How much time is left in this meeting?
Olivia Pope has worked for the President of the United States for twenty years of her life. She wasn't supposed to judge. Her job was to withhold judgement.
But Gerard Way made it extremely hard not to judge.
"When was the last time you had a shower?" She left out the sharpness. The president was going through enough. He still drew back like she had shot him.
"Tuesday."
"This Tuesday?"
"Last Tuesday."
Jesus Christ. Even his father had been cleaner.
"The cabinet is waiting for you to arrive. In the meantime, put on some deodorant?"
She followed him to the briefing room. The new Secretary of Defense was standing outside, checking his watch. He didn't look very- withhold judgement.
"Mr. President!" he held out his hand, expecting a handshake. Gerard just looked at him. He stayed with his hand outstretched for an uncomfortable amount of time before drawing back.
"Hello, Mr. Iero. Let's get to the briefing?" Olivia smiled, a well practiced gesture that she might as well die with. He nodded, still unsettled. Nobody moved to open the door.
The door swung open, and the Minister of Agriculture frowned at the group. Olivia herded the president through the door and towards the head of the table. Once everyone had settled, she started tapping her fingers on the table. one-two-one-two-one-two.
"As the president is aware, the union of dairy farmers is asking-" Gerard yawned. Loudly.
"What?"
This was going to be a long meeting.
Halfway through, Olivia took notice of the tattoo placed high on the neck of the Secretary of Defense. The President had also taken notice and was glancing at him every few seconds. She expected it to last roughly two minutes but Gerard seemed genuinely interested in the man. Heaven help us.
GERARD'S POV
He stared at the clock on the wall, watching the seconds tick by. This meeting was always longer than it should be. Why did he even attend? Olivia took care of all the political things anyways. He just did press conferences and tried to appear interested in whatever bullshit the union of dairy farmers had going on. He looked back at the new Secretary of Defense. Mr. Ero? He was cool. Certainly, like the kids he wasn't allowed to sit with at lunch even though they were hated by all the same people. Being cool doesn't mean you get to be hot. What? No, he's not hot. Just cool. I mean, compared to the rest of the cabinet he was significantly more attractive. But that wasn't hard to accomplish. He looked over and smiled. Gerard frowned. He looked away, a little frightened. I'm not that scary. Maybe he's scared because i'm the president.
After the meeting Olivia told him about all the press conferences he was supposed to attend. Blah, blah. She was always telling him things.
"We've got a new Secretary of Defense." she shot him an odd look in response but he ignored it.
"We've needed one since the last one quit." She said it like she expected him to know this.
"They're allowed to do that?" she closed her eyes and sighed. He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it to speak again. "I want to make it so they can't do that." he frowned. Surely the new one wouldn't want to quit. I mean, it wasn't like he was attached to him. But it would be very bad if they needed to find another one and the only one they could find was another grumpy shriveled up raisin.
"I'll work on it." yeah right. "You should talk with him about the new developments." he snapped his head up.
"I don't find him hot. He's just cool."
"...I meant the war." He stood up abruptly, ignoring Olivia's attempt to get him to sit back down and stormed out into the White House.
It was late, later than he normally stayed up but he had been walking for so long he wasn't going to stop now. He must be going in circles. There was no way the White House was this big. It looked quite small from the outside. A glint of green caught his eye and he went after it, into a room with a few desks and a janitor sweeping the floor. The janitor had a green bucket.
"Green is the best colour for cleaning supplies." Gerard wasn't sure why he told the janitor that. It was true, but sometimes people don't need to know the truth. The janitor raised his head, his hair falling away from his face. He had quite a lot of hair. But Gerard wasn't jealous. And he certainly wasn't starting to bald at only twenty seven. The janitor didn't looked surprised to see him. Maybe he didn't realize Gerard was the President.
"Yeah, i guess so." He started cleaning again. Gerard didn't want to leave yet.
"What are you doing here?" It was a valid question. Maybe this man wasn't a janitor. Maybe he was an agent of the Russians. He didn't look Russian.
"My job." He showed Gerard a little pin on his shirt. TORO, it read. It had a little cartoon of a mop and bucket. He nodded. He couldn't be a Russian spy. Gerard had successfully saved the White House.
"What are you doing here?" Gerard hadn't expected that. He tilted his head a bit to the side.
"My job."
"And what's that? Suits usually stay in the West wing." He was a suit? Interesting. He was wearing a suit. And this man must be a shirt.
"President." The man nodded and continued cleaning. He didn't looked shocked or sorry to be taking up the President's time.
"Can i say something, Mr. President?" He rested his chin on the handle of his mop. He had been saying things, a lot more things than people usually said to Gerard.
"Yes."
"Don't trust silver." Now what the hell did that mean? Maybe Gerard was secretly deathly allergic to silver. He nodded solemnly and made a mental note of it. The man continued to clean and Gerard left him to his job.
He walked down the hallway.
"Mr. President!" he walked a little faster.
"Mr. President!" he internally chided himself and made a mental note to learn how to walk faster.
"Mr. Way?" He stopped walking completely at that. It was one of the first times anyone had used his real name when talking to him.