West Wing FF: "Will rise in majesty" (Sam&Toby, PG-13, post-series)
Title: Will rise in majesty
Fandom: West Wing
Pairing: Sam/Toby implications
Rating/Warning: PG-13
Genre: Drama/Angst
Length: 900 words
Disclaimer: All belongs to Sorkin and Wells
Spoilers: Set post-series in the Sam-as-POTUS verse, but no detailed spoilers that I can see
A/N: I don't know what this is, which is why it's just going to the journal. Just a slice of... something. *sighs* It wanted to be written, so who am I to refuse? I reserve the right to turn it into something else later though!
"Be noble! and the nobleness that lies / In other men, sleeping but never dead, / Will rise in majesty to meet thine own."
- James Russell Lowell
- - - -
He wasn’t a child anymore - no longer the youngest, but still the best of them. Sadness makes him beautiful: the knowledge lurking in the back of his blue eyes and the grey threading through his hair. Sam’s loveliness had troubled Toby less in the man’s youth, before the mantle of command had fallen too heavily on narrow shoulders.
His boy is sending other boys to fight and die far away from home, and each time Toby visits that understanding weighs heavier on the two of them. Sam had wondered, long before this, whether to spend his twenty spare dollars on curing AIDS or cancer. Now he is playing with billions of the country’s dollars and the guilt is there still. Sam looks down at the eagle on his carpet and does not believe he is worthy.
If this was Jed, Toby would know what to say. Would say that believing yourself to deserve the power was a sure sign that you didn’t. Jed would have laughed, most days. (Toby doesn’t think too closely on the other days - the days where Jed too had heard an older voice telling him that he wasn’t good enough). This is a calling for Sam, and like every apostle he questions his master’s faith in his abilities. Toby wishes for a burning bush or a hand to reach down from the heavens; Sam is on the right path but Toby’s words no longer convince him of that.
‘I love you,’ he tries, but he tags the phrase onto another and they run together, meaningless. Sam smiles vaguely, and rests a hand on Toby’s shoulder. Toby feels the weight of it and wonders if Sam would let him shoulder more; knows that he wouldn’t. Sam steps away and leans on the desk instead, that desk that does not seem to steady him at all. The office is dark, and outside the storm dashes against the window. Sam is in the eye, holding the world together. ‘I’m not strong enough,’ he whispers, as though ashamed.
‘Yeah, Sam, you are,’ Toby tells him. The lightning flashes, and Sam looks at him. Toby doesn’t know what he sees; blue veins translucent in sickly-pale hands, outstretched to pull Sam away. Sam reaches one hand out, and their fingers touch at the tips. ‘I don’t suppose you came here to tell me what to do?’
‘No,’ he answers, wishing he could say yes. He is damned already, willing to steep his hands in the blood Sam will spill, to wash him clean of it. Sam presses their palms together like a prayer made before battle, like a blessing. Toby doesn’t know who’s giving and who is taking.
‘You need to go,’ Sam whispers, pulling his hand away.
‘I can stay.’
‘No.’
Sam’s hand is already on the telephone, but he does not pick it up until the door closes with Toby on the outside. Toby stands in the outer office and hears the noise levels rise. Will comes out of his office and doesn’t see him. ‘The President gave the go order,’ he tells Sam’s assistant, ‘Get the staff.’
Sam is calling him back from the other door. ‘Toby, Toby.’
‘Sam,’ he answers, loud enough that the others might hear.
He goes back into the Office, and Sam’s hold on his hand is tight now, twisted like a vise around Toby’s fingers.
‘This is what I’ve done,’ he says. ‘Nothing else is going to matter.’
Violence begets violence and this is what history remembers; a legacy written in blood. Toby uncurls the fist of Sam’s hand and smoothes the palm out with his thumbs. ‘Give them something else that matters,’ he says to the tremor in Sam’s hand, ‘and I’ll make sure that they remember it.’
Sam nods and accepts the further burden Toby places, unwilling, on his back. He straightens up, and Toby notices for the first time the noise outside the room. The cameras, he thinks, the staff who don’t understand why Toby is there instead of them. Sam takes his hand from Toby’s, steady now and firm. Places it on Toby’s heart and says, ‘Thank you’. Says, ‘I love you,’ plain and unadorned.
Toby nods, and adds that to the list he is writing in his heart, the parts of Sam that yet belong to the boy, and not the man with the straight back who is about to tell his country that they are at war.
Standing at the back of the room, he watches. The camera is fixed on Sam’s face, close enough to read any fear, any flickers of shame. Sam’s eyes are clear and truthful, hands on the Resolute desk as if they belonged there, as if they had never shook in Toby’s grip. ‘My fellow Americans,’ he says, and Toby hears echoes of Agincourt, of Shakespeare’s kings, noble and pure. Toby reads, amongst the sorrow and the gravity, the hope that is always there. The belief that this is the best and only thing he could have done; that they could not stand by and watch. The trust that everyone else is as good as him; that they will understand. Toby is not the first to love him, and he will not be the last. He loves him all the same, the boy-dreamer and the man-king, tangled together as both student and sovereign. Sam wasn’t a child anymore - no longer the youngest, but still the best of them. This is the first chapter.
FIN. Hmm... yeah.
Fandom: West Wing
Pairing: Sam/Toby implications
Rating/Warning: PG-13
Genre: Drama/Angst
Length: 900 words
Disclaimer: All belongs to Sorkin and Wells
Spoilers: Set post-series in the Sam-as-POTUS verse, but no detailed spoilers that I can see
A/N: I don't know what this is, which is why it's just going to the journal. Just a slice of... something. *sighs* It wanted to be written, so who am I to refuse? I reserve the right to turn it into something else later though!
"Be noble! and the nobleness that lies / In other men, sleeping but never dead, / Will rise in majesty to meet thine own."
- James Russell Lowell
- - - -
He wasn’t a child anymore - no longer the youngest, but still the best of them. Sadness makes him beautiful: the knowledge lurking in the back of his blue eyes and the grey threading through his hair. Sam’s loveliness had troubled Toby less in the man’s youth, before the mantle of command had fallen too heavily on narrow shoulders.
His boy is sending other boys to fight and die far away from home, and each time Toby visits that understanding weighs heavier on the two of them. Sam had wondered, long before this, whether to spend his twenty spare dollars on curing AIDS or cancer. Now he is playing with billions of the country’s dollars and the guilt is there still. Sam looks down at the eagle on his carpet and does not believe he is worthy.
If this was Jed, Toby would know what to say. Would say that believing yourself to deserve the power was a sure sign that you didn’t. Jed would have laughed, most days. (Toby doesn’t think too closely on the other days - the days where Jed too had heard an older voice telling him that he wasn’t good enough). This is a calling for Sam, and like every apostle he questions his master’s faith in his abilities. Toby wishes for a burning bush or a hand to reach down from the heavens; Sam is on the right path but Toby’s words no longer convince him of that.
‘I love you,’ he tries, but he tags the phrase onto another and they run together, meaningless. Sam smiles vaguely, and rests a hand on Toby’s shoulder. Toby feels the weight of it and wonders if Sam would let him shoulder more; knows that he wouldn’t. Sam steps away and leans on the desk instead, that desk that does not seem to steady him at all. The office is dark, and outside the storm dashes against the window. Sam is in the eye, holding the world together. ‘I’m not strong enough,’ he whispers, as though ashamed.
‘Yeah, Sam, you are,’ Toby tells him. The lightning flashes, and Sam looks at him. Toby doesn’t know what he sees; blue veins translucent in sickly-pale hands, outstretched to pull Sam away. Sam reaches one hand out, and their fingers touch at the tips. ‘I don’t suppose you came here to tell me what to do?’
‘No,’ he answers, wishing he could say yes. He is damned already, willing to steep his hands in the blood Sam will spill, to wash him clean of it. Sam presses their palms together like a prayer made before battle, like a blessing. Toby doesn’t know who’s giving and who is taking.
‘You need to go,’ Sam whispers, pulling his hand away.
‘I can stay.’
‘No.’
Sam’s hand is already on the telephone, but he does not pick it up until the door closes with Toby on the outside. Toby stands in the outer office and hears the noise levels rise. Will comes out of his office and doesn’t see him. ‘The President gave the go order,’ he tells Sam’s assistant, ‘Get the staff.’
Sam is calling him back from the other door. ‘Toby, Toby.’
‘Sam,’ he answers, loud enough that the others might hear.
He goes back into the Office, and Sam’s hold on his hand is tight now, twisted like a vise around Toby’s fingers.
‘This is what I’ve done,’ he says. ‘Nothing else is going to matter.’
Violence begets violence and this is what history remembers; a legacy written in blood. Toby uncurls the fist of Sam’s hand and smoothes the palm out with his thumbs. ‘Give them something else that matters,’ he says to the tremor in Sam’s hand, ‘and I’ll make sure that they remember it.’
Sam nods and accepts the further burden Toby places, unwilling, on his back. He straightens up, and Toby notices for the first time the noise outside the room. The cameras, he thinks, the staff who don’t understand why Toby is there instead of them. Sam takes his hand from Toby’s, steady now and firm. Places it on Toby’s heart and says, ‘Thank you’. Says, ‘I love you,’ plain and unadorned.
Toby nods, and adds that to the list he is writing in his heart, the parts of Sam that yet belong to the boy, and not the man with the straight back who is about to tell his country that they are at war.
Standing at the back of the room, he watches. The camera is fixed on Sam’s face, close enough to read any fear, any flickers of shame. Sam’s eyes are clear and truthful, hands on the Resolute desk as if they belonged there, as if they had never shook in Toby’s grip. ‘My fellow Americans,’ he says, and Toby hears echoes of Agincourt, of Shakespeare’s kings, noble and pure. Toby reads, amongst the sorrow and the gravity, the hope that is always there. The belief that this is the best and only thing he could have done; that they could not stand by and watch. The trust that everyone else is as good as him; that they will understand. Toby is not the first to love him, and he will not be the last. He loves him all the same, the boy-dreamer and the man-king, tangled together as both student and sovereign. Sam wasn’t a child anymore - no longer the youngest, but still the best of them. This is the first chapter.
FIN. Hmm... yeah.