Title: Falling Further In
Author: Cherry Vanilla
Fandom: The West Wing
Pairing: Josh Lyman/Sam Seaborn
Rating: NC-17 m/m sexual situations, language
Keywords: Angst, Romance
Status: NEW, Complete 5/02/2001
Archive: no
Series/Sequel: Series now entitled Falling Further In. Includes Tooth and Nail, Barely Breathing, and Everyone's a Little Jaded.
Spoilers: Up to 'Bad moon rising.' Significant ones for 'Noel.'
Summary: "I'm not living -- I'm just killing time."
Notes: Summary and lyrics by Radiohead.
Story notes: This sort of branches ahead to stuff that hasn't happened yet, but I'm sure we all know it's going to. And if it doesn't, then consider those parts artistic license. Of course, if it's too far off, I may rewrite certain things.
"And True Love Waits--
It's haunted all our days"
* * * *
"Thanks for seeing me on such short notice."
Stanley nods. "How are things, Josh?"
"Uh -- really. Not too good, really."
"What's going on?"
Josh laughs sardonically. "Oh come on, Stanley, you watch the news."
"Is that all?"
Josh slaps his hands on the arms of his chair and shoots up. "Is that all? Is that *all*? You know, I love it when people on the outside make such incredulous remarks such as 'is that all' or 'I don't know why you're freaking out over this.' I mean, there are some things that are essential to freak out over!"
Josh is sweating now and breathing heavy, continuously pacing the room.
"You finished?"
Josh glares at him.
"What else happened, Josh?"
"What the *fuck* makes you think there's something else? There's a fucking White House scandal occurring, isn't that enough!"
"Josh," Stanley replies shortly, "what else happened?"
He sighs, defeated. He leans back against the desk behind him and picks at the wood with his nails. It presents a pleasing distraction.
"Lisa came back."
"Who?"
"S -- The, the person I'm with. His ex-fianc�e. She's in town."
"I see. And you freaked out?"
Josh holds up his hands. "S'what I do. Joshua Lyman."
"And you don't want to."
"I don't want to."
"Then why do it?"
"Keeps me sane."
"Excuse me?"
Josh finds that his fingers can be extremely fascinating. "If I'm freaking out, then I'm not crying. If I'm not crying, then I'm still together. I gotta, gotta hold it together."
"For who, Josh?"
"For the goddamn country! For the President, for Leo, for *Sam*, dammit!" And he stops -- and he freezes -- and he sinks to the floor.
"Josh. Josh! Listen to me, it's okay."
But Josh knows it's not okay, and he shakes his head and holds himself and wishes it were Sam here doing the holding but Sam is off with Lisa and Josh is here.
"I promised you confidence and you're gonna get it. Now relax."
He looks up and Stan's face is reassuring, so he pulls it together the best he can. He brushes his suit off while standing up and laughs weakly. "Guess the cat's outta the bag, huh?"
"We can pretend you didn't say it, Josh."
"Yeah. right."
"Let's get back on topic. You said his ex-fianc�e is here."
Josh rubs his forehead. "Yeah, yeah, she uh, came to 'support' him. She hasn't seen him in almost four years and now she shows up."
"It is sort of understandable, Josh."
"What? How can you say that?"
"Showing support in time of struggle for someone you once cared deeply for? It's not that uncommon."
He frowns and feels as though Stanley is mocking him. "Yeah well, I'm going through this too and do you see Mandy here?"
"Every circumstance is different."
"Fuck circumstance! He's with her right now, said I was overreacting, was being an asshole. Oh *I'm* the asshole! Right. Jesus, he's so *fucking*--"
"Did you fly off the handle, Josh?"
Josh stares hard again, his jaw clenching. "Who's fucking side are you on, *anyway*?"
Stanley sighs and closes his notebook. "Look, we're not going to get anywhere like this. When you calm down, maybe then we can talk."
Josh grabs his jacket and throws it over his shoulder. "Yeah, yeah. That's fucking brilliant, Stanley. Nice to see you're doing something useful with that degree."
* * * *
Josh ends up ditching his car and walking around Dupont Circle. He knows there is something he should be doing, something more important like tearing his brains out over Bartlet and this administration and Toby for the bastard that he's become but all he can think of is Sam. And Lisa. Sam and Lisa -- Lisa, who spent years with Sam -- Lisa, who is safe and familiar -- Lisa who is most likely not to freak out and fuck up and push her hand through windows.
Lisa -- who at this moment, could be in Sam's bed.
Josh shakes and lowers himself to the ground and now he's sitting on the sidewalk on Dupont Circle and the President is sick and Sam is fucking Lisa.
"No, no, no," he's muttering and he doesn't know which part he's saying no to. He can't hear himself. He can only hear a vague shell of a voice that doesn't sound like the Joshua Lyman that started this all.
The Joshua Lyman that started this all is long gone. Perhaps he was left behind in the OR.
In any event, somewhere along the way he lost himself -- and found Sam. So now all he knows how to be is the man that Sam sees, because Sam is what matters. But Sam isn't here.
And everything just keeps plummeting until he's so deeply buried in shit that he can't get out. The second the Powers That Be sense a little daylight breaking, the shadows soon return, taking Josh with them.
His 'let's take it one day at a time' plan didn't last very long. Not with the threat of scandal on the horizon, not with learning the President has MS. Jesus, the President has MS.
It had leaked into their personal lives without neither Sam nor Josh realizing. And soon they were barely speaking, taking their uncertain futures out on each other the only way they knew how. When Sam would talk, Josh would cut him off, yell at him, and then Sam would shut down, and Josh had to wonder just how long it would be until Sam would just burst.
It didn't take long. It happened this afternoon. It happened do to the news of Lisa's impending arrival. Josh had freaked and Sam, Sam finally exploded -- said he couldn't deal with *Josh's* inability to deal -- said he couldn't live like this if they couldn't even speak to each other when things got rough.
Josh had argued that three weeks before, he'd opened up, expressed his fears. But Sam didn't give a shit about that.
Because Lisa was coming and Josh was freaking. He's told Josh that his capacity for insane jealousy was making him eminently unattractive.
And he might have been half kidding even but Josh didn't care and he flew off the handle. And he called Sam every name in the book and told him to go fuck Lisa and beat out of there.
Because Sam was oblivious and couldn't see that Josh was collapsing, couldn't see that this Lisa thing was like a knife through his heart.
And maybe, Josh thinks, it's his own fault -- because Josh was never one to wear his heart on his sleeve. And Josh certainly wasn't one to express his emotions so easily, so readily.
He'd express it during a kiss, or a hug, or when he wakes up in the middle of the night and rests his head on Sam's shoulder and kisses his collarbone while breathing in his scent.
And he only told Sam he loved him once. Because Josh wasn't that kind of guy. He wasn't the kind of guy that could get up in the morning and eat breakfast with someone and kiss them good-bye and walk out the door and say 'I love you.' He wasn't -- because Sam was walking out that that door with him.
Sam, on the other hand, could say it. Sam could sit on the couch with Josh's feet on his lap and the basketball game blasting on TV and softly say 'hey,' and cause Josh to look up at him. And then he'd simply say it. I Love You. And Josh would smile and raise Sam's palm to his lips and kiss it to keep his mouth occupied.
Sam and he were so alike in some ways and so utterly different in others. Intellectually, professionally, they could operate on the same plane.
Personalities and emotions -- that was where they were strangers.
And so, this caused an interesting explosive dynamic to their relationship. Especially since the frustrations were often dealt with by having bone jarring--knee weakening sex.
Last night, following one nightmare after another at work, Sam had attacked him as soon as they were through the door. And he took everything he was holding in -- the silence, the fight, Bartlett, the oil tanker, his father, everything -- he took it all out on Josh, let it all go.
And Josh had wanted it, craved it even. And when Sam had pushed him against the bedroom wall, he couldn't help but moan 'do it, do it,' and couldn't exactly pinpoint what he was talking about. And when Sam took him, he felt the grip on his heart release, felt the scars melt. And he had told Sam to 'let it all go' and Sam did and he gasped 'Josh, Josh,' and cried. And then he had turned Josh around and moved them to the bed and kissed him until his lips were raw and torn.
Then Sam said 'I love you,' and Josh had started thinking that maybe things weren't so shitty, until today, until Lisa.
* * * *
The street is cold beneath him. He has no idea how long he's been sitting here. He's vaguely aware that the sky is bit brighter than it was before.
Avoidance.
Avoidance is what he's best at -- but only that of the personal things, the things that matter.
The things that should matter most.
He feels like he's looking through a mirror. And the reflection he sees is barely recognizable.
He begins walking and realizes that he's lost all hold on reality. He has no clue who Joshua Lyman is. He has no clue what this existence is for. He's lost.
*Sam is who he wants.*
That's all he knows. But who the fuck is Sam getting in return. Who is this Josh that smashes windows and freaks out on Sam over Lisa? Who is this man who suddenly has no confidence?
Josh doesn't know, but he hates him.
* * * *
It must be close to dawn when he arrives home. His feet are aching and he's in desperate need of a shower.
What he doesn't expect to see is Sam crashed out on his couch, sitting up, with his neck arched backward against the wall.
Josh thinks that Sam will probably need a massage tomorrow. He wonders if he'll be the one to give it to him or if that's Lisa's role now.
He hates himself. He hates this weak, insecure, shell of a man he's become. He hates--
"Mmh?" Sam stretches and opens his eyes. Josh looks hollowly at him. "Bout time," he rubs his eyes and sits up straight. Josh can hear his neck cracking. "Where you been?"
"Out." *Oh how very 16-ish.*
"Mm. Stating the obvious."
Josh sighs and takes off his jacket, throwing it on the armchair. "Go back to sleep."
"Josh."
"How the hell did you get hear anyway?" He asks, wincing as he toes off his shoes, suddenly remembering that he didn't see Sam's car anywhere on the block.
"I took the subway."
"I'm fifteen blocks from the subway."
Sam shrugs. "So. I walked."
"Hmm," Josh muses, scratching the back of his head.
"What?"
"Nah, nothing. I just. Expected you to say that Lisa dropped you off."
Josh watches as Sam's eyes grow dark. "We had dinner, we talked, and then she went back to her hotel." Sam sighs and stands. "Not like I need to explain this to you."
"Nah, I'm just the guy you're fucking."
"Oh fuck *you*, Josh!"
"My point exactly."
Sam gets up and collects his jacket and wallet, brushing past him. Josh stares vividly at the wall -- but the room is spinning.
He hears Sam sigh heavily and turn behind him, waiting.
But Josh can't care because the ceiling is collapsing, and the floor is rising, and he's being compressed.
"I can't, I -- can't." And he slams his hand on the coffee table and sinks down beside it.
And instantly Sam is there muttering 'oh god' and his hand, now a little bloody is being cradled.
He grasps Sam, clings to him like a child in a mother's arms. He starts to cry for maybe the 3rd time in his life and then Sam is crying too, moaning his name in an anguished whisper.
And then their tears are mingling as Sam's cheek brushes his own and their mouths are meeting and it's the most heartbreaking, desperate, intimate kissing that Josh has ever known.
And he licks at Sam's mouth, attempts to climb inside. He wants to climb inside Sam and never come out because maybe, if he could stay inside Sam, he wouldn't have to deal with himself.
Their arms wrap around each other and Josh pulls Sam almost violently toward him, gasping as a wave of pain courses through his hand, and keeps kissing him and moves his good hand to Sam's pants and rubs his erection through the material there and Sam moans and bites down on Josh's lip.
Josh deftly undoes Sam's fly, slips his hand inside, and it's hot and wonderful and utterly Sam.
Josh feels Sam's hand rubbing against the back of his neck, shudders against it as Sam's mouth runs along his jaw, up his face, wetly, his breath warm -- god so warm.
Josh kisses Sam's neck and pumps him steadily.
"Josh."
"Let go," he breathes.
"You, you too."
And the tears fall some more as he brings Sam off and he thinks maybe in a way, he just did let go.
Sam pulls him down onto the carpet and shudders and plants kisses all over Josh and Josh just holds on, because Sam he could never let go of.
"Lisa's long over and done with."
"Yeah." And he knows this, of course he knows. Maybe he just needed to hear it.
"I -- I'm falling apart, Sam."
Sam hugs him, severely. "So am I."
Josh doesn't know what to say. This is the one thing he never thought he'd hear and it scares the shit out of him, more than anything.
Josh looks at him, the tears still glistening in his eyes. "I love you."
And he hears the barely audible gasp and it's like a kick to the gut -- because it never should have come to that point.
Sam nods and kisses his forehead briefly. "Love you, too."
Josh sighs and lays his head on Sam's chest. "I can't -- I don't know who I am. It's like, the second I think I have things figured out, something new happens to fuck it all up again. I don't -- jesus, Sam, I can't stand being inside my own head."
"Have you talked to Stanley?"
Josh winces. "Sort of."
Sam kisses his hair. "You're scaring me, Josh." His voice is a meek whisper and Josh feels the burning start behind his eyes again.
He laughs weakly. "Yeah, I uh, I'm sorta scaring myself here."
Sam mouths his jaw. "I want to help you."
"Just -- don't let me take you down with me."
"Josh--"
"Because I'd never forgive myself."
"Oh and I would?"
Josh sighs. "Sam -- you don't. You're not. Just be thankful you don't know what it's like to be Josh Lyman."
Sam sits up, fast. "Yeah, ok, yeah, I don't. But I know what it's like to love Josh Lyman -- all of Josh Lyman, even when he's barely recognizable. Newsflash, buddy: We either beat this, or collapse together. Cause no way in hell are you going without me, not if I can help it."
"You -- you can't just *catch* me, Sam. This is bigger than me, bigger than you, even."
"Just hold on." And Josh takes Sam's hand and they stare down at their fingers.
"Even through -- through all the shit -- you're still. Shit Sam, you're the fucking one good thing left. Don't let them take that."
Sam kisses him. "Never."
And Josh stares at him, wishing he could believe in 'never'.
"You'd really catch me?"
"Just tell me where to stand."
And the tears come again but this time they're not as painful. Because Sam is here and Sam will catch him if need be.
And Josh is going to work today and he's gonna spin this scandal the best he can and then he's gonna go back and see Stanley -- because he can't avoid this any longer.
* * * *
