West Wing FF: Stars that clear (have been dead for years) [gen, R]
Title: Stars that clear (have been dead for years)
Fandom: West Wing
Characters: Toby, Josh (Sam, Will, CJ, background CJ/Danny and past canon pairings)
Rating: R
Genre: Angst
Length: 5,700 words
Disclaimer: All belongs to Sorkin and Wells.
Warnings/Spoilers: Potential spoilers to end of S4. Character deaths and violence
Summary: This was the only way to ( Read more... )
Fandom: West Wing
Characters: Toby, Josh (Sam, Will, CJ, background CJ/Danny and past canon pairings)
Rating: R
Genre: Angst
Length: 5,700 words
Disclaimer: All belongs to Sorkin and Wells.
Warnings/Spoilers: Potential spoilers to end of S4. Character deaths and violence
Summary: This was the only way to ( Read more... )
Okay. *gathers breath* You know how I said that your AU was your best? Well, I'd like to change my answer. (I know you won't agree, but that's okay. And you know what my favourite favourite is anyway. ;)) But really: this is astonishing. There are precious few slips or sentences I had to read twice before I understood them. And I think you're coming into the first of your stages of brilliance. Which is not to say that you weren't brilliant before (I'm all with the back-handed compliments this week; ask Amanda) but this is a different, more mature kind. That yours came to you three years earlier (in terms of how old we are) than mine came to me is something I choose not be jealous of. ;) Basically, I'm probably going to end up saying that each new story is your best for a while. ;)
Anyway. I said this to melliyna, but in the hands of someone less talented, this could so easily have been 1984-lite and have been all the poorer for it. You've filled me full of questions of the 'why?' 'how?' 'when?" variety *and* managed to scare me to death with the few specifics you did give (the 28th Amendment, for instance) at the same time, which is pretty amazing really. :D
AND, even better, you managed to still be writing a story about words and legacies and the uneasy quartet (CJ/Sam/Toby/Josh) or the uneasy trio (Josh/Sam/Toby) or our boys.
AND you made me love Will. And I really think you're the only person who could have had me mouthing 'thank you!' to Will Bailey.
Okay, line by line ...
I'm ... actually all twisty and hurt that your first act was to kill Sam. I can imagine how it (possibly) made you feel. (Though it never seems to hurt me as much when I kill Toby as when someone else does. Same with you?)
BUT. The rationale is all there - he *does* make the perfect figurehead, be it as President or as freedom fighter - "handsome and young". And I can't see anyone falling in behind Josh or Toby as freely as they would behind Sam either, though it pains me to say so.
It seemed ... I don't know. I think the first things I was thinking of as I read it was probably V for Vendetta which is why the pictures are coming out all Guy Fawkes-ish in my head. Like martyrdom, but not, because only a handful of people in the world know the real story. Hmm.
“They’re leading with the part about him refusing a priest. Not that he was murdered, but that he was godless as well as a criminal. "
See, this makes me ask questions. Is this America as run by fundamentalists? I'm going to need to make with the re-reading, aren't I?
It was fear, he suspected, in the back of Sam’s eyes, blue and shocking still in cheap print.
That was the first line that jumped out at me as being beautiful and true. And I love the clarification at the end. Of course he wasn't afraid, Toby. You ought to know better.
“We couldn’t save him. Saving his corpse won’t help.”
Ouch. But Toby the Pragmatist, it *is* what he would say.
Before this had all happened, Toby had not thought it would be Sam who shifted the fastest to pragmatism.
And, I love the reversal of roles here: Toby becoming the silent boss, Josh the hurt saviour and Sam the one who sacrifices and makes the difficult choices that need to be made, rather than being the standard bearer for idealism. I love that. And it's true to them, even true to what I think Sam becomes later in his life in a more canon-based universe. *sigh* And your Toby here, existing in this place that is just taking people away from him one after one after one is ... kinda unbelievably heart-breaking. I think your hurting!Tobys are my favourite, you know. And it kind of makes him a Josh-figure. *sighagain* And Joshua. How is it that I always remember why I do actually love Josh when you write him? You never make him anything other than what he is but you always show me a different way of looking at him.
He gave Josh to her keeping, because he would be safer there than with Toby, who was only capable of loss.
See above re. hurting!Toby. I just don't actually have words for how evocative this is.
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The descriptions of the ex-White House reminded me of Serenity, or of something someone (possibly wisdomeagle) said about it: that what got to them most wasn't Book or Wash or whatever, but the process of making Serenity into a Reaver ship - the desecration. This struck me the same way and if it was a film and not a story, you can bet I'd be in tears over it the same way that if we ever go to DC you'll be embarrassed by me trying not to cry at the sight of the Washington monument. ;)
The little room had been for him and Sam; it was his alone now.
*sigh* There is a very weird domestication vibe that runs through all this story for me. I don't know if it's just this line that set it off or what but it's there. I guess because they have become family and better than lovers. And I am choosing to believe that this line is proof of what I want to see between Toby and Sam. (Although I think there are echoes elsewhere too. You can't fool me. ;))
He stood in its centre with a balled fist over his eyes. He was a widower twice over. He had lost two children, a status which neither his two languages nor his former profession had given him words for. And he was this, whatever this might be. Grief piled on top of grief until there was nothing left but to be buried under it, here in the ruins. /and/ Not even the only of someone he had loved and heard die.
This would be only the first of the paragraphs that broke me. And there's so much to go for here. Let's start from the top: the first line is, irrepressibly, my icon of Toby with his fist over his eyes from 'Drought Cons' and that just evokes that episode and ... yeah. You know what happens next! And the next one ... *sobs* You know what my first reaction is? That he's not meant to be the one who loses people; he's meant to be the lost one and it's all twisted and hurtful. But this is a dystopia, so that's just right. And ... the kids as well. And the "someone he had loved and heard die" line makes me imagine the worst on that. :(
But this paragraph prepares us for the end, really. Toby's legacy (the kids, Andy, Sam, CJ, the job, the President) is gone and what he can still do is make the sacrifice. There's a track on the Schindler's list soundtrack - 'Immolation (With Our Lives, We Give Life)' which is what I thought of.
The wall of pictures is niggling at me, like I'm missing something about it. Maybe it will come on readthroughs. Maybe it's reminding me of war memorials and 'In Excelsis Deo', only a graffiti version of that, because they aren't allowed true and permanent memorials. Hmm. I love it as an image either way.
Morning dawned pink and clear, like an insult.
I love that. Nothing profound to say, but I love it.
avoiding the captured images of a white smile, warm brown eyes, of a flash of blonde hair.
Took me a minute to get this but god. Josh. *hugshimtight*
And DANNY! I'm always pleased to see Danny.
Nowadays the conversations were marked by absences more than presence. The passing of time could be judged by the shrinking of the pauses while they waited for the dead to speak.
Now that is beautiful.
And Will. Oh, Will. You know, you make me adore him in this and yet I can still hate him for being the one who makes it out. (You know, I've just thought, is this a horrible apocalyptic vision of the way the end of season 7 feels to us? Will and Josh make it and Sam and Toby get destroyed in their different - metaphorical - ways? Hmm. I say meta. ;)) Anyway, I kinda know who Josh feels here, and yet ...
Toby answered for the young man hiding behind his glasses, “This is Will.”
... this made me smile. Again with the reversal of roles. And that it takes a dystopic White House for Toby to defend Will. (Apart from that bit in 'Inauguration: Over There' and I know I'm bending canon to fit the way I can feel about Will. *goes to hide*)
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This is the last three points all put together: amazingly good prose, the feeling that this is really how I *actually* feel about the last season and the sense of role reversal with:
Toby glared. “Me. Anything else?”
:D Aww, Toby. I do love you. It's also a gently painful reminder of how Sam isn't there but things carry on - coffee has to be bought (I love that they don't so much go out for food but they do go for coffee *g*), plans made etc. Just with that hole in the middle.
Will Bailey stood up. “Mr Lyman. My name is Will Bailey, my father was General Thomas Bailey. I met Sam after I was arrested. We coordinated a defence which, while ultimately unsuccessful, lead to a dialogue which continued after I was released and until his-”
And now, Will Bailey son of General Thomas Bailey, I kinda adore you also. This is all the best bits about Will - standing up to prove himself. And I love, I absolutely LOVE, that it's Josh standing there with one eyebrow raised thinking: yeah, and? :D
“Of the twenty-eighth amendment, the illegal actions of an illegal administration, and the false histories being taught in our schools.”
This is the bit that scared the hell out of me. Shades of Order of the Phoenix, which makes it sound more trivial than it ought. This is the kind of thing that gives me shivers, like that book did.
Josh glared. “I was saying I was satisfied with your explanation. You’re making me regret that.”
Again with the role reversal. Josh Lyman meets Toby Ziegler. :D
Toby slammed Josh’s skull against the floor. Will was faster to move, and dived to the ground under his own power.
Again with the shivers. All the way through this part I was thinking: please don't please don't. Really.
Gunshots were fired into the ceiling and plaster fell like snow.
Breaking off to note that this is a beautiful line.
This really really scared me. And was the point were I knew Toby would be dead at the end. But mostly I couldn't think because of the litany of pleasedon'ts in my head. Which means you can write thriller. ;)
There was just enough room between the boot and the leg to plunge the blunt knife into. There was a yell, a shot, and a sickening cut-off scream. Josh was pulled under the table before it was knocked sideways. Will had a gun in his hand and the man who would have arrested Toby had a bullet lodged in his neck.
And this would be where I wanted to kiss Josh and Will all over their faces. Good boys.
“Can I say something?” Will asked, when they were back in Toby’s office. There was an edge of laughter in his voice which was, frankly, a little disturbing. He continued, “This never happens to CJ.”
I thought this was a joke, a proper joke, until I paid more attention, but he's right. Well, right up to a point I suppose.
“It was that or rock back and forth in the corner and I did that last time. Anyway, my point.”
*hugsWill*
(dark thought that had lain at the back of Toby’s heavy look on that day, I knew this would happen)
Of course you did. *sigh*
Toby lifted his chin and looked up at her. It was most of an expression that Josh recognised, an amused affection seldom bestowed on anyone but her. The other part was the expression before Sam, or after Andy; the precious things lost or losing.
Oh God. This might be what I think is the cleverest line in a piece full of thoughtful and clever lines; I might be wrong. But I adore it - CJ as the empty spaces in Toby's heart seems about right to me, and dreadfully sad, but correct. And the tenderness, the affection between both of them. I can't ever, as you know, place how I feel about them and you evoke that here, for me anyway. And it's gorgeous.
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*chest swells* My boy. (Seriously. I do that. *goes to hide again*)
Toby was arbiter of disputes, and it was his view of what Sam Seaborn had or hadn’t been that would become official history. He had the language to make it so.
Re-reading this now that I've read the end, this seems an even sadder line than it did the first time around. *sobs* True though.
Sam was the sacrifice and Josh was the saved, the last in a long line. Josh would make it the last.
Foreshadowing = ouch. :(
Sam hadn’t walked into the enemy’s midst and overthrown the tables. He hadn’t been angry at the destruction of their year-old kingdom, though he would rant and rage about the misspellings in their police files. He could direct emissaries across the country but needed hazard tape to stop him tripping down the steps into his office.
I LOVE THIS. The denial of Sam as a Christ-figure without actually saying so. The references! The prose! The ranting about misspellings! :D It made me smile. A lot.
So he had spoke out, stood up, and chose the life of ash and wreckage.
*nods* Yes. This is all of them, really, not just Toby. And why we love them.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
Again, changing of positions. Toby/Sam = Toby/Josh. Because repetitions of "Okay" will always be a Toby/Sam thing with me. ;) But it shows the changing way they're communicating and working together and becoming different, because they have to. Which also makes me ache a little.
"Yes, because while leading seventeen unsuccessful campaigns, stealing cable came up all the time."
:D Life of crime, Toby.
Toby tossed a ball of paper at Josh’s head. “Double or nothing. Yanks by six.”
Why is this the line that set me off crying? Properly. I had to stop and come back. Probably the totally unprofound reason: this is what it should be like and not what it actually is like. And it hurts.
There was a brief and terrified flurry of activity, until CJ laughed, quick and golden. “It’s the Fourth of July. It’s the fucking Fourth of July, Josh, it’s fireworks.”
See? :( (And the line about red light above skyscrapers? That's very on the nose, even six years after 9/11).
And ... CJ! I can see why this depressed the hell out of you. *hugs*
The grey crawl of foreboding had been a constant since the first day, when the beginning of the end had come without warning.
Perfect line. Again.
Some day soon it would be him and Toby, back to back while the last of the oil burnt out.
My notes read 'Hanukkah inversion??'. Am I really reaching? ;)
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He folded the paper into thirds and pressed it into Josh’s hand. “Sagittarius.”
That really seriously started me crying again. I don't know why. Because it has a prior significance which also makes me cry probably. Because it's one of the words which means The End, even though it doesn't really in canon. But it does here.
Josh was proud, and afraid, and dressed the two in virtue.
Another absolutely gorgeous line. And, I love that the beginning and the end mirror each other, sort of - Josh shoving Toby into the wall. Ring composition always wins my heart. ;)
“I need you and Will to get out.” The roles switched so quickly they blurred. Will is the disciple now - the one left to write the gospel history of blood and death, and turn it into meaning.
*nods* And yet ... it hurts so much. And now that I've thought of the comparison with S7 I can't let it go, even though it's the way it needs to be, here at least. *unhappysigh* And also: getting to the words/legacy part of the proceedings, which is possibly the real reason why this bit hurts most of all, quite apart from Toby going up in flames.
Josh, though, must always be himself - he who stood in the middle of the carnage unscathed.
Oh, Josh. Your destiny in any universe.
He knew what certainty was: that he loved his children, that Jed Bartlet was a good man, that words could change the world.
This is my favourite line, and my pick for the best. (And yes, big big tears.) Lists make me cry because they seem to make things more significant, I don't know why. Not that these things need any extra significance. And ... maybe they're upsetting, more than upsetting, because they are, all three, things that don't belong to the current version of this world - Huck and Molly are gone and so is the President and the belief that makes the job worth doing and words won't change anything yet, they'll just get you murdered. Toby. :(
He caught his reflection in a blank television screen, and it took a moment to place the expression. So Sam had not been afraid after all. It was an unexpected boon.
Silly boy.
“I’m sorry, but no. Sam says to tell you that we drank the Kool Aid.”
Actually managed a smile for that line. (And I love that it reclaims, for me, Doug's line about the Kool Aid. We came to win, also rendered as: fuck you.)
Josh would keep them safe, and bring them home when it was time.
*nods* It's wrong but it's right; Josh is the man to do it. *sigh*
Jesus Christ, woman. If you don't think this is amazing ... well, I'm going to need to knock some sense into you. ;) I love you so much.
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Well, in fairness, I didn't like This Wartime Morality much just after I'd finished it either. Amazingly, I like all of my fic much more after you've reviewed it. *g*
I'm all with the back-handed compliments this week; ask Amanda) but this is a different, more mature kind. That yours came to you three years earlier (in terms of how old we are) than mine came to me is something I choose not be jealous of. ;)
We've probably been fic writing for about the same length of time though, haven't we? And I wasn't taking it badly - I know I've got better, mostly since I met you :)
You've filled me full of questions of the 'why?' 'how?' 'when?" variety *and* managed to scare me to death with the few specifics you did give
I think I know most of what went on, to the extent of when most of the off-screen deaths happened, and roughly who did what. But neither 1984 nor V for Vendetta would be a wrong direction to think in... I did consider putting in more of the context, but this way just seemed to work better. Maybe?
AND you made me love Will. And I really think you're the only person who could have had me mouthing 'thank you!' to Will Bailey.
Aw, poor Will. You're not entirely wrong about the meta-ness, but I definitely like him more than you. Yes, Josh definitely got some of my post-S4 anger, but I've warmed to Will since, and so Josh does to. I was concerned, while I was writing, that it didn't come off as Will-hating, because it wasn't meant that way. Scroll's made me love him quite a lot actually! But I get that you don't - me and Andy have our own issues.
I'm ... actually all twisty and hurt that your first act was to kill Sam. I can imagine how it (possibly) made you feel. (Though it never seems to hurt me as much when I kill Toby as when someone else does. Same with you?)
... I think it was easier because it was me, a bit anyway. It was odd, but I had to do it. It was a dystopia, and killing Sam was the quickest way to make the world awful. The first scene was always the first scene, which was odd for me, but I knew from the beginning that I was doing it. I was more worried that I was still making it all about Sam even though he was dead before it started!
And Joshua. How is it that I always remember why I do actually love Josh when you write him? You never make him anything other than what he is but you always show me a different way of looking at him.
Thank you :) I wasn't sure about writing almost the whole thing from his POV, but it felt like a fun challenge!
The descriptions of the ex-White House reminded me of Serenity
That part in Serenity really got to me. And yes, this was the part I really wish I could film, because it was so clear in my head and didn't write as well as I wanted.
There is a very weird domestication vibe that runs through all this story for me.
It's not weird. Well, the vibe may be weird, but it's not weird to notice it. I think, by force of them all being together in the situation which really no one else can get, it turned into an even closer dysfunctional family than they normally are. Living pretty much in the same room, with no one outside they can trust.
this line is proof of what I want to see between Toby and Sam. (Although I think there are echoes elsewhere too. You can't fool me. ;))
*g* I'm actually pretty curious what you saw, because I thought it was less of a vibe than normal. I mean, it's there because it's me, but still. The pairing this was before it was gen wasn't actually Toby/Sam. Can you guess what it was? ;-)
The passing of time could be judged by the shrinking of the pauses while they waited for the dead to speak.
Now that is beautiful.
*glows* That's one of my favourites.
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*is shamefaced* I didn't even think about that. What does that say about my coffee addiction?
"Of the twenty-eighth amendment, the illegal actions of an illegal administration, and the false histories being taught in our schools.”
This is the bit that scared the hell out of me.
I quite like that bit too. I wasn't sure I had got it across as well as it worked in my head, but I'm glad it scared you! I know a little bit more about it in my head, but probably still not enough to just be throwing out details...
Which means you can write thriller. ;)
Seriously? *bounces*
Re-reading this now that I've read the end, this seems an even sadder line than it did the first time around. *sobs* True though.
You know, for all my hammering foreshadowing/reference in where it didn't belong, I didn't notice that myself until just before I posted. Possibly because when I wrote it, I hadn't quite convinced myself of the ending yet. It was nearly a Lyman-Ziegler suicide pact, you
Foreshadowing = ouch. :(
I knew what that one was doing though. For I am evil.
I LOVE THIS. The denial of Sam as a Christ-figure without actually saying so. The references! The prose! The ranting about misspellings! :D It made me smile. A lot.
:D I love Sam so much. And I loved the moment when I finally figured out why this fic was about man and religion, because it was a scary few weeks there...
Why is this the line that set me off crying? Properly. I had to stop and come back. Probably the totally unprofound reason: this is what it should be like and not what it actually is like. And it hurts.
Okay, that was so very much not the scene I expected to set people off. In fact, it was nearly cut because I worried it was an unnecessarily fluffy digression. But I liked the wee moment of normality, so it remained. I'm glad I left it now.
See? :( (And the line about red light above skyscrapers? That's very on the nose, even six years after 9/11).
And that, oh, two paragraph section is the reason it stayed in really, because I needed a lead in to a few lines I liked. I still thought it might be a little obvious, but it was preying on me, so I let it stay.
Some day soon it would be him and Toby, back to back while the last of the oil burnt out.
My notes read 'Hanukkah inversion??'. Am I really reaching? ;)
*blushes* You're actually not reaching at all. That was written at the height of my religious reference mania, and it was a reference I knew from other fic research!
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*g* I thought you might like that one. I quite like that section, and the one before it, with Will and Josh, but I still think it might be revealing things about my interpretation of the characters that I don't know about. And I still don't know where my Will and Josh love comes from. Possibly this is actually the story about the loss of Sam, in which case it is entirely about me and S7. Hmm
Josh, though, must always be himself - he who stood in the middle of the carnage unscathed.
Oh, Josh. Your destiny in any universe.
Ah. That's why I love Josh, even when he does things I hate. That line made me sad to write, and I hated making the ending as it was, but it's kinda true, no?
“I’m sorry, but no. Sam says to tell you that we drank the Kool Aid.”
Actually managed a smile for that line. (And I love that it reclaims, for me, Doug's line about the Kool Aid. We came to win, also rendered as: fuck you.)
And again, so close to losing that line, because it was flip, and it called back to Sam when I was trying to make it about Toby. But I couldn't help the reference, it was so perfect. Kool Aid as the real reference, of the mass suicide - it's Toby's way of trying to make them believe that they're all dead in the building. And as the reference to belief in the ideal, of Jed Bartlet and what he stood for even after he's dead, and belief in Sam who believed in all that. So it's good that people liked it, huh?
Josh would keep them safe, and bring them home when it was time.
*nods* It's wrong but it's right; Josh is the man to do it. *sigh*
I changed that line so many times it's not true. Most of this story, really, is about Toby&Josh as opposing forces, as complementary forces, as needing each other because there's no one left. And I was trying, possibly unsuccessfully, to get across that they both did what they had to, as much as they could. And leave a tiny bit of room for some hope at the end ;)
I'm really glad you liked this, honey, and I've warmed to it a bit now. Just eager to read yours when you're ready!
Love you loads ♥
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