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qomedy_continuum2009-10-30 12:45 pm
themistoklis) wrote in qomedy_continuum2009-10-30 12:45 pm
Dreaming of Q - Chapter One
Title: Dreaming of Q
Fandom: Fake News, U.S. politics
Summary: Q ("Stephen" Colbert) is just looking for a friend. Unfortunately, First Officer Rahm has better things to do, and Q has a short fuse and the power of galaxies at his fingers.
Character/Pairing: "Stephen"/Jon, Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Kalpen Modi, Peter Orszag, Mona Sutphen,
Rating: PG-13, language
Length: ~5300 words
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Notes: Co-written with the ever excellentdoctorv. Thanks endlessly much to the lovely sirdrakesheir for intense betaing, and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sailorptah for proofreading. Star Trek crossover of a sort.
Chapter 1
Rahm settled his hands on his hips and looked out over engineering, wondering which bit of it would explode in the next twenty-four hours. He really hoped that it had nothing to do with the warp core, because he was pretty sure that they wouldn't be able to clean that up.
Everyone told him he was being irrational, but Dr. Biden had entrusted him, specifically, with her husband's visit to the USS Hope, and he didn't want a repeat of the last trip. Joe told the story whenever he could, but Jill was less appreciative of the three days they'd all ended up spending in sick bay -- even though they hadn't really caught the plague after all.
Of course, Amy found the entire thing hilarious and would probably elicit another telling of the tale, but he thought she might not be as understanding if he missed Zach's recital that weekend.
He huffed a breath out over his lips and stomped across the deck towards the main controls, where at any given moment he'd expect to see Peter Orszag fumbling over the touch-screen. Right then all he saw was a lieutenant whose shift should've been over hours ago.
"Lieutenant Modi!"
Kalpen looked up from his controls, blinking. "Commander Emanuel, sir?"
"What the hell are you still awake for?" He settled in on the other end of the controls, watching diagnostic information slide across the screen. "And where the hell is Orszag?"
"I believe he's arranging a demonstration for Ambassador Biden's arrival, Commander," Kalpen said. His hands hovered over the keys, fingers twitching and calling up new data though his eyes were locked on Rahm. "I can handle anything you need until then."
Rahm gave a look to the warp core and grit his teeth. "Keep that running until Orszag gets back, and then go to bed. I don't need my men falling asleep on the controls."
"Yes sir, Commander."
Nearly as soon as Rahm left for the bridge, the doors on the other end of engineering opened. Kalpen smiled at his controls and tapped in a few codes to make sure the computer would transfer his diagnostic run to the bridge while it finished out.
Lieutenant Commander Orszag stumbled over his own shoes, only half-on his feet, and squeaked when his glasses fell off his face. "Damn it, damn it, sorry guys!" he said, fingers snapping around his shoes. An ensign found his glasses for him.
"Commander Emanuel is looking for you," Kalpen said, closing out of his end of the diagnostic. It was nothing big, but it needed to finish.
"Oh God."
"I covered for you."
Peter smiled broadly and his shoulders fell a few inches. "Have you ever met Ambassador Biden before, Kalpen?" he asked, taking up his station when Kalpen stepped away.
"No, sir." He swallowed a yawn. He should have been in bed earlier, but there had been snags in the diagnostic that he'd wanted to work out.
"It's going to be an experience," Peter promised.
"I'm sure it will be, sir." After he took a nap.
---
Mona put her hands on her hips and immediately let them drop, flexing her fingers at her sides. No one had seen that. She was absolutely not picking up Rahm's habits. Though she was here ten minutes early and he was nowhere to be seen, flitting around on some other part of the ship. Which meant she was in charge.
She walked up behind a control panel and watched the navigator skim over star charts. They wouldn't be making much actual progress today: they were already stationed off to the side of the planet where they'd be picking up Ambassador Biden. The man was in the middle of presiding over a court case as an 'impartial, outside observer.' It wasn't Starfleet business -- the USS Hope was carrying some supplies to the planet and Ambassador Biden was using the opportunity to visit Captain Obama.
Captain Obama, who was walking through the door right then.
"Sir!" she said, rocking to full posture. "Commander Emanuel should be here shortly, sir."
The Captain gave her a smile and came to a stop at the station, bending over the navigator's shoulder to look at the star charts. Mona bit her lower lip and wondered if the Captain realized that the navigator's head had just started shaking. She wanted to reach over and squeeze the kid's shoulder, give some reassurance. It got better.
"I'm not looking for Commander Emanuel, but I'm sure he will be," Captain Obama said. "I'll be back on the bridge before Ambassador Biden transports over. But I have a couple of things to get ready before then."
"Is Commander Obama going to be meeting with the Ambassador as well?"
"By lunch, yes. You'll have the bridge while we're busy stuffing our faces."
"Yessir."
"Don't bother telling Rahm he missed me, he'll only leave as soon as he gets here." The Captain stood up and smoothed down the front of his uniform, absently, his eyes already on a display halfway across the room. Most mornings he stayed briefed through the intercoms or someone from the bridge dispatched to cover him while he walked his girls across the ship to the school.
"Yessir," Mona said, nodding as he left.
Rahm was usually earlier than this -- waking his kids up without trekking to the school with them. It probably helped that their mother helped run the section. She wondered if he was going to blunder in with fingerpaint smeared on one ear (it had happened before).
When he did finally skip through the door, scowling with both hands on his hips, Mona didn't ask. She filled him in on everything he'd missed, minus Captain Obama's stroll-through.
"Did you have a good morning?" she asked, when he was sitting down.
"Just Amy mocking me for the last three times we met with Joey."
"Only the last three?"
"Ha ha ha."
"I've never met Ambassador Biden. I heard that last time he was here he and you and Captain Obama ended up spending three days in sick bay because Zeke thought you'd all caught the plague--"
"We do not talk about that time," Rahm said, spinning around in his chair to glare at her. "Ever."
She clamped down on her smile and nodded. Today was going to be interesting. "Yessir."
"Nothing is going to go wrong today," Rahm muttered, clambering out of his chair as a call came through from the planet. Ambassador Biden's office, dialing in. "At least nothing Amy can use against me. Hey, Joey. Almost ready?"
---
Q slipped into the humans' meager plane of existence in a flash, using the hum of the transporter to mask any sound he might have made on his way in. While the Ambassador jumped off the platform and swept the apparently familiar Lieutenant Commander Orszag into a -- what did they call it? -- a hug, Q slinked around a corner and waited for the small party to turn down the corridor.
"Where's the rest of your people?"
He tugged at the bottom of his shirt and smoothed out the creases, using the glossy surface of the wall-mounted instrument panel as a mirror to smooth down his hair. Hair! No matter how many times he manifested this form, he would never get used to hair. Fine, near-invisible strands of it were everywhere, but on his head it was dark and thick and luxurious. He had no idea why his friend, Q, didn't enjoy his hair as much -- personally, Q thought that the dark, silver-streaked locks looked good on him.
Not that he couldn't think of a few others with their own take on salt-and-pepper.
"C'mon, Peter, it's not like I need ten people to show me around a starship. I have been on these before."
Q looked away from his improvised mirror and eased backwards around another corner, tapping the side of the instrument panel with his fingertips before ducking away from the voices. Today was going to be fun, either of its own accord or under Q's gentle prodding. Sometimes, someone just had to show time and space the right direction, and damn if he was going to let anyone else do it while he was around.
"Ah… yes sir."
"It's Joe, Peter. Call me Joe."
As far as Q could tell, this Joe person was an ambassador here to visit Captain Barack and foul-mouthed First Officer Rahm. When he'd peeked earlier, they'd both seemed excited about their visitor. Thinking about it, huddled against the wall, Q frowned. None of the USS Hope crew ever seemed so excited when he came knocking.
"Did I miss lunch?"
"No sir. The Captain is waiting on you, sir -- Joe."
The party came around the first corner, and Q held very still. Ambassador Biden was wearing robes, dark blue and deep purple, his hands clasped together behind his back. Next to him, Lieutenant Commander Orszag looked awkward in his yellow-topped uniform, fidgeting with his glasses so much that Q couldn't stop himself from reaching up to check his own. Glasses might be few and far between in the day and age he happened to be in at the moment, but he thought they made him look dashing. This Peter Orszag did not carry them off quite as well. But, then, who could compete with a Q? (Especially one as handsome as himself.)
A couple of blue-and-purple clad aides were walking behind Joe, faint smiles on their faces, eyes darting around the hallway. The tips of Q's fingertips tingled and if any of these little scraps of life had been able to sense even a sliver of the Q Continuum, they would have noticed the wall-mounted instrument panel tingling too.
Q narrowed his eyes a little. Joe was walking side-by-side with Orszag, long legs making slow strides along the corridor, but he was on the opposite side from the instrument panel. Well. That was a quick fix. Q twitched his fingers and the panel was immediately on the other wall -- the one closest to Joe.
He smiled and leaned back on his heels, waiting.
"Are we eating in the mess hall?"
This was going to be fun. It was too bad his friend, Q, wasn't around to watch. Maybe later he could bring Q by and they could find a little alcove somewhere to watch it all from. The Ambassador and his companions were closer now, nearly close enough to see him standing there around the corner.
"I think Captain Obama has a table prepared in his quarters--"
Just… a couple more steps…
"Nonsense, I'd like to eat with the rest of the crew--"
Q's fingertips flared.
---
On the bridge, a small alarm buzzed. From his spot, standing in front of the view screen, the sound was quiet in Rahm's ear. He frowned and looked over his shoulder, the middle of his sentence trailing off. Fuck it. The officer at the engineering panel was tapping quickly, eyes narrowed at the readout. On the view screen, Ambassador Biden's Chief of Staff asked, voice suddenly hot, if the transport had gone all right.
"It went fine," Rahm said, flatly. "This is probably something minor."
The engineer glanced up at him and he murmured something to the Chief of Staff, motioning for the view screen to be put on mute as he walked over to see what was going on. He put his hands on his hips and listened for about ten seconds before shutting his eyes. It hadn't even been ten minutes, damn it!
"But, sir, these readouts -- they don't make sense. There was an explosion and the explosion was contained and I'm getting reports that no one was injured, but the readouts -- they're telling me the instrument panel was on the wrong side of the wall. There is a panel in that hallway, but across from where--"
"You said no one was hurt?" Rahm asked.
On the view screen the Chief of Staff was looking a little distressed. Behind him, the Ambassador's staff ran across the office, making it one of the busiest Rahm could remember seeing outside an election season. Apparently, Joey was set on today being nothing more than old friends catching up.
"No. Apparently a Captain pushed Ambassador Biden out of the way before he could be hurt."
"…Captain Obama is down by the transporters?" Rahm held his hand up and an ensign turned off the view screen, switching the Chief of Staff to someone's station for an explanation. The engineer moved over and Rahm gripped the top of the panel, leaning over it to get a better look.
"Computer!" he called, frowning. "Where is Captain Obama?"
The computer's feminine voice read out: "Captain Obama is in his quarters on a private call."
"Sir," the engineer said, pulling his hands back from the panel. "It -- Lieutenant Commander Orszag reported that the man who pushed Ambassador Biden out of the way has Captain's stripes on. And it's still telling me the instrument panel is on the wrong side of the hallway. The diagnostic engineering sent me is all messed up, I need to run it again--"
Rahm leaned back and pressed a finger to his lips. "No."
"…Sir?"
"Lieutenant Sutphen, you have the bridge."
"Yessir."
In the turbo elevator, Rahm leaned against the wall and glared at the carpet. If Barack hadn't programmed the computer to chide him for cursing -- he still hadn't figured out how the man had managed that -- he would've done more than just grip the railing hard enough to make his hands hurt. In a moment he was on the proper deck and he turned sideways to get through the doors before they'd opened all the way.
Not on his ship, damn it.
---
In the background, Orszag and the Ambassador's aides still looked dazed. Orszag was talking animatedly to someone in security yellow, not nearly as nice a color as Q's command red. Q was grinning, his teeth resting lightly on his lower lip. This had worked out quite nicely. Quite nicely indeed. (Too bad Q wasn't there to share.)
Joe had his arm around Q. It was an interesting sensation, being touched. He could never get used to it -- something so solid and small and limited, not nearly as all-encompassing as touching another Q -- but still… it held its own power. Unfortunately most of his experiences with it were various Hope officers pushing him away or pulling him back from something or slapping his hands like a child so he wouldn't touch the instrument panels. As if he needed to touch the instrument panels.
"You are a bright young man, Mister… What did you say your name was again?" Joe frowned at him a little, the first time in three minutes anything except a smile had been on his face.
Q panicked, a little, and cast his mind through the ship's computer (it was like running ball bearings over his palm, if he absolutely had to compare it to something) until he landed on a name that sounded good… and a beat later a last name that sounded just as good.
"Stephen Colbert!" he said, letting the t fall softly.
Joe clapped him on the back and he stumbled slightly, his grin growing a few watts. Q was going to hate himself for not being here to watch it happen the first time around. Stephen Colbert! It rolled off the tongue. Maybe it could use something in the middle? Stephen Q. Colbert -- Stephen T. Colbert! To make up for the silent t! He could work out what it meant later. Now, there was more important business to attend to.
"That was some quick thinking, Stephen," Joe said.
The instrument panel was mostly intact after what Q -- what Stephen had done to it. A shower of blue and purple sparks, to match Joe's robes, that had looked more impressive than the damage they accompanied. A gaping hole and some twisting wires that kept getting weird looks from the engineers who'd run down the hallway after the explosion.
Not nearly as fast as Stephen had run, but that was sort of the point.
He tossed his arm around the man's shoulders, to reciprocate, and continued to ignore the looks on the aides' faces. "Can I call you Joey?"
The man burst out laughing, giving Stephen's shoulder a tight squeeze that made him fairly bounce on the balls of his feet. What hair the man had was stark white, not the same silvery shade as the streaks running through Q's hair, but charming in its own way.
"I kept telling my boys, the transporter's the fun part, if anything goes wrong it's not going to be that," Joey said. "And even when something did go wrong, here was a fantastic officer to the rescue!"
"I am pretty amazing," Stephen drawled, pleased to have found a mortal who got him. An it-getter.
While the instrument panel had been sending everyone to their knees, he'd dashed forward and caught onto the Ambassador's arms. They'd been stronger than he'd thought they would be, hidden underneath the wide sleeves of his robe.
Joey laughed, ducking his head, and over the top of his shoulders Stephen saw a glimpse of red. Now the games were getting started! He stood still and let his grin melt into a smirk as the rest of the people in the hallway jumped aside to let through First Officer Rahm Emanuel, not a man to be messed with.
Unless you knew what you were doing.
"You," he snapped, storming straight past them.
Stephen nodded at a confused Joey before slipping away from him and trotting down the hall after Rahm. The man darted left sharply, the doors staying open until after Stephen had ducked into the room behind him. He smiled when Rahm spun around and planted his hands on his hips, scowling at him. Rahm's hair was graying, too, and he wondered if Q had taken inspiration from it for his own. He was startled to feel a little twinge at that thought.
The room was wide, with a long table in the middle and a dozen chairs surrounding it. Stephen swept his eyes around it in a second, letting them rest on Rahm when he was done. The man did look pissed. Stephen smiled and ducked his head a little, his glasses shifting on his face. Spending so much time in this plane was making him ache, just a bit. To stop at someone's edges instead of pass straight through them, be complete with them -- how did these people stand it?
Though it did explain a lot.
---
"Q--" Rahm started.
The Q fiddled with the pins on his collar, and a sour taste crept over Rahm's tongue. Q was wearing a captain's uniform, Barack's uniform, a uniform people sweated and cried and bled to get and what had he done for it? Fucking nothing!
Dark eyes flickered in his direction. "I'm trying Stephen Colbert out for a while."
Rahm opened and shut his mouth a few times before shutting his eyes and drawing in a low breath. At this point, he couldn't really be surprised. At least he hadn't adopted 'Rahm Obama' or 'Barack Emanuel' or something.
"What are you doing here?" he snapped.
Stephen smiled, slowly, the edges of his mouth creeping up. He threw both his hands into the air and beamed, rocking forward on his toes. "I have come once more to extend a hand in friendship. Feel honored, human. I'm confident that this time, you'll come to your senses and accept the inevitable: no one can resist me."
Rahm groaned and rubbed his hand over his face. "Where is Q?" he demanded, voice low.
How had he known? How had he known? This was absolutely the last thing they needed, shit, like they didn't have a dozen other things to do just in the next hour. A day Barack was taking half-off to meet with Joe, and it was busier than any of their others just to make room. Q just had to show up today -- he must have some kind of radar to know when Rahm absolutely did not have time to fuck with him.
Stephen blinked and cocked a dark, disdainful eyebrow. "I'm sure I don't know who you're talking about."
"Your better half, knucklefuck. Where is he?"
Crossing his arms over his chest, Stephen puffed himself up. "Q is busy with matters far beyond your comprehension, mortal," he sniffed. Rahm's eyes flickered and Stephen rocked onto his toes, a small smirk spreading over his face. "But if you had some crayons and paper maybe I could try to--"
A wide-eyed look flashed over the First Officer's face, quickly followed by a sharp slice of a smile. "You don't know where he is, do you?"
"Q have better things to do than monitor each other--" Stephen started.
"Did he get tired of you?"
Stephen's face flushed as red as his counterfeit uniform and for a second his eyes looked black. Rahm wet his lips and stepped forward, half-expecting Stephen to back up. But the Q didn't move. Rahm tilted his chin up until he was looking straight into Stephen's eyes. If he squinted he thought he could see Stephen shake a bit, but that might've been wishful thinking on his part.
"If you can't even get him to stick around?" he murmured. That time, there was a visible quiver. Stephen's fists clenched at his sides and the Q inclined his head slightly, hissing a breath out through parted lips.
"If you can't even get him to put up with you," Rahm said, "what the fuck makes you think I'll do it?"
He had only opened his mouth when Rahm stepped closer, forcing him back. Stephen's shoulders hit the wall and Rahm just barely kept himself from latching onto the front of the counterfeit uniform.
"Get off my ship," he hissed, feeling a low heat come over him. Stephen pressed flat against the wall and opened his mouth, but Rahm plowed on, ignorant as always of how startling it was that anyone (besides his dear friend, Q) could get the Q to shut up. "Get off my ship and get out of my Captain's uniform!"
"I--"
Snapping his eyes and his attention away in one movement, Rahm blasted out the door and back into the corridor. The doors came shut behind him and didn't open again -- and the hallway didn't sprout any imposter captains in the time it took him to get back down to Joe and the engineers, freaking out now that the instrument panel had switched back to its proper wall. Repaired and everything. Orszag had moved Joe and the aides down past it and they didn't seem to have noticed yet.
For a second Rahm stood watching his old friend, breathing and piecing himself back together. If he'd made the impression he'd been going for, they wouldn't be seeing Stephen -- Q -- for a while.
He reached up to swing his arm around Joe's shoulders as he strode up to him. The older man's face lit up and he reached down to reciprocate. "Rahm!"
Rahm smiled even as the assorted crew members blinked, looking back and forth between them. But Rahm was used to it -- a grin a light-year wide breaking out on Joe's face. Most people didn't expect it from someone with so distinctive a Klingon forehead, but only one of Joe's grandparents was Klingon, and his overwhelming Betazoid heritage contributed a lot more to his temperament.
A visit from Joe was just what he needed right then.
"Let's get lunch," Rahm said, nudging him down the hall and away from the instrument channel. "We've made Barack wait long enough."
---
Back in the room, molecules disappeared and mutated and reversed their orbits around the motionless human body of the Q calling himself Stephen. Galaxies spun into oblivion within the black depths lurking in human-shaped eyes.
"Tired of me? Any Q would be grateful for the chance to spend time in my presence," Stephen said darkly, narrowing his eyes. "Any human--Any mortal would beg for the privilege of my attention! How dare he? How dare he!"
Stalking further into the room, he whirled around to face the door. With his entire being he sneered at the tiny, insignificant, rude, elitist speck that had spurned him. Elsewhere on the ship, a crewman tried to figure out why the computer was reporting a slight drop in temperature seemingly localized around First Officer Emanuel.
"Put up with me?" he demanded of the universe, and the universe stood up to take notice. As it should. As it damn well should. "Let's see you put up with this!"
Intent flowed and pulsed around him, grabbing reality and wrestling it into submission. His merest thought became the delicate tool of a master craftsman, reshaping the world as he saw fit. Personal histories unfurled behind the sudden existence of lives that had once been drastically different or sometimes nonexistent. Memories shifted to fit the new space, because a dimension wasn't any good if no one thought they belonged there. Some thoughts he had to force into place, some minds stubborn and less willing to conform -- but he got them in line. The Hope slipped away and piled back into a new shape, the crew falling down into a city around it.
One by one, things fell into place.
And at the center of it all, he built his stage, his headquarters from which to wage war against the ungrateful human who had not just spurned his advances but thrown them back in his face.
"Pay-back's a bitch!"
The audience cheered as the graphic swooped in and the words appeared next to him. Gesturing with a pen toward the words beside him on the screen, Stephen beamed out at them. They showed proper appreciation. They hung on his every word. They loved him, adored him, would do anything he told them to.
His loyal followers. His...Nation. Yes, he liked the sound of that.
"Now some may say 'forgive and forget', but I say: those people are quitters!"
"Because they deserve to squirm, dammit! They deserve to have everything they know and rely on turned upside down for--No, not just spurning you, but for making it personal. For ripping your heart out and stomping on it and spitting on the bleeding remains! And for what?! Because you wanted to hang out? Because you wanted to be friends?"
There was a collective "aw" of sympathy as he turned to the side, fist in front of his mouth and his eyes focused somewhere off into the distance.
"So until I get an apology, Operation Mindfuck is on!"
The audience went wild as he pointed emphatically.
---
A gasp shook Rahm and he was aware of stifling heat and darkness cut through with slanting, orange-gold rays of light. He breathed in without knowing why, his hands flailing out and a shudder wracking through him when he couldn't move his elbows. Only kicking himself in the leg managed to make his eyes focus, managed to give edges to everything he was seeing.
Humming in the background let him know the engines were running fine… The… He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed a hand over his forehead. The engines… of the air conditioning? They seemed quieter than he remembered. He winced and dug his elbows into the mattress, pushing himself up until he could get a look at the heavy covers trapping his arms to his sides and his legs together. Somehow he had managed not to wake up Amy, but that might've been helped by the fact that she'd fallen asleep with her head under the pillow again. He winced and carefully inched away from her, trying not to affect her side of the mattress.
A sour, fuzzy taste coated his tongue and made him sneer. Fuck waking up. It'd been like the first time he'd ever seen the room before. Not like he hadn't… lived here for the past… two years. An apartment not too far from Pennsylvania Avenue. Beige walls and rooms assembled straight out of a catalogue. Shit, had he taken a sleeping pill last night?
That would account for the dreams, at least. What the hell had he been doing, dreaming about that Comedy Central knucklefuck? It wasn't like he ever caught the show unless it was forced on him, always popping up on random televisions when he absolutely did not have the time to watch Mr. Stephen Tiberius Colbert use his timeslot like a mirror. Some intern must have had the show playing in the background last night, before his deputies had finally turned off the lights in his office and told him to go home already, get at least an hour of sleep.
Rahm shuddered again and engaged in a brief battle with his cotton prison, wriggling against the blankets to untangle his legs and trying to do it all without waking his wife. Still breathing hard, he sat straight up and surveyed the room. According to his clock, it was barely oh-six-hundred … six A.M. Shit. He needed to get out of there, get to work, before someone woke Barack.
…To the White House. Right. Where he worked. Rahm Motherfucking Emanuel, Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama, thank you very fucking much, don't let the door hit you on the way out.
He brushed his teeth and took an abbreviated shower (damn if water didn't seem inefficient, somehow) and crept over to his closet, quietly prying the door open. Images were floating back to him, and that didn't make sense. Wasn't it supposed to be hard to remember dreams? Here he was, trying to forget, and he couldn't get that damn idiot's voice out of his head, running in an ominous, echoing loop.
Like he'd known someone in the West Wing would have him on, like he'd known Rahm would be standing in just the right place to look up and see Colbert fucking staring him down. All he'd done was refuse to go on the man's show, like he'd refused scores of other requests -- he didn't have the time or patience to waste on the man. Who did Colbert think he was, reacting like that? Demanding an apology.
As if the television host would ever have the reach or power to pull off something like Operation Mindfuck.
Halfway through putting his suit on, Rahm realized he'd expected it to be some kind of uniform.
The day was not getting off to a good start.
Chapter Two
Fandom: Fake News, U.S. politics
Summary: Q ("Stephen" Colbert) is just looking for a friend. Unfortunately, First Officer Rahm has better things to do, and Q has a short fuse and the power of galaxies at his fingers.
Character/Pairing: "Stephen"/Jon, Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Kalpen Modi, Peter Orszag, Mona Sutphen,
Rating: PG-13, language
Length: ~5300 words
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Notes: Co-written with the ever excellent
doctorv. Thanks endlessly much to the lovely sirdrakesheir for intense betaing, and sailorptah for proofreading. Star Trek crossover of a sort.Chapter 1
Rahm settled his hands on his hips and looked out over engineering, wondering which bit of it would explode in the next twenty-four hours. He really hoped that it had nothing to do with the warp core, because he was pretty sure that they wouldn't be able to clean that up.
Everyone told him he was being irrational, but Dr. Biden had entrusted him, specifically, with her husband's visit to the USS Hope, and he didn't want a repeat of the last trip. Joe told the story whenever he could, but Jill was less appreciative of the three days they'd all ended up spending in sick bay -- even though they hadn't really caught the plague after all.
Of course, Amy found the entire thing hilarious and would probably elicit another telling of the tale, but he thought she might not be as understanding if he missed Zach's recital that weekend.
He huffed a breath out over his lips and stomped across the deck towards the main controls, where at any given moment he'd expect to see Peter Orszag fumbling over the touch-screen. Right then all he saw was a lieutenant whose shift should've been over hours ago.
"Lieutenant Modi!"
Kalpen looked up from his controls, blinking. "Commander Emanuel, sir?"
"What the hell are you still awake for?" He settled in on the other end of the controls, watching diagnostic information slide across the screen. "And where the hell is Orszag?"
"I believe he's arranging a demonstration for Ambassador Biden's arrival, Commander," Kalpen said. His hands hovered over the keys, fingers twitching and calling up new data though his eyes were locked on Rahm. "I can handle anything you need until then."
Rahm gave a look to the warp core and grit his teeth. "Keep that running until Orszag gets back, and then go to bed. I don't need my men falling asleep on the controls."
"Yes sir, Commander."
Nearly as soon as Rahm left for the bridge, the doors on the other end of engineering opened. Kalpen smiled at his controls and tapped in a few codes to make sure the computer would transfer his diagnostic run to the bridge while it finished out.
Lieutenant Commander Orszag stumbled over his own shoes, only half-on his feet, and squeaked when his glasses fell off his face. "Damn it, damn it, sorry guys!" he said, fingers snapping around his shoes. An ensign found his glasses for him.
"Commander Emanuel is looking for you," Kalpen said, closing out of his end of the diagnostic. It was nothing big, but it needed to finish.
"Oh God."
"I covered for you."
Peter smiled broadly and his shoulders fell a few inches. "Have you ever met Ambassador Biden before, Kalpen?" he asked, taking up his station when Kalpen stepped away.
"No, sir." He swallowed a yawn. He should have been in bed earlier, but there had been snags in the diagnostic that he'd wanted to work out.
"It's going to be an experience," Peter promised.
"I'm sure it will be, sir." After he took a nap.
---
Mona put her hands on her hips and immediately let them drop, flexing her fingers at her sides. No one had seen that. She was absolutely not picking up Rahm's habits. Though she was here ten minutes early and he was nowhere to be seen, flitting around on some other part of the ship. Which meant she was in charge.
She walked up behind a control panel and watched the navigator skim over star charts. They wouldn't be making much actual progress today: they were already stationed off to the side of the planet where they'd be picking up Ambassador Biden. The man was in the middle of presiding over a court case as an 'impartial, outside observer.' It wasn't Starfleet business -- the USS Hope was carrying some supplies to the planet and Ambassador Biden was using the opportunity to visit Captain Obama.
Captain Obama, who was walking through the door right then.
"Sir!" she said, rocking to full posture. "Commander Emanuel should be here shortly, sir."
The Captain gave her a smile and came to a stop at the station, bending over the navigator's shoulder to look at the star charts. Mona bit her lower lip and wondered if the Captain realized that the navigator's head had just started shaking. She wanted to reach over and squeeze the kid's shoulder, give some reassurance. It got better.
"I'm not looking for Commander Emanuel, but I'm sure he will be," Captain Obama said. "I'll be back on the bridge before Ambassador Biden transports over. But I have a couple of things to get ready before then."
"Is Commander Obama going to be meeting with the Ambassador as well?"
"By lunch, yes. You'll have the bridge while we're busy stuffing our faces."
"Yessir."
"Don't bother telling Rahm he missed me, he'll only leave as soon as he gets here." The Captain stood up and smoothed down the front of his uniform, absently, his eyes already on a display halfway across the room. Most mornings he stayed briefed through the intercoms or someone from the bridge dispatched to cover him while he walked his girls across the ship to the school.
"Yessir," Mona said, nodding as he left.
Rahm was usually earlier than this -- waking his kids up without trekking to the school with them. It probably helped that their mother helped run the section. She wondered if he was going to blunder in with fingerpaint smeared on one ear (it had happened before).
When he did finally skip through the door, scowling with both hands on his hips, Mona didn't ask. She filled him in on everything he'd missed, minus Captain Obama's stroll-through.
"Did you have a good morning?" she asked, when he was sitting down.
"Just Amy mocking me for the last three times we met with Joey."
"Only the last three?"
"Ha ha ha."
"I've never met Ambassador Biden. I heard that last time he was here he and you and Captain Obama ended up spending three days in sick bay because Zeke thought you'd all caught the plague--"
"We do not talk about that time," Rahm said, spinning around in his chair to glare at her. "Ever."
She clamped down on her smile and nodded. Today was going to be interesting. "Yessir."
"Nothing is going to go wrong today," Rahm muttered, clambering out of his chair as a call came through from the planet. Ambassador Biden's office, dialing in. "At least nothing Amy can use against me. Hey, Joey. Almost ready?"
---
Q slipped into the humans' meager plane of existence in a flash, using the hum of the transporter to mask any sound he might have made on his way in. While the Ambassador jumped off the platform and swept the apparently familiar Lieutenant Commander Orszag into a -- what did they call it? -- a hug, Q slinked around a corner and waited for the small party to turn down the corridor.
"Where's the rest of your people?"
He tugged at the bottom of his shirt and smoothed out the creases, using the glossy surface of the wall-mounted instrument panel as a mirror to smooth down his hair. Hair! No matter how many times he manifested this form, he would never get used to hair. Fine, near-invisible strands of it were everywhere, but on his head it was dark and thick and luxurious. He had no idea why his friend, Q, didn't enjoy his hair as much -- personally, Q thought that the dark, silver-streaked locks looked good on him.
Not that he couldn't think of a few others with their own take on salt-and-pepper.
"C'mon, Peter, it's not like I need ten people to show me around a starship. I have been on these before."
Q looked away from his improvised mirror and eased backwards around another corner, tapping the side of the instrument panel with his fingertips before ducking away from the voices. Today was going to be fun, either of its own accord or under Q's gentle prodding. Sometimes, someone just had to show time and space the right direction, and damn if he was going to let anyone else do it while he was around.
"Ah… yes sir."
"It's Joe, Peter. Call me Joe."
As far as Q could tell, this Joe person was an ambassador here to visit Captain Barack and foul-mouthed First Officer Rahm. When he'd peeked earlier, they'd both seemed excited about their visitor. Thinking about it, huddled against the wall, Q frowned. None of the USS Hope crew ever seemed so excited when he came knocking.
"Did I miss lunch?"
"No sir. The Captain is waiting on you, sir -- Joe."
The party came around the first corner, and Q held very still. Ambassador Biden was wearing robes, dark blue and deep purple, his hands clasped together behind his back. Next to him, Lieutenant Commander Orszag looked awkward in his yellow-topped uniform, fidgeting with his glasses so much that Q couldn't stop himself from reaching up to check his own. Glasses might be few and far between in the day and age he happened to be in at the moment, but he thought they made him look dashing. This Peter Orszag did not carry them off quite as well. But, then, who could compete with a Q? (Especially one as handsome as himself.)
A couple of blue-and-purple clad aides were walking behind Joe, faint smiles on their faces, eyes darting around the hallway. The tips of Q's fingertips tingled and if any of these little scraps of life had been able to sense even a sliver of the Q Continuum, they would have noticed the wall-mounted instrument panel tingling too.
Q narrowed his eyes a little. Joe was walking side-by-side with Orszag, long legs making slow strides along the corridor, but he was on the opposite side from the instrument panel. Well. That was a quick fix. Q twitched his fingers and the panel was immediately on the other wall -- the one closest to Joe.
He smiled and leaned back on his heels, waiting.
"Are we eating in the mess hall?"
This was going to be fun. It was too bad his friend, Q, wasn't around to watch. Maybe later he could bring Q by and they could find a little alcove somewhere to watch it all from. The Ambassador and his companions were closer now, nearly close enough to see him standing there around the corner.
"I think Captain Obama has a table prepared in his quarters--"
Just… a couple more steps…
"Nonsense, I'd like to eat with the rest of the crew--"
Q's fingertips flared.
---
On the bridge, a small alarm buzzed. From his spot, standing in front of the view screen, the sound was quiet in Rahm's ear. He frowned and looked over his shoulder, the middle of his sentence trailing off. Fuck it. The officer at the engineering panel was tapping quickly, eyes narrowed at the readout. On the view screen, Ambassador Biden's Chief of Staff asked, voice suddenly hot, if the transport had gone all right.
"It went fine," Rahm said, flatly. "This is probably something minor."
The engineer glanced up at him and he murmured something to the Chief of Staff, motioning for the view screen to be put on mute as he walked over to see what was going on. He put his hands on his hips and listened for about ten seconds before shutting his eyes. It hadn't even been ten minutes, damn it!
"But, sir, these readouts -- they don't make sense. There was an explosion and the explosion was contained and I'm getting reports that no one was injured, but the readouts -- they're telling me the instrument panel was on the wrong side of the wall. There is a panel in that hallway, but across from where--"
"You said no one was hurt?" Rahm asked.
On the view screen the Chief of Staff was looking a little distressed. Behind him, the Ambassador's staff ran across the office, making it one of the busiest Rahm could remember seeing outside an election season. Apparently, Joey was set on today being nothing more than old friends catching up.
"No. Apparently a Captain pushed Ambassador Biden out of the way before he could be hurt."
"…Captain Obama is down by the transporters?" Rahm held his hand up and an ensign turned off the view screen, switching the Chief of Staff to someone's station for an explanation. The engineer moved over and Rahm gripped the top of the panel, leaning over it to get a better look.
"Computer!" he called, frowning. "Where is Captain Obama?"
The computer's feminine voice read out: "Captain Obama is in his quarters on a private call."
"Sir," the engineer said, pulling his hands back from the panel. "It -- Lieutenant Commander Orszag reported that the man who pushed Ambassador Biden out of the way has Captain's stripes on. And it's still telling me the instrument panel is on the wrong side of the hallway. The diagnostic engineering sent me is all messed up, I need to run it again--"
Rahm leaned back and pressed a finger to his lips. "No."
"…Sir?"
"Lieutenant Sutphen, you have the bridge."
"Yessir."
In the turbo elevator, Rahm leaned against the wall and glared at the carpet. If Barack hadn't programmed the computer to chide him for cursing -- he still hadn't figured out how the man had managed that -- he would've done more than just grip the railing hard enough to make his hands hurt. In a moment he was on the proper deck and he turned sideways to get through the doors before they'd opened all the way.
Not on his ship, damn it.
---
In the background, Orszag and the Ambassador's aides still looked dazed. Orszag was talking animatedly to someone in security yellow, not nearly as nice a color as Q's command red. Q was grinning, his teeth resting lightly on his lower lip. This had worked out quite nicely. Quite nicely indeed. (Too bad Q wasn't there to share.)
Joe had his arm around Q. It was an interesting sensation, being touched. He could never get used to it -- something so solid and small and limited, not nearly as all-encompassing as touching another Q -- but still… it held its own power. Unfortunately most of his experiences with it were various Hope officers pushing him away or pulling him back from something or slapping his hands like a child so he wouldn't touch the instrument panels. As if he needed to touch the instrument panels.
"You are a bright young man, Mister… What did you say your name was again?" Joe frowned at him a little, the first time in three minutes anything except a smile had been on his face.
Q panicked, a little, and cast his mind through the ship's computer (it was like running ball bearings over his palm, if he absolutely had to compare it to something) until he landed on a name that sounded good… and a beat later a last name that sounded just as good.
"Stephen Colbert!" he said, letting the t fall softly.
Joe clapped him on the back and he stumbled slightly, his grin growing a few watts. Q was going to hate himself for not being here to watch it happen the first time around. Stephen Colbert! It rolled off the tongue. Maybe it could use something in the middle? Stephen Q. Colbert -- Stephen T. Colbert! To make up for the silent t! He could work out what it meant later. Now, there was more important business to attend to.
"That was some quick thinking, Stephen," Joe said.
The instrument panel was mostly intact after what Q -- what Stephen had done to it. A shower of blue and purple sparks, to match Joe's robes, that had looked more impressive than the damage they accompanied. A gaping hole and some twisting wires that kept getting weird looks from the engineers who'd run down the hallway after the explosion.
Not nearly as fast as Stephen had run, but that was sort of the point.
He tossed his arm around the man's shoulders, to reciprocate, and continued to ignore the looks on the aides' faces. "Can I call you Joey?"
The man burst out laughing, giving Stephen's shoulder a tight squeeze that made him fairly bounce on the balls of his feet. What hair the man had was stark white, not the same silvery shade as the streaks running through Q's hair, but charming in its own way.
"I kept telling my boys, the transporter's the fun part, if anything goes wrong it's not going to be that," Joey said. "And even when something did go wrong, here was a fantastic officer to the rescue!"
"I am pretty amazing," Stephen drawled, pleased to have found a mortal who got him. An it-getter.
While the instrument panel had been sending everyone to their knees, he'd dashed forward and caught onto the Ambassador's arms. They'd been stronger than he'd thought they would be, hidden underneath the wide sleeves of his robe.
Joey laughed, ducking his head, and over the top of his shoulders Stephen saw a glimpse of red. Now the games were getting started! He stood still and let his grin melt into a smirk as the rest of the people in the hallway jumped aside to let through First Officer Rahm Emanuel, not a man to be messed with.
Unless you knew what you were doing.
"You," he snapped, storming straight past them.
Stephen nodded at a confused Joey before slipping away from him and trotting down the hall after Rahm. The man darted left sharply, the doors staying open until after Stephen had ducked into the room behind him. He smiled when Rahm spun around and planted his hands on his hips, scowling at him. Rahm's hair was graying, too, and he wondered if Q had taken inspiration from it for his own. He was startled to feel a little twinge at that thought.
The room was wide, with a long table in the middle and a dozen chairs surrounding it. Stephen swept his eyes around it in a second, letting them rest on Rahm when he was done. The man did look pissed. Stephen smiled and ducked his head a little, his glasses shifting on his face. Spending so much time in this plane was making him ache, just a bit. To stop at someone's edges instead of pass straight through them, be complete with them -- how did these people stand it?
Though it did explain a lot.
---
"Q--" Rahm started.
The Q fiddled with the pins on his collar, and a sour taste crept over Rahm's tongue. Q was wearing a captain's uniform, Barack's uniform, a uniform people sweated and cried and bled to get and what had he done for it? Fucking nothing!
Dark eyes flickered in his direction. "I'm trying Stephen Colbert out for a while."
Rahm opened and shut his mouth a few times before shutting his eyes and drawing in a low breath. At this point, he couldn't really be surprised. At least he hadn't adopted 'Rahm Obama' or 'Barack Emanuel' or something.
"What are you doing here?" he snapped.
Stephen smiled, slowly, the edges of his mouth creeping up. He threw both his hands into the air and beamed, rocking forward on his toes. "I have come once more to extend a hand in friendship. Feel honored, human. I'm confident that this time, you'll come to your senses and accept the inevitable: no one can resist me."
Rahm groaned and rubbed his hand over his face. "Where is Q?" he demanded, voice low.
How had he known? How had he known? This was absolutely the last thing they needed, shit, like they didn't have a dozen other things to do just in the next hour. A day Barack was taking half-off to meet with Joe, and it was busier than any of their others just to make room. Q just had to show up today -- he must have some kind of radar to know when Rahm absolutely did not have time to fuck with him.
Stephen blinked and cocked a dark, disdainful eyebrow. "I'm sure I don't know who you're talking about."
"Your better half, knucklefuck. Where is he?"
Crossing his arms over his chest, Stephen puffed himself up. "Q is busy with matters far beyond your comprehension, mortal," he sniffed. Rahm's eyes flickered and Stephen rocked onto his toes, a small smirk spreading over his face. "But if you had some crayons and paper maybe I could try to--"
A wide-eyed look flashed over the First Officer's face, quickly followed by a sharp slice of a smile. "You don't know where he is, do you?"
"Q have better things to do than monitor each other--" Stephen started.
"Did he get tired of you?"
Stephen's face flushed as red as his counterfeit uniform and for a second his eyes looked black. Rahm wet his lips and stepped forward, half-expecting Stephen to back up. But the Q didn't move. Rahm tilted his chin up until he was looking straight into Stephen's eyes. If he squinted he thought he could see Stephen shake a bit, but that might've been wishful thinking on his part.
"If you can't even get him to stick around?" he murmured. That time, there was a visible quiver. Stephen's fists clenched at his sides and the Q inclined his head slightly, hissing a breath out through parted lips.
"If you can't even get him to put up with you," Rahm said, "what the fuck makes you think I'll do it?"
He had only opened his mouth when Rahm stepped closer, forcing him back. Stephen's shoulders hit the wall and Rahm just barely kept himself from latching onto the front of the counterfeit uniform.
"Get off my ship," he hissed, feeling a low heat come over him. Stephen pressed flat against the wall and opened his mouth, but Rahm plowed on, ignorant as always of how startling it was that anyone (besides his dear friend, Q) could get the Q to shut up. "Get off my ship and get out of my Captain's uniform!"
"I--"
Snapping his eyes and his attention away in one movement, Rahm blasted out the door and back into the corridor. The doors came shut behind him and didn't open again -- and the hallway didn't sprout any imposter captains in the time it took him to get back down to Joe and the engineers, freaking out now that the instrument panel had switched back to its proper wall. Repaired and everything. Orszag had moved Joe and the aides down past it and they didn't seem to have noticed yet.
For a second Rahm stood watching his old friend, breathing and piecing himself back together. If he'd made the impression he'd been going for, they wouldn't be seeing Stephen -- Q -- for a while.
He reached up to swing his arm around Joe's shoulders as he strode up to him. The older man's face lit up and he reached down to reciprocate. "Rahm!"
Rahm smiled even as the assorted crew members blinked, looking back and forth between them. But Rahm was used to it -- a grin a light-year wide breaking out on Joe's face. Most people didn't expect it from someone with so distinctive a Klingon forehead, but only one of Joe's grandparents was Klingon, and his overwhelming Betazoid heritage contributed a lot more to his temperament.
A visit from Joe was just what he needed right then.
"Let's get lunch," Rahm said, nudging him down the hall and away from the instrument channel. "We've made Barack wait long enough."
---
Back in the room, molecules disappeared and mutated and reversed their orbits around the motionless human body of the Q calling himself Stephen. Galaxies spun into oblivion within the black depths lurking in human-shaped eyes.
"Tired of me? Any Q would be grateful for the chance to spend time in my presence," Stephen said darkly, narrowing his eyes. "Any human--Any mortal would beg for the privilege of my attention! How dare he? How dare he!"
Stalking further into the room, he whirled around to face the door. With his entire being he sneered at the tiny, insignificant, rude, elitist speck that had spurned him. Elsewhere on the ship, a crewman tried to figure out why the computer was reporting a slight drop in temperature seemingly localized around First Officer Emanuel.
"Put up with me?" he demanded of the universe, and the universe stood up to take notice. As it should. As it damn well should. "Let's see you put up with this!"
Intent flowed and pulsed around him, grabbing reality and wrestling it into submission. His merest thought became the delicate tool of a master craftsman, reshaping the world as he saw fit. Personal histories unfurled behind the sudden existence of lives that had once been drastically different or sometimes nonexistent. Memories shifted to fit the new space, because a dimension wasn't any good if no one thought they belonged there. Some thoughts he had to force into place, some minds stubborn and less willing to conform -- but he got them in line. The Hope slipped away and piled back into a new shape, the crew falling down into a city around it.
One by one, things fell into place.
And at the center of it all, he built his stage, his headquarters from which to wage war against the ungrateful human who had not just spurned his advances but thrown them back in his face.
"Pay-back's a bitch!"
The audience cheered as the graphic swooped in and the words appeared next to him. Gesturing with a pen toward the words beside him on the screen, Stephen beamed out at them. They showed proper appreciation. They hung on his every word. They loved him, adored him, would do anything he told them to.
His loyal followers. His...Nation. Yes, he liked the sound of that.
"Now some may say 'forgive and forget', but I say: those people are quitters!"
- Also, Resting On Seventh Day For Slackers.
- Not As Good Reheated.
- Not As Kinky As It Sounds.
- Really. Not As Kinky As It Sounds.
"Because they deserve to squirm, dammit! They deserve to have everything they know and rely on turned upside down for--No, not just spurning you, but for making it personal. For ripping your heart out and stomping on it and spitting on the bleeding remains! And for what?! Because you wanted to hang out? Because you wanted to be friends?"
There was a collective "aw" of sympathy as he turned to the side, fist in front of his mouth and his eyes focused somewhere off into the distance.
- He's Just Not That Into You.
"So until I get an apology, Operation Mindfuck is on!"
The audience went wild as he pointed emphatically.
- Payback, Bitch.
---
A gasp shook Rahm and he was aware of stifling heat and darkness cut through with slanting, orange-gold rays of light. He breathed in without knowing why, his hands flailing out and a shudder wracking through him when he couldn't move his elbows. Only kicking himself in the leg managed to make his eyes focus, managed to give edges to everything he was seeing.
Humming in the background let him know the engines were running fine… The… He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed a hand over his forehead. The engines… of the air conditioning? They seemed quieter than he remembered. He winced and dug his elbows into the mattress, pushing himself up until he could get a look at the heavy covers trapping his arms to his sides and his legs together. Somehow he had managed not to wake up Amy, but that might've been helped by the fact that she'd fallen asleep with her head under the pillow again. He winced and carefully inched away from her, trying not to affect her side of the mattress.
A sour, fuzzy taste coated his tongue and made him sneer. Fuck waking up. It'd been like the first time he'd ever seen the room before. Not like he hadn't… lived here for the past… two years. An apartment not too far from Pennsylvania Avenue. Beige walls and rooms assembled straight out of a catalogue. Shit, had he taken a sleeping pill last night?
That would account for the dreams, at least. What the hell had he been doing, dreaming about that Comedy Central knucklefuck? It wasn't like he ever caught the show unless it was forced on him, always popping up on random televisions when he absolutely did not have the time to watch Mr. Stephen Tiberius Colbert use his timeslot like a mirror. Some intern must have had the show playing in the background last night, before his deputies had finally turned off the lights in his office and told him to go home already, get at least an hour of sleep.
Rahm shuddered again and engaged in a brief battle with his cotton prison, wriggling against the blankets to untangle his legs and trying to do it all without waking his wife. Still breathing hard, he sat straight up and surveyed the room. According to his clock, it was barely oh-six-hundred … six A.M. Shit. He needed to get out of there, get to work, before someone woke Barack.
…To the White House. Right. Where he worked. Rahm Motherfucking Emanuel, Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama, thank you very fucking much, don't let the door hit you on the way out.
He brushed his teeth and took an abbreviated shower (damn if water didn't seem inefficient, somehow) and crept over to his closet, quietly prying the door open. Images were floating back to him, and that didn't make sense. Wasn't it supposed to be hard to remember dreams? Here he was, trying to forget, and he couldn't get that damn idiot's voice out of his head, running in an ominous, echoing loop.
Like he'd known someone in the West Wing would have him on, like he'd known Rahm would be standing in just the right place to look up and see Colbert fucking staring him down. All he'd done was refuse to go on the man's show, like he'd refused scores of other requests -- he didn't have the time or patience to waste on the man. Who did Colbert think he was, reacting like that? Demanding an apology.
As if the television host would ever have the reach or power to pull off something like Operation Mindfuck.
Halfway through putting his suit on, Rahm realized he'd expected it to be some kind of uniform.
The day was not getting off to a good start.
Chapter Two