Semi-perfect Scene
Title: Semi-perfect Scene
(Or seven times they never met)
Author: little zigzags
Pairing: J/D
Disclaimer: No money from these beauties.
Rating: PG13
Spoilers: Um, through the series, sort of.
Summary: It’s not wrong, but it’s not right, exactly.
A/N: So I still don’t really have internet access. Or a life. But I thought I’d post this ridiculous drabble anyway. Comment to save my work addled soul and let me know that loss of sleep has not stolen my ability to form sentences.
I know you have some place to be
prepared some information for someone in some hours,
but if we can’t get it together this fall,
at least let this semi-perfect scene be ours.
-Karate
I.
He’s 32, a fountain of energy, wild-haired and the golden boy of the new political generation. He’s working in the House and she’s won a college essay contest that’s earned her a summer position, and somehow she ends up under his wing, or whatever you’d like to call it, he’s the golden boy and she’s his fair haired 20-something protege, smart-alecky or just plain smart, and sometimes he feels as though he wants to open her skull and tap at her brain, just to see what makes it tick.
Somehow, ridiculously, he’s touching her arm during a staff meeting, that’s all it is-but really, it’s more than enough-he’s running two fingers down the milky skin on the inside of her forearm, jerking away, ashamed as he reaches the intimate crevice of her elbow.
He disguises his start as she wraps her long fingers around his wrists, stroking his downy arm up to his rolled up sleeve, and he can barely breathe, not for the entire meeting.
It’s not wrong, but it’s not right, exactly, he knows this as their shoulders brush when they walk down the hall, as he kisses her in the alley behind the bar, out of the light of a street lamp, the night misting and damp. He knows it even as he makes love to her in his dim apartment, his hand tangled in her damp hair.
The next morning, she threads her hand through his at the morning pow-wow, and he feels some deep ache, something like nausea, or fear, or anticipation.
II.
It’s Christmas Eve and he’s in the ER waiting room, his hand stiff and aching and he’s having trouble concentrating on his hospital forms. He feels like he’s going to explode, like his brain will burst into flames at any second. And no one knows, not his assistant who he sent home early, not Sam or Leo or CJ, and he feels like something has curled up in him to die.
“You’re going to need a couple stitches.”
He looks up. She’s bound up in a scarf, coat across her lap. She doesn’t look like a reporter and she’s got a kind face, so he turns a little in his chair, looks down at his scrappily wrapped palm, the wound visible around the edges. “How do you know?”
“I’m psychic.” He looks at her funny and she grins a little, shrugging. “My ex was a doctor. Absorbed some things.” She points at the cut. “What’d you do to it?”
He shakes his head a little, and she rolls her eyes. “Oh come on. I’m here because my sisters’ dumb-ass boyfriends decided to play hot potato with, well, hot potatoes. Spill.”
He opens his mouth to lie, then closes it. “I put my hand through a window.”
She nods. He tries not to hear the ambulance sirens.
III.
He’s cut his hand on something, moronically, on a campaign stop in Madison. They manage to dodge the press for an hour so he can go get some stitches, and he paces in the waiting room while Sam rustles up some coffee.
She’s reading Anna Karenina in an orange plastic chair, her brow furrowed, and that’s how they get to talking, everything from the Midwest voting concerns to doomed women to the preferred type of M and M’s in the snack machine down the hall.
A white-coated man appears in the doorway. “Honey, I’ll just be a little longer. Mr. Lyman, this way, please.” He stands, she nods, returns to her book. He tries to keep his face from falling; doesn’t even catch it when hers does, too.
IV.
He’s been stood up for a lunch meeting by the junior Senator from New Hampshire and he feels like punching someone. Then he sees her, at a table for two, more pregnant than he thought a woman could be and sobbing into her sushi menu.
They may call him a bulldog but he’s certainly not heartless, so he walks up to her table. She looks at him, and he’s startled by her large blue eyes and pursed mouth, a light flush across her tear-strewn face. “Uh, ma’am?” He shifts his weight awkwardly. “Are you all right?”
“No, I’m not fucking all right!” He jumps a little, lifting his hands up reflexively, palms forward. He’s heard things about pregnant women and hormones and axe murdering in the night. Or something.
She shoves the menu in his face. “I love sushi!”
“Uh, great?” She’s a new species, he’s decided. She’s not really human and he should just stay very, very still until he locates the fire exit to the building.
“No, not great. Because look at me. I’m pregnant!”
He smirks. “I noticed.”
She narrows her eyes at him, and he curses himself. But then her face crumples and something in his gut tugs like a hunger pang. “I’m pregnant and my goddamn husband left me”-she points to the ring on her hand, and he nods, he nods knowingly when really he doesn’t know anything, not a thing in the world-“and all I want is some fucking sushi, but I can’t have it, do you know why?”
Some part of the Discovery Channel clicks in like a sort of strange survival instinct. “Because pregnant women can’t eat raw fish?”
“Because pregnant women can’t eat raw fish, Mr. Lyman.”
He frowns. “You know who I am?”
She shrugs. “I watch C-SPAN. You guys should really do something about the mercury levels in the coastal fishing areas.”
“I’ll get right on that.”
Somehow, he ends up sitting. He orders her mochi ice cream and starts to fall in love with her over green tea and sweet red bean paste.
V.
He can barely get her in for a meeting, she’s so booked up, and he’s sweating by the time she settles herself in the chair across from him.
She has a perfect SAT score, he found it out somehow, maybe on Google, maybe through the FBI, he doesn’t remember.
He tries to argue, cajole, flirt with her, anything to get his way. But she’s not budging on his issue, and he starts to feel a little sick, a little desperate.
At some point she stands and starts perusing his office, looking at the diplomas, the mess of his desk. She picks up the book of stamps and flips through them idly.
“As I was saying, Ms. Moss, the support of your organization is very important to us for the campaign, and the President’s history on women’s issues alone, on early child development programs, on young mothers’ health concerns, all of this should guarantee your-”
“You should really save these.”
“Huh?”
She looks up at him under her thick lashes. “The stamps. They’re a collector’s item. Be worth a lot in a couple decades.”
He stares at her, bewildered. “And why on earth would I care about something like that?”
“Philately, Josh.” She smiles her canary grin, crosses her legs.
His mouth goes dry.
VI.
He never goes to Yale. She never drops out of college. His and hers doctorates, in Political Science and English Literature, respectively. They teach at Wesleyan and there are rumors everywhere, that they are lovers, that they used to be lovers, that someone caught them fucking in the library in the middle of the day.
But really, they argue. They argue about books, about film, about Kant and Thoreau, about what goes best with peanut butter. They argue in the staff lounge, in the class they teach together, on the campus walkways, in the parking lot. They are legendary for their arguing. There is lucrative betting amongst the students about when she will slap the self-righteous smirk off his face.
There are rumors, hundreds of them, and almost none of them are true.
Except for, well, they were in the stacks and it wasn’t daytime, but he had gotten really bored and kissed her neck by the shelf of 19th century English poetry, and there really wasn’t anything else to be done.
VII.
It’s a month in and Mrs. Santos still hasn’t picked her chief of staff, and he feels like he should have better things to do than to brainstorm with Sam about things like image and public appeal. He sort of feels like they should pick the candidate that pisses off Amy the least and leave it at that.
“Ellen Cohen.” Sam peruses over folders, and Josh starts to put his feet on his desk and then stops because somewhere, somewhere Leo is rolling over in his grave.
“Too opinionated. She’s like, Amy on steroids.”
“There’s an image. Alice Fields.”
“Too young.”
“Ellie Reynolds.”
“Too short.”
“Josh-”
“Okay, okay, vertically challenged.”
Sam sighs. “Fine.” He peers apprehensively into the next folder. “Donna Moss.”
“Who?”
“You know, the one that’s working for Capshaw. She’s done good work for us, she’s got the experience but she’s under the radar. Good contacts, people like her.” Sam glances at a small photograph clipped to the front of the file. “Pretty, too.”
Josh smirks, sits back in his chair. “Sam, I don’t think we should hire her. You can’t sleep with the First Lady’s Chief of Staff.”
Sam holds up his left hand. “Married, Josh. I’m married. That’d be your area. Although I guess if I can’t, you can’t either.”
“I make the rules around here.” He sniffs loftily. “I’m the boss.”
“Except for, you know, the President.”
Josh shrugs. “Donna Moss?”
Sam nods. “I think we might find her valuable.”
He sits back in his chair. “Make the call.”
so let me be bold or I’m gonna be be bold
I’ve thought of you off and on, since 1988
(Or seven times they never met)
Author: little zigzags
Pairing: J/D
Disclaimer: No money from these beauties.
Rating: PG13
Spoilers: Um, through the series, sort of.
Summary: It’s not wrong, but it’s not right, exactly.
A/N: So I still don’t really have internet access. Or a life. But I thought I’d post this ridiculous drabble anyway. Comment to save my work addled soul and let me know that loss of sleep has not stolen my ability to form sentences.
I know you have some place to be
prepared some information for someone in some hours,
but if we can’t get it together this fall,
at least let this semi-perfect scene be ours.
-Karate
I.
He’s 32, a fountain of energy, wild-haired and the golden boy of the new political generation. He’s working in the House and she’s won a college essay contest that’s earned her a summer position, and somehow she ends up under his wing, or whatever you’d like to call it, he’s the golden boy and she’s his fair haired 20-something protege, smart-alecky or just plain smart, and sometimes he feels as though he wants to open her skull and tap at her brain, just to see what makes it tick.
Somehow, ridiculously, he’s touching her arm during a staff meeting, that’s all it is-but really, it’s more than enough-he’s running two fingers down the milky skin on the inside of her forearm, jerking away, ashamed as he reaches the intimate crevice of her elbow.
He disguises his start as she wraps her long fingers around his wrists, stroking his downy arm up to his rolled up sleeve, and he can barely breathe, not for the entire meeting.
It’s not wrong, but it’s not right, exactly, he knows this as their shoulders brush when they walk down the hall, as he kisses her in the alley behind the bar, out of the light of a street lamp, the night misting and damp. He knows it even as he makes love to her in his dim apartment, his hand tangled in her damp hair.
The next morning, she threads her hand through his at the morning pow-wow, and he feels some deep ache, something like nausea, or fear, or anticipation.
II.
It’s Christmas Eve and he’s in the ER waiting room, his hand stiff and aching and he’s having trouble concentrating on his hospital forms. He feels like he’s going to explode, like his brain will burst into flames at any second. And no one knows, not his assistant who he sent home early, not Sam or Leo or CJ, and he feels like something has curled up in him to die.
“You’re going to need a couple stitches.”
He looks up. She’s bound up in a scarf, coat across her lap. She doesn’t look like a reporter and she’s got a kind face, so he turns a little in his chair, looks down at his scrappily wrapped palm, the wound visible around the edges. “How do you know?”
“I’m psychic.” He looks at her funny and she grins a little, shrugging. “My ex was a doctor. Absorbed some things.” She points at the cut. “What’d you do to it?”
He shakes his head a little, and she rolls her eyes. “Oh come on. I’m here because my sisters’ dumb-ass boyfriends decided to play hot potato with, well, hot potatoes. Spill.”
He opens his mouth to lie, then closes it. “I put my hand through a window.”
She nods. He tries not to hear the ambulance sirens.
III.
He’s cut his hand on something, moronically, on a campaign stop in Madison. They manage to dodge the press for an hour so he can go get some stitches, and he paces in the waiting room while Sam rustles up some coffee.
She’s reading Anna Karenina in an orange plastic chair, her brow furrowed, and that’s how they get to talking, everything from the Midwest voting concerns to doomed women to the preferred type of M and M’s in the snack machine down the hall.
A white-coated man appears in the doorway. “Honey, I’ll just be a little longer. Mr. Lyman, this way, please.” He stands, she nods, returns to her book. He tries to keep his face from falling; doesn’t even catch it when hers does, too.
IV.
He’s been stood up for a lunch meeting by the junior Senator from New Hampshire and he feels like punching someone. Then he sees her, at a table for two, more pregnant than he thought a woman could be and sobbing into her sushi menu.
They may call him a bulldog but he’s certainly not heartless, so he walks up to her table. She looks at him, and he’s startled by her large blue eyes and pursed mouth, a light flush across her tear-strewn face. “Uh, ma’am?” He shifts his weight awkwardly. “Are you all right?”
“No, I’m not fucking all right!” He jumps a little, lifting his hands up reflexively, palms forward. He’s heard things about pregnant women and hormones and axe murdering in the night. Or something.
She shoves the menu in his face. “I love sushi!”
“Uh, great?” She’s a new species, he’s decided. She’s not really human and he should just stay very, very still until he locates the fire exit to the building.
“No, not great. Because look at me. I’m pregnant!”
He smirks. “I noticed.”
She narrows her eyes at him, and he curses himself. But then her face crumples and something in his gut tugs like a hunger pang. “I’m pregnant and my goddamn husband left me”-she points to the ring on her hand, and he nods, he nods knowingly when really he doesn’t know anything, not a thing in the world-“and all I want is some fucking sushi, but I can’t have it, do you know why?”
Some part of the Discovery Channel clicks in like a sort of strange survival instinct. “Because pregnant women can’t eat raw fish?”
“Because pregnant women can’t eat raw fish, Mr. Lyman.”
He frowns. “You know who I am?”
She shrugs. “I watch C-SPAN. You guys should really do something about the mercury levels in the coastal fishing areas.”
“I’ll get right on that.”
Somehow, he ends up sitting. He orders her mochi ice cream and starts to fall in love with her over green tea and sweet red bean paste.
V.
He can barely get her in for a meeting, she’s so booked up, and he’s sweating by the time she settles herself in the chair across from him.
She has a perfect SAT score, he found it out somehow, maybe on Google, maybe through the FBI, he doesn’t remember.
He tries to argue, cajole, flirt with her, anything to get his way. But she’s not budging on his issue, and he starts to feel a little sick, a little desperate.
At some point she stands and starts perusing his office, looking at the diplomas, the mess of his desk. She picks up the book of stamps and flips through them idly.
“As I was saying, Ms. Moss, the support of your organization is very important to us for the campaign, and the President’s history on women’s issues alone, on early child development programs, on young mothers’ health concerns, all of this should guarantee your-”
“You should really save these.”
“Huh?”
She looks up at him under her thick lashes. “The stamps. They’re a collector’s item. Be worth a lot in a couple decades.”
He stares at her, bewildered. “And why on earth would I care about something like that?”
“Philately, Josh.” She smiles her canary grin, crosses her legs.
His mouth goes dry.
VI.
He never goes to Yale. She never drops out of college. His and hers doctorates, in Political Science and English Literature, respectively. They teach at Wesleyan and there are rumors everywhere, that they are lovers, that they used to be lovers, that someone caught them fucking in the library in the middle of the day.
But really, they argue. They argue about books, about film, about Kant and Thoreau, about what goes best with peanut butter. They argue in the staff lounge, in the class they teach together, on the campus walkways, in the parking lot. They are legendary for their arguing. There is lucrative betting amongst the students about when she will slap the self-righteous smirk off his face.
There are rumors, hundreds of them, and almost none of them are true.
Except for, well, they were in the stacks and it wasn’t daytime, but he had gotten really bored and kissed her neck by the shelf of 19th century English poetry, and there really wasn’t anything else to be done.
VII.
It’s a month in and Mrs. Santos still hasn’t picked her chief of staff, and he feels like he should have better things to do than to brainstorm with Sam about things like image and public appeal. He sort of feels like they should pick the candidate that pisses off Amy the least and leave it at that.
“Ellen Cohen.” Sam peruses over folders, and Josh starts to put his feet on his desk and then stops because somewhere, somewhere Leo is rolling over in his grave.
“Too opinionated. She’s like, Amy on steroids.”
“There’s an image. Alice Fields.”
“Too young.”
“Ellie Reynolds.”
“Too short.”
“Josh-”
“Okay, okay, vertically challenged.”
Sam sighs. “Fine.” He peers apprehensively into the next folder. “Donna Moss.”
“Who?”
“You know, the one that’s working for Capshaw. She’s done good work for us, she’s got the experience but she’s under the radar. Good contacts, people like her.” Sam glances at a small photograph clipped to the front of the file. “Pretty, too.”
Josh smirks, sits back in his chair. “Sam, I don’t think we should hire her. You can’t sleep with the First Lady’s Chief of Staff.”
Sam holds up his left hand. “Married, Josh. I’m married. That’d be your area. Although I guess if I can’t, you can’t either.”
“I make the rules around here.” He sniffs loftily. “I’m the boss.”
“Except for, you know, the President.”
Josh shrugs. “Donna Moss?”
Sam nods. “I think we might find her valuable.”
He sits back in his chair. “Make the call.”
so let me be bold or I’m gonna be be bold
I’ve thought of you off and on, since 1988