and the tension in the room ticks higher with each leading question. From the corner of his eye, Doug can see T.J.'s restless fidgeting turning to focused stillness. There had been strict rules about these interviews, and Bud's affairs were well off limits, but the questions aren't direct enough that anyone stops the tape rolling.
Doug is waiting for it though, bracing himself. He's practiced it until it rolls of his tongue. I have no comment on that at this time or private family matters are not really up for discussion currently. When it comes, it's not at all what he was waiting for. No mention of his father's sleeping around, or his lying. Instead the reporter sits forward with just the right amount of white cuff showing beneath his jacket and asks, "and how has Thomas' homosexuality been addressed in the household? I'd imagine the stress of that coming to light has only added to what must already been a difficult time for your family."
Doug feels his spine snap straight and his eyes widen. The affairs have been in every paper, every news show. Doug is so tired of scandal that sometimes he lies in bed and can't sleep because his stomach is so tight with how much he hates the world knowing all the secrets he wishes they didn't.
In a moment he imagines the new headlines, the hate, the condescension of a world picking apart new rumors of their first family. It makes him feel sick and he shakes his head violently. "T.J.'s not gay!" he snaps before he can stop to think about it. As soon as he's said it, Doug realizes it sounds wrong, starts to run over past moments in his mind that he'd looked at in the wrong light, and never caught the real shape of. His poker face of inscrutability slides into place too late.
"This interview is over, and if you think this is airing, you're delusional," T.J. and Doug's press representative is 52 years old, 5'1, and the most intimidating woman in the universe. She sweeps forward, has cameras shutting down in seconds and is ushering people toward the door with an efficient bustle that works on everyone, even Bud.
From the corner of his eye, Doug sees T.J., too-still and ghost pale. All of his swagger and confidence is missing, and all Dougie sees in his face is the look he'd seen his mother wear, when another of his father's women came out of the woodwork to prove his father a liar, the moments when all of the stonewall poker faces in the world couldn't have helped her hide. He's betrayed and he's ashamed and neither of those are things Doug ever wants to see on T.J.'s face. But some mean part of him wonders if it isn't deserved, because this is what happens when you keep secrets from the people you love?
Dougie remembers when they were kids, and twins had been a press novelty. They'd always asked how close they were, how alike they were, if they knew everything about one another. We're very different, Doug had always said, solemn with the importance of their position. Thomas had always grinned and said he knew all of Doug's secrets, even where he hid his broccoli when he didn't want to eat it. Doug had always thought he knew all of Thomas' secrets, too, but in that moment the things he hadn't known - the big, important things - were written all over T.J.'s face.
And Doug hadn't known.
How had he not known? How had Thomas kept this secret? When did Doug turn into another person T.J. had to put on a mask for? When had Doug stopped looking closely to see when he was lying? "I'm sorry," he says, because he doesn't know what else to say. He can't call his brother a lying shit just because Doug is angry at him. Not when T.J. has that look on his face and there are wolves waiting outside the door waiting for the fallout. Doug keeps that foremost in his mind and wonders when he became better at this than T.J..
T.J. looks away, and then he starts to laugh. T.J. laughs big and boisterous. It fills the room the way Grandma Margaret does when she sang, or their father does when he speaks about something he believes in. It is genuine, vivacious, and alive in some indefinable way Doug has never managed to see in himself. But T.J. laughs now, and it has tipped over some line, from alive to brittle and fragile. "No worries, Dougie. Dad's screwing interns by the dozen. Who's going to care about one asshole calling his son queer?" He slings an arm around Doug's shoulders, loose and barely touching, somehow. "It doesn't matter."
It is a lie. It isn't half as convincing as the stories T.J. had spun for reporters about happy Christmases long past. Doug lets it stand because he doesn't know what else to say, and years of life on the political cycle has taught him one thing - when in doubt, always keep your mouth shut. (He is his mother's son, and he listens when they tell him to be quiet. T.J. is Bud's son, and he doesn't.)
***
"How do you expect me to stay ahead of this when you keep me out of the loop?" Helen demands. Helen's done the PR for the twins since Bud's campaign, and she can usually manage to cow even T.J. with just a glare and a lifted eyebrow, but today T.J. just wants to shove her out the door and beat his fists against the wall until he feels something other than the hammerbeat of his heart in his chest.
"How the fuck was I supposed to know they were-"
"Don't you speak to me like that, Thomas Hammond. You keep a civil tongue in your head!"
"Jesus, I didn't know they'd just make shit up!" T.J. bursts out, lying before he can even think it through.
"The Globe has pictures," Helen says. "Grenada is already disavowing knowledge while simultaneously blaming you for being subversive."
T.J. tries to think of that day, of where the snapping camera flashes might have been hiding in the quiet bathroom the Secret Service had cleared. All he can remember was the way he'd tasted like Cracker Jacks and the warm hands that had gripped at his shirt, slid into his hair. He'd thought he'd been so careful. "Pictures of what?" he asked.
Helen grimaced. "Should I even ask what they COULD have gotten pictures of, besides your tongue shoved down his throat?" She shook her head and sank heavily onto the edge of the table she'd been pacing beside. "What were you thinking, Thomas? You know better."
He was thinking that it felt good. He'd been thinking that Uel had a mouth that should be kissed. He'd been thinking that if he were someone else, anyone else, it wouldn't matter who he wanted to kiss. He'd been thinking that if he were Dougie, he wouldn't want to kiss someone with big hands and stubble that scratched at his skin. Or he hadn't been thinking at all, and wasn't that always his problem? "Can you kill the story?" he asks, hating the pleading note in his own voice. He sounds like a kid, asking the teacher to please not tell his parents he'd flunked Math.
Helen's stony expression softens a little, and she shakes her head. "I can mire it down, honey. But it's going to break. We'll have to just do what we can to minimize the fallout."
T.J. swallows, thinks of the deep laugh and the weight of a chest pressing against his. "Did Uel say anything? Did he. . ." he trailed off, not sure what he wanted to hear. That Uel said it was his idea, maybe. That he'd made a statement with some coded meaning T.J. could pick up and know that it hadn't been a mistake.
Helen shakes her head. "They've got him on lockdown at school, and all statements are through his father," she says.
T.J. nods and keeps himself from asking anything else. Helen talks for a minute about protocol and management, and he lets it wash over him without taking any of it in. She can tell, and finally she leaves him with an awkward pat to his rounded shoulders. When she's gone, he buries his face in his hands and tries not to shake apart at the seams.
He knows Doug's there before he feels the solid line of him settle in at T.J.'s side. Doug's arm across his shoulders feels like an anchor, and T.J. doesn't try to shove it off. "I didn't know," Doug says. T.J. can't tell if it's an accusation or an apology. He's not sure which he deserves, either.
He shrugs finally, and it dislodges the arm around him. "You didn't want to," he says. T.J. knows it's unfair even before he says it, but that doesn't stop him. Knowing what he should do has never been his problem. Following through on what he knows has been what he finds harder and harder to do.
"Is there proof?" Doug asks, practical when T.J. is emotional.
"Pictures."
"Jesus, Tommy," Doug says and T.J. grits his teeth against the apology in his throat. He doesn't want to say he's sorry, not for this. If he starts, maybe no one will ever let him stop. "What do you want to do?"
T.J. doesn't know. He wants it to not have happened, and he wants it to have happened already, and been public and inarguable so he doesn't have to think about how to hide anymore. He wants people to tell him that it's all right, but knows he won't believe them if they do. He wants things to be easy. He wants to get better at this life, like Dougie, instead of worse. He wants to not have given it all away just because of a warm mouth and someone who wanted him for a minute. "Sneak out the side door, hit dad's whiskey stash, and get shitfaced?" he says finally.
Doug laughs, and rubs a hand over his face, then gets up, hauling T.J. with him. "I'll fend off Helen. You get the booze."
T.J. gets what Dougie isn't saying. It's an unspoken truce, a promise that they don't have to talk about it. T.J. will take that, for now. Soon, no one will give him that option.
***
"What kind of brain-dead bullshit is this? You really think this family needs this kind of crap right now? We're not shoveling up enough horseshit for you as it is?" Doug winces at the thunder of his father's voice. T.J. is turned away from Bud, picking up darts from the table beside him and tossing them at the dartboard. Doug reaches and moves them out of reach when the last veers off target and almost misses the board altogether.
"Can it, Bud. If anyone's going to complain about the pile of shit, it probably shouldn't be the horse's ass that put it there to begin with," Margaret snaps at him.
Elaine flinches. "Mother, I don't think-"
"Day I need to hear from you about the status of my Presidency or my goddamned family is the day you run for office and win the Office out from under me, you old drunk," Bud shoots back, talking over Elaine.
"Enough!" Elaine says, stepping physically between them and looking at the tight line of T.J.'s back. "What's done is done. What's important now is that we face this as a family."
"Fine. Then as a family, how about you tell us what in the name of hell was going through your head? You can't have the decency to at least keep your hand in the pants of someone whose father isn't in negotiations with my cabinet?" Bud asked.
T.J. still hasn't said anything. He hadn't since Bud stormed through the door ten minutes earlier. Doug wants to pull him outside and ask what this new silence means. T.J. yelling back, throwing Bud's affairs in his face, storming out, laughing it off, tossing off excuses - Doug would know what to do with any of that. It'd be comforting, compared to the quiet. The silence is unnerving and too-still. Doug feels like he's looking at a cracked mirror when he stares at T.J., and one more loud crash might shatter the glass altogether. "Dad. . ." he says.
Bud turns to look at him. "And just where were you when T.J. was getting pictures snapped of him playing queer with this boy, Douglas?"
He'd been in a car, kissing someone's daughter. And if anyone had gotten pictures, it would have been a color story, and no one would care. Doug feels guilty for that, but angry, too. Because none of this was fair - not for T.J., not for their family. "Why do you even get to ask? How do we know you weren't off screwing an intern?" Doug says. He feels badly for it immediately, seeing the way his mother's face falls. "Just. . . lay off him, dad. He didn't do anything wrong. He was where you told him to go, surrounded by Secret Service. It's not his fault someone planted cameras."
"You watch your mouth with me. I'm still your father," Bud says. But the steam has gone out of him, a little, and he sighs heavily. "Tommy-"
A knock at the door stops him before he can say anything else, and a second later Bud is being called away on matters of state. "We'll talk about this later," Bud tells T.J.. His hand hovers by T.J.'s shoulder, but never falls before he turns on his heel and marches out.
T.J. still hasn't said a word, and Elaine drifts toward him. "Tommy," she says quietly. She swallows and then puts both hands on his shoulders, turning him to face her. "Honey, it's not that we think. . . you know how I feel about this. You haven't done anything wrong, it's just going to make for a difficult road ahead. We love you, no matter what, you know that."
"She just wishes the next generation of Hammond was better at keeping it in his pants than the one she married," Margaret says.
T.J.'s eyes are too bright, and he's staring at a spot over Elaine's shoulder, but he snorts a soft laugh at his grandmother and his eyes meet Doug's for a second. There's accusation there, and pleading, and Doug has no idea how to answer either, but he blurts out anyway, "I had my hand up Adrienne Pinneau's shirt the same day."
Elaine spins to look at him. "Excuse me?"
Doug shrugs. "I just thought . . . if T.J.'s going to be in trouble for it. . ."
Margaret starts to laugh. "You horny little shits," she says affectionately. "Come on. Lets all have a drink."
T.J. still looks too fragile, but he's smiling, and he moves obediently toward his grandmother. Elaine gives Margaret a long-suffering stare. "Mother, I wish you wouldn't encourage-"
"Oh lighten up. They're fifteen years old, they know where they can get booze. And we all need a drink after the day we've had." Margaret's voice is breezy, but she squeezes Elaine's wrist when she passes her, and the fingers she laces through T.J.'s are a white-knuckled grip. Elaine sighs and follows them toward the bar. Doug stands alone, watching them both gravitate toward T.J. It's a long few minutes before he follows.
***
The piano in the East Room is a decadent old monster, and T.J. usually avoids it for that reason. He doesn't like the massive East Room, anyway, and it's usually only for large gatherings. But when he finally escapes his mother, T.J. just wants to go somewhere no one will look for him, and he ends up there.
The White House is never quiet, and he's never alone, but Pete and the other agents hang back and leave him be. They'd rather he were upstairs, in the residence, but he's not out of the building at least, and they compromise enough to not set him off, some nights.
The old Steinway's keys feel stiff, and T.J.'s fingers play over them, not picking out anything in particular at first. There was no sheet music, but he began to play a Debussy piece he'd never liked, but somehow still remembered. It turns into Chopin, and then to Bach. Each piece more clichéd and maudlin than the last.
T.J. doesn't know how long he's been there, when a hand falls on his shoulder. "Scoot," his grandmother says, and then drops down next to him. "I've never heard you play this thing before."
T.J. just shrugs, and Margaret studies his face for a moment. T.J. loves his mother and father, even when he hates them a little. But his grandmother has always been easier to talk to, and demands less of him. He's afraid of what he'll see in her face, but when he finally looks, she's looking at him the way she always has when she knows he's unhappy, and she doesn't want him to be. "There's worse things to be, you know. You could be stupid, or talentless, or - god forbid - have your daddy's nose."
T.J. feels a laugh bubble up in his chest, but when it comes out it's a sob, and he hates himself for the way he crumples and lets his grandmother hug him while he cries.
He remembers how it felt to kiss Uel, how he'd been happy. Now all he can do is think that it wasn't worth it. "I don't mean to keep doing this, grandma," he says.
"Oh honey. Yes you do. And you should. You think I didn't know? You think your daddy didn't know? It's the timing that blindsided us, Tommy. But it doesn't change who you are, or how much we love you." Margaret pauses, and then squeezes him again. "Don't get me wrong, you could have gone less high profile. There's a reason pool boys are a classic, kiddo," she says. T.J. laughs again, and this time it comes out right, if still too watery. He feels weak for it, but his grandmother kisses his forehead. "You just be who you're meant to be, honey. The rest will work out. Next time, check for cameras. And make sure you have a rubber on you."
"Grandma!" T.J. blushes bright red, but he's grinning.
She grins back and ruffles his hair. "Now you sound like your brother."
T.J. shakes his head. "Dougie got further than I did, you know."
"No accounting for taste, is there?" she says. She looks up and then slides off the bench, bending to kiss his cheek. "You know where I am if you need to talk, T.J."
T.J. tracks her as she leaves, and sees when her shadow crosses his father's. Margaret stops in the doorway next to Bud, and T.J. sees her lean in to say something, expression fierce and fingers pinching hard at Bud's arm before she keeps moving. Behind Bud, the security who came down with him hover, but he waves them back and walks over to T.J., sitting down heavily beside him. "I don't hear you play that much anymore," he says.
"You're busy," T.J. answers. He sits back and pulls the cover back down over the piano, starting to get up. He doesn't think he can do this again tonight.
"Sit down, son," Bud says. He looks frazzled and he starts to speak and then stops, starts again. "T.J., I want you to know. . . it's not that you're. . . that it was another boy. It matters, but not because I think it should. This life, it just keeps heaving every little bit of shit it can find straight down on your head, and you gotta keep wading through. That's true for everybody. But you add in something like that, and the hole you gotta climb out of just gets deeper. I want things to be easier for you and your brother."
"Maybe you should have thought of that before you moved us into this House," T.J. says. He means it as a joke, but it falls flat because it's too much like the truth.
Bud sighs heavily. "I'm not denying I threw you boys into the deep end to begin with. But this isn't something any child of a sitting President's ever had go public, and I just didn't want that kind of thing for you. But your mother's right, and it is what it is. So we're just gonna get through this, you and me and your mother and Dougie, all right?"
"Get through how? By lying? By pretending I'm straight?" T.J. would have done that until his father left office, maybe far beyond. But now there were pictures of him with the first boy he'd ever kissed all over Page 6, and T.J. hated it, mostly. But a little part of him was relieved, because it was done, and he didn't have to try to hide it anymore.
"No, that's not what I meant. You're going to buckle down. No more of this partying nonsense, and no more boys in bathrooms. But you're going to be whatever the hell you want to be. If that means you date boys, then they're going to be boys who don't have a damn thing to do with my administration, and don't have any things in their faces or rainbow tattoos on their asses. You got it? And we'll stand by you, same as we stand by Dougie."
"I'm not like Dougie," T.J. says.
"You don't have to be," Bud says, but he doesn't mean it. T.J. gets it. He can be the queer son, but not the screw-up. He doesn't get to be both. He can do appearances with Justice Nash and talk about gay rights, and date a young Republican to show how bipartisan his family is. He can be gay, but everywhere else he has to fly straight.
If he was a better person, than he could do that, and maybe than he wouldn't feel like he was still treading water and already starting to sink under. But he's not Dougie. He wishes he could be. "Okay," is all he says, and he smiles at his father.
"Cut the crap," Bud says. "It's not okay. Not by a longshot, son. Don't think I don't know that. But I'm sorry for how I acted, I should know better. We'll figure this all out, and I love you. You know that, right?"
T.J. did know that. He wishes he could feel like it meant something more. "I know."
Bud claps him on the shoulder and pulls him to his feet. "Come on, your mother's probably upstairs worrying a line in the carpet about you." Bud glances down at the gaudy piano. "You should play more, Tommy."
T.J. never feels like playing the way he used to. There are no more recitals, and he's not the little boy who was always the best in his class anymore. He's fifteen now, and he's spent half his life on campaign buses or doing press appearances. He feels mediocre, and there's never any point to mediocrity in his family. Stand out or fade away, there's never room for in betweens. "I will," he promises anyway.
Bud hesitates, like he wants to call T.J. on the lie, but instead he lets it stand as they make their way back up to the residence.
***
"You know, you don't have to do this if you want to talk to me," Mallory says, flashing a wry grin in Doug's direction. "Your parents hired me to tutor your brother, not you. I know you can't be dying to play Scrabble."
Doug grins and ducks his head. "I just don't know what else to talk to you about," he says. "There's no one else around but T.J., and we get sick of each other. So Scrabble is pretty vital, I swear." There were ever-present Secret Service, and a few staff and farm hands, but for the most part he and T.J. had the run of Grandpa Hammond's farm. They hadn't gotten to just hang around here since they were kids, and it felt like the closest thing to a real vacation the twins had been given since they were seven years old.
Mallory laughs. "You could just say hi. Maybe fix me a coffee or ask if I want to watch a movie," she suggests. She's four years older than Doug and T.J., and so astoundingly lovely that it almost hurts to look at her. Her dark hair waves loose down her back, and her lips are a lush red bow. She wears conservative sweaters and skirts that end below her knee, but the perfect curve of her breasts and hips are easy to spot, anyway.
She's beautiful, and she's smart, and Doug would think that his parents had lost their mind leaving her here with them and barely any supervision, but Doug thinks it was on purpose, at least on his father's part. T.J.'s coming out had been rough on everyone, but for T.J. more than anyone else. He coped by turning on the charm in public and making jokes, and in private he smoked, or he popped pills or drank or did things even Dougie couldn't name, because T.J. stopped telling him. T.J. was either amazing, or he was a mess, and there were never any in-betweens. Elaine tried to talk to him and Bud tried to yell at him to snap him out of it, but nothing really worked.
Mallory, with her generous chest and genuinely likable smile were Bud's last effort to convince T.J. that there were fish in the sea who weren't the same gender, and he might be happier if he gave swimming with them a try, Doug was sure. But it wasn't going to work, and all it did was give Dougie someone to spend the summer pining over. He should be spending all his time with T.J., since Tommy was headed for boarding school once the summer was over. Instead he dreams up excuses to run into Mallory before she leaves for the day. Asking if she wanted to play a game of Scrabble was just his most recent (and the worst).
Mallory pushes a stray lock of hair back out of her face, but it falls down again. Dougie imagines what T.J. would do, if he wanted this, and Doug reaches up and tucks the hair back behind her ear. He smiles up and peeks at her from beneath his lashes. "Can I get you a coffee, and would you like to watch a movie, then?" he asks, mouth pulling up in the closest approximation of T.J.'s smirk Doug had ever been able to pull off.
Her cheeks are just a little pink, but she rolls her eyes. "I see your brother all day. I'd rather just see you, not your T.J. impression" she says. "Come on. I'll make my own coffee." She leaves their half-finished game on the table, and Dougie immediately forgets that he'd been planning a triple letter score on his next turn. She's been in and out of the farm for a few weeks, and Mallory already knows her way around. She leads him into the old-fashioned kitchen with its newly updated appliances. Coffee turns into her making ice tea, and asking Doug about his plans for the future.
They talk about politics, and argue policy. Mallory is smart, democratic, and hopelessly naive. Doug watches her mouth when she talks, and surreptitiously adds more sugar to the ice tea when her back is turned.
Politics turns into arguing about TV, and then movies. Dougie keeps touching her arm when they debate the merits of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Vs. Power Rangers. She calls his taste suspect because of the Backstreet Boys incident, no matter how many times he says he grew out of that. (He didn't, he just pretended to.) She likes Counting Crows and Dave Matthews and for a second, when Mallory leans in and asks to see his CD collection, Dougie doesn't catch on that she's asking to see his bedroom. She's been in T.J.'s room a dozen times while they worked, but never Doug's.
Mallory takes his hand when he leads her upstairs. She does flip through his CD's, and Doug is glad he'd weeded out most of the humiliating ones. "Maybe you did grow up," she says, and she smiles with her perfect, pink-lipped mouth, and kisses him.
Adrienne had been his first kiss, but not his last. Dougie had started to find it easier, talking to girls, once he realized they usually wanted to talk to him too. He didn't have T.J.'s easy, instant magnetism, but Doug had grown into himself, and he knew he was starting to edge closer to good-looking than just cute. There had been a Senator's daughter, a friend's sister. But Mallory was older and Doug was nervous, content to let her take the lead and just revel in the way he was suddenly allowed to touch her.
Adrienne was a better kisser, Doug decides when Mallory has him flat on his back on his bed, her knees on either side of his hips and her lips pressing against his. But he likes Mallory better. And her fingers are confident and nimble as she unbuttons his shirt and pushes it off his shoulders. He's not nearly as accomplished when he finally reaches to fumble open her bra and lift off her sweater, but she doesn't seem to mind. Her hands are small and a little cold when she opens his fly and wraps her fingers around him, but they warm rapidly and Doug is struggling to breathe as she touches him. He comes too fast, and he knows it, apologizing and feeling the familiar sting of humiliation.
Mallory just laughs and kisses him. "It's okay, we have time," she says. She touches and kisses him, and when he's hard again Mallory is still the one doing all the work. She rolls the condom on and climbs on top of him. She's warm and soft and tight around him and Doug hangs on to her hips while they roll against him, afraid to blink and miss anything.
It's still over too fast, but she'd taken his hand and shown him how to touch her. If she hadn't enjoyed it, she'd done a pretty good impression, and she stretches out next to him afterward, panting and not touching him anywhere.
She leaves him with a kiss and Dougie opens the windows to his room to let out the smell of sex and sweat. He strips his bed and changes the sheets. When he turns around, T.J. is standing in his doorway. He smiles, and it's strange and distant. Doug can't tell if he knows, or not, but after a second T.J. just asks him if he wants a sandwich, and then disappears downstairs.
Doug is left alone. He can still smell the faint sweet-spicy trace of her perfume on his skin. He lies in his bed for an hour, basking in the smell and the loose feeling in his muscles before he suddenly feels too-dirty and too-alone and bolts for the shower.
***
Mallory's hair is a spill of black across the white pillows. She's half laughing as she comes down, arm thrown over her head. "For a gay guy, you're not bad," she says.
T.J. sits up, puts his feet on the floor and stares at the closed door to his room. His books are in a pile on the floor, and the crisp new uniforms from the boarding school he'll be at in three weeks are hung on the back of the door, still wrapped in plastic and waiting for him.
It felt good, the way it always has. Mallory isn't the first girl, she probably won't be the last. The mechanics of sex happen, and the endorphins release, and she's soft and pretty and moaned when he sucked at each perk, pink nipple.
But he's left feeling sick and wrong. His life would be so much simpler if he felt right with a pretty girl in his bed and a used condom in the trash. Instead he feels wrong now, and he still feels wrong when there's a pretty boy in his bed instead, because he wishes so badly to be someone else, sometimes. There haven't been many boys. There haven't been many girls. There could have been, but T.J. knows how it ends - with this pit of something sour in his stomach and the familiar pressure that makes him feel as if he's drowning. "So I'm told," he says aloud, reaching for the joint beside his bed and lighting it, taking a puff before offering it to her. He knows she'll decline before he even asks.
Pot is easy and Dougie will take a pull, sometimes, he won't frown if he sees T.J. with it, the way he does when T.J. nurses a bottle of Jack, or when he's twitching out of his skin after a line of Coke in the bathroom. (Where do you even get it? Doug always wants to know, as if it's hard. As if being a President's son means that you shouldn't know where to go for blow.) Mallory sits up and drapes her arms around his shoulders. "Better than your brother," she says, like he's supposed to be surprised. As if he hadn't known from the beginning how it would go, the moment he first saw her smile at both of them.
T.J. doesn't understand why people think sex is so difficult. It comes easily to him, no matter if it's a woman or a man, and it always has. A smile, a laugh, a little flirting. He can read from the minute he meets someone whether or not they'll fuck him. Dougie doesn't have that. He struggles like sex is a foreign thing instead of something natural and vital that everyone does. I'm not dad, Doug told him once, when T.J. said how easily Doug could get laid, if he just stopped thinking he had to work for it. T.J. couldn't really argue with that. Douglas wasn't Bud - he was their mother, all the best bits of Elaine without the fucked-up parts of Bud that were the only genes of his T.J. seemed to have gotten. Doug had Bud's ability to work under pressure without his impulse control issues, and he mixed with Elaine's dogged patience. T.J. didn't have any of that. "You should give him another chance," he tells Mallory. "He was nervous. You've got a better rack than anyone else he's been with."
"Maybe," Mallory says. "I'll probably be fired in a few days, when your mom sees how you haven't done anything you were supposed to."
"I'll tell her it's my fault. Trust me, she'll believe that."
"It is your fault," Mallory says, but she doesn't sound like she cares. Fair enough, T.J. figures. She got paid better than anyone else would have, and she got to fuck both halves of the Presidential twins. It wasn't a bad deal, if you were the sort of person who liked having that kind of cred - and Mallory was the kind of person.
T.J. doesn't hold it against her. People used each other all the time. He'd used her to find out if he could trick himself into playing straight, and not feeling like a fraud. Turns out he still can't. "You should get dressed. Dougie'll be back soon."
Mallory crawls out of bed, begins pulling on her clothes. T.J. watches, and he appreciates because she's beautiful. But he doesn't feel any pull to touch her. When she sits down to pull on her shoes, she touches his thigh. "I won't tell anyone," she offers.
T.J. laughs. "Yeah. You will." Of course she will.
She frowns, searching his face. "You okay?"
No. "Fine," he lies, like he does when she asks him if he's done the reading, or finished his practice tests. She doesn't believe him then, she won't believe him now. He doesn't care.
She kisses him light and brief before she leaves. T.J. sits with his head in his hands until he hears Dougie come in the door downstairs. He gets up then, tears off the sheets and shoves them in the laundry, then locks himself in the bathroom with the water running in the shower. He digs his stash out from the shaving kit beneath the sink, where he stows it, and does two lines before he unlocks the door again and climbs into the shower, washing away the scent of Mallory and the feel of her skin. When the cocaine kicks in, he gets himself off with thoughts of the groundskeeper he blew last month. By the time he gets out of the shower, he's smiling at Dougie, and it almost feels real, until he lets himself hold still too long.
***
As soon as he's allowed, Doug visits T.J. in rehab every other day. After the first time, he thinks it will get easier, but it doesn't. He doesn't get used to the false quiet of the place, or the way everything he brings with him has to be checked over for drugs or booze. He sees strung out celebrities smoking beside soccer moms with shaking hands and Doug can't see how Thomas fits in with any of them. It makes him want to sneak T.J. out the door and take him away, but he's been covering for T.J. for years, and maybe that's why he's here in the first place.
He had a third date with a beautiful girl last night. Doug hadn't meant to, but when they were lying in tangled sheets with her head against his chest, he'd told her that he felt like every fall T.J. had taken, Doug had pushed him onto a ledge first and not known it. She hadn't tried to tell him it wasn't his fault, she'd just kissed him. That was when Doug thought she might be someone special for him.
Doug wants to tell T.J. because that's what he does when something happens, even now. But he doesn't, because T.J.'s stuck here, and his hands still shake sometimes, and T.J.'s never had anyone he wanted a third date with, Doug doesn't think. So he just brings games and they play poker, or chess, or stake out the pool table and take shots. T.J. either doesn't talk at all, and pulling words out of him takes so much energy that Doug is exhausted when he leaves, or he talks all the time, about nothing that Doug can remember later because none of it means anything and most of it isn't true.
T.J. beats him their first round of pool, and Doug racks the balls again. "I remember when you were shitty at this," he says.
"Nah. I just wanted to blow Kevin," T.J. says, inflectionless and steady.
Doug drops the chalk he'd just picked up. "Jesus, T.J.! We were like 10!" Doug remembers Kevin, with his close-cropped hair and cheap suits. "Did he-"
"Touch me in special places? Is that why I'm so fucked up?" T.J. snorts, leaning against the table. "He didn't know. Relax, Dougie. I'm just the family screw-up, it's not because daddy's intern made me suck his dick when I was 10. He was just a nice guy."
Doug grits his teeth. "You don't have to be an asshole about it." He remembers leaving T.J. with Kevin, being smug that he was better with a cue than T.J. was. He remembers sliding into a car alone with Adrienne and leaving T.J. with an ambassador's son because Doug wanted his first kiss to come from a pretty older French girl. He remembers the aborted interview that had later been leaked, where he'd denied his brother was gay like the idea of it was horrifying. Every fall, he'd told Anne in bed. Maybe it wasn't that Doug left T.J. alone on those ledges so much as Doug had shoved without knowing.
"I don't have to do a lot of things," T.J. says heavily.
Doug wants to tell him he's sorry, and he wants to ask why T.J. lets go when he shouldn't, and holds on to what's best let go. He doesn't. He just takes the first shot and breaks. "You always were better at everything than I was, when we were kids."
"Times change, Dougie," T.J. says. His first shot is precise and pockets three.
"Not everything," Doug says. But most things do. Doug is the first interview, now (the only one, sometimes, when T.J. seems fragile), and Doug whose job it is to keep T.J. safe and in line. Dougie is supposed to know the right thing to do, and always, always do it because no one expects T.J. will anymore. T.J. doesn't practice the piano when no one is watching anymore, and Doug doesn't have to hide for an hour before he can face a crowd.
People think T.J. is weak, they think Dougie is strong. When he was ten years old, Doug would have loved that, because it was the opposite of what usually happened. Now he just wishes he was allowed to fuck up, sometimes, and that T.J. didn't feel like his screw ups are all he is. "I met a girl," Doug says abruptly. "Her name is Anne."
T.J. looks up and he slow blinks before he answers. "Yeah?"
"She's a designer. She's smart and beautiful. You'd like her," Doug says. And Anne would like T.J., probably. Even now, most people liked T.J. better. They just didn't expect anything from him. "She's coming for dinner next week, with mom and dad. And probably Grandma."
"Tossing her to the sharks early, Dougie," T.J. says dryly. "You really like her, huh?" Doug nodded, and T.J. laughed - loud and more genuine than anything Doug had heard from him in this place, but it still echoed like something just a little too empty. "That's great. Dad'll be thrilled. Is her mom hot? Don't let dad meet her until after you tie the knot, if so."
Doug winces at the thought of Bud hitting on Anne's mom. He loves his dad, but he wouldn't put that past him, either. Doug turns the long cue in his hands and listens to the clock on the wall tick through a few seconds. "Mom's running," Doug blurts suddenly, at the six second mark. "She wants me to help run her campaign. She wanted to tell you herself. . ."
"But she doesn't want too many photos of her visiting her deadbeat son in rehab, before she starts campaigning," T.J. finishes. "Just in case people will forget before then."
"That's not what I meant," Doug says, but he's not sure if T.J.'s wrong. "I thought. . . they said you're doing well. Maybe you could take a night off. Come to dinner, meet Anne, mom and me can tell you about the campaign plans. I'll talk to your counselor, if you want?"
T.J. rubs his hand over his face. Dougie remembers when their mom had told him she was running. Doug had already figured it out - he wasn't stupid and he read the papers, he'd known for a while. He'd never questioned if it was the right choice, but looking at T.J., Doug wonders if he should have. Doug knows what it's like to campaign, what it would be like to have the Presidential spotlight shining bright on their family. It was another ledge, and Doug's job had been to look after T.J. for the last decade or so. Maybe that meant it had been his job to tell Elaine she shouldn't do this, that T.J. couldn't handle it.
But Doug's a Hammond (and a Barrish) and he wants to win. He wants to make a difference, the way he'd always been told he could. A presidential mother and father was the closest this country would ever have to a legacy. Dougie can picture a future in the Oval Office, Anne at his side, maybe. He wants that. He doesn't know how to want anything else for himself - it was trained into him. But he wants it for his mother, first, too. Bud had humiliated her when he was in the Oval, and Doug can never quite forgive him for that, even if Elaine has. "You could come home, just for a night. They'll let you out soon, I know, but one night home would be good, wouldn't it?"
T.J.'s eyes fix on the table and he reaches over, fingers rolling the 8 ball around and around. "Home," he repeats dully, as if he doesn't know what the word means. "Sure. My mom's going to be President, right? That's got to be good for pulling some strings and getting me sprung early."
"It'll be great. You're good." Doug says. He wants to believe it, but T.J. still won't look at him. Doug wants to push, to get T.J. to say what he feels, what he thinks - something honest at least. But he remembers how Anne had just kissed him, and how grateful he'd been for that when everyone around him is always pushing for him to give them more. So he doesn't. Instead he asks. "You're not sleeping with that receptionist with the blue hair, are you? Because I think he was hitting on me."
T.J. looks startled, and then bursts into laughter. "People kink for twins, Dougie," he says, grinning. For the moment, at least, the laugh doesn't sound quite so empty.
"If you get your hands on your file, make sure my number is officially out of it just in case he wants to call," Doug said, making an exaggerated face that draws another laugh.
"You never know, maybe your new girl would go for a threesome," T.J. says. He drops his cue and the facade of a game, and pulls himself up to sit on the edge of the table, shoulder against Doug's. "So tell me about her," he says.
Doug pulls himself up beside his brother, and watches the way they both swing their feet in almost-unison, as he starts to talk about Anne. His mouth talks about her designs, the slim curve of her hips, the sound of her laugh. His mind runs over polling figures and remembers all the mornings he'd found T.J. passed out and bleary. There aren't numbers to account for that kind of cost.
When he winds down, T.J. is quiet, and then nudges Doug's ankle with the tip of his sneaker. "She sounds beautiful," he says.
"She is," Doug answers. He turns to look at T.J. and then asks quietly. "You gonna be okay with this, Tommy?" With Anne. With the campaign. With rehab. Doug meant all of it and more, but he didn't specify.
T.J. tips his head back and looks up. He looks like he's 12 years old and sitting on the service porch at Camp David again, hiding from the new life they hadn't been ready for. "I've got you, right?"
"You were always going to have me," Dougie says.
T.J. nods, but he doesn't look like he believes. "I'm good, Dougie. Good as new and ready for the campaign trail in a couple of weeks."
Dougie doesn't believe that, either. But he smiles like he does, and T.J. smiles back, like he thinks Doug believed him. Dougie always was the better liar.
~~~