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Summary
Roman is sitting at the Resolute Desk. Curled up in Mencken’s big Gunlocke office chair like a self satisfied cat, scrolling on his phone.
Mark feels his blood pressure spike so high that he feels faintly lightheaded.
Outsider POV. Mark Ravenhead's already painful existence as press secretary of the first Mencken administration is interrupted by the fact that Roman fucking Roy keeps showings up at the White House. Also, completely unrelatedly, the President seems to be having an affair?
Series
- Part 1 of le corps d'état
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Bookmark Notes:
“R-Roman?” Mark manages to splutter the word from between clenched teeth.
“Me,” Roman sing-songs dryly.
Mark is so offended to his core he can't speak. The words keep dying in his throat. He can't just? Sit there? Casually? In that chair? At that desk? There is some kind of treasonous offence here, he feels it in his bones.
Roman, apparently bored with watching him silently vibrate with indignation, snorts, “Well, you have done well enough for yourself I suppose. Now you can flop-sweat on the grandest stage of all, Mark,” he somehow manages to pronounce the one syllable name with the implied intonation of an insult, “I guess there is always a bigger boot to lick.”
Mark manually reminds himself to breathe and instead puts on his best 4k cable news smile, “Well, It’s a living.” he says. You’ve done it willingly , he doesn’t say. You came crawling back for free even after you were kicked, he also doesn’t say.
Roman’s own smirk turns a little pinched, and he manages to slouch even further in the chair. Before he can retort there is the well oiled click of the study door swinging open, and Mencken enters from the study side door with a sandwich and two cans of soda.
Roman not only didn't stand up in the sudden presence of the President of the United States, he didn’t even get out of Mencken’s chair, sending new apoplectic spasms of indignation through Mark’s core. It didn't seem to bother Mencken at all who placed a Coke Zero, sparkling with cold condensation in front of Roman. Before leaning back on his desk to unwrap his own sandwich from its wax paper sheath.
“We were just having an informal discussion on visas for tech. Y’know the usual song and dance about cheap highly skilled labour from Asia, versus if they could find an overpaid unionized red blooded American for the job,“ Mencken said, “So whatever this is, I hope it's important.” He fixed Mark with a familiar stare, the kind of subtly evil patience with which an alligator might watch a fish that's about to swim into its open jaws.
Behind him Roman has a Cheshire grin, and punctuates Mencken’s sentence with the satisfying pop of a soda can opening.
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Bookmark Notes:
He closes his eyes, and puts his hands over his ears. It works for a while, but then the sounds get very loud and pornographic and a little? Scary? A lot of choking, and then gasping for breath. Wet splutters. A litany of the filthiest shit Mark has ever heard. Even if he could just lay back and think of Ayn Rand, he’d always been a mostly vanilla man back before his Raya profile dried up.