Work Text:
The clinking. He knew as soon as it started that the clinking would push him over the edge. Knowing didn’t make his chest constrict less, didn’t make his heart slow down at all. It didn’t stop the ringing of sirens in his ears.
It had been months, and he knew what it was, and it didn’t help him feel any less helpless.
It was a coin toss whether or not he’d lose his ever-loving shit in a room full of White House staff, the better part of Congress, and reporters. CJ had enough to deal with without Josh giving the reporters something to chew on.
He was also, however, acutely aware that the Deputy Chief of Staff’s absence may be noticed. He was willing to take his chances.
The President was about to speak, just as soon as the glass stopped fucking shattering.
Clinking. Not shattering.
Standing up and pushing his seat out from behind him, he walked out of the room with his head down.
Once in his office, he stood with his back against the wall, oh, if his therapist could have seen him then. Josh wanted to vomit.
He was exhausted, and that didn’t help the lightheadedness or shaking in his hands.
The door opened slowly, and, without knowing anything else, he knew it was Sam.
“You okay?” Sam said, looking at him and all but instantly clocking that the answer was a hearty no. It was nice of him to ask anyway.
“Yeah,” he answered. Sam leveled him with a look. “Loud. The, uh— the clinking,”
Sam was nodding along like he already knew. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think anyone else saw you leave,”
“You did,” he said, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the wall. Sam sighed. “You’re missing your speech,”
“Toby would still have me rewriting it if he could. I’m more than happy to be done with it,”
He heard Sam moving, and then he felt something lightly against his arm. Josh opened his eyes to see Sam standing next to him with his back against the wall.
“My place or yours?” Sam asked quietly.
“Sam,” he started to protest, because, really, Josh was a full adult man who could take care of himself. For the most part. Whatever, the point was that he would be fine.
“When did you last sleep, oh, four consecutive hours?” He asked, which wasn’t fair, and he knew it. At Josh’s silence, he continued, “my place or yours?”
“Yours,” because Josh knew when to give up. He leaned against Sam, careful not to take too much because he was selfish, but he wasn’t stupid.
Sam turned his head to look at Josh. Josh turned his head to look at Sam.
Sam, it seemed, was stupid.
He saw Sam’s face inching closer to his, and, in Josh’s defense, he was still reeling from his bout of anxiety that, to be honest, hadn’t gone away fully.
When Sam kissed him, it was light, the gentlest press of lips against his own. Sam’s hand found the sleeve of his coat and was holding on, pulling at it just barely, like it would do anything if Josh tried to move away. Never, in a million years, would he have moved away, but, well, Sam was stupid.
Josh could do nothing but follow Sam’s lead, angling his head a fraction, because anything else could have been a step too far, right? He was on the verge of vibrating out of his own skin because Sam was there, and his lips were soft and tasted like champagne, and Josh wanted to devour him.
And yet, he was also scared shitless. Because it was Sam, and him being a man was, quite frankly, nothing compared to the fact that it was Sam.
“We shouldn’t,” Josh protested, but his heart wasn’t in it, his heart was beating a foot away in Sam’s own chest. One kiss and Josh was flayed open for this man, and it— it was Sam.
It was the most natural thing in the world, and he was terrified.
“Shouldn’t what?”
Josh closed his eyes because Sam was killing him. “Sam,” he sighed.
“Josh,” he parroted.
“Sam,”
A hysterical sort of laugh bubbled up out of Sam, and, “I’m not saying let’s get married, I’m saying— I’m saying we should try it,”
“And I’m saying that for me, trying it will only lead to a ring on my finger and a matching one on yours,” he snapped.
“That works for me,” Sam said because he was stupid.
“That— I’m serious, this isn’t something I can just try,”
Sam let go of his sleeve then, and Josh was sure that he’d made a mistake.
Then, however, both of Sam’s hands came up, holding his head straight, and Sam moved to stand in front of him. Sam’s hands were warm on the sides of his face.
“Listen to me,” he said, and Josh knew the look in his eyes well enough to know that he probably ought to stay quiet. “Josh, I’m right there with you,”
Shockingly, the urge to vomit returned.
Sam was— well, first of all, he was still invading his personal space, and he was still staring at Josh like he might explode, which was possible. But Sam was there, standing in front of him, and he looked so fucking sure of himself, sure enough for the both of them, in fact, that it didn’t really matter where Josh stood on the issue because Sam was sure.
And none of that was to say that Josh was unsure, because nothing was as simple as that. There were few things in Josh’s life that he had been more sure of than Sam. Nothing, really, came close to him. Maybe Bartlet being the real deal, but it was entirely possible that that had been a ploy by his subconscious to lure Sam back into his life.
So of Sam, he was sure. Everything else was a different matter because they didn’t exist in a vacuum, and whatever happened between them certainly wouldn’t exist in a vacuum, and it had the potential, no, certainty, of making their lives a living hell, making the whole administration’s lives a living hell, if a word of even what had just happened that night ever leaked to anyone with half an agenda.
And yet. And yet.
“Okay,” he said before he could really think about what that would mean for every moment after that one.
But that was wrong, wasn’t it, Josh had been sure of Sam for as long as he’d been sure of anything else, and his life had never had any trajectory that didn’t lead him there, standing before Sam, on the verge of an anxiety attack, in his White House office, where Sam had just kissed him.
“‘Okay’? I bare my soul to you, and you say ‘okay’?”
Josh squinted, head still reeling, but he was Joshua fucking Lyman, he could talk his way through anything with half a brain cell left, and, “I think I bore my soul first with something about matching rings,”
“Come back to mine?”
“I already said I would,”
“Just making sure,” and Sam let his hands fall down to Josh’s shoulders.
“Okay,” Josh said.
“Okay,” Sam repeated, and then he took a step back, and then they were just two people standing a respectable distance apart in his office.
“The, uh, the speech is probably wrapping up,”
Sam blinked. “Think anyone would notice if we didn’t go back?”
“Yes? Toby would be apoplectic, to say nothing of the President—“
“Handsome and smart,”
“Sam,”
“Yeah, I know, come on,” Sam said, smiling, and Josh’s heart crawled its way into his throat as he followed Sam out of his office.
The rest of the evening passed largely in a blur. Sam handed him a glass of champagne, and he squeezed his arm once before leaving to make his usual rounds, starting with Toby. Leo motioned for Josh to talk to some guests. C.J. raised her eyebrows at him, and Josh nodded, a quiet affirmation that yes, he was fine.
He kissed Sam Seaborn, fuck, he was on cloud nine. He knew it must have been written all over his face, but, really, what was the difference between he was shot and almost died and was certifiably fucked up from that whole experience expression and he kissed Sam Seaborn expressions? To a room full of government officials, apparently, the answer was nothing.
Eventually, the room thinned. Eventually, the President bid farewell to the throng of people. Eventually, Sam approached him, grabbing his elbow and nodding at the exit. Eventually, they stumbled into Sam’s apartment.
Josh would like it to be known that he had shown incredible amounts of restraint up until that moment.
At that moment, before Sam could really even get the front door closed, Josh was pulling him close, one hand finding one of Sam’s and the other on Sam’s back, and he kissed him. Sam let out a noise of surprise, but the man was a champ, holding onto Josh with a hand on the back of his neck and kissing him.
The wall was behind him rather quickly, and Josh knocked his head into the side of a picture frame, one of Sam’s picture frames. Sam’s hand immediately came up from the back of his neck to the back of his head, cradling and protecting him from any other picture frame edges.
Josh snuck a hand underneath Sam’s coat, pulling at the back of his shirt until he finally exposed warm skin. Sam sighed beautifully against his mouth, pulling back a hair, forehead against Josh’s own.
“What are we doing here?” Sam asked, breathless, and Josh did that, he did that.
Perhaps Josh was giddy.
“Anything you want,”
“I don’t know any jewelers open this late to get matching rings, let alone anything you’d even like,”
“I’m serious, I wanna do everything— Sam, I wanna do everything,”
Sam’s smile was inches from his own as he asked, “well, what do you want to do first?”
And that. Josh didn’t have an answer to that. Like he’d been staring at shadows on the wall, and suddenly someone turned him around, and he saw everything, shadows and all in glorious 3D, and he didn’t know anything except that he wanted it all.
“Take me to bed,” Josh said, and Sam was beaming at him.
“Good answer,” and with that, he led them to his bedroom, pulling Josh along behind him by his hand.
Time was moving simultaneously incredibly fast and glacially slow. Josh was afraid that if he blinked, he’d miss something life-altering. Josh was also acutely aware of everything, every glance Sam gave him, every shy smile, every brush of his hand against Josh’s.
It felt like ages, or an instant, before the backs of Josh’s knees were hitting Sam’s bed.
There was one beat, two. Sam was searching his face for something, and if Josh had known what it was, then, god, he would’ve shown it to him.
Instead, Josh pushed Sam’s coat off his shoulders. As soon as Sam’s hands were free, they were working on Josh’s tie.
“We’re doing this?”
“Sam, I want little more than to be naked with you right now, so—“
“Great minds,” he said as he deftly unbuttoned Josh’s shirt. Josh reciprocated, staring at Sam’s ridiculous fucking monogrammed shirt.
Sam was slacking, because Josh got him shirtless first, although that last button may have ripped slightly, but, well, it had served its duty admirably.
So Josh sat down, he sat down on the edge of Sam’s bed, and Sam followed. He was nothing if not pragmatic, and the situation looked promising, so Josh continued and scooted up the bed, laying back flat with his calves dangling off the edge of the bed, and Sam followed. Sam followed, and wasn’t that the headiest fucking thing he’d ever felt.
“You’re— god, I—“ and Josh had to cut himself off, then, otherwise he’d embarrass himself. He finally had glorious, unhindered access to Sam’s skin, and every touch felt both electric and grounding. Josh pulled Sam closer with a hand on his neck, fingers grasping at his short hair, and he kissed him. He licked at Sam’s lips, and Sam’s mouth opened to him, and it was divine.
He felt Sam’s hand on his torso, fingers sure and firm on his ribs. And, really, the noise that elicited from him was barely his own fault.
Sam pulled back, absolutely beaming.
“You’re incredible,” Sam said as he was pulling up on Josh’s shirt. He leaned up a bit, may as well help Sam there, and fell back against the bed while Sam tossed his shirt to the floor.
When Sam looked back at him, his eyes drifted down, and Josh instantly sobered.
“Sam,” he said, and he grabbed Sam’s wrist, which was bracing him against Josh’s chest, fingers inches from where a bullet had left an ugly scar.
Sam was still staring down at it. Josh had to take a second to breathe, and Sam’s eyes snapped up to his own instantly.
But Josh had had his time to come to terms with the scar, and it would never be his favorite thing to look at, but he himself had had the chance to just look, to get used to it. It was dawning on him that Sam had never even seen it.
So, Josh let go of his wrist, instead resting his hands on Sam’s thighs
Sam took that for the permission it was, fixing his eyes back on the scar.
A finger brushed the edge of it, and it tickled more than anything, but he could recognize that Sam was having a moment, so he kept it together.
“Does it hurt?” He asked softly.
“No,”
Sam nodded but didn’t respond otherwise, besides getting slightly braver in his touch. He bent down, and Josh saw it coming, and still, the warm breath against the marred skin there surprised him.
He felt his lips press down, and Josh got lightheaded all of a sudden, so he let his head fall back against the mattress. Sam’s mattress. Where Sam was on top of him.
And then there was kiss after kiss after kiss, and eventually, there was some tongue, and that was a strange feeling, that— it made him feel strange, something complicated that Josh didn’t really want to parse out then and there.
After some time, Sam wandered back up to him.
“Don’t get shot again,”
“I’m doing my best,”
“I never wanna let you out of my sight, Josh, I—“
“So don’t,” he said, squeezing Sam’s thigh.
“Josh,”
“Sam,” he countered.
Sam’s smile was there, tinged with sadness, but there nonetheless. “So, matching rings when?”
“Whenever you want,” and that was better, the smile reached Sam’s eyes. “Look, we don’t have to do anything tonight, it— I know there were talks of getting naked, but it can wait, really,” Josh offered, because Sam was still having a moment with the scar it seemed, and Josh was still right there with him.
“I’m giving you an orgasm before the night’s through, Josh, just— you were shot,” he said quickly, and he sounded awfully determined, sitting atop Josh’s hips and eyes darting from Josh’s own to the scar.
“And I’m fine now,” Josh said.
Sam nodded like he was trying to convince himself of that fact then and there. “Yeah,”
“I’m fine, and I’m in your bed,” he added, and that got Sam’s eyes to return to him and stay on him. Some of the cheeky mirth had even returned to his features,
“That is true,” he conceded. Josh moved his hands to Sam’s hips, squeezing once there because he could.
Josh had more ready to say, to persuade Sam’s focus to come back to him at present rather than him in the past. Nothing more was needed, though, because Sam, focus at the ready, was leaning back down slowly, and, yes, one hand stayed on his chest, splayed right over the scar, and Josh knew this wouldn’t be the last time it came up, not even close, but.
But tomorrow was another day, and Josh would let him inspect the scar every second behind closed doors for the rest of their lives if that was what it took. And Sam realized that, too, it seemed.
The rushed fever with which they had kissed before was gone, replaced then with something far more tender and gentle.
For a split second, Josh wanted to scream, because fuck Sam, fuck Rosslyn, fuck that goddamn bullet, Josh had spent months convincing the people around him that wouldn’t break at the slightest pressure, that he was fine. Josh had worked harder than he’d ever worked at anything, which, by the way, was saying an extraordinary amount, to actually, well and truly, be fine. He had reached stability, or at least something close enough, and screw Sam for ignoring all of that.
But it wasn’t for Josh, the way Sam’s lips barely moved against his own, the way Sam’s hand on the back of his head didn’t pull, or clench, or anything, really, it was just there, holding. That was for Sam.
Because Josh didn’t remember a lot of the immediate aftermath at Rosslyn, but he remembered the important stuff. He didn’t remember the President or Leo being there, but the President was proud that he’d been there, so Josh played along when he needed to, but all of Josh’s memories of that encounter were fabricated from what the others had told him. He remembered Donna cried and talked a lot while Josh wandered in and out of consciousness, the anesthesia still heavy in his limbs. He remembered Toby had said some adage in Hebrew, but he didn’t remember exactly what. He remembered C.J. had given him a stuffed donkey that he still had somewhere in his closet. He remembered everything hurt, but the room was blissfully silent.
He remembered Sam, who had almost been a fixture in the room himself, but he’d been quiet. Alarmingly quiet. And Josh hadn’t pushed, because, well, he’d just been shot and banned from pushing anything for some amount of weeks. Sam had been quiet, but he’d been there, he’d stayed there until the others drove him away for sleep or a shower or his actual job.
So the newly gentle pace wasn’t for Josh at all. It was for Sam. Josh sank into it easily, because he’d do anything for Sam.
It wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to keep his hands above the belt, though, so Josh held Sam’s face in his hands, thumb caressing his cheekbone until Sam was ready.
None of that was to say that it was a burden, kissing Sam like that. Josh was in heaven, let the record show.
Sam’s tongue was warm against his lips, and his nose was pressing into his cheek, and Josh had to sneeze a little bit, but it could wait, because kissing Sam couldn’t.
At some point, Sam’s mouth moved. Josh tried to follow him. The hand Sam had on the back of Josh’s head, tangled in his hair, pulled back just a little then. Josh yielded and let his head relax back against the bed.
Sam nipped at his jaw, and— and Josh was not proud of the sound that he made when Sam lingered on a spot on his neck, how his hand tightened on Sam’s shoulders, how his brain went a little stupid.
On the other hand, Sam seemed very proud, when he sat back a bit and grinned at what he’d done.
Thankfully, Sam didn’t gloat for too long before returning to Josh’s neck, even traveling down to his collarbone.
“You’re driving me insane, I believe I was promised an orgasm,”
“Getting there,” Sam said against his skin.
“Good, because you’re killing me,”
“Yeah, I don’t think I am,” and Sam’s hand was on Josh’s zipper, and all of a sudden things seemed very real.
“We— we’re doing this?” Josh asked, like an idiot. He felt the warmth of Sam’s hand through his underwear for fuck’s sake before Sam froze and moved his hand to the side.
“Yeah, I mean, necking might take a while, and you were getting impatient, so—“
“Necking?”
“When I was kissing your neck, and you were making those wonderful noises, yes, Josh, necking,”
“Who says necking, am I your prom date?”
“Josh,” Sam sighed.
“Yeah, okay,” he acquiesced.
Sam stared at him for a second, then, “are you having second thoughts?”
“No, definitely not, you have no idea how very first thought I am, but this is— it’s kinda the point of no return, isn’t it?”
“Unlike the necking?”
“Jesus— yes, Sam, unlike the necking, and don’t get me wrong, I want this, whatever’s about to happen, I do, but it’s a lot,”
Again, Sam just looked at him, but then a smile spread slowly over his face. “I would like to touch you, Josh, may I?”
Josh gaped, because he was in bed with an idiot, “yes, I’ve said that, but— oh,” and then Sam was palming him through his underwear.
“You talk a lot, did you know?”
“No, that’s news to me,”
And Josh didn’t know what to do with his hands, while Sam’s was sneaking under his waistband, and— and Sam’s hand was on him, skin to skin, wrapping around him gloriously, and Josh still didn’t know what to do with his hands.
Sam had kinda already passed the so-called point of no return, leaving Josh in what felt like uncomfortable limbo, because he had yet to reciprocate, he had yet to put something on the line, so to speak, and— and touch. That thought, for whatever reason, seemed to bypass the rest of Josh’s brain. He unbuttoned Sam’s pants and pushed them lower down his hips, pushing Sam’s boxers down.
The groan that came out of Sam’s mouth when he touched him was incredible, leaving no room for Josh’s anxiety and the static of what if.
“Hold on, okay,” Sam mumbled, mostly to himself, and then Sam was spitting into his palm, batting Josh’s hand away with his other hand. He shifted a little, from where he was still half sitting in Josh’s lap, staring down between them until eventually—
“Good?” Sam asked.
“Yeah,” because Sam had one hand wrapped around the both of them, moving, and it was perfect. “Yeah, come here, I want—“ he said as he grabbed the back of Sam’s neck and head, pulling him down. Sam’s hair wasn’t really long enough to hold onto, it gave him absolutely no leverage whatsoever, but it was— it was nice and soft and Sam.
Josh held him close as he kissed him, licking into his mouth. It wasn’t particularly long before they gave up on kissing, panting into each other’s mouths as Sam worked them closer and closer and off.
He was too warm in places and sticky in others, Sam was boneless on top of him, and Josh couldn’t stop smiling. His leg was cramping a bit, so he bent it, leaning it against Sam’s side.
“The entire White House would know something was up if we showed up Monday wearing rings,” Sam said into Josh’s neck.
“Probably,” Josh said, rubbing lazy circles into Sam’s back.
“To say nothing of the entire republican party,”
“They’d burn us alive at the stake,” Josh nodded, but he couldn’t stop smiling.
“It’d be M.S. all over again, C.J. would kill us,”
“Sure would,”
Sam looked up at him then, and Josh would imminently be fed up with the mess they were laying in and demand a shower but— he never wanted to leave that moment with Sam.
“Silver or gold?”
“Gold,” he grinned, pressing a kiss to Sam’s hairline.