FF: Hide and Seek
Title: Hide and Seek
Author: little-zigzags
Rating: PG13
Pairing: J/D
Spoilers: Takes place during Season 6 and 7 through The Debate.
Summary: He, of course, has been dreaming about her for years.
A/N: Uhh, not sure where this came from. Hope you guys like. Comments are as good as dimples.
Mmm what you say?
Mmm that you only meant well? Well of course you did.
Mmm what you say?
Mmm that it’s all for the best? Of course it is.
Mmm what you say?
Mmm that it’s just what we need? And you decided this.
Mmm what you say?
What did she say?
Imogen Heap, Hide and Seek
She dreams about him now.
Not that she didn’t used to dream about him, but her dreams have always been like her: practical, true to life, almost brutally earnest. Him getting her lunch. Handing some folders over a desk. Reading together. Bantering and arguing and scolding. She could write a novel about her dreams about the daily walk-and-talks. The closest she ever came to scintillating was when he had reached an unprecedented level of Josh-ness and she had dreamt about beating him over the head with the Washington Post.
No one would believe her, but there’s a part of her that’s glad they don’t work together anymore.
Having sex dreams about her boss might have made things awkward.
More awkward, anyway; back then there were too many hand brushes and near-death experiences and heartfelt if abrupt psuedo-declarations to keep them totally at ease. Life with Josh was nervy, kaleidoscopic, hair-on-edge.
But now, now she dreams in the hot end of the spectrum. It’s not like her to feel like this; she’s not about desperate, she doesn’t do heavy breathing or obsession or ridiculous, unsatisfied lust.
She figures it’s her biological clock ticking. She figures it must be eight years of twisted, half-noticed restraint coming to its natural conclusion.
She figures if she actually wanted to have sex with him in the women’s bathroom by the mess, she actually could do it now.
She flushes a little when she sees him; she figures it’s a good thing it’s cold.
Maybe the sudden cold of new Hampshire has addled his brain, but however far-fetched it might seem he’s overcome with the possibility that she might be with Will.
He always has been a little inept about these things. There was a time where he was fairly certain that CJ and Ed were an item.
There’s some rational part of his brain that knows that she wouldn’t jump ship just to sleep with the first gomer that gives her a job. But he’s in the room and all he can see is him on one side and her and Will on the other and really, he’d be a fool not to sleep with her.
Josh is a pro, Josh has been playing the fool for years.
He, of course, has been dreaming about her for years.
And not the innocent kind.
But he doesn’t have much time for dreaming now. His few hours of sleep are usually spent in a coma-esque tangle; he wakes in his clothes.
Joshua, you’re going to strangle yourself with your tie in your sleep. I really don’t want to have to come down to the morgue in the middle of the night for something so stupid. Can you imagine your tombstone? Here lies Joshua Lyman. Cause of death: stupidity.
He thinks about her, though. Thinks about things that never happened; that he will never experience. Her cooking dinner. Brushing her hair. The smell of her cute little winter hats.
Even as he runs himself into the ground, his mind is alive with possibilities. Eight years of caution coming to fruition in his fly-away, over-smart brain. He has to remind himself to be angry at her.
She’s supposed to be angry at him, right?
She supposes she should be, but Donna’s never been able to play the ‘woman wronged’ act for too long. She’s sweet and she’s forgiving. Ardent, her mother used to call her.
She never said anything, but she’s never felt ardent in her life, really. Not enough passion, she thinks. It’s hard to feel passionate in the blue light of a cheap hotel in Iowa, Josh all solemn and pale and awkward like he is, like she remembers him.
The bags under his eyes almost make her nostalgic.
She’s prepared for this. She can do awkward and stilted and painful small talk. They’ve been doing it for years.
What she can’t do is finding him sitting out in the hallway on their second night there, reading some sort of briefing that’s the size of entire ream of paper. She holds some reading of similar heft under her arm; she freezes, blinking in the glare of the lights.
He gives her a feeble grin, toasts her with the reading material. She goes back and forth in her mind, then sits down carefully across from him.
It’s a practice started by the very core of the Bartlet team: her, Toby, Sam, CJ, Josh, even Margaret would take their late night reading out into the hallway and read under the bright lights to keep awake.
She’s done this countless of times with him.
Countless times, on the road, out in the hallway with Josh.
Of course, most of the time they weren’t wearing matching boxer shorts. Most times they were on speaking terms.
Most times she was wearing a bra.
He stretches his legs out and she resists the urge to look at his feet. She doesn’t need his role in her current late night sleep-jaunts taking a fetishist turn. “Read any good books lately?”
He’s needling her and she shuts him up with her usual murderous glare.
She tucks her feet up under her and begins to read.
She wants to believe that this feels like the old days.
She wants to buy him a drink.
He’s sitting at the bar looking like her particular favorite blend of rumpled and pissed off, and she wants to get him his usual loopy brand of one-beer-tipsy and get him to grin at her, just once.
But he’s Josh, he’s Josh and so he’s loud and he’s yelling at the TV and he’s making a bigger scene than a napless two year old in a supermarket.
They talk strategy; she shows off a bit. They do their dance. She wounds him, without really knowing it.
They take each other apart, little by little. They’re all about weakening resolves. Incremental change. Plate tectonics, it’s like that, she’ll think later. Incremental amounts of friction leading to colossal devastation.
She’ll pretend that she’ll never again be the person to hold him together.
She’ll pretend that later, alone in an elevator, she didn’t laugh at his usual inappropriate humor.
Toby said the same thing to them once, when they were going into a hotel room to work on something, she can’t remember, some late night tete-a-tete during re-election, and for a brief flash she had wondered what it would be like to take their feet off the floor.
She had caught him later gazing off into space, the faint pink tinge of his cheeks telling her that he was thinking about it, too.
She wonders if he remembers any of that, now.
She wonders if he knows how ridiculously, exceptionally proud of him she is.
If he’ll ever stop long enough to let her tell him.
She once told him that he was an idiot, that history never repeats itself, not really.
He wants to tell her that this time, they came pretty damn close.
I think I can be good at this. I think you might find me valuable.
I’m good, is the point. I’m as surprised as you are. And rumor has it, you could use a deputy.
It’s the same dance, really. All they’ve ever done is repeat the same lines at each other and hope that they’ll stick.
They came pretty close. The ending though, that ending’s a bit of a twist.
He comes pretty close to strangling Lou.
Nothing out of the ordinary, really. Just a typical day on the Santos campaign.
Plus one.
He’s having trouble recognizing her, these days. She’s still Donna, she’s still her but he’s having trouble keeping up with this new edition, blunt edged bangs and the bringing of the smart and really, when did she get so fucking beautiful ?
He wants to flirt with her, but for the first time in his life, he realizes that she might be out of his league.
He realizes that he has finally gone completely and totally insane.
In a characteristic demonstration of all things idiotic, impromptu, and utterly Josh, he finds himself kissing her full on the mouth after the debate within significant vicinity of Lou, the Congressman, three blessedly unaware news cameras, and a few mortified staffers who approached him with spin.
He’s waiting for her to slap him, but he soon realizes that she may not be totally adverse to the idea of kissing him. He kisses her for as long as he can get away with it, until she pushes him away, face flushed and breath a little ragged.
“Jesus Josh. Could you maybe have picked a time when we’re not, you know, within ten feet of the national news?”
But she’s smiling and he’s smiling and even Lou isn’t looking overly prickly.
She would tell him that he'd gone completely and totally insane long, long ago.
Author: little-zigzags
Rating: PG13
Pairing: J/D
Spoilers: Takes place during Season 6 and 7 through The Debate.
Summary: He, of course, has been dreaming about her for years.
A/N: Uhh, not sure where this came from. Hope you guys like. Comments are as good as dimples.
Mmm what you say?
Mmm that you only meant well? Well of course you did.
Mmm what you say?
Mmm that it’s all for the best? Of course it is.
Mmm what you say?
Mmm that it’s just what we need? And you decided this.
Mmm what you say?
What did she say?
Imogen Heap, Hide and Seek
She dreams about him now.
Not that she didn’t used to dream about him, but her dreams have always been like her: practical, true to life, almost brutally earnest. Him getting her lunch. Handing some folders over a desk. Reading together. Bantering and arguing and scolding. She could write a novel about her dreams about the daily walk-and-talks. The closest she ever came to scintillating was when he had reached an unprecedented level of Josh-ness and she had dreamt about beating him over the head with the Washington Post.
No one would believe her, but there’s a part of her that’s glad they don’t work together anymore.
Having sex dreams about her boss might have made things awkward.
More awkward, anyway; back then there were too many hand brushes and near-death experiences and heartfelt if abrupt psuedo-declarations to keep them totally at ease. Life with Josh was nervy, kaleidoscopic, hair-on-edge.
But now, now she dreams in the hot end of the spectrum. It’s not like her to feel like this; she’s not about desperate, she doesn’t do heavy breathing or obsession or ridiculous, unsatisfied lust.
She figures it’s her biological clock ticking. She figures it must be eight years of twisted, half-noticed restraint coming to its natural conclusion.
She figures if she actually wanted to have sex with him in the women’s bathroom by the mess, she actually could do it now.
She flushes a little when she sees him; she figures it’s a good thing it’s cold.
Maybe the sudden cold of new Hampshire has addled his brain, but however far-fetched it might seem he’s overcome with the possibility that she might be with Will.
He always has been a little inept about these things. There was a time where he was fairly certain that CJ and Ed were an item.
There’s some rational part of his brain that knows that she wouldn’t jump ship just to sleep with the first gomer that gives her a job. But he’s in the room and all he can see is him on one side and her and Will on the other and really, he’d be a fool not to sleep with her.
Josh is a pro, Josh has been playing the fool for years.
He, of course, has been dreaming about her for years.
And not the innocent kind.
But he doesn’t have much time for dreaming now. His few hours of sleep are usually spent in a coma-esque tangle; he wakes in his clothes.
Joshua, you’re going to strangle yourself with your tie in your sleep. I really don’t want to have to come down to the morgue in the middle of the night for something so stupid. Can you imagine your tombstone? Here lies Joshua Lyman. Cause of death: stupidity.
He thinks about her, though. Thinks about things that never happened; that he will never experience. Her cooking dinner. Brushing her hair. The smell of her cute little winter hats.
Even as he runs himself into the ground, his mind is alive with possibilities. Eight years of caution coming to fruition in his fly-away, over-smart brain. He has to remind himself to be angry at her.
She’s supposed to be angry at him, right?
She supposes she should be, but Donna’s never been able to play the ‘woman wronged’ act for too long. She’s sweet and she’s forgiving. Ardent, her mother used to call her.
She never said anything, but she’s never felt ardent in her life, really. Not enough passion, she thinks. It’s hard to feel passionate in the blue light of a cheap hotel in Iowa, Josh all solemn and pale and awkward like he is, like she remembers him.
The bags under his eyes almost make her nostalgic.
She’s prepared for this. She can do awkward and stilted and painful small talk. They’ve been doing it for years.
What she can’t do is finding him sitting out in the hallway on their second night there, reading some sort of briefing that’s the size of entire ream of paper. She holds some reading of similar heft under her arm; she freezes, blinking in the glare of the lights.
He gives her a feeble grin, toasts her with the reading material. She goes back and forth in her mind, then sits down carefully across from him.
It’s a practice started by the very core of the Bartlet team: her, Toby, Sam, CJ, Josh, even Margaret would take their late night reading out into the hallway and read under the bright lights to keep awake.
She’s done this countless of times with him.
Countless times, on the road, out in the hallway with Josh.
Of course, most of the time they weren’t wearing matching boxer shorts. Most times they were on speaking terms.
Most times she was wearing a bra.
He stretches his legs out and she resists the urge to look at his feet. She doesn’t need his role in her current late night sleep-jaunts taking a fetishist turn. “Read any good books lately?”
He’s needling her and she shuts him up with her usual murderous glare.
She tucks her feet up under her and begins to read.
She wants to believe that this feels like the old days.
She wants to buy him a drink.
He’s sitting at the bar looking like her particular favorite blend of rumpled and pissed off, and she wants to get him his usual loopy brand of one-beer-tipsy and get him to grin at her, just once.
But he’s Josh, he’s Josh and so he’s loud and he’s yelling at the TV and he’s making a bigger scene than a napless two year old in a supermarket.
They talk strategy; she shows off a bit. They do their dance. She wounds him, without really knowing it.
They take each other apart, little by little. They’re all about weakening resolves. Incremental change. Plate tectonics, it’s like that, she’ll think later. Incremental amounts of friction leading to colossal devastation.
She’ll pretend that she’ll never again be the person to hold him together.
She’ll pretend that later, alone in an elevator, she didn’t laugh at his usual inappropriate humor.
Toby said the same thing to them once, when they were going into a hotel room to work on something, she can’t remember, some late night tete-a-tete during re-election, and for a brief flash she had wondered what it would be like to take their feet off the floor.
She had caught him later gazing off into space, the faint pink tinge of his cheeks telling her that he was thinking about it, too.
She wonders if he remembers any of that, now.
She wonders if he knows how ridiculously, exceptionally proud of him she is.
If he’ll ever stop long enough to let her tell him.
She once told him that he was an idiot, that history never repeats itself, not really.
He wants to tell her that this time, they came pretty damn close.
I think I can be good at this. I think you might find me valuable.
I’m good, is the point. I’m as surprised as you are. And rumor has it, you could use a deputy.
It’s the same dance, really. All they’ve ever done is repeat the same lines at each other and hope that they’ll stick.
They came pretty close. The ending though, that ending’s a bit of a twist.
He comes pretty close to strangling Lou.
Nothing out of the ordinary, really. Just a typical day on the Santos campaign.
Plus one.
He’s having trouble recognizing her, these days. She’s still Donna, she’s still her but he’s having trouble keeping up with this new edition, blunt edged bangs and the bringing of the smart and really, when did she get so fucking beautiful ?
He wants to flirt with her, but for the first time in his life, he realizes that she might be out of his league.
He realizes that he has finally gone completely and totally insane.
In a characteristic demonstration of all things idiotic, impromptu, and utterly Josh, he finds himself kissing her full on the mouth after the debate within significant vicinity of Lou, the Congressman, three blessedly unaware news cameras, and a few mortified staffers who approached him with spin.
He’s waiting for her to slap him, but he soon realizes that she may not be totally adverse to the idea of kissing him. He kisses her for as long as he can get away with it, until she pushes him away, face flushed and breath a little ragged.
“Jesus Josh. Could you maybe have picked a time when we’re not, you know, within ten feet of the national news?”
But she’s smiling and he’s smiling and even Lou isn’t looking overly prickly.
She would tell him that he'd gone completely and totally insane long, long ago.