WAGNER 2024

Julian's own pick. It had been a slow and painful process, but he'd gotten it done. "I'm sure you have," he adds, sincerely. It's the way it goes; neither party nor its followers reinventing the election wheel, but rather loyally following how it's been crafted to spin.

Then, he laughs, "Of all things I've aspired to be in my career, I confess I never saw 'The Antichrist' coming." It all tracks back to one thing: her voters. "You've built quite a following." Credit where it's due. "As for my following, they see you as the reinvention of conservative America." In a comedic move, Julian holds his wine glass a little closer to her — microphone style. "Any comments?"

On the grand stage, they're enemies - they come to blows and tear each other apart. And while people tend to think of her as less than human (an amusing thing, that), she still does have a sense of humor.

"I would say, Mr. Berkeley, that conservative America is exactly where we should be, and if I am the one to usher in the new traditional aspect of its future - Then, I gladly accept that role."

She leans back with a smile, "But really - it does feel sometimes as though it's a ridiculous popularity contest." And according to the polls, Julian is winning. "These.. videos the young folk have made of us, I don't quite understand them, but it's sparked conversation." She's out of touch, true, but she does find them amusing.

They should keep their encounters to debates and formalities alone. But they don't.

He laughs, "So I'm not the only one?", falsely coy. As much as his supporters will stand up to her, Joyce's voters are eager to give him a piece of her mind. "Yes, it's—" Julian turns the bottle on its axis, following the writing on the label. "Japanese whiskey. A gift from a diplomat friend of mine." He motions to the seat on his right — ha —, as if to offer it for Joyce to take. "I heard your Veep has three heads, no heart, and eats babies for breakfast. Am I any close?"

Joyce is certainly not at all surprised he's dealt with similar issues from her side of the aisle. "Definitely not." Civility is mandatory, here. His colgate smile compared to her thin, pursed one would set them apart alone.

Her attention turns to the bottle and her eyebrows raise for a brief moment before she takes the seat offered to her. What would the papers say if they were to capture a photo right now? Surely something they could both spin for the votes.

"Close." Amused, then. "Two heads and children, not babies." Her smile slips again. "Hilariously, I've heard similar stories about your pick." She sips her wine. "The rumors my voters like to spread - As if voting for you would lead them down the path of true destruction and the death of religion itself."

He was so wrapped up in his own thoughts he didn’t notice the Senator until she spoke. He quickly composed himself, thanking the bartender for his drink before turning his attention to Joyce.

“Not as much as I would be enjoying a drink at home,” he answered honestly. Rowan knew his ineptitude at small talk around a fancy dinner table with overly expensive food and wine and lack of enthusiasm for social gatherings in general wasn’t a secret hidden from anyone in NYC and he was certain even Joyce knew of it.

“It’s good to see you, Senator,” he then added courteously. “Are you having a pleasant evening? Aside from the staring, of course. Both you and I should be used to that by now.”

That will come on the morrow.

"A pleasure to see you, as well, sir." A smile, there. If she knew how to make it soft, she would. Instead, it pulls taut and thin over her teeth. Much more pinched than amused. "I'm very used to it. Used to much more. The opposition's supporters are rather loud in their distaste, but it's no matter to me."

Hers are even louder. More.. violent, in some cases. She's used to manipulating that to her advantage when need be.

It's their specialty, after all.

"Sounds like a scandal." They both know he'd never touch that with a ten foot pole. "What's his name? I'd love to get some pointers from him." Weddings are good for elections, Bob had said.

A fun tennis match, of sorts.

"For marriage? Oh, dear, I believe that ship has sailed." She smiles into her wine glass while she sips, maintaining eye contact. "Topher Mayes, though, if you'd like to give him a call." A man who works with her husband at Kirkland & Ellis, recently married, a bit of a playboy.

"Congratulations on your new football."

Emilio knows what those sound like, spoken from his or Halliday’s mouths, often.

Of course he is trying to help — maybe it’s not condescendingly polite, but Emilio reads it as a careful manoeuvre. The prickle that crawls along his shoulders is shrugged off quickly, before it’s allowed to land a bite.

Ahem. “Of course.” Just agree. It’s better this way. “I look forward to hearing those ideas,” Carrasco is so close to adding: If elected. But he stops himself from being a twenty-five year old cop with a reckless mouth at the very last moment. The smile creeps up: “— everyone must start somewhere.”

They both know that. And Emilio’s polite demeanour only suggests he’s not beneath smaller changes and tweaks in an age old system. If it paves roads for the larger, more substantial changes, then he’d be the first to grab a shovel and dig. Dirty hands, in a way more physically labouring than he imagines anyone like Joyce would have; it’s a different kind of dirt that coats hers.

But he does remember the last conversation he had with Berkeley — and wonders if that smile she’s wearing suggests she has visions of it too. If birds travelled between them like gossiping parrots. Playful then — “If Halliday hasn’t already beaten me to him, I’ll be sure to do that.” He wouldn’t. Even if — by Wagner’s inference — only one of the presidential candidates has a heart.

Still, though, she doesn't mind tiptoeing and reading the party line. This auction and event is not to garner sympathy, but to raise money. Once chosen by the RNC, she'll gladly slip money into hands, favors into back pockets.

Here, though, she simply smiles. "Correct. No matter how small, there is a starting line for everyone. Regardless, I look forward to seeing more of you both over the coming months. Halliday will be a wonderful conversationalist, I'm sure."

"Of all things, Senator," he says, "I hope being a 'perfect father' isn't just an image." And a quiet admission, that all other things might just be.

Not that it's any news to her. Presidential candidates are chameleons.

Such is politics.

"How do yours feel about your run?"

"Excited, hopeful." Her daughter has been the most vocal, surprisingly, and she knows it's weighing heavily on her. "Looking forward to conferring with you and yours, I hear. They seem to be quite keen on looking into your campaign."

Who: @joycewagner

Spending a majority of the event away from Joyce Wagner had been planned. Just about everything about how Archer moved through these events was planned with a team long before the first table was set. Because that was part of the job. "Senator Wagner." He greeted politely, because she wasn't alone. She was never alone at these types of things but there were currently people in the small group that did not need to hear sensitive things. "I'm sorry it took me this long to come over and say hello. How are you and the family finding the day so far?" He gave a relaxed, pleasant smile making sure she was enough in the foreground that he didn't look like he was looming or being conspiratorial. Ever careful of the optics and comfortable in his professional skin.

He smiles, "Yeah, I have enough back-pockets to last the whole party." If one could even call something as cancerous as this, something as riveting as that.

"Talking is half of what I do. The rest is tax evasion and golfing, if you could believe that." Beat, then — that boyish smile, and a wink, "Joking, of course. There's no golfing."

(There's. So. Much. Golfing.)

"Anyone in particular you want me to schmooze?"

But god - Her laugh is almost a bark of one, but she pulls back into something more fitting for the circumstance, more polite. "If there's no golfing, please do not let my husband rope you into that hellscape." She's been a total of two times and each time, she sat in the cart drinking a mimosa and waiting for the rest of the men to finish discussing their stocks.

"I hear it might be good to keep an eye on the crisis managers and the officers of the law. It doesn't hurt to have either on call."

His brows quirk in confusion, and that smile widens. There are two choices in this moment, read between a million lines, or lean into it. "Why? You trying to set me up?"

"I doubt you'd enjoy any of my recommendations, and perhaps my largest one is already quite happily married to his husband." It could be any number of people, but she allows his imagination to run with that one.

Joyce nods, though, as she listens to Eva. It's a personal opinion - just as she asked - but it's still vague. Which is to be expected. After all, she's not sitting down in a conference room with the woman - they're just sharing drinks with the backdrop of an auction. "That's what I hear, too."

Her smile is tight, but amused. There's nothing about this year that says she won't have a fight ahead of her. "Interesting, though. I'll have to hear your professional opinion one of these days."

Mutual respect, even if dramatized. Even if easily whisked by the wind.

"Alas, my wife happens to love all art." More than anything, however, what Olivia loves are photo-ops. "My children, however, were very much hoping for Disneyland." Between four and six, Lucas and Camilla enjoyed only the positives of a campaign such as this one. "I'm sure you've once experienced the same, when yours were only a single-digit old."

"You'll have much to look forward to with them over the years, I'm sure. Tears, laughter, frustrations." Despite her misgivings about his politics - "The perfect image of a perfect father suits you."

As Hans walks up to Joyce, there's about ten seconds to decide which face, of all faces, he'll wear today.

Wherever his job is concerned, however, the very same lives on. The snake, the schemer, the cutthroat — asset to his allies, and terror to overlapping enemies.

"Madam Senator," Hans greets her. "You look phenomenal." That All-American, boyish smile bright on display. "Still early to tell, but I already heard some of their appraisals are way inflated. A buddy of mine got an early peek."

Beat.

"I don't have a lot of Democrat clients, but the few I have— I can make something work.”

But then - "Oh? Well isn't that something." Her smile widens ever so slightly. "Keep that in your back pocket. Too early for.. tinkering, you see." She does so love the way her colleagues don't stretch too far from what makes DC truly DC.

"Have you talked to many people here so far, Hans? I seem to be running into all sorts of interesting individuals."

She and Julian really were the rival King and Queen of the political kingdoms.

Emilio's a loyal subject — tonight, especially.

"Mrs. Wagner," He greets. immediately feeling obligated to take the glass she's offering him. Senators could be more dangerous than a criminals, and sometimes — they were one and the same. Emilio's the rougher side of the Halliday-Carrasco ops. Good cop, bad cop — and all those cliches that mean Emilio's still got some sharpening of his public speech skills to do.

He's not sure if he can make an offhanded remark with Joyce, but he does it regardless: "The stats can be found online these days, senator." For the people, Emilio knows. But as for cracking down on it — he's not sure if she's entirely aware of the funding, operations, and shortages of officers in the current climate.

"—And I hope your husband hears all good things in those papers," Emilio dreads to think. He learned to avoid reading the articles in full, unless Halliday drops it on his desk. Which then, he does.

Sipping the drink, he swallows: "Hooliganism, whilst can be criminal, is not everything." A jest, it falls short; he knows it when he's said it. Criminals, is always the word he'll use. But that's probably politically incorrect of him. "I'd like — in the future, to redirect some attentions—" if and when we have the resources. "— to basic living needs. Officers being called out to crimes that could have easily been avoided." It's not a dig, but it is announcing that it's out of his jurisdiction. But it's within Joyce's. "It costs the city countless zeros, it wastes resources and it endangers my officers needlessly. You want the force to cut your crime rate every year, help them out with cleaning up the other flaws in the city."

It comes across sharp, and maybe it is — but, she asked.

Annoyingly — he thinks of Takeda in this moment, because toe to toe with her as of late, happened to be on cases that Emilio knows test the sometimes flawed system Emilio prides on. It isn't an excuse, it never is. But, removing those excuses entirely, that isn't impossible. Homelessness, employment, medical care... the list goes on.

"As you know," An assumption, he doesn't know if she does. "A lot of crime would be eradicated, if those with basic living needs were fulfilled. That's always where I try to start. Prioritise our team. Whilst also—" he laughs, trying to butter instead of slice: "—catching the rest of the hooligans..." Another sip and —

"I wish not to bore you with things, senator. I'm sure you have some brilliant ideas for the city, no?"

Funding, however, is her entire platform. Without correct cuts and allocations, the city will fall into ruin. It has fallen, if rumors and papers are to be believed. Criminals roaming the streets, attacks, protests, suspicious deaths. She sips once more at her glass.

"It's not a bore, Deputy. After all, I did start the conversation, did I not?" She's not here to argue with the man, either. Already, though, she's thinking of prospects to decrease funding to certain departments - libraries aren't exactly thriving these days, are they? And the NYPD has more than enough to allocate into both control and allocating resources properly. A little more to help them with these basic living needs, couldn't hurt. "But I understand your plight. You wish to help, just like the best of us. There's only so much you can do within confines of the law and ahem, monetary support."

She nods, just once. "It's something for me to keep in mind, but - State politics, once I'm elected, will ultimately be up to the state itself." Small federal government, after all. "I have plenty of ideas for the country as a whole, in terms of these flaws. Laws and such that could help endanger your officers less, actually help the people of the city."

She can't help the shark-like smile that slides over her features. "Our lovely governor and mayor should listen to you and take what you say to heart."