November 3rd, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware

The sun was beginning its slow descent, casting a dull orange glow over the rippling waves of the Atlantic. The chill of early November bit gently at their skin, but Joe didn’t seem to notice. His hands, stuffed into the pockets of his windbreaker, tightened into fists as he walked beside his son. The waves washed in and out, a rhythm that had become oddly soothing over the years, like the slow ticking of a clock counting down to an inevitable end.

Hunter walked a step behind his father, his expression unreadable, shoulders slightly hunched against the cold. It had been a while since they had taken a walk together like this, alone, with nothing but the ocean to eavesdrop. Joe cleared his throat, breaking the silence.

“You know,” he began, his voice a low rumble, “I was thinking about that joke you made a while back.”

Hunter glanced sideways, brow furrowing. “Which one?”

“The one about the Supreme Court ruling. About how a sitting president could—what was it?—legally assassinate his political opponents.”

A flicker of a smile, hollow and fleeting, passed over Hunter’s face. “Yeah. Dark humor.”

Joe’s lips tightened. Dark humor. They were steeped in it now, their lives a tangled knot of public scandals and private battles, both constantly bleeding into one another. He kicked a stone from the path as they walked, watching it tumble aimlessly into the sand.

“Thing is,” Joe continued, his voice dropping to a whisper, “sometimes the darkest jokes hold a grain of truth.”

Hunter stopped. The rhythmic crunch of his father’s footsteps slowed before stopping too. Joe didn’t turn around.

“What do you mean by that?” Hunter asked, suspicion tinged with exhaustion.

The wind whistled between them. Joe exhaled, his breath visible in the cooling air. “It’s happening. Right now.”

Hunter blinked. “What is?”

“I’ve ordered the Navy SEALs to breach Mar-a-Lago.” The words left Joe’s mouth with a heavy finality. “Trump’ll be gone in fifteen minutes.”

For a long moment, there was nothing but the rush of the waves crashing onto the shore. Hunter stood frozen, his breath caught in his throat, staring at his father’s back as if waiting for some kind of punchline. But Joe didn’t move, didn’t even turn to face him.

“Dad… what are you talking about?” Hunter’s voice was taut, his disbelief unraveling into something sharper. “You’re joking, right?”

“I’m not,” Joe said, his voice calm but hollow. He turned then, the lines of his face etched deeper by the weight of what he had just confessed. “It had to be done. There wasn’t a choice.”

Hunter shook his head, his voice rising. “You can’t be serious! You—you can’t do that! What the hell are you thinking?”

Joe took a step toward him, his eyes dark with resolve, but beneath it, something else—fear, love, desperation. “Listen to me, son. The militias, the pro-Trump ones, they’ve taken over voting booths in battleground states. It’s chaos out there. Violence is spreading, and it’s not going to stop. Not unless I put an end to it.”

“And you think this will stop it?” Hunter’s voice trembled, a mixture of disbelief and anger. “You think killing him will make things better?”

Joe shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. Maybe not. But it’s not just about stopping the violence. It’s about you.”

Hunter’s eyes widened. “Me?” Joe’s voice softened, breaking under the strain. “If he gets re-elected… they’ll come for you. They already are. The lawsuits, the investigations—they’ll bury you. You won’t get a fair trial, Hunter. Not with him in power.”

Hunter stood there, breathing hard, trying to process the weight of what his father was telling him. The ocean roared behind them, but all he could hear was the blood rushing in his ears.

Joe stepped closer, placing a hand on his son’s shoulder. “I couldn’t stand by and watch that happen. Not to my own son.”

Hunter’s throat tightened, the anger and confusion warring within him. “So, what? You’re willing to destroy democracy? To kill a man—just to save me?”

Joe looked down at the sand, his face crumpling under the weight of it all. “I’ve spent my life fighting for this country. For decency. For democracy. But the truth is… the truth is, none of it mattered in the end. The lobbyists, the corporations, the military—there are forces so much bigger than me, than any president. I thought I could make a difference, but every win, every achievement… it’s been swallowed by the system.”

He paused, his eyes growing distant, as though he could see all the decades of his career playing out before him in a parade of broken promises and hollow victories. He sighed. "I was so young when I was first elected to the Senate. Thirty years old. Full of energy, ambition, thinking I could actually change things. I thought being young meant I’d have the power to outlast the corruption, that I’d be the exception.” His voice cracked with the weight of time. "But they told me, ‘Come back when you're forty, son.’ I was ready to do anything, to get the money I needed… I was ready to prostitute myself to them.”

Joe’s face tightened, his voice filled with bitter laughter. “And I did. I came back, and now here we are. The system got to me, too.”

He looked up at Hunter, his eyes hollowed by decades of compromise. “I may be remembered as the gravedigger of American democracy,” he said, his voice heavy with resignation. “Maybe that’s what I deserve. But at least… at least I’ll have saved you.”

Hunter’s eyes stung, not from the wind but from the unbearable weight of it all. He felt a burning pressure in his chest, something that wasn’t quite anger, wasn’t quite sorrow, but a twisted amalgamation of both. “I didn’t ask for this,” Hunter whispered, his voice hoarse. “I didn’t ask you to do this for me.”

Joe’s hand fell away from his shoulder, and for the first time, Hunter saw his father not as the President, not as the politician, but as a man standing on the edge of his own moral abyss. A man who had made his choice.

And maybe, Hunter thought, they would both fall together.

川粉趣味真低级

我都准备好被骂dem shill结果被当成川粉;)