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It’s been a big night for everyone. A big night for politics. A big night for the President. A big night for Joey and Ainsley and Abbey. President Bartlet’s third State of the Union Address.
Things have not been ideal so far. Power outages, Josh’s minor breakdown over the polling numbers, Donna pestering Josh about Joey, who he is in intellectual and political love with, which is not the way Donna thinks he is. Colombia. Josh doesn’t know about Colombia yet. The Officer Sloan situation, which Josh is… about to know about.
Sam calls him. Josh needs to go back to the White House. There’s a situation. Josh feels like screaming.
He doesn’t. He tells Sam he’ll be there soon and hangs up the phone.
Josh doesn’t relax on his way to the West Wing. He has 0 minutes and 0 seconds to breathe before C. J. ushers him into the meeting.
•••
Josh is barely keeping it together. Sam can tell. They speak with their eyes across the room. They use their extremely limited knowledge of American sign language to indicate that Josh is going to freak out. They both pray that this is going to be over soon.
•••
It is not over soon. They are released from the meeting early in the morning. There is no point in going to sleep. That’s what Josh tells himself as he collapses into his chair in his office. He covers his face with his hands and lets out a huge breath of air.
He hears a knock on his doorframe. He opens his mouth, ready to say something that people would think is very typical Josh that’s actually just very typical tired and anxious Josh (which is Josh most of the time, but the people who matter know he’s not like that; C. J. and Leo and Joey and Donna and… Sam. Sam knows more than anyone.). He lifts his face from his hands, ready to tell anybody, nobody who it is, to leave him alone.
Unfortunately, he looks up and sees his exception. Sam Seaborn is leaning in his doorway with the most sincere blue eyes Josh has ever seen. Josh’s face softens despite everything that’s happened in the past 12 hours.
“Hey,” he says, and it’s just a little too warm and comforting as soon as it hits his ears. He grimaces.
“Hey,” Sam echoes, matching Josh’s tone, which makes him feel at least a little better. Sam steps inside the office without invitation. Not that Josh wouldn’t let him in if he had asked. Josh always wants Sam’s company. He could be in the worst mood, throwing papers and yelling and breaking pencils, and he would still let Sam in his space for as long as he wanted to be there. He would probably stop losing his mind while Sam was there, too. He’s been known to have a bit of a breakdown every now and then, and Sam is always the one who pulls him out of it.
When Josh looks up again, Sam is looking at him, with that fucking look he always has when he’s worried about Josh. Head tilted to the side just a little; mouth turned down at the sides a tiny bit, not really a frown, just sort of what Sam’s mouth looks like when he’s not grinning contagiously all around the White House; eyebrows slightly furrowed; and his eyes. His eyes are always the worst part. Soft, understanding, cautious, gentle, and so so blue.
“Rough night, huh?” Sam breaks the silence first.
“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” Josh sighs for seemingly the thousandth time since he left the meeting.
Sam walks over to Josh’s desk and pushes himself onto it, his back facing Josh but his head turned to look at him. “How was your night going before this?”
Josh tries to recall anything that had happened before he was beckoned to the meeting. “Polling. Joey wouldn’t get me any numbers. She kept saying 5 more minutes, 5 more minutes, and then the power went out. The whole time Donna was pestering me to ask Joey on a date, which really isn’t my speed, as you know. I like Joey a lot, but not…” Josh trails off before he can say something stupid about him and Sam, even though Sam aready knows what he was going to say. They’ve been at this weird thing for a while. They’re in friend love. Basically dating. Have not kissed or anything, but… connected. That’s the word for them. Connected.
Sam nods. “Mine was worse.”
Josh looks up at him. “How could it possibly be worse?”
“Well, Ainsley said on TV that she has never met the President–“
“That was indeed bad.”
“–so I asked the President to go meet her, make an effort to bump into her in the halls, y’know. So Ainsley gets off the air and gets a drink and so when I come down to check in on her, she says she’s having that adrenaline high I mentioned. she was, quote, blaming it on the bossa nova, end quote, in her office, in a bathrobe. She asked me to dance with her. I didn’t, because as you know, that’s also not my speed, and that exact moment Bartlet shows up.”
“And?” Josh sees how this is bad, but certainly not worse than his whole thing.
“She threw her drink against the wall and shattered the glass, and then he called her a blonde Republican sex kitten…”
“He did what?” Josh decides this is certainly worse than his whole thing.
“…because he had asked me what to say when I asked him about it, and I said he should say that some people think she was hired because she’s a blonde Republican sex kitten…”
“Oh, god, Sam…”
“…but that she was doing good work and those people were obviously wrong and she should keep it up. God, I’m not a monster.”
Josh rolls his eyes. “And then what?”
“The President repeated what I said, word for word. I left Ainsley on the verge of tears. I feel so bad about it. Maybe I should get her flowers or something. I don’t know.”
“I’m sure she would appreciate flowers.”
“Do you know what kind of flowers she likes?” Sam asks sincerely.
“Sam, how on Earth would I know what kind of flowers she likes?”
They’re looking into each other’s eyes now. Sam cracks a small smile, recognizing how ridiculous that question was.
“Are you okay? I saw that you were having trouble. During the meeting.”
Josh pauses for a moment. “Yeah. I mean, I’ll be fine. I guess.”
Sam looks at him knowingly. “I know you’re going to reject this idea, but I really think you should get some rest.”
“Too late, Sam! It’s 5:30 am! I’d be getting up for work right now on a normal day.”
“How long has it been since you slept?”
“Does it matter?”
“Of course, it matters, Josh.”
Josh searches his mind for the last time he slept for a full 8 hours. “Maybe two days?” Which is a lie. A lie that sounds pretty reasonable to Josh’s own ears.
“That’s too long,” Sam counters quickly, which surprises Josh for a second before he remembers that Sam can sleep for 5 hours and have the energy of a human can of Red Bull.
“Well then you should get some sleep too. You’ve been up all night with me.”
Sam smiles a tiny bit. “I will if you will. Can you make space for me?”
Josh looks around his office. It’s a disorganized mess, but that’s nothing new. He gets up from his chair and clears a space about the size of Sam’s body on the floor. He grabs his suit jacket from the back of his desk chair and throws it to Sam, who’s now standing by the desk. Josh half-expects Sam to say something snarky about how all he gets is a jacket for a pillow, but surprisingly, nothing comes. Sam just folds up the jacket and places it on the floor.
Sam stands up and looks back at Josh. It’s a slow moment, nothing seems to matter except for the two of them in their safe bubble. They’re looking into each other’s eyes. Sam starts to lean towards Josh. Josh’s heart speeds up, and he leans forward too.
It’s fast and relatively casual when Sam places a kiss on Josh’s lips, like it should've been happening all this time. Which it should've. Sam’s own lips are soft and warm, exactly the way Sam himself is. It only lasts a few seconds. Maybe four or five. It’s all mouth-closed. It feels normal. Josh’s heart is going to jump out of his chest. He feels a little dizzy.
Sam pulls back first. “Goodnight, Josh.”
Josh takes a minute to get himself together. “Goodnight, Sam.”
Sam sits on the floor, then lays down, placing his head on his makeshift pillow. “Get some sleep. I mean it.”
Josh nods, even though Sam can't see it. He crosses his arms on his desk and lays his head in them. He closes his eyes. He falls asleep with his heart still racing.
•••
It’s 9:00 am in the West Wing. C. J. makes her way towards Josh’s office. She knocks. No response.
She cracks open the door to see Sam Seaborn on the floor and Josh Lyman passed out with his head on his desk. She smiles a little to herself.
C. J. turns around and walks back the way she came. Her thing can wait.