fic - tww - sam/will - to fall just a little bit
My Sam/Will stories are usually so optimistic. You'd never know I'm secretly a pessimist.
This was originally supposed to be a drabble. It spiraled out of control. I hate it when that happens. It's unbetaed at the moment because... it's five o'clock in the morning. Glanced over by quackerscooper, and with thanks to leiascully for tweaking the landscape.
This entire thing is based on the Dar Williams song "Iowa." I have a love/hate relationship with the midwest, which I think kind of comes through here. WHO KNOWS. It's five am, guys.
(Also, I stole a line in the fourth section from a different Dar Williams song. Just, fyi. If you know Dar Williams, you'll probably know it when you see it.)
***
to fall just a little bit
tww; sam/will - 2,549 words
***
Sam is forty-seven and has no idea what he wants to do with his life.
No, that's not right. He knows exactly what he wants to do, but the opportunities passed him by a long time ago. He doesn't know what he can do with his life, so after he resigns from law firm number four in city number three, he goes back to his very nice Chicago apartment and drinks more Jack Daniels in one sitting than he can remember drinking in a long time. He gets out his rolodex and his cell phone and makes three calls.
The first is to Toby. Brief. You never return my e-mails anymore.
The second, to Josh, is longer, and involves every swear word he knows and some that he makes up on the spot. He rants until the voicemail cuts him off, then calls back and rants some more. He considers calling back a third time, but his brain can only come up with so many creative insults through the haze of liquor and he'd hate to repeat himself.
The third call is to Will Bailey. He leaves no message because all he hears on the other end is, "The number you are trying to reach has been disconnected."
Sam goes to sleep after that, and dreams of Will drowning in the Chesapeake Bay.
***
When morning comes, Sam is still asleep, but when afternoon comes, he's just conscious enough to open one eye and take in the empty bottle and the rolodex cards that are littering his living room floor. He weighs the pros and cons of going back to sleep versus getting up and taking some motrin, but in the end it's his full bladder that decides for him.
When he's finished in the bathroom, he begins to pick up rolodex cards one at a time. He pauses when he finds Danny Concannon's in his hand.
"Hi, Danny, it's Sam Seaborn," he says before he even realizes he's dialed the number.
"Hey Sam," Danny says. "CJ's out with the kids."
"Do you have Will Bailey's phone number?"
The silence on Danny's end leads him to believe that Danny is as confused by the question as he is.
"I think CJ might have it somewhere. Let me check."
When Danny recites the number and an address, Sam scribbles it on the back of the first rolodex card he can reach. It's Mallory O'Brien's and he finds that strangely ironic.
***
There are a million things wrong with Will and Iowa, so many that Sam can't even start to list them. He tries as he drives through cornfields and gentle slopes, tries to mesh the two together, the bleak nothingness around him and the vibrant personality of the man who ran impossible campaigns on principle. He tries every angle he can think of, but he can't reconcile Will and Iowa and he says as much as soon as Will opens his office door.
"Sam?" Will asks. It's so soft, so quiet, that Sam isn't quite sure he's said anything at all.
"I don't understand," Sam repeats. "Why Iowa?"
Will snaps out of it, whatever it may be, and says, "They offered me the job."
Sam nods, because he knows about that, knows about job offers and being at a loose end and finding yourself somewhere you'd never imagine. Chicago was beautiful but it wasn't his city and didn't fit him the way that Washington had for that brief time in which he'd shone.
"Why are you here?" Will asks. Sam studies him for a minute, long and hard. He's leaning against the doorframe, long, pale fingers of one hand curling around it as if to ground himself. He looks only slightly older, slightly grayer with more soft laugh lines framing his face. The placard on the door reads "Dr. William Bailey, Political Science" and his office hours are posted underneath it on half of a yellow sheet of paper.
His eyes are the same warm color that Sam remembers.
"I tried to call you the other night," Sam says. He had thought of a dozen excuses as he packed his apartment up, a dozen reasons he could explain his presence to Will. He never thought of telling the truth, but here he is. "The number I had was disconnected. I wanted to yell at you."
"Oh," Will says. The pause stretches out into infinity, or so it seems. "Are you going to yell at me now?" Will asks.
"I think I might be having a nervous breakdown," Sam says. "Or a midlife crisis."
"Okay," Will says and relaxes, as if this is easier to handle. "Do you want to get some coffee?"
***
They walk to the student union and Will fills the silence with superficial talk of his students and his classes. He shies away from discussing how, exactly, he ended up in the middle of nowhere teaching political science, just as Sam shies away from his life after Bartlet and neither of them mention their old co-workers.
"Iowa isn't bad," Will says. "You lived in Illinois."
"I lived in Chicago," Sam corrects him. "I didn't have..." He gestures all around him, although the chic college students frowning into Shakespeare and sipping lattes aren't really what he's going for. Will seems to understand, though. He smiles wistfully.
"It's beautiful," he says.
"It's empty."
"I can relate to that, I think."
Sam can't think of anything to say to that, so they finish their coffee in silence, and the silence extends to the walk back to the parking lot. When Will sees Sam's car, his lips quirk downward and he scratches the back of his head.
"Um, Sam..." he starts to say, but they've done a fabulous job of not talking about it so far, and Will seems hesitant to bring it up now.
"I quit my job," Sam explains.
"Okay. I have a spare room."
And just like that, Sam is living with Will Bailey.
***
The school year ends a few weeks after Sam arrives. He spends most of his time sitting on the porch swing, staring into the nothing that reaches out in all directions. He's never been somewhere so empty, and he can't quite wrap his head around it. Will spends his time locked in his office. He keeps the window open so the breeze can pass through, and Sam hears the near-constant clatter of a keyboard through the screen. He hasn't asked Will what he's working on, although the question bites at the edges of his brain, claws at the back of his throat every time Will wanders out onto the porch in faded jeans and a t-shirt, clutching a mug of coffee and sitting next to Sam on the swing.
Of course, in all fairness, Will has been letting Sam live with him rent-free despite the fact that Sam has no job, no prospects, and, on some days, no desire to speak to anyone at all.
When Sam gets stir crazy, he takes long walks, and when that's not enough to block out the click clack click of Will's laptop, he drives aimlessly down the long roads, taking in the openness of it all, the contrasting colors, the nearly endless horizon. He notes the way the landscape curves, the wind pushing through grasses and plants and crops to leave the illusion that the world is actually rolling up and down around him. He writes sonnets in his head and then commits them to the back of cocktail napkins that he always conveniently forgets to remove from his pockets before he washes his pants.
He thinks he's having the world's longest meltdown. He thinks he's been having it since the election board called the race for Webb. He's maybe even been having it since Josh Lyman showed up soaking wet in New York City with a grin that could light up all of Manhattan.
Either way, there's something serene about losing his mind somewhere with a cat that sleeps on his feet and someone who pulls a blanket over his shoulders when he falls asleep watching The Discovery Channel.
***
One day, not long after Sam wakes up, the click clack click stops short, and Will appears barefoot in the doorway. His hands are shoved into his pockets and he looks younger, impossibly younger, younger than he was when Sam met him.
"The fair starts today," Will says.
Sam nods. "I drove past it yesterday," he says. He had gotten out of the car and sat on the roof, watching the ferris wheel go up little by little until it was nearly nightfall.
"It's not much," Will says. "But there's food and games and crafts and Bingo."
Sam nods and gets up, leaving his book next to the cat and stretching before following Will inside to get his shoes.
The fair really isn't much, not compared to Coney Island, not compared to the suburban wonderlands that occupied the summers of his childhood. Still, he finds himself smiling more than not and talking more than he has since he handed in his resignation letter. They have lunch, which consists of several things on sticks, and meander through stalls of livestock and agriculture, offering smiles to the young children who've won the 4-H competitions and buying three jars of jam from an old woman whose pies are the best in the county according to the local paper. Some of Will's students, the ones who've stayed around for the summer, offer him shy smiles which he returns brilliantly, introducing them to Sam as if they were old friends rather than undergraduates. He then ushers Sam away and they play a handful of carnival games each. Will displays frightening accuracy in anything that involves a projectile weapon. Sam's so shocked when Will hits the fourth consecutive target dead-center that he doesn't even object to carrying around the large pink dog that the carnie hands him.
When the sun starts to set, they hit the rides, which Will insists are best at night. He tells stories about his father and brothers while smiling and they share a funnel cake before getting in line for the ferris wheel.
"This is so cliché," Sam murmurs as they slowly ascend. Will turns to him, one eyebrow raised. "Are we dating?" he asks lamely.
Will considers this. "Does it matter?" he finally says.
Sam supposes not and, in response, kisses away the powdered sugar lingering at the corner of Will's mouth.
***
"I didn't want to end up here," Will says later, much later, when it's so dark it's nearly light. He says it into Sam's bare shoulder, and then hooks his chin over it, arms wrapping around Sam from behind. "But I'm glad I did."
"Iowa?" Sam asks, blinking, because he knows better than to think Will is talking about him.
"Yes, Iowa," Will says. "I thought maybe Chicago or New York or Boston. Not DC. Not LA. But somewhere populated and bustling, somewhere new. And then... I don't know, Iowa happened."
"Iowa just happens?" Sam teases gently, breathing the words into Will's ear.
"It happened to you, didn't it?"
Sam can't argue with that.
***
They go back on the last night of the fair and ride the ferris wheel four times in a row. At the very top, Sam can see farther than he ever would have imagined growing up around hills and buildings and ocean.
"It's empty," he says to Will, who's full of ice cream and dozing against his shoulder.
"It's gorgeous," Will insists, and when the ride sets them down on the ground again, Will tugs him by the hand away from the fair, away from the car, and down the winding paths towards the field of corn across the road. The corn nearly reaches the top of their thighs, and Sam suddenly realizes exactly how much time has passed since he arrived on Will's doorstep. Will picks his way through, pulls Sam along until they reach the twisted tree in the middle of the field. The corn is planted all around it, and part of Sam wonders why it wasn't just pulled up to make way for a more profitable crop.
The branches are low enough that even Sam's aging joints don't have a problem following Will up off of the ground, and before long they're pressed together, shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh. Will interlocks their fingers and squeezes Sam's hand.
"Look," he says after a long time, and Sam does as he's told.
There's corn and farm houses and so many stars, more than Sam can ever remember consciously looking at. He can hear the sounds of the fair behind them, the warm summer breeze ruffling their hair, and Will's pulse pounding next to his.
He doesn't say anything to Will, but he squeezes his hand back and they sit there long after the bark starts to bite into the back of Sam's thighs and his leg starts to fall asleep.
***
In September, Sam takes out the tattered remains of his rolodex from the boxes in the attic labeled "Sam's old things." He hasn't opened those boxes since he first packed them, and he's surprised how little he's missed the remnants of his life.
He calls Toby first, once again and gets voicemail once again.
"I have a new address," he says. "If you ever want to send me anything." He says it slowly, giving Toby ample time to write it down and adds, "I read your book," to the end of the message as an after thought. He had read Will's advance copy from cover to cover and found, for the first time ever, that remembering those years didn't hurt as much as it could.
He calls Josh next. "Hey, I'm sorry about the swearing," he says. "And I'm sorry I was never who you needed me to be." He says it without bitterness or even regret, which is also new, but makes him feel just a little bit better, like maybe next week when they go out with the rest of Will's department, he can talk about his old life without flinching.
The rolodex goes back in the box and he reseals it, returning to the kitchen where Will is pouring two cups of coffee. It's Saturday and the weather is pleasant and they sit on the porch swing, silently watching the cat swat at flies.
"Why do you think Iowa happens to people?" Sam asks when the sun has reached its apex.
For a long time, Will runs his fingers through Sam's hair and sips his coffee. "It's isolated, but it's beautiful," he finally says. "It's... I don't know. It's failure and loneliness, but it's not the end. I think Iowa happens to people who need to be reminded that failure isn't the end."
Sam nods, because it wasn't really the end, and part of him knew that, even as he shoved boxes into the back of his car and stopped at a gas station to buy a road map on the way out of town. He knows there's a vitality here that he didn't or couldn't notice as he drove blindly away from Chicago that first day.
He puts his coffee mug down and listens to Will hum under his breath, his lips curling into a smile as he watches the fields of corn across the road move lazily in the afternoon breeze.
This was originally supposed to be a drabble. It spiraled out of control. I hate it when that happens. It's unbetaed at the moment because... it's five o'clock in the morning. Glanced over by quackerscooper, and with thanks to leiascully for tweaking the landscape.
This entire thing is based on the Dar Williams song "Iowa." I have a love/hate relationship with the midwest, which I think kind of comes through here. WHO KNOWS. It's five am, guys.
(Also, I stole a line in the fourth section from a different Dar Williams song. Just, fyi. If you know Dar Williams, you'll probably know it when you see it.)
***
to fall just a little bit
tww; sam/will - 2,549 words
***
Sam is forty-seven and has no idea what he wants to do with his life.
No, that's not right. He knows exactly what he wants to do, but the opportunities passed him by a long time ago. He doesn't know what he can do with his life, so after he resigns from law firm number four in city number three, he goes back to his very nice Chicago apartment and drinks more Jack Daniels in one sitting than he can remember drinking in a long time. He gets out his rolodex and his cell phone and makes three calls.
The first is to Toby. Brief. You never return my e-mails anymore.
The second, to Josh, is longer, and involves every swear word he knows and some that he makes up on the spot. He rants until the voicemail cuts him off, then calls back and rants some more. He considers calling back a third time, but his brain can only come up with so many creative insults through the haze of liquor and he'd hate to repeat himself.
The third call is to Will Bailey. He leaves no message because all he hears on the other end is, "The number you are trying to reach has been disconnected."
Sam goes to sleep after that, and dreams of Will drowning in the Chesapeake Bay.
***
When morning comes, Sam is still asleep, but when afternoon comes, he's just conscious enough to open one eye and take in the empty bottle and the rolodex cards that are littering his living room floor. He weighs the pros and cons of going back to sleep versus getting up and taking some motrin, but in the end it's his full bladder that decides for him.
When he's finished in the bathroom, he begins to pick up rolodex cards one at a time. He pauses when he finds Danny Concannon's in his hand.
"Hi, Danny, it's Sam Seaborn," he says before he even realizes he's dialed the number.
"Hey Sam," Danny says. "CJ's out with the kids."
"Do you have Will Bailey's phone number?"
The silence on Danny's end leads him to believe that Danny is as confused by the question as he is.
"I think CJ might have it somewhere. Let me check."
When Danny recites the number and an address, Sam scribbles it on the back of the first rolodex card he can reach. It's Mallory O'Brien's and he finds that strangely ironic.
***
There are a million things wrong with Will and Iowa, so many that Sam can't even start to list them. He tries as he drives through cornfields and gentle slopes, tries to mesh the two together, the bleak nothingness around him and the vibrant personality of the man who ran impossible campaigns on principle. He tries every angle he can think of, but he can't reconcile Will and Iowa and he says as much as soon as Will opens his office door.
"Sam?" Will asks. It's so soft, so quiet, that Sam isn't quite sure he's said anything at all.
"I don't understand," Sam repeats. "Why Iowa?"
Will snaps out of it, whatever it may be, and says, "They offered me the job."
Sam nods, because he knows about that, knows about job offers and being at a loose end and finding yourself somewhere you'd never imagine. Chicago was beautiful but it wasn't his city and didn't fit him the way that Washington had for that brief time in which he'd shone.
"Why are you here?" Will asks. Sam studies him for a minute, long and hard. He's leaning against the doorframe, long, pale fingers of one hand curling around it as if to ground himself. He looks only slightly older, slightly grayer with more soft laugh lines framing his face. The placard on the door reads "Dr. William Bailey, Political Science" and his office hours are posted underneath it on half of a yellow sheet of paper.
His eyes are the same warm color that Sam remembers.
"I tried to call you the other night," Sam says. He had thought of a dozen excuses as he packed his apartment up, a dozen reasons he could explain his presence to Will. He never thought of telling the truth, but here he is. "The number I had was disconnected. I wanted to yell at you."
"Oh," Will says. The pause stretches out into infinity, or so it seems. "Are you going to yell at me now?" Will asks.
"I think I might be having a nervous breakdown," Sam says. "Or a midlife crisis."
"Okay," Will says and relaxes, as if this is easier to handle. "Do you want to get some coffee?"
***
They walk to the student union and Will fills the silence with superficial talk of his students and his classes. He shies away from discussing how, exactly, he ended up in the middle of nowhere teaching political science, just as Sam shies away from his life after Bartlet and neither of them mention their old co-workers.
"Iowa isn't bad," Will says. "You lived in Illinois."
"I lived in Chicago," Sam corrects him. "I didn't have..." He gestures all around him, although the chic college students frowning into Shakespeare and sipping lattes aren't really what he's going for. Will seems to understand, though. He smiles wistfully.
"It's beautiful," he says.
"It's empty."
"I can relate to that, I think."
Sam can't think of anything to say to that, so they finish their coffee in silence, and the silence extends to the walk back to the parking lot. When Will sees Sam's car, his lips quirk downward and he scratches the back of his head.
"Um, Sam..." he starts to say, but they've done a fabulous job of not talking about it so far, and Will seems hesitant to bring it up now.
"I quit my job," Sam explains.
"Okay. I have a spare room."
And just like that, Sam is living with Will Bailey.
***
The school year ends a few weeks after Sam arrives. He spends most of his time sitting on the porch swing, staring into the nothing that reaches out in all directions. He's never been somewhere so empty, and he can't quite wrap his head around it. Will spends his time locked in his office. He keeps the window open so the breeze can pass through, and Sam hears the near-constant clatter of a keyboard through the screen. He hasn't asked Will what he's working on, although the question bites at the edges of his brain, claws at the back of his throat every time Will wanders out onto the porch in faded jeans and a t-shirt, clutching a mug of coffee and sitting next to Sam on the swing.
Of course, in all fairness, Will has been letting Sam live with him rent-free despite the fact that Sam has no job, no prospects, and, on some days, no desire to speak to anyone at all.
When Sam gets stir crazy, he takes long walks, and when that's not enough to block out the click clack click of Will's laptop, he drives aimlessly down the long roads, taking in the openness of it all, the contrasting colors, the nearly endless horizon. He notes the way the landscape curves, the wind pushing through grasses and plants and crops to leave the illusion that the world is actually rolling up and down around him. He writes sonnets in his head and then commits them to the back of cocktail napkins that he always conveniently forgets to remove from his pockets before he washes his pants.
He thinks he's having the world's longest meltdown. He thinks he's been having it since the election board called the race for Webb. He's maybe even been having it since Josh Lyman showed up soaking wet in New York City with a grin that could light up all of Manhattan.
Either way, there's something serene about losing his mind somewhere with a cat that sleeps on his feet and someone who pulls a blanket over his shoulders when he falls asleep watching The Discovery Channel.
***
One day, not long after Sam wakes up, the click clack click stops short, and Will appears barefoot in the doorway. His hands are shoved into his pockets and he looks younger, impossibly younger, younger than he was when Sam met him.
"The fair starts today," Will says.
Sam nods. "I drove past it yesterday," he says. He had gotten out of the car and sat on the roof, watching the ferris wheel go up little by little until it was nearly nightfall.
"It's not much," Will says. "But there's food and games and crafts and Bingo."
Sam nods and gets up, leaving his book next to the cat and stretching before following Will inside to get his shoes.
The fair really isn't much, not compared to Coney Island, not compared to the suburban wonderlands that occupied the summers of his childhood. Still, he finds himself smiling more than not and talking more than he has since he handed in his resignation letter. They have lunch, which consists of several things on sticks, and meander through stalls of livestock and agriculture, offering smiles to the young children who've won the 4-H competitions and buying three jars of jam from an old woman whose pies are the best in the county according to the local paper. Some of Will's students, the ones who've stayed around for the summer, offer him shy smiles which he returns brilliantly, introducing them to Sam as if they were old friends rather than undergraduates. He then ushers Sam away and they play a handful of carnival games each. Will displays frightening accuracy in anything that involves a projectile weapon. Sam's so shocked when Will hits the fourth consecutive target dead-center that he doesn't even object to carrying around the large pink dog that the carnie hands him.
When the sun starts to set, they hit the rides, which Will insists are best at night. He tells stories about his father and brothers while smiling and they share a funnel cake before getting in line for the ferris wheel.
"This is so cliché," Sam murmurs as they slowly ascend. Will turns to him, one eyebrow raised. "Are we dating?" he asks lamely.
Will considers this. "Does it matter?" he finally says.
Sam supposes not and, in response, kisses away the powdered sugar lingering at the corner of Will's mouth.
***
"I didn't want to end up here," Will says later, much later, when it's so dark it's nearly light. He says it into Sam's bare shoulder, and then hooks his chin over it, arms wrapping around Sam from behind. "But I'm glad I did."
"Iowa?" Sam asks, blinking, because he knows better than to think Will is talking about him.
"Yes, Iowa," Will says. "I thought maybe Chicago or New York or Boston. Not DC. Not LA. But somewhere populated and bustling, somewhere new. And then... I don't know, Iowa happened."
"Iowa just happens?" Sam teases gently, breathing the words into Will's ear.
"It happened to you, didn't it?"
Sam can't argue with that.
***
They go back on the last night of the fair and ride the ferris wheel four times in a row. At the very top, Sam can see farther than he ever would have imagined growing up around hills and buildings and ocean.
"It's empty," he says to Will, who's full of ice cream and dozing against his shoulder.
"It's gorgeous," Will insists, and when the ride sets them down on the ground again, Will tugs him by the hand away from the fair, away from the car, and down the winding paths towards the field of corn across the road. The corn nearly reaches the top of their thighs, and Sam suddenly realizes exactly how much time has passed since he arrived on Will's doorstep. Will picks his way through, pulls Sam along until they reach the twisted tree in the middle of the field. The corn is planted all around it, and part of Sam wonders why it wasn't just pulled up to make way for a more profitable crop.
The branches are low enough that even Sam's aging joints don't have a problem following Will up off of the ground, and before long they're pressed together, shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh. Will interlocks their fingers and squeezes Sam's hand.
"Look," he says after a long time, and Sam does as he's told.
There's corn and farm houses and so many stars, more than Sam can ever remember consciously looking at. He can hear the sounds of the fair behind them, the warm summer breeze ruffling their hair, and Will's pulse pounding next to his.
He doesn't say anything to Will, but he squeezes his hand back and they sit there long after the bark starts to bite into the back of Sam's thighs and his leg starts to fall asleep.
***
In September, Sam takes out the tattered remains of his rolodex from the boxes in the attic labeled "Sam's old things." He hasn't opened those boxes since he first packed them, and he's surprised how little he's missed the remnants of his life.
He calls Toby first, once again and gets voicemail once again.
"I have a new address," he says. "If you ever want to send me anything." He says it slowly, giving Toby ample time to write it down and adds, "I read your book," to the end of the message as an after thought. He had read Will's advance copy from cover to cover and found, for the first time ever, that remembering those years didn't hurt as much as it could.
He calls Josh next. "Hey, I'm sorry about the swearing," he says. "And I'm sorry I was never who you needed me to be." He says it without bitterness or even regret, which is also new, but makes him feel just a little bit better, like maybe next week when they go out with the rest of Will's department, he can talk about his old life without flinching.
The rolodex goes back in the box and he reseals it, returning to the kitchen where Will is pouring two cups of coffee. It's Saturday and the weather is pleasant and they sit on the porch swing, silently watching the cat swat at flies.
"Why do you think Iowa happens to people?" Sam asks when the sun has reached its apex.
For a long time, Will runs his fingers through Sam's hair and sips his coffee. "It's isolated, but it's beautiful," he finally says. "It's... I don't know. It's failure and loneliness, but it's not the end. I think Iowa happens to people who need to be reminded that failure isn't the end."
Sam nods, because it wasn't really the end, and part of him knew that, even as he shoved boxes into the back of his car and stopped at a gas station to buy a road map on the way out of town. He knows there's a vitality here that he didn't or couldn't notice as he drove blindly away from Chicago that first day.
He puts his coffee mug down and listens to Will hum under his breath, his lips curling into a smile as he watches the fields of corn across the road move lazily in the afternoon breeze.