FF: Let's Go
Title: Let’s Go
Author: little zigzags
Rating: R
Pairing: J/D
Spoilers: Goes AU during Disaster Relief
Disclaimer: No money from these beauties.
Summary: The point is, he thinks later, he should have heard her from the moment she walked the door. Or, what should have gone down at Morton’s.
A/N: Hi! :::Waves to f-list::: Sorry to take such a long hiatus. It’s been kind of a crazy, terrible, life-changing, wonderful, and horrendous couple of weeks. (Comment to make it better?) I’ll be trying to catch up on the lovely comments, messages, etc. in the next couple of days. Thanks to all the people who have supported me throughout as well as the new ‘faces’ that have surfaced recently. Meanwhile, here’s something that’s been running around in my head for the past few weeks. I tend to avoid Season 5 since there’s so much stigma around it, but I found myself re-watching this and thinking, wow, BW is pretty awesome, here. And also, what if this happened?
...oh,
these are not split decisions, everything
is in agreement, we set out willingly, and also knew to
play by the rules, and if I say to you now
let’s go
somewhere the thought won’t outlast
the minute…
--Jorie Graham
Head down, index finger tracing the condensation on his water glass, he almost doesn’t see her.
It isn’t quite his fault, given the day he’s had; it’s almost understandable, except for that normally, most of the time, he’d know her anywhere just by the tempo of her gait. It sounds sappy, sure, but he knows her: her staccato lilt, almost impertinent, if he could call someone’s walk impertinent. The point is, he thinks later, he should have heard her from the moment she walked the door.
Of course, the rarity of hearing her in four-inch stilettos might have had something to do with it.
Truth be told, he doesn’t even notice her presence until she’s sliding into the booth next to him, his gaze meeting hers, eyes wide with apprehension. He scans the restaurant, then looks back at her, his mouth opening in surprise as he processes her, the soft sheen of her wool and silk shell, sleek hair, impossibly high heels. Even in her borrowed red dress she was innocent, simple, unmade, but here, tonight, she’s sultry, almost unrecognizable, and his mouth opens in surprise.
“Hi.”
“Hello.”
“Wilcox is running late.” He scans the restaurant. He’s not the only one wide eyed-she’s turning heads all over the restaurant, politicians and lawyers and business men gawking at his assistant like she’s an oasis at the end of their long stretch of desert. He’s fighting the urge to cover her with his coat when the truth hits him before she has the chance to say the words.
Josh Lyman, stood up, and his sexy little assistant is putting him back at the top of the Morton’s mountain with nothing more than some eye-shadow and a pair of imitation Jimmy Choos.
She looks at him, her eyes wide and dark, and he understands.
“You shouldn’t be here.” He forces himself to look away from her.
She breaks his gaze, pulls a couple of folders from her handbag. “Working dinner,” she says, pulling a few folders from her handbag.
“Still, it’s-” What is it exactly, he wonders, trying to ignore the fluted bones of her wrist. Inappropriate? They’ve had dinner before. Although this is different, there’s something innately different here than eating salad from plastic in his office or splitting a tuna sandwich on the campaign trail when he was too tired to even breathe. Maybe it’s that you can put a couple of folders between them, you can call it a working dinner, but everyone, the West Wing and the whole restaurant and half of Washington can feel this thing, this something simmering between them from half a mile away.
And the dress, that goddamn dress is driving him crazy, all sleek slate grey, not too different from something she’d wear at the office, but still. He feels too hot, he feels like jumping out of his seat. He grabs his water glass and takes a few gulps, wiping his mouth with his napkin before looking back at her.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he repeats, vaguely aware that he sounds like a cross between an idiot and a school marm.
People are still staring at her.
She sighs loudly, puts down her handbag, her head snapping back to look at him in that deliberate way of hers, the way she looks at him when she wants something, a raise or a proclamation or the last of his french fries.
Leaning in, she lowers her voice. “Dammit Josh, you got stood up by someone that’s not worthy enough to be kissing your feet. You’ve had kind of a rough day, one that is probably going to be the start of a couple of rough days, and if you think for one minute I was going to leave you here alone in front of half of Washington’s political scene you are quite frankly out of your gourd.”
She leans back, tucking her hair behind her ears. He looks at her, her expression unreadable.
“You could have sent the kid.” The waiter leaves some bread at the table and he grabs a roll, tearing it apart.
“What, and torture you more?”
He smiles weakly at that. “That’s true, this is definitely more enjoyable.” He looks at her, her makeup and her sexy dress and mentally kicks himself as she blushes slightly, looking down at her hands. He’s fallen into the old leer, the things he would say to her every day, but he doesn’t stop to realize that here, in this restaurant, with her looking like she does and him being who he is, it’s inappropriate, and God, he’s a moron.
But then she looks up, her chin raised, gaze steely and strong and he’s nearly bowled over by the sight of her. He’s supposed to be, hell, he is one of the most powerful people in Washington, but today Donna Moss is putting him to shame.
People are still staring at them and she looks at him strangely, one side of her mouth quirking up in her odd half-grin, eyes kind of haughty and mischievous. “Fuck the world, tonight, Josh. Just-fuck ‘em.”
He looks up sharply because she never swears and because he’s beginning to have an inkling of what tonight is all about, but he doesn’t even let his mind go there because he’s tired and an idiot and he’s probably wrong. He’ll probably wake up in the morning with half of a hangover and still smelling her perfume. But still, he can’t help but look at her.
-
They’ve had this moment back on the second campaign trail, this moment that’s really the most clichéd thing in the world but he remembers it sometimes, at the oddest moments, usually at home at night when he’s brushing his teeth or before he turns on CNN in the morning.
They get lost, somewhere in Nebraska or something, somewhere that is just one long, flat stretch of road with nothing, just nothing for miles and miles, and they all fall asleep to the rumble of the bus as it searches for some hotel. It’s one in the morning and she awakes with some file folders and Josh’s arm on her knees. She’s sprawled out on his shoulder, half turned towards him, his cell phone caught awkwardly between their hips.
It’s mortifyingly quaint, and she probably would have felt like jumping out of her own skin if it weren’t the middle of the night in one a bus driving through an endless field somewhere, the moonlight so bright across the great flat stretch that it’s almost blinding.
Then she hears his little intake of air and she knows that he’s awake. They’re both awake now, and everyone’s asleep, and the fields roll by.
They stay like that for long moments that stretch on. Her hand is clasped like some pathetic romantic on his chest and she goes to move it but decides otherwise, at the last minute, her hand sliding as if of its own accord into his open collar, her cool little hand against his clavicle. She does it because everyone’s asleep and she can, or maybe because it’s been this terrible, hellish ride or simply because it’s the middle of the night and God knows he’ll never make the first move and if they don't touch someone they’ll both go crazy.
He breathes out, turns slightly toward her, his breath warm on the top of her head. His free hand slides tentatively over her legs, brushes between her knees.
It doesn’t go any farther than that, really. They’re on the campaign bus and with any luck they’ll have four years to go but now, just for now, they don’t move their hands, and the fields roll by.
-
She has a sweet tooth and he’s feeling dangerous and so he orders her a profiterole just so he can watch her eat it. It’s the sort of thing Amy would do, Amy is all little red dresses and slick shiny nail polish and licking her lips, and it’s not till he watches Donna savoring the sauce on her spoon, unaware, no sultry designs, that he realizes this is an entirely different thing altogether, but not before his mouth goes dry. She offers him a bite of ice cream from her spoon and he coughs, once, twice, before shaking his head.
-
They catch a cab together and he half watches her, her face inscrutable and mysterious in the dark. He doesn’t know what’s happening but he feels reckless, out of control.
He’s trying to think about everything except her, except this mess he’s gotten himself into. Everything dangerous and forbidden and God, he’s fucking everything up. But the problem with that, he thinks, is that what else is there, besides work and her? They’re both kind of off limits now, both full of red flags and where he shouldn’t put his hands and he feels like a child sometimes, the way they both make him feel.
And suddenly, he can’t breathe, he’s telling the cabbie to stop, he’s lurching out of the cab like a drunk man, yelling, hollering all his breath out into the night. He’s gasping and he thinks he might hurl, right here in front of the Capitol building, Donna scrambling out of the cab behind him, her face wide and open with worry.
He hears her clack up behind him, the soft beat of her heels on the concrete. He thinks she’ll stand behind him, just stand there, because that’s all she can do really, that’s all either of them can do. Terrible, silent support, and God, he thinks, it’s not enough, how can it be enough-
And then he feels her palms settle on his upper arms, grasping him tight, bracketing him, and he almost flinches at the feel of her small hands.
‘Josh.’
‘I can’t-’
He can’t move. He can’t move because he’s not sure what happens next-for once in his life his road isn’t mapped ahead of time. Harvard, Yale, Fulbright, political wonder boy, heir of Leo McGarry, keep-your-hands-off-your-secretary-for-another-year, it’s all planned out. It’s the only thing that’s kept his brash, egotistical, loud-mouthed kid in the candy store self from doing something stupid. The promise of tomorrow. And it’s all gone to shit, and he can’t think, can’t plan, can’t trust himself not to do something idiotic now that his path isn’t laid out neatly in front of him.
‘You can. C’mon. You can come yell at the cats.’
He starts again at the reference to her apartment, turning to face her, the question evident on his startling, pale face. She turns away quickly, tugs him back into the cab, her face still a stunning mask.
-
Her apartment is dim, a little cold. She’s still so unrecognizable, so sphinx-like, God, just so damn tall that he can’t get a read on her, can’t figure out what’s going on.
‘Do you want a drink?’ She bends to take off her shoes, wincing a little at the cold wood floor on her feet.
He lets out a breath suddenly because now, barefoot, she suddenly looks more like Donna, and okay, this is more manageable. ‘Sure.’
She pads to the kitchen, returns with two water glasses and a bottle of whisky. His eyebrows raise because Donna, Donna can drink anything, she’s got a stomach of steel from what he can only imagine in his addled brain to be many teenage years sitting behind the cow barn with several of her many, many cousins drinking her parent’s Makers Mark. But he can’t really hold his own with anything stronger than a pale ale and she knows it, too. Which is why he’s startled as she pours him a few fingers of dark liquor and settles herself on her couch.
He sits down gingerly in one of her armchairs as she tucks her long, long legs under her. Takes a long swig, lets himself enjoy the slow burn of the alcohol in his throat.
They sit like that, making small talk. He pours them another glass. The tips of his fingers are tingling.
Finally she looks at him, he can feel it. He studies the grain of the wood on the chair, takes another swallow of whisky.
‘So what happens now?’
He lets out a breath, considers a joke, considers anything but his terrible, expansive uncertainty. ‘I don’t know.’
‘But-’ The silence hangs in the air, and he looks up at her, meeting her eyes.
‘But, what?’
‘You’re going to stay, Josh, right?’ She looks at him, her eyes dark and clouded in the light.
‘I-I don’t know. I don’t want to be somewhere I’m not wanted.’ He says those words, realizes the weight of them, and suddenly the room feels too small, too dark, he can’t breathe. Donna’s looking at him, and he realizes suddenly that this is her future too, tied to him, and the thought of it hits him hard in the ribs.
He stands, the room a little fuzzy. He understands now, understands why you shouldn’t drink alcohol, especially when you feel like he does. He feels worse, impossibly so, and he feels the beginnings of a migraine begin to grind out from his skull. “I should go.”
She nods slowly, getting up. She pads over the door with him, holds it open. He looks at her, all slumped shoulders and his sad, drawn face, and impulsively reaches up to smooth down the lapels of his jacket. Even now, in his drunk state, his eyebrows are raised. She holds his gaze. “Are you going to be all right getting home?”
He’s about to nod, brush her off, do something, just walk out the door and jump in a cab and go pass out until the next day reels around again. But she’s looking at him, her face a question, and he still can’t figure out what she means, but she’s there, she’s there with him, her warm hands still pressed against the fabric of his suit and he can’t bring himself to walk out of her apartment alone.
They stand like that for several drawn out moments before he feels her hands move, creeping up to his neck and he stands stock still, like she’s some sort of wild animal that has wandered close and could be spooked. He takes a shaky breath as he feels her nimble fingers undo his tie slowly, pulling the knot undone, untwisting the fabric, sliding it off of his neck.
She’s been wanting to do that ever since two days ago when he strolled into the office, trying to be nonchalant about the fact that he’d been written up in the papers, not to mention fucked his sometime-girlfriend on her kitchen table. He’d come in with yesterday’s suit and and his open collar and she’d teased him about it but she’d thought about that tie. Not the suit or the sex or Amy with her flushed, sexy grin but the goddamn tie. She stands here now, the scrap of silk crumpled in her hand. She’s starting to blush and she hears his breath kind of rough in the silence of her apartment. He’s her boss and he kind of has a girlfriend and she’s what, undressing him in the middle of the night, but when she kisses him, not tentatively, she’s not really surprised.
She’d thought he’d pull back. She’d thought he’d be slow and careful and she’d have to convince him that hey, it’s okay, he could put his hands on her. She’d thought about how they were almost the same height and how that was probably a good thing, because she could kiss him and not have to even reach for it. But maybe it’s because he’s drunk and maybe it’s because he’s really had the crappiest day in the history of crappy days, because in reality he groans and wraps his his arms tight around her waist, kissing her fiercely.
But he’s Josh, and even drunk he’ll doubt himself, even if it takes him a little longer than most. (Here, it takes him pressing her up against the door, and really, she was wrong, she isn’t tall enough, not nearly because he’s lifting her now, both of them pulling back gasping as he presses fully against her-)
'Business as usual.’ Probably not what CJ had in mind, she thinks.
And then he stops, hands sliding from her ass to her waist, her legs uncurling from his hips as he lets her slide to the floor. He waits, as one bare foot hits the floor, and then the other. She looks up at him, her face finally plain and open in the dim light. And he looks at her, and she's sure, she’s just sure he’s going to leave. Mumble his apologies, flush, fumble for the doorknob.
But then she sees one dimple forming, his mouth relaxing into his easy, Josh-like grin, and she feels her chest lighten for the first time in two days.
“Fuck the world, tonight?”
She gives him a small, self-deprecating grin. “You bet your ass.”
She’s still not sure if it’s the best idea as he lowers his mouth to hers again. They’re passionate and they're tired and he’s got his career ahead of him and maybe she does too, and maybe he’s drunk and maybe she’s kissing him with the words pity fuck on both their lips.
But she’s run out of better ideas to keep him happy. He’s run out of reasons not to kiss the life out of her, his hands clasping her face lightly betraying his deep, ferocious need for her.
And she’ll be smart enough not to let him go to work without a tie in the morning.
Author: little zigzags
Rating: R
Pairing: J/D
Spoilers: Goes AU during Disaster Relief
Disclaimer: No money from these beauties.
Summary: The point is, he thinks later, he should have heard her from the moment she walked the door. Or, what should have gone down at Morton’s.
A/N: Hi! :::Waves to f-list::: Sorry to take such a long hiatus. It’s been kind of a crazy, terrible, life-changing, wonderful, and horrendous couple of weeks. (Comment to make it better?) I’ll be trying to catch up on the lovely comments, messages, etc. in the next couple of days. Thanks to all the people who have supported me throughout as well as the new ‘faces’ that have surfaced recently. Meanwhile, here’s something that’s been running around in my head for the past few weeks. I tend to avoid Season 5 since there’s so much stigma around it, but I found myself re-watching this and thinking, wow, BW is pretty awesome, here. And also, what if this happened?
...oh,
these are not split decisions, everything
is in agreement, we set out willingly, and also knew to
play by the rules, and if I say to you now
let’s go
somewhere the thought won’t outlast
the minute…
--Jorie Graham
Head down, index finger tracing the condensation on his water glass, he almost doesn’t see her.
It isn’t quite his fault, given the day he’s had; it’s almost understandable, except for that normally, most of the time, he’d know her anywhere just by the tempo of her gait. It sounds sappy, sure, but he knows her: her staccato lilt, almost impertinent, if he could call someone’s walk impertinent. The point is, he thinks later, he should have heard her from the moment she walked the door.
Of course, the rarity of hearing her in four-inch stilettos might have had something to do with it.
Truth be told, he doesn’t even notice her presence until she’s sliding into the booth next to him, his gaze meeting hers, eyes wide with apprehension. He scans the restaurant, then looks back at her, his mouth opening in surprise as he processes her, the soft sheen of her wool and silk shell, sleek hair, impossibly high heels. Even in her borrowed red dress she was innocent, simple, unmade, but here, tonight, she’s sultry, almost unrecognizable, and his mouth opens in surprise.
“Hi.”
“Hello.”
“Wilcox is running late.” He scans the restaurant. He’s not the only one wide eyed-she’s turning heads all over the restaurant, politicians and lawyers and business men gawking at his assistant like she’s an oasis at the end of their long stretch of desert. He’s fighting the urge to cover her with his coat when the truth hits him before she has the chance to say the words.
Josh Lyman, stood up, and his sexy little assistant is putting him back at the top of the Morton’s mountain with nothing more than some eye-shadow and a pair of imitation Jimmy Choos.
She looks at him, her eyes wide and dark, and he understands.
“You shouldn’t be here.” He forces himself to look away from her.
She breaks his gaze, pulls a couple of folders from her handbag. “Working dinner,” she says, pulling a few folders from her handbag.
“Still, it’s-” What is it exactly, he wonders, trying to ignore the fluted bones of her wrist. Inappropriate? They’ve had dinner before. Although this is different, there’s something innately different here than eating salad from plastic in his office or splitting a tuna sandwich on the campaign trail when he was too tired to even breathe. Maybe it’s that you can put a couple of folders between them, you can call it a working dinner, but everyone, the West Wing and the whole restaurant and half of Washington can feel this thing, this something simmering between them from half a mile away.
And the dress, that goddamn dress is driving him crazy, all sleek slate grey, not too different from something she’d wear at the office, but still. He feels too hot, he feels like jumping out of his seat. He grabs his water glass and takes a few gulps, wiping his mouth with his napkin before looking back at her.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he repeats, vaguely aware that he sounds like a cross between an idiot and a school marm.
People are still staring at her.
She sighs loudly, puts down her handbag, her head snapping back to look at him in that deliberate way of hers, the way she looks at him when she wants something, a raise or a proclamation or the last of his french fries.
Leaning in, she lowers her voice. “Dammit Josh, you got stood up by someone that’s not worthy enough to be kissing your feet. You’ve had kind of a rough day, one that is probably going to be the start of a couple of rough days, and if you think for one minute I was going to leave you here alone in front of half of Washington’s political scene you are quite frankly out of your gourd.”
She leans back, tucking her hair behind her ears. He looks at her, her expression unreadable.
“You could have sent the kid.” The waiter leaves some bread at the table and he grabs a roll, tearing it apart.
“What, and torture you more?”
He smiles weakly at that. “That’s true, this is definitely more enjoyable.” He looks at her, her makeup and her sexy dress and mentally kicks himself as she blushes slightly, looking down at her hands. He’s fallen into the old leer, the things he would say to her every day, but he doesn’t stop to realize that here, in this restaurant, with her looking like she does and him being who he is, it’s inappropriate, and God, he’s a moron.
But then she looks up, her chin raised, gaze steely and strong and he’s nearly bowled over by the sight of her. He’s supposed to be, hell, he is one of the most powerful people in Washington, but today Donna Moss is putting him to shame.
People are still staring at them and she looks at him strangely, one side of her mouth quirking up in her odd half-grin, eyes kind of haughty and mischievous. “Fuck the world, tonight, Josh. Just-fuck ‘em.”
He looks up sharply because she never swears and because he’s beginning to have an inkling of what tonight is all about, but he doesn’t even let his mind go there because he’s tired and an idiot and he’s probably wrong. He’ll probably wake up in the morning with half of a hangover and still smelling her perfume. But still, he can’t help but look at her.
-
They’ve had this moment back on the second campaign trail, this moment that’s really the most clichéd thing in the world but he remembers it sometimes, at the oddest moments, usually at home at night when he’s brushing his teeth or before he turns on CNN in the morning.
They get lost, somewhere in Nebraska or something, somewhere that is just one long, flat stretch of road with nothing, just nothing for miles and miles, and they all fall asleep to the rumble of the bus as it searches for some hotel. It’s one in the morning and she awakes with some file folders and Josh’s arm on her knees. She’s sprawled out on his shoulder, half turned towards him, his cell phone caught awkwardly between their hips.
It’s mortifyingly quaint, and she probably would have felt like jumping out of her own skin if it weren’t the middle of the night in one a bus driving through an endless field somewhere, the moonlight so bright across the great flat stretch that it’s almost blinding.
Then she hears his little intake of air and she knows that he’s awake. They’re both awake now, and everyone’s asleep, and the fields roll by.
They stay like that for long moments that stretch on. Her hand is clasped like some pathetic romantic on his chest and she goes to move it but decides otherwise, at the last minute, her hand sliding as if of its own accord into his open collar, her cool little hand against his clavicle. She does it because everyone’s asleep and she can, or maybe because it’s been this terrible, hellish ride or simply because it’s the middle of the night and God knows he’ll never make the first move and if they don't touch someone they’ll both go crazy.
He breathes out, turns slightly toward her, his breath warm on the top of her head. His free hand slides tentatively over her legs, brushes between her knees.
It doesn’t go any farther than that, really. They’re on the campaign bus and with any luck they’ll have four years to go but now, just for now, they don’t move their hands, and the fields roll by.
-
She has a sweet tooth and he’s feeling dangerous and so he orders her a profiterole just so he can watch her eat it. It’s the sort of thing Amy would do, Amy is all little red dresses and slick shiny nail polish and licking her lips, and it’s not till he watches Donna savoring the sauce on her spoon, unaware, no sultry designs, that he realizes this is an entirely different thing altogether, but not before his mouth goes dry. She offers him a bite of ice cream from her spoon and he coughs, once, twice, before shaking his head.
-
They catch a cab together and he half watches her, her face inscrutable and mysterious in the dark. He doesn’t know what’s happening but he feels reckless, out of control.
He’s trying to think about everything except her, except this mess he’s gotten himself into. Everything dangerous and forbidden and God, he’s fucking everything up. But the problem with that, he thinks, is that what else is there, besides work and her? They’re both kind of off limits now, both full of red flags and where he shouldn’t put his hands and he feels like a child sometimes, the way they both make him feel.
And suddenly, he can’t breathe, he’s telling the cabbie to stop, he’s lurching out of the cab like a drunk man, yelling, hollering all his breath out into the night. He’s gasping and he thinks he might hurl, right here in front of the Capitol building, Donna scrambling out of the cab behind him, her face wide and open with worry.
He hears her clack up behind him, the soft beat of her heels on the concrete. He thinks she’ll stand behind him, just stand there, because that’s all she can do really, that’s all either of them can do. Terrible, silent support, and God, he thinks, it’s not enough, how can it be enough-
And then he feels her palms settle on his upper arms, grasping him tight, bracketing him, and he almost flinches at the feel of her small hands.
‘Josh.’
‘I can’t-’
He can’t move. He can’t move because he’s not sure what happens next-for once in his life his road isn’t mapped ahead of time. Harvard, Yale, Fulbright, political wonder boy, heir of Leo McGarry, keep-your-hands-off-your-secretary-for-another-year, it’s all planned out. It’s the only thing that’s kept his brash, egotistical, loud-mouthed kid in the candy store self from doing something stupid. The promise of tomorrow. And it’s all gone to shit, and he can’t think, can’t plan, can’t trust himself not to do something idiotic now that his path isn’t laid out neatly in front of him.
‘You can. C’mon. You can come yell at the cats.’
He starts again at the reference to her apartment, turning to face her, the question evident on his startling, pale face. She turns away quickly, tugs him back into the cab, her face still a stunning mask.
-
Her apartment is dim, a little cold. She’s still so unrecognizable, so sphinx-like, God, just so damn tall that he can’t get a read on her, can’t figure out what’s going on.
‘Do you want a drink?’ She bends to take off her shoes, wincing a little at the cold wood floor on her feet.
He lets out a breath suddenly because now, barefoot, she suddenly looks more like Donna, and okay, this is more manageable. ‘Sure.’
She pads to the kitchen, returns with two water glasses and a bottle of whisky. His eyebrows raise because Donna, Donna can drink anything, she’s got a stomach of steel from what he can only imagine in his addled brain to be many teenage years sitting behind the cow barn with several of her many, many cousins drinking her parent’s Makers Mark. But he can’t really hold his own with anything stronger than a pale ale and she knows it, too. Which is why he’s startled as she pours him a few fingers of dark liquor and settles herself on her couch.
He sits down gingerly in one of her armchairs as she tucks her long, long legs under her. Takes a long swig, lets himself enjoy the slow burn of the alcohol in his throat.
They sit like that, making small talk. He pours them another glass. The tips of his fingers are tingling.
Finally she looks at him, he can feel it. He studies the grain of the wood on the chair, takes another swallow of whisky.
‘So what happens now?’
He lets out a breath, considers a joke, considers anything but his terrible, expansive uncertainty. ‘I don’t know.’
‘But-’ The silence hangs in the air, and he looks up at her, meeting her eyes.
‘But, what?’
‘You’re going to stay, Josh, right?’ She looks at him, her eyes dark and clouded in the light.
‘I-I don’t know. I don’t want to be somewhere I’m not wanted.’ He says those words, realizes the weight of them, and suddenly the room feels too small, too dark, he can’t breathe. Donna’s looking at him, and he realizes suddenly that this is her future too, tied to him, and the thought of it hits him hard in the ribs.
He stands, the room a little fuzzy. He understands now, understands why you shouldn’t drink alcohol, especially when you feel like he does. He feels worse, impossibly so, and he feels the beginnings of a migraine begin to grind out from his skull. “I should go.”
She nods slowly, getting up. She pads over the door with him, holds it open. He looks at her, all slumped shoulders and his sad, drawn face, and impulsively reaches up to smooth down the lapels of his jacket. Even now, in his drunk state, his eyebrows are raised. She holds his gaze. “Are you going to be all right getting home?”
He’s about to nod, brush her off, do something, just walk out the door and jump in a cab and go pass out until the next day reels around again. But she’s looking at him, her face a question, and he still can’t figure out what she means, but she’s there, she’s there with him, her warm hands still pressed against the fabric of his suit and he can’t bring himself to walk out of her apartment alone.
They stand like that for several drawn out moments before he feels her hands move, creeping up to his neck and he stands stock still, like she’s some sort of wild animal that has wandered close and could be spooked. He takes a shaky breath as he feels her nimble fingers undo his tie slowly, pulling the knot undone, untwisting the fabric, sliding it off of his neck.
She’s been wanting to do that ever since two days ago when he strolled into the office, trying to be nonchalant about the fact that he’d been written up in the papers, not to mention fucked his sometime-girlfriend on her kitchen table. He’d come in with yesterday’s suit and and his open collar and she’d teased him about it but she’d thought about that tie. Not the suit or the sex or Amy with her flushed, sexy grin but the goddamn tie. She stands here now, the scrap of silk crumpled in her hand. She’s starting to blush and she hears his breath kind of rough in the silence of her apartment. He’s her boss and he kind of has a girlfriend and she’s what, undressing him in the middle of the night, but when she kisses him, not tentatively, she’s not really surprised.
She’d thought he’d pull back. She’d thought he’d be slow and careful and she’d have to convince him that hey, it’s okay, he could put his hands on her. She’d thought about how they were almost the same height and how that was probably a good thing, because she could kiss him and not have to even reach for it. But maybe it’s because he’s drunk and maybe it’s because he’s really had the crappiest day in the history of crappy days, because in reality he groans and wraps his his arms tight around her waist, kissing her fiercely.
But he’s Josh, and even drunk he’ll doubt himself, even if it takes him a little longer than most. (Here, it takes him pressing her up against the door, and really, she was wrong, she isn’t tall enough, not nearly because he’s lifting her now, both of them pulling back gasping as he presses fully against her-)
'Business as usual.’ Probably not what CJ had in mind, she thinks.
And then he stops, hands sliding from her ass to her waist, her legs uncurling from his hips as he lets her slide to the floor. He waits, as one bare foot hits the floor, and then the other. She looks up at him, her face finally plain and open in the dim light. And he looks at her, and she's sure, she’s just sure he’s going to leave. Mumble his apologies, flush, fumble for the doorknob.
But then she sees one dimple forming, his mouth relaxing into his easy, Josh-like grin, and she feels her chest lighten for the first time in two days.
“Fuck the world, tonight?”
She gives him a small, self-deprecating grin. “You bet your ass.”
She’s still not sure if it’s the best idea as he lowers his mouth to hers again. They’re passionate and they're tired and he’s got his career ahead of him and maybe she does too, and maybe he’s drunk and maybe she’s kissing him with the words pity fuck on both their lips.
But she’s run out of better ideas to keep him happy. He’s run out of reasons not to kiss the life out of her, his hands clasping her face lightly betraying his deep, ferocious need for her.
And she’ll be smart enough not to let him go to work without a tie in the morning.