so we've got less than 24 hours until the polls close on the east coast, and i figured there's no better way to commemorate the occasion than bust out some old west wing josh/sam (and cj/toby) fragments and see what i can pull together.



Rain or Shine


Don't ever bet me, 'cause I'm gonna be true
Well, if you let me


Two weeks before the election.

Sam is too smart to fall in love with Josh, and anyway he's too busy. He's been too busy. He's always been too busy. And also too smart.

He decided this a long time ago. Not right after they first met, when he almost fell in love with Josh by accident, but just as soon as he understood that Josh wasn't the kind of man to fall in love with. And Josh wasn't interested, which made the whole thing simpler.

So he's not in love with Josh and he is still freezing his ass off in New Hampshire again because all of this isn't quite the crap shoot they'd once thought. He doesn't have much time to sleep so it never really matters that it's always alone. Mostly alone. He always feels smart when he doesn't wake up alone.


One week before the election.

There are new kids in the office from Dartmouth, and one, a tall brooding guy named Brad or maybe Chad looks over at Sam like he's done something special. Sam is yelling at Toby, and Toby is yelling at Sam, and Sam is yelling back and everyone else is quiet and a little scared. The thing is Sam's fault and he's an idiot and he won't concede either of those points. Toby knows it, and Brad looks like he thinks the whole exchange has been put on as a personal show.

Later, Sam is writing it again. And again. And Chad, because it turns out his name is Chad, Sam overhears someone call him that, is standing a few feet away and stripping off his clingy sweater because the heater's decided to work for a change. Peeking out from beneath a tight blue short-sleeved shirt is a tattoo that says JOHNNY in curlicue letters.

It turns out it doesn't lick off and Sam congratulates himself on not waking up alone. Chad stays for room service and then puts on his parka and goes back to the office to answer more phones. Sam takes a long, hot shower because when he's clean the day seems shorter.


The day before the election.

There is an asshole with spiky hair and an earring on CNN talking about the youth vote. He is a Republican and Sam is sick of it all, sick of expressionless waiters in photo-op diners and Astroturf carpet in roadside motels.

Josh's door is unlocked and Sam flips on lights as he picks his way around cheap credenzas and ugly comforters. He pushes open the bathroom door and finds CJ in the tub, bubbles slick on her trapeze-length legs.

"Oh, shit," he says, and holds a hand up over his eyes.

"Christ, Sam, you've seen me in the morning before I had coffee, I don't think a few inches of skin and the 99-cent bubble bath I bought in the gift shop are going to come between us now."

Her hair is pinned up with a pencil and she's wearing her glasses. The speech he wrote that morning is laying on the toilet lid. "I was just looking for a razor," he says.

"Big date?"

"Yeah, I've got twenty-five doctors and lawyers waiting for me to tell them how to put labels on door-hangers without screwing up the election."

Her laugh echoes off the shower tile. "You know what I hate? Those kids who stand on streetcorners with Bartlet signs."

"Is that what all that honking is?"

"So I'm told." CJ crosses her ankles above the faucet. "Aren't you going to ask me what I'm doing here?"

"It's a testament to how much I want it to be tomorrow night already that it's barely occurred to me to ask," Sam says.

"Is your bathtub bigger than this?"

Sam tries to remember his hotel room. He's only been back in Nashua since Thursday. "I have a shower."

"We've got sixteen rooms here and this is the only one where I can even sit with my legs stretched out."

"Oh," Sam says. "That's a good reason, actually."

"It's a testament to your continued obstinence that you're still sneaking into Josh's bathroom with lame excuses, you know."

Sam blinks, because it's possible he's so tired he's hearing things. CJ's not laughing, though, just staring at him with one raised eyebrow and a sad, long-suffering smile.

"You better go," she says softly. "I hear these things are won on the basis of door-hanger quality."


Election Day.

"You have confetti in your hair," Josh says, and curls his hand around the back of Sam's neck.


The day after the election.

Sam keeps saying "Mr. President" under his breath and trying not to laugh. They all drank too much Scotch. He wakes up next to CJ on the other bed in Toby's room, but everyone is still clothed so he doesn't think it counts as a scandal. He opens and shuts the door carefully so Josh's arm doesn't get squished.

The office is trashed, too, tacky under fluorescent lights without the hum of phones and printers and a million fires that need fighting. He's taking the train down at noon now that there's nothing else to fix.


Two months after the election.

Josh comes up to the city for New Year's because CJ and Toby are both there, too. It's just the four of them because everything is last-minute, even the Champagne isn't really cold. At midnight they each kiss CJ and she laughs and calls herself the pressroom tart. There's still cheering in the streets when Josh slings an arm around Sam's shoulders and leans in.

"Look what we did," he says, beaming and flushed with rum, and Sam bends in for the hug and hides his face for a minute in Josh's neck where it's warm and smooth.

He's been too busy lately, with finding a place in DC and buying furniture and packing half his suits, going home because California's just been the number fifty-four on a map for so long that his family made him promise two full weeks at Christmas. He's been busy, and there was a guy in Santa Monica with reddish blond curly hair and strong arms, but mostly he's been thinking that he's getting less smart as he gets older.

Josh claps him on the back and walks down the hall to the bathroom. Sam lets his head rest on the couch and blinks, flashing lights fuzzy in the blur of sliding contacts. CJ puts a hand down mid-sentence to ruffle his hair and he smiles up at her. Toby gets everyone a refill.


Twenty minutes after two.

CJ and Toby make excuses not quite befitting their gifts of spin and pile into coats and gloves. Josh leans his head against the window and Sam pours half a drink, looks at Josh’s back, fills the glass. Fills Josh’s, too.

“Look,” Josh says, like a little kid. Sam brings two full glasses over and Josh points out the window. CJ and Toby are kissing under a streetlight, Toby’s hand pulling CJ’s neck down to him, her purse dropped in a pile of dirty snow.

“Yeah,” Sam says, handing Josh the glass.

“They’re happy,” Josh says, wide-eyed.

“Why shouldn’t they be?” Ice slides down Sam's throat, melted by the cool fire of the whiskey.

"Nah, no reason. They deserve it. Somebody should be happy."

"We won. You're happy."

Josh turns away from the window and swallows the rest of his drink.

There are only a few things Sam's ever been sure of about himself. One is that he's smart. He's maybe smart enough to know when Josh is lying to himself.

It's twenty days before the inauguration, three weeks before the real business of governance steals his sleep and sanity and in this last year he's never asked for anything of his own.

Josh stares at Sam like he's waiting for an answer, and Sam kisses him.



END.



Margin of error: I created this file on 11.14.01, so I'd guess nearly everyone I've known since then has seen some version at some point. There's a scene in The War Room where George Stephanopoulos is on the phone with Clinton on election night and he actually giggles in disbelief when he says "Mr. President." My favorite version of "Come Rain or Come Shine" is by Don Henley.