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olaf47Title: and maybe a little with her
Fandom/Pairing: The West Wing, CJ/Toby
Spoilers: Season 3
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: The characters are not mine. The words are.
He’s really not always miserable.
He’s been known to smile. He smiled more during the campaign, when Josh and Sam and C.J. were brought in and they were doing something good and simple. Back then they weren’t so worried about making sure they said things that were “good enough” but wouldn’t offend anyone. Instead they said things that were right, straight up. They never expected to win because they never bothered to pander to people or even groups of people. He liked that.
But he still smiles. He still laughs even, though not as much as when C.J. threw the basketball through a glass window. He smiles at Thanksgivings with the guys and C.J. and football about which no one really cares. He laughs at Josh explaining the football game to her, when it’s clear he knows almost as little as she does. He smiles when he gets a man a wheelchair. He smiles when they do the good things.
He’s fallen in love in this job: with the President, with accomplishing things, with amazing writing—well, he’s always been in love with that—and maybe a little with her. She’s too tall for him and too gorgeous and apparently she’s good in bed—that story made him laugh too. While she says she’s good in bed and she probably is, he doesn’t believe she knows it. Because she’s strong and beautiful but underneath her thick press secretary skin is a lack of self-confidence. She’s scared. She’s scared of every false step, every time she misspeaks. She can change how people view the White House with one sentence, with one word. It’s a lot of responsibility. At least he has time in a room, throwing a ball against the wall, to work things out. She does it on the fly.
He’s in awe of her for that. She really is amazing. And maybe he’s fallen in love with her. Because sometimes she makes him feel like he’s fourteen years old again, butterflies in his stomach as he tries to talk to Erica Lang. Because sometimes she says things like, “You want to make out with me right now, don’t you?” and he replies, “When do I not?” and it doesn’t feel like a joke or a lie.
----
Then one night she kisses him. It’s after a win on a bill for children’s health care and she’s a little too drunk. Everyone had gone to his place for a drink afterward but she’s the only one left. She’s giggly and still riding the high of the day.
“God, Toby, I could just kiss you right now.”
“Why don’t you?” he replies passively.
He’s watching highlights of the Yankees game and doesn’t realize she’s moved across the room until the weight shifts on the couch. He turns slightly and her lips hit his. It’s a little sloppy—she caught him on the corner of his mouth—but she kisses him hard, no tongue, and his pulse skyrockets. She pulls away and lays back on the couch, smiling at him, that big C.J. grin she gets sometimes. He looks at her sideways for a little while, but she just smiles so eventually he turns his attention back to the TV.
That Monday she pretends she was so drunk she doesn’t remember, says it had been a long week and a long day and she had a little too much to drink. But he knows she remembers. He knows she does by the way she pushes her hair behind her ear nervously when she asks, “I didn’t do anything stupid Friday night, did I?”
He shakes his head. “Not at all.”
They look at each other and he doesn’t know what he’s trying to tell her but he’s pretty sure it’s something. When she looks away he’s not sure she understands. He’s not sure he understands.
-----
A couple of months later and she’s at his place again, lamenting the loss of funding on their education bill. She sits too close to him and their knees bounce off of each other. He lets her lean into him lightly and his hand brushes hers. Every gentle contact leads to more. And suddenly it turns into the first time they have sex.
They both pretend they’re too drunk to stop themselves. He’s not sure how they can consider themselves adults if they have to pretend their way into sex, but when she’s moaning his name, he doesn’t really care. She shudders beneath him and he stills inside her and they are complete.
----
After the first morning, when he wakes to her gathering her clothes and they simply stare awkwardly, they avoid each other for a while. But they come back. It’s not the same but at least they’re speaking again.
At the end of one day, it’s finally too much; he’s finally had it with walking on tiptoes and avoiding eye contact. So he closes her door and catches her around the waist and kisses her before she realizes what’s happening. She finally pulls away, startled but having kissed back, and he lets his arm fall back to his side.
“I’m not drunk this time.”
She kisses him again. He’s pretty sure it’s simply because she doesn’t know what to say.
So they don’t say anything. They leave and she follows him to his place and it becomes the second time they have sex. There are no words. Toby never expected to find anything he could do without words. But this he can do. This he has always been able to do. Because everything between them started as looking a little too long with a little too much behind their eyes. Because one look at her and he can tell how she’s feeling, even if her words say she’s fine. Because somehow they read each other without words.
When he’s with her, he forgets his words. All there is is being wrapped around her, skin damp with sweat, limbs entangled. She smells of baby oil and roses. He realizes that it opposes his smell entirely. Everything about him is made of coffee and cigars and some kind of alcohol.
She shakes her head imperceptibly when he mentions this. Maybe they don’t need words, but she thinks he tastes of them, of words and vowels, of blank pages and blinking cursors.
----
She likes to hear him write. At his best, at his absolute best, he paces and mutters to himself. She has become his captive audience. She’ll sit anywhere, on a barstool as he plays pool, on the couch in his office, her office, one of their apartments, and listen to him as he rolls the words around on his tongue. She wonders if they taste like the whiskey in the glass on the bar, desk, bedside table.
He paces and mutters and, when he’s thinking hard, he chews on his bottom lip. The same bottom lip she knows to bite if she needs him immediately, right then, at that moment. When she does it, he’ll drop whatever he’s doing. He can be writing the State of the Union and he’ll stop. He’ll put down his pen and paper and whiskey and follow her to the bedroom. He won’t be able to keep his hands off of her. As soon as her teeth close around that bottom lip, he’s lost.
Honestly, he’s lost long before that. They both were lost long before that, but when she bites his lip is the only time they’ll admit it.
Fandom/Pairing: The West Wing, CJ/Toby
Spoilers: Season 3
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: The characters are not mine. The words are.
He’s really not always miserable.
He’s been known to smile. He smiled more during the campaign, when Josh and Sam and C.J. were brought in and they were doing something good and simple. Back then they weren’t so worried about making sure they said things that were “good enough” but wouldn’t offend anyone. Instead they said things that were right, straight up. They never expected to win because they never bothered to pander to people or even groups of people. He liked that.
But he still smiles. He still laughs even, though not as much as when C.J. threw the basketball through a glass window. He smiles at Thanksgivings with the guys and C.J. and football about which no one really cares. He laughs at Josh explaining the football game to her, when it’s clear he knows almost as little as she does. He smiles when he gets a man a wheelchair. He smiles when they do the good things.
He’s fallen in love in this job: with the President, with accomplishing things, with amazing writing—well, he’s always been in love with that—and maybe a little with her. She’s too tall for him and too gorgeous and apparently she’s good in bed—that story made him laugh too. While she says she’s good in bed and she probably is, he doesn’t believe she knows it. Because she’s strong and beautiful but underneath her thick press secretary skin is a lack of self-confidence. She’s scared. She’s scared of every false step, every time she misspeaks. She can change how people view the White House with one sentence, with one word. It’s a lot of responsibility. At least he has time in a room, throwing a ball against the wall, to work things out. She does it on the fly.
He’s in awe of her for that. She really is amazing. And maybe he’s fallen in love with her. Because sometimes she makes him feel like he’s fourteen years old again, butterflies in his stomach as he tries to talk to Erica Lang. Because sometimes she says things like, “You want to make out with me right now, don’t you?” and he replies, “When do I not?” and it doesn’t feel like a joke or a lie.
----
Then one night she kisses him. It’s after a win on a bill for children’s health care and she’s a little too drunk. Everyone had gone to his place for a drink afterward but she’s the only one left. She’s giggly and still riding the high of the day.
“God, Toby, I could just kiss you right now.”
“Why don’t you?” he replies passively.
He’s watching highlights of the Yankees game and doesn’t realize she’s moved across the room until the weight shifts on the couch. He turns slightly and her lips hit his. It’s a little sloppy—she caught him on the corner of his mouth—but she kisses him hard, no tongue, and his pulse skyrockets. She pulls away and lays back on the couch, smiling at him, that big C.J. grin she gets sometimes. He looks at her sideways for a little while, but she just smiles so eventually he turns his attention back to the TV.
That Monday she pretends she was so drunk she doesn’t remember, says it had been a long week and a long day and she had a little too much to drink. But he knows she remembers. He knows she does by the way she pushes her hair behind her ear nervously when she asks, “I didn’t do anything stupid Friday night, did I?”
He shakes his head. “Not at all.”
They look at each other and he doesn’t know what he’s trying to tell her but he’s pretty sure it’s something. When she looks away he’s not sure she understands. He’s not sure he understands.
-----
A couple of months later and she’s at his place again, lamenting the loss of funding on their education bill. She sits too close to him and their knees bounce off of each other. He lets her lean into him lightly and his hand brushes hers. Every gentle contact leads to more. And suddenly it turns into the first time they have sex.
They both pretend they’re too drunk to stop themselves. He’s not sure how they can consider themselves adults if they have to pretend their way into sex, but when she’s moaning his name, he doesn’t really care. She shudders beneath him and he stills inside her and they are complete.
----
After the first morning, when he wakes to her gathering her clothes and they simply stare awkwardly, they avoid each other for a while. But they come back. It’s not the same but at least they’re speaking again.
At the end of one day, it’s finally too much; he’s finally had it with walking on tiptoes and avoiding eye contact. So he closes her door and catches her around the waist and kisses her before she realizes what’s happening. She finally pulls away, startled but having kissed back, and he lets his arm fall back to his side.
“I’m not drunk this time.”
She kisses him again. He’s pretty sure it’s simply because she doesn’t know what to say.
So they don’t say anything. They leave and she follows him to his place and it becomes the second time they have sex. There are no words. Toby never expected to find anything he could do without words. But this he can do. This he has always been able to do. Because everything between them started as looking a little too long with a little too much behind their eyes. Because one look at her and he can tell how she’s feeling, even if her words say she’s fine. Because somehow they read each other without words.
When he’s with her, he forgets his words. All there is is being wrapped around her, skin damp with sweat, limbs entangled. She smells of baby oil and roses. He realizes that it opposes his smell entirely. Everything about him is made of coffee and cigars and some kind of alcohol.
She shakes her head imperceptibly when he mentions this. Maybe they don’t need words, but she thinks he tastes of them, of words and vowels, of blank pages and blinking cursors.
----
She likes to hear him write. At his best, at his absolute best, he paces and mutters to himself. She has become his captive audience. She’ll sit anywhere, on a barstool as he plays pool, on the couch in his office, her office, one of their apartments, and listen to him as he rolls the words around on his tongue. She wonders if they taste like the whiskey in the glass on the bar, desk, bedside table.
He paces and mutters and, when he’s thinking hard, he chews on his bottom lip. The same bottom lip she knows to bite if she needs him immediately, right then, at that moment. When she does it, he’ll drop whatever he’s doing. He can be writing the State of the Union and he’ll stop. He’ll put down his pen and paper and whiskey and follow her to the bedroom. He won’t be able to keep his hands off of her. As soon as her teeth close around that bottom lip, he’s lost.
Honestly, he’s lost long before that. They both were lost long before that, but when she bites his lip is the only time they’ll admit it.
