On the Steps of the Capitol
Title: On the Steps of the Capitol
(scenes from the lost non-romance)
Author: little zigzags
Pairing: J/D
Rating: R
Spoilers: Uh, mostly 20HiA, and ED1, but only if you’ve seen it.
Disclaimer: No money from these beauties.
Summary: It might be about him and it might not be. Or at least that’s what she tells herself.
A/N: Uh, remember College Kids? And the look they give each other when she comes in? And CJ’s joke? Yea, it’s a stretch, but that’s where my strange, idiotic mind went. Comments are way up there on the scale of niceness.
I was working for the government
and in a bathroom stall off the national mall
how we kissed so sweetly
-the decemberists
“You look good in that coat,” he had told her, her cheeks still raw from the cold.
She does look good. His coat smells like him, and its too big for her, and she tries to ignore the fact that she knows that he likes her like this, in some sort of ramshackle menswear ensemble. Tries to ignore that she knows he’s probably thinking about her in something else, his dress shirt maybe, the sleeves unbuttoned and the collar undone.
Or maybe that’s her thoughts, because God knows their lives have to overlap a little.
-
Josh looks ridiculous in Indiana and she wants to laugh but really, she’s a little sad.
She can recognize the whole Senate and a good portion of the House by face alone, she can banter with the best of them and without her, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff would be dead from frustration or lack of sleep or malaria or something but really, she’s just a midwestern girl.
It may take her a second to realize that benefits mean benefits and she would probably smack him across his face if he ever called her wholesome, but her parents didn’t vote for Bartlet the first time and don’t plan to the second time, and she knows about soy beans and time zones, she knows that unrequited love might make you just jump out of the car and abandon everything else.
She’s never really faulted him for being the elitist that he is, but she’s suddenly terrified that he won’t ever understand it, this huge piece of her that lurks under the surface. She’s Kathy and she’s Kiki and she understands about loitering and about picking a stranger up on the side of the road.
He really doesn’t get any of that, and it makes her sad.
-
Sometimes it happens like this: unbeknownst to each other Josh and Donna have the same thought, at the exact same time.
This is the way it goes tonight.
They will see Sam on their way out, led blindly by Mallory, and they both think, for just an instant, how ridiculously unfair it is.
Sam and the boss’ daughter, and God, they can do whatever they like. She can drag him from the West Wing looking very much likes she owns every inch of him and no one even takes a second look.
Josh, Josh just has to touch her shoulder, let it linger, and the bullpen is alive with whisper, with rumor, with CJ glaring at him a little more than usual that day.
Donna’s not the boss’ anything and he still can’t touch her, and that’s what they’re thinking about as Mallory threads her arm through Sam’s limp one as they amble through the front gate.
-
Still, he drives her home, because her car was in the shop and she took a cab in, and she really can’t take a cab home in the middle of the night, according to him at least.
Usually they worry about things like this, but the press is tied up with the bombing and she’s relatively sure there won’t be reporters outside her house for four hours late at night like some other evenings she’s come home.
She’s not exactly certain what they’re looking for, but she’s pretty sure it has something to do with her and Josh, and a couple of shots of tequila or maybe just a really bad day, and something will happen, something scandalous and wrong and delicious.
Well, they’re sober and it wasn’t so much of a bad day as a long one, or maybe a sad one, and so she gives in.
-
“I was on the women’s varsity swim team,” she tells him as he drives her home.
She watches his mouth tighten into a thin line; catches the sad lilt to his eyes in the light of a street lamp.
-
It’s her fault, she tells herself later, for inviting him in. But its dark and she’s so tired that she doesn’t even think about it, doesn’t even stop to consider that she’s sad and Josh is wired and sometimes that’s not the best combination. It isn’t even in the West Wing, where the closest uncluttered flat surface is in the Lincoln bedroom.
Because really, despite his many fantasies (and maybe some of hers) about something going down in his office, she wouldn’t take her panties off within ten yards of the biohazard of his desk.
-
“Ran into the fire,” Bartlet had said on the radio as they trundled from Dulles back to the real world.
She sees him flinch, his jaw working, and in that moment he catches her watching him. She feels some pain deep in her throat as he blushes; she knows it even in the darkness of the bus.
-
It’s supposed to be awkward, she thinks. That’s how this is supposed to go.
They’ve always been different. “Donna,” he says, propping himself onto her kitchen counter, his teeth bared in his whimsical grin, dimples mocking, head tilted as he scrutinizes her face. “I hate to tell you this, but you’re having a bad hair day.”
She scowls, pats her frizz down. He scruffs a hand through his wild curls. “I’m not doing much better, I guess.”
She lifts her nose haughtily. “You never did.”
-
Yes, there’s Amy, there’s Amy who she’s pretty sure he loves in some fucked up way, and who she’s pretty sure she likes, and that’s a little fucked up, too.
There’s Amy and they’ve been in a relationship, a real one, and God, she feels so childish, because really, relationship trumps everything that her and Josh have ever been.
-
“I’m tired,” he says, his back to hers as he braces himself against the sink. He’s rumpled and day-worn and she wonders if this is how he looks every day when he comes home.
She feels this little aches sometimes, little yearnings for those minor intimacies. She knows how he likes his coffee but she can’t bring him a cup without baggage. She knows what he looks like after a sleepless night at the office but not a restful one at home. She doesn’t think about it often, and she sometimes wonders if its not about him but about loneliness in general, this murky, caffeinated, late-night life she leads.
It might be about him and it might not be.
Or at least that’s what she tells herself.
-
Donna’s never had an out-of-body experience but when her hand snakes out, when her palm settles between his shoulder blades she’s sure its not her brain that commanded it. It’s pretty innocent, she thinks. It’s just a palm and some pressure and some comfort.
It’s friendly, she thinks, until she hears his soft intake of breath.
He turns his head and she can see the soft profile of his face, his eyelashes downturned.
-
She’s an idiot, she thinks to herself. She’s gone temporarily insane. But as her other hand makes its way to his side, she stops really caring. She takes a step closer, and she can hear him breathe. She’s almost as tall as him but she feels small, his broad shoulders still hunched over the sink, still peering at her from his turned head.
Her breath feels thunderous in her ears.
There’s a reason people talk about these two.
-
“You started it,” he’ll say later, sprawled out in her bed, barely visible in the dim light.
“Hmm,” she’ll say, teetering between sleep and something else. She had left her window open and its cold, and she won’t really close her eyes until he leaves to go home for a little while before they have to be back.
It’s not awkward but it’s not normal either, it’s not fucking normal.
-
One thing never seems to lead to another with them, but in some bizarre twist of fate once she stands there for an acceptable period of time with a hand on his waist and a hand pressed to his back things seem to proceed as would be expected.
He turns and kisses her; slides his hands around her waist. Turns them, presses her against the sink. It’s a little tentative and her hand shakes on the back of his neck, and the last guy she kissed was Cliff Calley and he was too short for her; it takes her a minute to adjust to not only to his reasonable height but also that he is kissing her at all.
It’s a terrible idea, but maybe that’s how things have to happen for them.
-
She’ll sleep with him again the night he comes back from the debate, when he’s so wired and happy and punch-drunk (or just plain drunk) and he shows up at her door, minus a tie in the middle of the night.
She never thought it would happen again, and she told herself she wouldn’t let it, but he’s in that simultaneously irresistible and revolting victory mood and she’s surprised at his slow sexy grin and stubbled face.
“I would have been here sooner, but I had to shirk CJ,” he says, as he pushes her against the door.
-
That first time, it had been nervous and blinding and pretty damn good despite the fact they were exhausted and on a deadline and maybe he was still thinking about fires.
Her knees are tight against his hips and she can’t seem to breathe and the best vacation, she thinks, is being secretly fucked by your boss during a four hour break from work. She wishes she could alert the masses.
-
Then, in their weird dysfunctional backtracking, nothing happens after that. She knows that Jack probably ruined it and saved them all the same.
Then Sam’s gone and he’s in a funk, miserable and grinding on. He takes up with Amy again and she’s secretly a little relieved.
She doesn’t get him, but it’ll keep them in a holding pattern for now.
-
She never expected it to take three years to ask her if it meant anything. She wants to beat him over the head with her tumbler, because really, he’s an idiot. They’ve fought and she’s left, and yes, they had their clandestine thing, their two night stand, their whatever-you-call-it. She’s been waiting for it, for him to look at her across the table and yank out their skeleton. She’s been waiting for this: he asks her if she’s had her fling, and she’s got her answer ready. She’s had it ready for years.
(scenes from the lost non-romance)
Author: little zigzags
Pairing: J/D
Rating: R
Spoilers: Uh, mostly 20HiA, and ED1, but only if you’ve seen it.
Disclaimer: No money from these beauties.
Summary: It might be about him and it might not be. Or at least that’s what she tells herself.
A/N: Uh, remember College Kids? And the look they give each other when she comes in? And CJ’s joke? Yea, it’s a stretch, but that’s where my strange, idiotic mind went. Comments are way up there on the scale of niceness.
I was working for the government
and in a bathroom stall off the national mall
how we kissed so sweetly
-the decemberists
“You look good in that coat,” he had told her, her cheeks still raw from the cold.
She does look good. His coat smells like him, and its too big for her, and she tries to ignore the fact that she knows that he likes her like this, in some sort of ramshackle menswear ensemble. Tries to ignore that she knows he’s probably thinking about her in something else, his dress shirt maybe, the sleeves unbuttoned and the collar undone.
Or maybe that’s her thoughts, because God knows their lives have to overlap a little.
-
Josh looks ridiculous in Indiana and she wants to laugh but really, she’s a little sad.
She can recognize the whole Senate and a good portion of the House by face alone, she can banter with the best of them and without her, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff would be dead from frustration or lack of sleep or malaria or something but really, she’s just a midwestern girl.
It may take her a second to realize that benefits mean benefits and she would probably smack him across his face if he ever called her wholesome, but her parents didn’t vote for Bartlet the first time and don’t plan to the second time, and she knows about soy beans and time zones, she knows that unrequited love might make you just jump out of the car and abandon everything else.
She’s never really faulted him for being the elitist that he is, but she’s suddenly terrified that he won’t ever understand it, this huge piece of her that lurks under the surface. She’s Kathy and she’s Kiki and she understands about loitering and about picking a stranger up on the side of the road.
He really doesn’t get any of that, and it makes her sad.
-
Sometimes it happens like this: unbeknownst to each other Josh and Donna have the same thought, at the exact same time.
This is the way it goes tonight.
They will see Sam on their way out, led blindly by Mallory, and they both think, for just an instant, how ridiculously unfair it is.
Sam and the boss’ daughter, and God, they can do whatever they like. She can drag him from the West Wing looking very much likes she owns every inch of him and no one even takes a second look.
Josh, Josh just has to touch her shoulder, let it linger, and the bullpen is alive with whisper, with rumor, with CJ glaring at him a little more than usual that day.
Donna’s not the boss’ anything and he still can’t touch her, and that’s what they’re thinking about as Mallory threads her arm through Sam’s limp one as they amble through the front gate.
-
Still, he drives her home, because her car was in the shop and she took a cab in, and she really can’t take a cab home in the middle of the night, according to him at least.
Usually they worry about things like this, but the press is tied up with the bombing and she’s relatively sure there won’t be reporters outside her house for four hours late at night like some other evenings she’s come home.
She’s not exactly certain what they’re looking for, but she’s pretty sure it has something to do with her and Josh, and a couple of shots of tequila or maybe just a really bad day, and something will happen, something scandalous and wrong and delicious.
Well, they’re sober and it wasn’t so much of a bad day as a long one, or maybe a sad one, and so she gives in.
-
“I was on the women’s varsity swim team,” she tells him as he drives her home.
She watches his mouth tighten into a thin line; catches the sad lilt to his eyes in the light of a street lamp.
-
It’s her fault, she tells herself later, for inviting him in. But its dark and she’s so tired that she doesn’t even think about it, doesn’t even stop to consider that she’s sad and Josh is wired and sometimes that’s not the best combination. It isn’t even in the West Wing, where the closest uncluttered flat surface is in the Lincoln bedroom.
Because really, despite his many fantasies (and maybe some of hers) about something going down in his office, she wouldn’t take her panties off within ten yards of the biohazard of his desk.
-
“Ran into the fire,” Bartlet had said on the radio as they trundled from Dulles back to the real world.
She sees him flinch, his jaw working, and in that moment he catches her watching him. She feels some pain deep in her throat as he blushes; she knows it even in the darkness of the bus.
-
It’s supposed to be awkward, she thinks. That’s how this is supposed to go.
They’ve always been different. “Donna,” he says, propping himself onto her kitchen counter, his teeth bared in his whimsical grin, dimples mocking, head tilted as he scrutinizes her face. “I hate to tell you this, but you’re having a bad hair day.”
She scowls, pats her frizz down. He scruffs a hand through his wild curls. “I’m not doing much better, I guess.”
She lifts her nose haughtily. “You never did.”
-
Yes, there’s Amy, there’s Amy who she’s pretty sure he loves in some fucked up way, and who she’s pretty sure she likes, and that’s a little fucked up, too.
There’s Amy and they’ve been in a relationship, a real one, and God, she feels so childish, because really, relationship trumps everything that her and Josh have ever been.
-
“I’m tired,” he says, his back to hers as he braces himself against the sink. He’s rumpled and day-worn and she wonders if this is how he looks every day when he comes home.
She feels this little aches sometimes, little yearnings for those minor intimacies. She knows how he likes his coffee but she can’t bring him a cup without baggage. She knows what he looks like after a sleepless night at the office but not a restful one at home. She doesn’t think about it often, and she sometimes wonders if its not about him but about loneliness in general, this murky, caffeinated, late-night life she leads.
It might be about him and it might not be.
Or at least that’s what she tells herself.
-
Donna’s never had an out-of-body experience but when her hand snakes out, when her palm settles between his shoulder blades she’s sure its not her brain that commanded it. It’s pretty innocent, she thinks. It’s just a palm and some pressure and some comfort.
It’s friendly, she thinks, until she hears his soft intake of breath.
He turns his head and she can see the soft profile of his face, his eyelashes downturned.
-
She’s an idiot, she thinks to herself. She’s gone temporarily insane. But as her other hand makes its way to his side, she stops really caring. She takes a step closer, and she can hear him breathe. She’s almost as tall as him but she feels small, his broad shoulders still hunched over the sink, still peering at her from his turned head.
Her breath feels thunderous in her ears.
There’s a reason people talk about these two.
-
“You started it,” he’ll say later, sprawled out in her bed, barely visible in the dim light.
“Hmm,” she’ll say, teetering between sleep and something else. She had left her window open and its cold, and she won’t really close her eyes until he leaves to go home for a little while before they have to be back.
It’s not awkward but it’s not normal either, it’s not fucking normal.
-
One thing never seems to lead to another with them, but in some bizarre twist of fate once she stands there for an acceptable period of time with a hand on his waist and a hand pressed to his back things seem to proceed as would be expected.
He turns and kisses her; slides his hands around her waist. Turns them, presses her against the sink. It’s a little tentative and her hand shakes on the back of his neck, and the last guy she kissed was Cliff Calley and he was too short for her; it takes her a minute to adjust to not only to his reasonable height but also that he is kissing her at all.
It’s a terrible idea, but maybe that’s how things have to happen for them.
-
She’ll sleep with him again the night he comes back from the debate, when he’s so wired and happy and punch-drunk (or just plain drunk) and he shows up at her door, minus a tie in the middle of the night.
She never thought it would happen again, and she told herself she wouldn’t let it, but he’s in that simultaneously irresistible and revolting victory mood and she’s surprised at his slow sexy grin and stubbled face.
“I would have been here sooner, but I had to shirk CJ,” he says, as he pushes her against the door.
-
That first time, it had been nervous and blinding and pretty damn good despite the fact they were exhausted and on a deadline and maybe he was still thinking about fires.
Her knees are tight against his hips and she can’t seem to breathe and the best vacation, she thinks, is being secretly fucked by your boss during a four hour break from work. She wishes she could alert the masses.
-
Then, in their weird dysfunctional backtracking, nothing happens after that. She knows that Jack probably ruined it and saved them all the same.
Then Sam’s gone and he’s in a funk, miserable and grinding on. He takes up with Amy again and she’s secretly a little relieved.
She doesn’t get him, but it’ll keep them in a holding pattern for now.
-
She never expected it to take three years to ask her if it meant anything. She wants to beat him over the head with her tumbler, because really, he’s an idiot. They’ve fought and she’s left, and yes, they had their clandestine thing, their two night stand, their whatever-you-call-it. She’s been waiting for it, for him to look at her across the table and yank out their skeleton. She’s been waiting for this: he asks her if she’s had her fling, and she’s got her answer ready. She’s had it ready for years.