Work Text:
If somebody had told Dan, nearly two years earlier, that his career would have been better off if he hadn’t slept with Carol Hallowes, he would have thought they were lying. Carol had been boring, but she had gotten him a job with her senator mother, which had launched him directly into the veep's office. He had been seeking power in D.C. for years, and here it was, in his hands, in his White House pass!
This was exactly why people said not to trust politicians. He had never met Selina Meyer, not until he snuck his way into her office, brazen and arrogant. He vaguely remembered horror stories from Amy, but he generally took Amy’s words with a grain of salt. She was so shrill sometimes.
Little did he know, that day in 2013, that Selina Meyer was the single most self destructive, vindictive person he would ever meet. He didn’t know she would sell her soul down the river for a half-point increase in polling in swing states. He didn’t know she would walk through a fucking glass door.
As Dan stood in that hotel room with Amy and Gary, watching their boss as she got high, he thought back to the 22-year old Hampden-Sydney graduate he had once been. A younger, poorer Dan, just as ambitious but slightly less jaded, had not moved to D.C. for this.
He felt fidgety. He and Amy had been discussing leaving as of late; untying themselves from the catastrophic woman who controlled every second of their lives. Was this his chance? Should he just get up and run now?
Before he could finish that train of thought, though, the loudest interruption he had ever met was bursting into the hotel room, despite Mike’s best efforts.
“Did somebody order boom service? I’m commandeering this situation, Mike.” Leave it to Jonah to arrive at their most vulnerable, likely to try and take advantage of the moment and add more problems to the ever growing heap. Dan hated him so much.
The problem was that he actually wasn’t hating Jonah so much lately. Those mental images of the two of them at night, or in supply closets, or alone in hotel rooms had started to become harder and harder to suppress. Even now, as Jonah arrogantly decided he had the skills capable to fix the terrible situation Selina had put them in, all Dan could see was his stupid messy hair and his stupid huge frame.
“What have you guys got for me?”
“Okay, she just walked through a glass door, which is somewhat ironic building up to an invisible primary, and she is temporarily insane on a cocktail of happy pills. Over to you, captain,” Amy said, fast and sarcastically. Jonah’s mouth fell open, and even as Dan thought about how concerning it was that someone so unintelligent could work in the White House, his traitorous mind couldn’t move past how he had never wanted to sleep with somebody so badly in his life.
“I think you broke his brain, Amy,” Mike chuckled. It was Dan’s turn to join in on the insults. He had to come up with something, quick—
“Jesus, look at his stupid gaping mouth. Let’s put stuff in it.” That wasn’t what he meant to say. Jesus Christ, that was an insane thing to say to a colleague, in the presence of other colleagues. But Jonah was too stupefied by the situation to notice, and Mike and Amy were too focused on attacking him to fully process the remark, and Dan stood there flustered, trying to get his shit together.
——
As the four of them sat in the hotel room, waiting for Selina to come down from her high, Dan grew more and more antsy. Jonah was at his most annoying, laying all the way down on the couch and tapping his watch exaggeratedly. Dan stared at his phone intently, trying to focus on literally anything besides huge fingers and Jonah being within grabbing distance.
As Jonah narrated all of the reasons why Selina needed to get up and leave the hotel room, Mike took over the Jonah attack while Dan and Amy ignored him. Dan couldn’t handle being in this hotel room any longer. Maybe it had been too long since they’d last fucked. Catherine’s birthday had only been a month ago, so if goalposts for how long Dan allowed himself to go before thinking about sex with Jonah had been moved, there was a problem. He had been okay with once every six months. Six months had turned into three, and three had turned into two and apparently, now, 29 days.
As if hearing her name summoned her, Selina and Gary appeared from the bedroom. “Jonah’s right. I need to get my face out there, my fucked up face.”
“Guess I’ll just be sitting here, being right!” Jonah sat up from his sprawled out position on the couch. Dan tried so hard to not look at him, he didn’t catch the new posturing until Mike had said something.
“Sit like a gentleman, please.” Dan broke his staring contest with his phone to glance over at Jonah, curious to see what Mike had meant. Jonah, douchebag he always was, was manspreading with his legs open wide.
Dan couldn’t remember if he had even looked at his face before looking down, or if his eyes had just fallen right at Jonah’s crotch, pulled magnetically down below the belt. He knew he needed to stop staring. Amy and Mike were going to notice. Jonah was going to notice. This was insane. He couldn’t break away.
Life kept moving in the hotel room, but Dan felt fixated. He was so distracted by how badly he wanted his hands and mouth on Jonah, by how easily he could’ve straddled his hips with Jonah manspreading like that. He felt like an addict going through withdrawals. Before he could stop himself, he texted:
To: Jonah, 2:28pm:
Come over later? I would ask if you have plans tonight, but I know the answer is never yes.
——
Jonah didn’t respond until hours later, after the problem was resolved and the 5k had been ran. Dan should’ve known better than to text him like that. He grew more embarrassed by the second.
From: Jonah, 7:42pm:
yes pls
i like those sunglasses on you a lot
btw u should try not to make it so obvious you want to suck my dick lol
Exasperated, Dan shut his phone off and threw it in his pocket. Why he suddenly felt almost giddy, he didn’t want to examine.