Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Donald sighed, head on his office desk. How could he have made such a fool of himself at the debate? After checking online he didn’t feel any better but realised most of his followers didn’t quite care what he said, but there was the occasional joke about him ‘missing Joe’ because of how many times he referred to Kamala as Biden. Donald lifted his head—wiping a little bit of the fake tan that had been left behind on the desk—he didn’t miss Joe one bit, he told himself. After all, resigning has basically signed away the presidency to him, and dropping out that late was cowardly, but maybe deep down he appreciated that he was taking care of himself more instead of letting the stress make him seem like a dementia patient. Donald found himself scrolling Twitter soon and lingering just a bit too long on Biden’s pictures, unable to deny that he missed their debates. They never did end up playing golf together afterwards—political duties and all that—but maybe he could ask some time.
Just as he opened the phone app, Melania burst into the room.
“What in god's name was that?!”
“Was what?” Donald slammed his phone down in surprise.
“The debate? Are you serious? You even got fact checked in the middle of it,”
“Well it’s as I said, they just haven’t recorded it, but I’m sure it’s happening!”
“How can you be sure if they haven’t even recorded it?!”
“I-” Donald stuttered
“And I have to make stuff up to convince the kids you’re not completely senile, you didn’t even refer to Harris by name once, it’s just Biden, Biden, Biden, you might as well be as sane as he is—falling up flights of stairs and off bikes—I mean are you even taking this seriously”
“Seriously? As if! Biden’s resignation basically handed the win to me! You know for a fact this America is still right enough to not vote for a woman as president, let alone-” Donald stopped immediately feeling the glare from Melania at the woman comment, probably best not to make this worse by being racist too, maybe “-let alone the Democrats in general, I mean you see their policies and what happened last term, even if it were still Biden we’d win. Especially with all the money I got from Musk and other supporters,”
“Don’t mention that god damn Reddit user. Outdated humour if you ask me, and still, you don’t know that you’ll win, especially after what happened at the Capitol,”
“He’s not all bad and I’m pretty sure they all still love me for that,” Donald stood up and grabbed Melania by the waist, kissing her on the cheek, “I promise you I’ll win,” he smiled, and for a moment it seemed Melania wouldn’t return it, “I hope you’re right.”

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The blood smeared across his hands in the back of the limo as it sped to the hospital. Donald felt simultaneously on top of the world and like he could pass out at any moment, he felt his head throb from excitement and his legs quiver. He opened his phone—vibrating with numerous messages—seeing notifications from Melania, Elon, and various other people with varying phrased condolences and worrisome nature. Yet in the buzz of it all and the yelling he heard from various people at the front of the limo, he opened just one message that caught his attention: Joe.

[ god i saw what happened on television, are you okay? ]

Noticing the time difference between that and their last messages he remembered that he never asked him to go golfing, got too caught up with other matters.

[ yeah it just hit my ear no need to worry i’ll still beat you! ]

[ haha just wondering because it seemed to bleed a lot ]

[ as if i would get shot down at my own rally like that ]

[ if you say so ]

Then the limo came to a quick halt and he turned off his phone as he was immediately ushered out and into the private hospital with bodyguards surrounding him on all sides. A long wait and a few chaotic interactions tested the patience of not just Donald and while getting rushed between rooms as they struggled to figure out what was going on he wondered if he had missed his chance to ask Joe to golf, after all, the lack of communication and him having dropped out would just make it awkward now. When he finally got through to get his ear checked the doctor told him—after far too long for any normal visit even by American standard—it only hit his ear and nothing vital, he got it bandaged up and was ushered out almost as quickly and chaotically as he had entered and arrived home late soon thereafter.

After Donald collapsed on his bed Melania rushed in seemingly just showered, “Where have you been? I was worried! You didn’t respond to any of my messages,”
“It was all just too hectic, I didn’t think to check on the way there and I was too tired after all the hospital hassle,” he sighed.
“You know how dangerous something like that is, you should’ve at least told me you were okay.”
Donald nodded but said nothing, he was too tired to respond. Melania sighed and got into bed later. They both slept facing away that night.

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This was it. Donald had been inaugurated as president and through all his victory he couldn’t help but feel Melania had distanced anyway, although maybe it was just all the work he had been doing. Elon had picked up on messaging Donald especially after the inauguration he gave a speech at and his new government thing named after a dog meme. The display he made was far from foreign to him but he didn’t really expect him to do it, and the teenagers he employed were far from pleasant to talk to but they were a fair distance away from his vice president, JD Vance—James—who quite frequently annoyed Donald with his suck-up tendencies. Donald noticed that in Elon too but he was much less obvious about it and a lot more just generally annoying, James however was incredibly annoying and this only became more stark after the whole talk with Volodymyr (Zelenskyy) which he appreciated backup but he realised there comes a point where backup crosses over into straight up dick-riding. Sunlight beamed in through the windows of the oval office as he rested after a long day of press, James and the likes, and the various laws he did and didn’t pass. However, the bigger thing on Donald’s mind was the minor fight that he had with Joe a few weeks ago over Volodymyr’s treatment and Donald kept replaying it over in his mind and almost realised that he might’ve been in the wrong, but ultimately after pondering it over for some time, he finally coughed up the courage (albeit how a dog coughs up shit) to message Joe.

[ do you wanna play golf some time? ]

Chapter Text

“Here’s some coffee, Joe.”
“Thanks, Kamala,” he smiled weakly,
“I’m going to need it,” he sighed to himself,
“You and me both,” Kamala smiled back.

Sifting through the endless emails about meetings and what to do now was a nightmare. Joe didn’t seriously think that he was going to win this election; he had a hunch since they first started counting and states started fading to red and Donald's beaming face, tinted a similar yet yellower hue to his red background, staring into him, his expression almost gloating.
Hours passed, and the sky was dark now when something chimed through the room. It was Joe’s phone. The notification snapped him out of the droning monotonous work, and he got up to find his phone amidst the scattered papers and unsorted stationery. He was never good at finding things, especially in his office.
Eventually, he snatched it from inside one of the many desk drawers, and below the brightly coloured icon of his messaging app, he read it:

Trump: [ do you wanna play golf sometime? ]

Joe felt a rush in his chest as he remembered the debate and how tense everything was, and still is. Their fight had left their messages vacant for a while now as they both had a bit of work to do, but in this moment, his work was the last thing he wanted to do.
Joe questioned whether he should even respond, but remembered the debate, and despite dropping out being incredibly good for him, he felt a somber kind of nostalgia, before promptly losing his grasp on the memory and being left with only the feeling. Joe hesitated for a long time.

[ sure, what time? ]

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Joe got out of his car in his white shorts and polo shirt, sunglasses nearly falling off his face as he tugged his golf bag out of the trunk. There was no reason to be anxious, he told himself, they’re not even direct political rivals anymore, you can just have a normal, relaxed conversation. He walked only a short second before spotting Donald and walking to meet him.
“Hey, long time no see, Joe!” he waved, grinning.
“Yeah, long time… how have you been?”
Donald laughed as if it was obvious “Great, actually! Have you bothered to check the news?”
“You know what I meant. Come on,” he hauled his bag onto a golf cart and Donald did the same, “Let’s go play golf.”

An hour had already passed, and Joe was sitting on a foldable chair under a tree watching Donald as he prepared the ball. Sweat beaded on his forehead and soaked into his wrinkles, it was hotter today than either of them expected. The buzz of cicadas rang in the trees, and Donald bent over and swung. Donald watched it sail through the air until it was lost to distance, and Joe closed his eyes for a brief moment, letting himself dissolve into the cicada noise and totally not falling asleep like he hadn’t done before.

Suddenly, a voice startled him, accompanied by the stench of sweat,
“Nice shot, huh?” He snapped his fingers, “Wake up, Joe.”
“I am awake,” Joe mumbled, disgruntled.
“Sure seemed like it,” he leaned over Joe with his usual shiteating grin.
“Whatever, we are walking now?” he said, avoiding Donald's gaze and smell.
Donald tipped his head, “Huh? I carried my own bag like you asked me to, and I carried it all the way every time.”
He remembered.
“Uh.. no, just worked– I worked late.” Joe sat up.
“I might’ve been wrong, you can hit it over 50 yards, best hit I’ve seen in a while from a golf partner, pretty good hit, not as good as mine though.”
Joe packed his stuff into the golf cart as Donald rambled. Something inside his chest stirred at his voice, so similar to how they talked at the debate, but he squashed it and let Donald drive this time.
Donald stopped rambling at some point, but Joe was too spacey to notice when, and when he set out the chair under the tree and let Donald swing first, they still were silent. Joe sat back and closed his eyes again, drifting off faster this time.

His consciousness swirled, and he saw the debate again, he saw the office, he saw the smiles, he saw the debate again, he saw their talk after the debate away from the cameras, he saw him closer than he was, closer yet still. As he reached a hand to his shoulder, though, he couldn’t have been further, further, and further still until the room they were in was so dark and elongated he lost him and started falling deep into an ocean of ink.

Joe opened his eyes and saw Donald sitting on a chair adjacent to him, sipping a can of some branded soda and staring at the grass pensively. After a silence, Donald noticed Joe’s eyes open and spoke.
“We can cut this short if you are not up for it.”
Joe mumbled something incoherent.
“Our session is almost over anyway, you sure earned your title ‘Sleepy Joe’ huh?”
Donald had already started packing things into the golf cart, even Joe’s bag. Joe got up and helped him wordlessly, the dream had served too much for his tired old man brain, and he had been left in no mood to even come close to confronting it. The cicadas had gone quiet, and the only nearby sound was the clatter of the foldable chair going into the golf cart. Somewhere above, a red-tailed hawk cried a mourning vow for a broken nest, and as the golf cart rolled to the exit, their shoulders brushed together.