Title: Tick Tock, Sam/Josh
Title: Tick-Tock
Author: andrealyn
Fandom: The West Wing
Medium: Television
Genre: Slash
Pairing: Josh/Sam
Theme: H is for Horology. Sam: Leo, there are times when we are absolutely nowhere.
Disclaimer: They are not mine, alas.
The second time that a man on death row is executed, Sam takes a two-day vacation, just so he could be away from the office when midnight came and the executioner is legally bound by law to ask if the man has any last words, to ask if there had been clemency granted, and then the injection is given; all of this done by law.
Even though he takes the days off, he lies away at midnight and he watches the clock and when midnight comes and midnight goes, he feels a little more hopeless because he knows that there’s no way in the world they saved the guy - whose case had been bungled by the defense, leaving the prosecution to pick at the defendant like vultures on a corpse.
Tick tock, tick tock.
Every passing moment is the reminder that they failed again and this time, Sam can’t even justify it with the fight he’d put up. He’d told Leo that sometimes, he didn’t even know what they were doing anymore; that they were going nowhere.
In his dark townhome in Virginia, Sam lies awake and stares at the ceiling and he couldn’t feel more mired in nowhere and nothing if he tried.
*
The knock at the door comes at two AM, when one-hundred-and-twenty minutes have passed between a warden asking an inmate for his last words and the moment when Sam looks at the clock and realizes someone is here to bother him. He hopes it’s not Toby, because he hasn’t taken a vacation in months and he only asked for two days. Sam wanders to the door, feeling like he’s trapped in a dream, the edges of sleeplessness sucking the reality out of the night.
He finds Josh standing on his stoop, papers clasped in hand and his hair frizzy with the August humidity. “Hey,” Josh exhales after a long moment in the darkness, crickets chirping away while taxis pass by every now and again.
“Hey,” Sam greets him in return, not sure why he’s waiting for something. Maybe news. Maybe clemency. “Did…”
“No,” Josh interrupts immediately, giving a dark laugh. “Sam, no. No.” Because it could never be anything else. In the history of clemencies granted to death row inmates, the statistics were depressingly low. Especially for those who were undeserving. Lock ‘em away for life, sure, but jabbing them with the strongest drugs on the market and watching them take their last breath is a sport Sam wishes had gone out of style with the Coliseum’s crumbling.
“Can I come in?” Josh asks, voice thick. Sam doesn’t answer immediately and he hears the clock ticking away behind him - his grandmother’s gift to him when he went to Duke, an old family heirloom that now belonged to him and looked to be going to charity if Sam didn’t bear an heir soon enough. “I brought the uh…the stuff from the exec…”
“Come in,” Sam interrupts him this time, not wanting to hear that word tonight. He eases away from the door and checks the clock. 2:15. Would two hours and fifteen minutes at the office have made a difference? Sam knows that he would have been useless, but he’s reluctant to admit it. “Do you want coffee?”
Josh pauses at that. “Yeah, why not. I’m going back in soon as I can. See if I can’t catch the last of the vigil.”
Sam watches the clock ticking and finds himself so distracted by it that he doesn’t feel Josh’s hand on his shoulder until his lips are pressed close to his neck. Sam closes his eyes and turns around to find Josh searching his face for an answer to a question that no one ever asked.
Josh leans in and presses his lips to the space behind Sam’s ear. “You couldn’t have done anything,” he murmurs there quietly, hand still clapped on Sam’s shoulder. “This wasn’t your guy to save, Sam.”
“None of them are,” Sam replies quietly, unmoving save for his eyes flickering over Josh’s face. He smiles sadly. “Who do I save?”
Josh brushes his lips down Sam’s jaw and then away. “You save me every day,” he promises, tapping his heart. “You saved me, Sam. You keep saving me with your idealism. You just save me, kay?”
Sam nods. “Okay.”
Josh drifts away and Sam turns to the clock. 2:38.
Just another day of work coming up.
THE END
Author: andrealyn
Fandom: The West Wing
Medium: Television
Genre: Slash
Pairing: Josh/Sam
Theme: H is for Horology. Sam: Leo, there are times when we are absolutely nowhere.
Disclaimer: They are not mine, alas.
The second time that a man on death row is executed, Sam takes a two-day vacation, just so he could be away from the office when midnight came and the executioner is legally bound by law to ask if the man has any last words, to ask if there had been clemency granted, and then the injection is given; all of this done by law.
Even though he takes the days off, he lies away at midnight and he watches the clock and when midnight comes and midnight goes, he feels a little more hopeless because he knows that there’s no way in the world they saved the guy - whose case had been bungled by the defense, leaving the prosecution to pick at the defendant like vultures on a corpse.
Tick tock, tick tock.
Every passing moment is the reminder that they failed again and this time, Sam can’t even justify it with the fight he’d put up. He’d told Leo that sometimes, he didn’t even know what they were doing anymore; that they were going nowhere.
In his dark townhome in Virginia, Sam lies awake and stares at the ceiling and he couldn’t feel more mired in nowhere and nothing if he tried.
*
The knock at the door comes at two AM, when one-hundred-and-twenty minutes have passed between a warden asking an inmate for his last words and the moment when Sam looks at the clock and realizes someone is here to bother him. He hopes it’s not Toby, because he hasn’t taken a vacation in months and he only asked for two days. Sam wanders to the door, feeling like he’s trapped in a dream, the edges of sleeplessness sucking the reality out of the night.
He finds Josh standing on his stoop, papers clasped in hand and his hair frizzy with the August humidity. “Hey,” Josh exhales after a long moment in the darkness, crickets chirping away while taxis pass by every now and again.
“Hey,” Sam greets him in return, not sure why he’s waiting for something. Maybe news. Maybe clemency. “Did…”
“No,” Josh interrupts immediately, giving a dark laugh. “Sam, no. No.” Because it could never be anything else. In the history of clemencies granted to death row inmates, the statistics were depressingly low. Especially for those who were undeserving. Lock ‘em away for life, sure, but jabbing them with the strongest drugs on the market and watching them take their last breath is a sport Sam wishes had gone out of style with the Coliseum’s crumbling.
“Can I come in?” Josh asks, voice thick. Sam doesn’t answer immediately and he hears the clock ticking away behind him - his grandmother’s gift to him when he went to Duke, an old family heirloom that now belonged to him and looked to be going to charity if Sam didn’t bear an heir soon enough. “I brought the uh…the stuff from the exec…”
“Come in,” Sam interrupts him this time, not wanting to hear that word tonight. He eases away from the door and checks the clock. 2:15. Would two hours and fifteen minutes at the office have made a difference? Sam knows that he would have been useless, but he’s reluctant to admit it. “Do you want coffee?”
Josh pauses at that. “Yeah, why not. I’m going back in soon as I can. See if I can’t catch the last of the vigil.”
Sam watches the clock ticking and finds himself so distracted by it that he doesn’t feel Josh’s hand on his shoulder until his lips are pressed close to his neck. Sam closes his eyes and turns around to find Josh searching his face for an answer to a question that no one ever asked.
Josh leans in and presses his lips to the space behind Sam’s ear. “You couldn’t have done anything,” he murmurs there quietly, hand still clapped on Sam’s shoulder. “This wasn’t your guy to save, Sam.”
“None of them are,” Sam replies quietly, unmoving save for his eyes flickering over Josh’s face. He smiles sadly. “Who do I save?”
Josh brushes his lips down Sam’s jaw and then away. “You save me every day,” he promises, tapping his heart. “You saved me, Sam. You keep saving me with your idealism. You just save me, kay?”
Sam nods. “Okay.”
Josh drifts away and Sam turns to the clock. 2:38.
Just another day of work coming up.
THE END