WW FIC: Sudafed and Snowflakes
Title: Sudafed and Snowflakes
Fandom: The West Wing
Words: 4236
Rating: PG
Summary: Sam has a deep appreciation for both Sudafed and Snowflakes
Written for: This is in response to the The Positively Upbeat Slash Challenge. There seems to be a disproportionate number of 'downer' stories in this fandom, so I'm all for upping the 'fluff' content.
Originally Posted on or about: 07.17.05
Oh, this couldn’t be good. Ginger was out there talking to Donna, looking agitated and pointing towards my door. Donna was trying to be all motherly and calming and checking my schedule. This couldn’t be good.
“Josh, Ginger needs to see you, okay?”
Too late to hide under the desk… “Sure.”
Ginger came in and stood in the doorway, constantly looking over her shoulder down the hall. I waited for her to talk, but apparently whatever was stalking her was much more interesting.
“Ginger, you need something?” I prompted.
“It’s…” another look into the hall. “It’s Sam.”
I let my forehead thump on the desk. “What’s he done now?”
Ginger jumped, “Oh, no. No, nothing. Well, that I know of.” Always safe to hedge your bets where Sam’s concerned. “But um… he didn’t look so good this morning and now… well…”
“Ginger?” I had way better things to do than listen to her stammer, though my interest was piqued when she mentioned Sam not feeling well.
“Yeah,” she said looking down the hall again. “He was sick this morning and about well, like… half an hour ago he ran out of his office and down to the bathroom and he hasn’t come back out yet.”
I had to play the last bit over in my head to separate the words. “Ah. You want me to go check on him?”
She sighed, exasperated. “Well, I’d look awfully silly going in there!”
“Relax, Ginger. I’ll go see if he’s okay.” She looked really worried that she’d get in trouble for worrying about Sam.
“Thanks.” She smiled at me. “I didn’t want to say anything to Toby. He’s… well, being Toby today and either way this goes, Sam’s gonna be embarrassed as it is.”
“Yeah. Clear his schedule and tell Donna to clear mine. I’ll go check on him and take him home.”
I pushed the bathroom door open, heard the retching and stepped back out again. I gave him a couple minutes and tried again. He had stepped out of the stall and was now at the sink, splashing water on his face. “You know I don’t usually feel like this until after I’ve met with the Republicans.” I grabbed a few paper towels and handed them to him and he dried his face.
He opened his mouth to answer me, but instead grabbed the sink and dry heaved over it. I reached behind me and locked the door. He didn’t need anyone else wandering in on him. “That bad, huh?” I moved behind him and rested my hands on his shoulders. Sam just hung his head. With the door locked I could safely move closer, and I slid one hand around his chest, the other across his traitorous stomach and hugged him to me. His breathing was coming in harsh pants, but after a minute I could feel the tense stomach muscles under my hand relax a little. “Done?”
He slumped against me. “I think. God, that sucked.”
“You did it again last night, didn’t you?” Sam got the flu every year at the same time and nothing I said or did would convince him that he could avoid it.
“Could you maybe… yell at me later. I’d like to go fall over somewhere right now.” He was trying hard to be pissy, but he was sick and tired and desperately hoping I’d come over and take care of him, just like I did every winter in Washington.
“Am I going to be able to talk you into going home? I’ve had Donna and Ginger clear our schedules.” I turned him around and hugged him.
“I can make it home.”
I drew back a little and made a face at him. He could barely remain upright without help. “I don’t think so. Come on, I’ll drive you home.”
“Okay,” he relented, or so I thought. “But come back. I know you’re busy. I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Actually, I think you do." I pushed his hair back off his forehead.
"Josh -"
"You know, one of these years I’m going to tape record this conversation so we can just play it and save ourselves the trouble of actually having to have it. I’m taking you home and I’m staying with you for at least the day. We’ll see how you’re doing later. If you feel better, I’ll go. But for now, I’m sticking around. Got it?”
He rested his head on my shoulder and nodded before scrunching up his eyes and raising his hand to his temple.
“Headache?”
“Yeah,” he whispered, apparently having decided that moving his head any more than absolutely necessary was a bad idea.
“Okay, let’s go.” I unlocked the door and steered him out of the bathroom. “I’m going to drop you in your office so you can get your stuff together. I’m going to run down, get my backpack and coat and tell Leo that he can reach us both at your place.”
I knew he felt like hell when he didn’t argue any more. Didn’t even look like he wanted to argue any more.
Sam had slumped into his desk chair, his coat still on the rack and the notes I knew he’d want for the thing in Chicago next week still scattered across his desk. I just shook my head sadly at him. He was my hero when I was in the hospital. He put up with my bitching about the respiratory therapy and still sat with me, helping me hold the damn pillow when I finally gave in and coughed. And when it hurt so bad I cried, he never teased, just held me against his shoulder and rubbed my back until I could lie down again. And every year since the campaign I’d nursed him through flu season on the East Coast. I put all the notes in an empty file folder and shoved it and his laptop into Sam’s briefcase. “What else do you need?” I asked him, causing him to jump. I knew he wasn’t asleep, but he’d apparently faded enough that he hadn’t heard me come in.
He looked at what was in my hands and blinked at me for a second before pointing to the sideboard. “That red book and the file folder under it.”
I grabbed those last things and packed them and pulled his coat off the rack. “Come on.” He wearily pulled himself up and I helped him into his coat, wrapping his scarf around his neck. I shouldered my backpack, put his briefcase in one hand and put the other around him.
“Ginger, I’m taking him home,” I called out loudly enough that Toby would hear it, but deliberately not speaking directly to him. I was telling them that Sam was going home, not asking permission, and I didn’t want Toby to even hint to Sam that he should stay. We’d gone six rounds last year because he wanted to see if Sam would be okay if he slept for an hour or so and then came in to help him on the speech for the National Teacher’s Federation or some damn thing. Sam had sat there, slouched into Toby’s couch, as we argued around him, turning greener and greener. The argument ended when he threw up into Toby’s trash can. At that point Toby’d been glad to let me take him.
I'd found a decent parking spot that morning, but the snow that had fallen during the night had drifted against the passenger's side door and I knew I couldn't get it open. Sam wasn't up to crawling across the driver's seat, so, putting our things up front, I prepared a place for him in the back seat. I had a blanket I'd used to protect my computer monitor when I took it to the shop, so I folded it against the door. I steered Sam into the car and fastened his seatbelt. I pushed gently on his shoulders. "Lay down," I said quietly, leaning over to guide his head onto the blanket. It was a tight fit, but he was able to shift around enough that he was, at the least, resting on his side.
The snow had been coming down in huge, wet flakes since Sam and I had been on our way back from getting dinner the night before. Sam, who has spent four years in D.C. with the administration, four years at Princeton in New Jersey and something like six years at some New Hampshire boarding school still finds snow fascinating. I mean, he’s spent almost half his life in places where it snows, but whenever we get our first big snow, Sam goes out to “experience” it.
And inevitably, he gets sick the next day. Now, I know that snow can’t make you sick. I do. All medical and scientific knowledge points to the fact that the flu is caused by a virus, but somehow, that virus gets Sam right after he goes out to stand in the snow for several hours each year.
“How long were you out there last night?” I asked conversationally.
“Out where?” he mumbled and groaned as I hit a big bump of packed snow.
“In the snow, you lunatic. Last night was the first big snow of the year. I know you stood outside for a while after work.”
“How the hell did you -- I mean, what makes you think…?”
“Oh please, Sam, like we haven’t gone through this for the past three years.” I waited a few seconds for someone to pull out of a parking spot in front of Sam’s building and pulled into it, glad that I didn’t have to try and get my little Saturn over the drifts that had formed in any unoccupied spot.
I killed the ignition and got out of the car, sticking my foot right into the puddle that had formed by the last car’s exhaust. “Hell's bells,” I muttered as I helped Sam out of the car. “I’ll get our stuff later.” I thumbed the auto-lock button on my keychain and led him up the stairs.
His hands were shaking as he tried to get his key into the security door. After about four failed attempts I took the keys and let us in. Sam leaned heavily on me as I got him up the stairs and let us into his second floor apartment. I took both our coats and shook off the worst of the accumulated snow before hanging them in the closet. Sam toed off his shoes and fell over on the couch and curled up in the fetal position. Poor guy.
I shook the snow out of my hair and kicked off my shoes. “I’m going to go borrow some sweats and dry off a little. How about if I run you a bath so you can warm up?” I figured his stomach muscles were still cramping and the warm water would soothe them.
“I can do it,” he muttered, sitting up. He groaned and held his head and aborted his move to stand.
“I doubt that severely. Let me go get out of these wet socks and I’ll give you a hand.” I went into the bedroom and pulled off my socks and draped them over the heating vent. My jacket, shirt and pants went into the closet and I dug up an old Duke sweatshirt and some gray sweatpants. After finding a pair of gym socks, I went into the bathroom and turned on the hot water tap. I waited until it actually produced some hot water before adding a little cold water and dropping the stopper in.
One of the bigger differences between Sam and me is one that really doesn’t matter to us at all. Sam has money. Between his family and his job at Gage-Whitney he doesn’t need to worry about a fairly pitiful government salary. I’d been working on the Hill since virtually the day I’d graduated law school; all I’d ever had was a pitiful government salary. My dad left me a little money when he died, but most everything went to my mom, as it should have. Which means I live in a little place in Georgetown that’s very cute and quaint from the outside, but has been modernized up one side and down the other on the inside. Including new fixtures, like a bathtub that’s about six inches high and a ‘water conserving’ shower head. Makes me crazy. Sam, on the other hand, has an apartment in a four-flat that still has some old stained glass from the 'teens or twenties, beautiful hard wood floors, a working fireplace and a huge, antique, claw-footed bathtub.
I left the tub to fill while I went and rounded up Sam. “Come on.” He groaned as I pulled him to his feet and steadied him when he swayed drunkenly. “You gonna be sick again?” I asked as he went pale.
There was a long pause that made me worry. Finally, “I don’t think so. At least not right now.”
Not terribly encouraging, but it would do for now. I slipped an arm around him and led him into the bathroom where I sat him on the closed toilet seat. Sam sat there, completely passive, while I pulled off his tie and jacket. We’ve done this dance enough times that he knows that he can relax now, that I’ll take care of him. Sam despises being seen as weak in front of anyone. He hates that he’s the youngest and well… the prettiest boy in the West Wing because he thinks it detracts from his credibility, so he compensates - sometimes over-compensates - by being independent as hell.
But this is our time. We’re probably the only couple I know who think of sick time as ‘our time’. Somewhere along the line we decided that we didn’t need to be tough guys in front of each other. It might have something to do with meeting in the back of an ambulance after I’d gotten pinned to a building by a drunk driver. We’d been waiting for a movie to open. He was with Lisa and I was with some friends. We didn’t know each other then, my friends and I just happened to be in line behind him. We were all leaning against the building when some dumbass drunk driver jumped the curb. A buddy of mine died and I was thrown up on top of the car, breaking my leg in several places. Sam had jumped out of the way and when he got up he took control of the situation. He kept me still to make sure I hadn’t done anything to my back and had Lisa call and 911. He stayed with me, holding me down when I tried to move, talking about stupid shit like sports and the weather to keep me calm while we waited. When the ambulances showed up, there were about five injuries. Sam and I were put in one with this girl neither of us knew who’d gotten hit by a falling sign from the building. They put my leg in one of those blow-up splints in the ambulance, which required moving it. They warned me that it would hurt and the next thing I knew, Sam had taken my hand and was telling me to squeeze if it would help. I’m surprised I didn’t break his fingers. That had hurt like hell. At least I passed out after being shot. When we got to the hospital they pumped me full of the really good drugs and my mouth got ahead of my brain and I teased him for flinching when they cleaned up his cuts and scrapes. It was one hell of a way to start a friendship.
I unbuttoned his shirt and chucked it into the hamper and he reached up to pull off his undershirt. I helped him stand again and he leaned on me while I undid his belt and trousers and pushed them down with his boxers so he could step out of them. He leaned over to take off his socks and instantly went pale and started swaying. “Okay, bad idea,” he whispered as I sat him back down. I pulled off his socks and got him back up and deposited him into the hot water. After a few minutes the tub was full and Sam slumped down until the water came up to his chin. I turned off the taps and marveled at how quiet the place was without the sound of rushing water.
I grabbed a towel from the cabinet and rolled it up, putting it behind his head. “Here, lean back.” He let out a completely contented sigh and let his arms float to the surface.
“Rest a bit. I’m gonna put on some coffee for me and get you some ginger ale.” Sam always had ginger ale in the house. He never drank it unless he didn’t feel well, but he kept it in the house like most people keep aspirin. And sherbet. The sherbet goes in the ginger ale, like that punch you got at junior high dances. I started the coffee and after pouring myself a mug before it even finished brewing, I noticed that my hands were freezing cold. I checked the thermostat and noticed that Sam had turned it down before going to work. I nudged it up a little higher than he normally kept it, but really didn’t think he’d mind. While the coffee percolated I found a pair of pajamas for Sam and threw a couple of towels in the dryer so they’d be warm.
After my Christmas meltdown, Sam had come to stay the night with me. He sat with me and we talked until I was hoarse and exhausted and then he tucked me into bed, and then crawled in right after me. Before he tucked me in he made the bed with fresh sheets and the down quilt I hardly ever use, telling me that I’d sleep better. I don’t know that the sheets had so much to do with it than the company, and well… the therapy, but I did sleep very well that night. So while he soaked, I changed his sheets and reset the bed. If he believed in the power of clean sheets… what the hell.
Figuring that his water had to be cooling, I grabbed some ginger ale and found some pills in the kitchen cabinet. I went back in sat on the floor next to his head. His eyes were closed, but I could see his eyes moving under the lids, letting me know he was awake. He didn’t open his eyes to look at me, just turned his head, and I smiled at the ease and familiarity and trust that had formed between us. I reached up and combed my fingers through his hair. “Feeling any better?”
Sighing and sinking just a few more centimeters into the water he whispered, “Yeah, thanks.”
“Here.” I handed him the pills.
“What’re they?” he slurred sleepily, opening one eye to squint at them.
“Whatever you had in the kitchen… some cold and flu stuff.” I gave him the ginger ale and he swallowed them. “Thanks.” He handed me the glass.
I stroked his hair again. “No problem. Let me know when you’re ready to get out.”
“Yeah, in a minute.” His head lolled towards me and I leaned in and kissed him gently.
He moaned and smiled.
I smiled too. “And you can just hold those thoughts right there. I do not need your germs."
“So much for ‘you can share anything with me,’” Sam quipped.
“No, I believe my words were, oh, so long ago, ‘You can talk to me about anything. And you can. But you can keep your damn flu to yourself.” I mussed his hair and the dryer buzzed. “Be right back.”
I grabbed the towels and came back in. “Come on, time to get out before you turn into a prune.” I reached down and hauled him into a standing position. I quickly dried off his chest and shoulders so he could lean on me as he stepped out. Sitting him back on the toilet, I wrapped one of the warmed towels around his shoulders and used the other to dry him off. He sat very still with his eyes closed and let me. God, I loved the way he trusted me to take care of him. He and Leo both give me crap about being a compulsive fixer. I’d be annoyed if they weren’t so damn right. I couldn’t make Sam’s bug go away, but I could make him feel better. I could do all the hundreds of little things we do for ourselves everyday without thinking about it, but become monumental tasks when you’re sick. I could get him meds and ginger ale and change the sheets and all those little things that aren’t so little when your muscles ache and your head is spinning and your stomach is staging its own revolt. And Sam lets me; because he knows not being able to do those things for him would make me much more insane than doing them.
I ran into the bedroom and grabbed the pajamas. I darted back into the bathroom, not wanting Sam to get chilly before I could get him dressed. “Damn!” I ducked back out.
“What?” he called after me.
“Do you want shorts?” I was already digging through his top dresser drawer.
“I don’t care, Josh.” I think he was laughing at me. I took a few deep breaths. Sam wouldn’t say anything now. He’d wait until he was better and give me crap about my overdeveloped mothering instincts.
I found some flannel boxers and went back in to help him get dressed. He probably could have managed on his own, but he kept getting faint and dizzy so I didn’t like him trying to balance and twist and turn without me being there to catch him. And I was fairly confident that the hot water and steam had exasperated the light-headedness.
It was a bit like a four-handed juggling act, but I finally got him into the boxers and pajamas. I was going to go get him some socks, but he grabbed my hand.
“Josh. I have the flu. I don’t have a bleeding head wound, I’m not hypothermic and I’m not a total invalid. I don’t want socks. I’m going to pull the blanket off the back of the sofa and lay down for a while, okay?”
“I’m getting nuts-o again?” I asked, staring at the tile between us.
“As usual,” he said with a soft smile. “Come on, we’ll turn on C-SPAN and see if C.J. manages to embarrass us with that E.I.E.Y.O. thing again. Do you know what that stands for?”
“It's the Environmental Initiative and Education Youth Organization. I almost hope she screws it up again. I mean, I know she clocked me for singing ‘Old McDonald’ at her the first time, but she hasn’t given us this much entertainment since the ‘psychics at Cal Tech’ thing.” I put an arm around him and steered him into the living room. I picked up the remotes for the t.v. and cable box while he unfolded the crocheted afghan off the back of the couch near the window. He started to sit down, but I grabbed him by the waist and pulled him back up, hugging him tight. “Hang on.”
I sat on the end of the couch, my back against the arm with my leg stretched out along the back and the other on the floor. I pulled him down to sit between my legs and snuggled him into my chest. His head fell heavily onto my shoulder and he rolled his head to look out the window next to us. I had the remotes in my hand, but left the t.v. off. Sam was being very quiet, and pensive. “You okay?”
“Mm hmm.” He was still staring out the window.
It occurred to me that I should have gotten him some more ginger ale before we sat down. I looked at how we were sitting, how comfortable he seemed and decided it could wait. “Whatcha doin’?”
He blushed and his gaze slid down to his lap before answering tentatively. “Watching it snow.”
“Okay, I have to ask - I have to wonder why I haven’t asked before - What is it with you and the snow?” Sam seemed overly fascinated with the stuff.
“You’ve never asked me before?” He seemed surprised.
“Nope, I don’t think so. I just usually end up tucking you in bed after you’ve been out in it and gotten sick.” I kissed his temple to make sure he knew I was teasing and not really lecturing.
“It’s beautiful,” he said wistfully. I looked outside, looking at the snow-covered roofs and sidewalks full of footprints. Schools had been closed and there were kids across the street from Sam’s place making a snowman.
“I suppose it can be. But I don’t know…” I stopped to put my thoughts in order. Usually we had these deep discussions late at night, when it was dark and we were curled in bed, and couldn’t really see each other very well. This was novel. Now I had to look at him. “It seems like you have some kind of… attraction to the snow that defies… logic. You know you’re gonna get sick, but you go out and stand in it anyway. Why?”
Sam hid his face in the upholstery. “It sounds corny.”
“So?”
He took a deep breath and then turned back to look out at it again. “Everything looks so clean. I was twelve before I ever saw snow. I mean real snow, not the stuff they make at ski resorts. I was at Exeter and classes had just let out and I was going over to the dorm to change when a kid I didn’t know hit me with a snowball. You could still see the grass through the flakes, but he’d managed to scrape together enough to throw at me. So I threw some back at him and we got to goofing around, rubbing it in each other’s faces and stuff until one of the groundskeepers caught us and sent us on our way. That’s when I realized how different life was there than it was at home. I looked up at the buildings and the trees and the kids and everything seemed so… new. Everything was so completely different than at home. I had some great friends at Exeter, one of them was my roommate at Princeton for a while.”
I sighed. It bugged me a little when Sam talked about his childhood. He’d never once complained about anything, in fact from the way he talked he seemed to consider himself fairly privileged. But when I listened to him, he always sounded lonely. He was sent off to a boarding school at seventh grade. Half of his stories about his early childhood had more to do with someone named Alice who was a Nanny or Au Pair or something, then he stayed on the East Coast for college and law school and then moved to New York. This was a guy who seriously wanted to escape from home.
“That's when I realized that there was a bigger world out there than L.A. That not everything was about my mother’s incredibly dull social agenda and my father’s business trips. The snow always makes me think of everything I haven’t seen or experienced yet.”
Wow. That was heavy. I didn’t tell him that the snow made me think of him. My analogies for snow were a lot more transparent. A few years before the campaign we’d gone on a ski trip in Utah. Only, as our luck runs, the worst blizzard of the season hit just after we’d checked into the lodge. So we’d gotten snowed in on our ski trip. The second night of the storm we were stretched out in front of the fireplace in our hotel room and Sam had gotten very quiet, and I caught him staring at me on more than one occasion. When I asked what he was thinking about he said, no hesitations, no fancy talking, “I think I’m in love with you.”
I’d lain there looking like a carp for a few minutes. That was the last thing I expected him to say. He’d gone on to say that he wasn’t expecting me to return his feelings or anything, but since it involved me, it was probably only fair of him to tell me. I just said something like, “Oh, okay,” and mumbled something about Lisa and how she’d kick my ass.
Nothing had changed after that. Not between us, but I got the feeling that may have been when things got a little touch and go with him and Lisa. I never liked Lisa. I didn’t know her very well, but from the few weekends I’d gone to New York to visit Sam, I grew a definite dislike for the way she treated him. They say kids tend to look for someone like their parents when they look for a significant other. It’s why abuse cycles form. And Sam seemed to have fallen right into that trap. Lisa had that same attitude his mom did about the importance of Style and Position and Society and having the right person on your arm. And Lisa always sent off this vibe that she was doing Sam some big favor by being seen in public with him. More like the other way around, but she and I snapped at each other enough, made Sam feel like the monkey in the middle enough, that I never said that to her face.
Which is why I had absolutely no compunctions about going to him and asking him to come to New Hampshire with me. I wasn’t trying to break them up, per se. But I knew Lisa wouldn’t put up for Sam racing off to pursue his dreams, giving up his high power job and significant salary. And I wanted Sam to see that she wasn’t in it for him. She wasn't even in it for them, let alone him, and he deserved better.
And somewhere along the line I realized that I’d fallen in love with him too. It had been almost four years between the ski trip and the night I finally told him, out there at the end of the campaign trail. It was snowing then too.
We were quiet for a while, watching it snow. We were supposed to get somewhere between eighteen and twenty-four inches all told. I guessed we were at about fifteen or eighteen inches already. Everything was soft. Rain makes so much noise on streets and roofs and cars. Snow is soft and beautiful and that made me think of Sam too.
We lay on the couch, watching it snow. I slipped my hand under his pajama top and let my fingers trail over Sam’s bare stomach, rubbing away any lingering ache, the afghan pulled over his legs and up to his chin. It was a long time before Sam broke the silence. “When did this become easy?” He asked, finally turning to look at me.
“What?”
“When did it become easy to let you take care of me? You know me. I don’t accept help easily or well. But with you it’s so different. When did this get easy?”
“Maybe it was never hard,” I offered. “We met in an ambulance. We’ve been through a lot together. You were there for me when my dad died. I was there when Lisa had her melt down about you leaving. The shooting, the following Christmas, your dad, the M.S…. the list goes on. I’ve never had someone I’ve felt so completely secure with. I never doubt that you’ll be there when I need someone. Sometimes you’re there when I don’t want anyone around, but that’s usually just a case of me being stubborn and you showing me that I really do need someone around. And you’ve never once made me feel weak for being scared or angry or upset. I just want to return some measure of the peace you’ve given me.” I blinked, wondering where in hell that speech had come from.
Instead of an answer, Sam just turned and wrapped his arms around my chest and hugged me hard. I hugged him back and turned back to look out the window at the snow. I suddenly wanted to go on a walk with him, in the snow. I knew we couldn’t, with him already being sick and all, but it seemed like a terribly romantic thing to do.
I started to say something to that effect, but when I looked down, I realized that Sam had fallen asleep. I sighed, snuggling him in close. There’d be time, and more snow. Historically, once Sam had had the flu and gotten over it, he didn’t get it again. So I shelved the idea for the moment. But the next time it snows… Maybe then I can tell him why snow makes me think of him
Fandom: The West Wing
Words: 4236
Rating: PG
Summary: Sam has a deep appreciation for both Sudafed and Snowflakes
Written for: This is in response to the The Positively Upbeat Slash Challenge. There seems to be a disproportionate number of 'downer' stories in this fandom, so I'm all for upping the 'fluff' content.
Originally Posted on or about: 07.17.05
Oh, this couldn’t be good. Ginger was out there talking to Donna, looking agitated and pointing towards my door. Donna was trying to be all motherly and calming and checking my schedule. This couldn’t be good.
“Josh, Ginger needs to see you, okay?”
Too late to hide under the desk… “Sure.”
Ginger came in and stood in the doorway, constantly looking over her shoulder down the hall. I waited for her to talk, but apparently whatever was stalking her was much more interesting.
“Ginger, you need something?” I prompted.
“It’s…” another look into the hall. “It’s Sam.”
I let my forehead thump on the desk. “What’s he done now?”
Ginger jumped, “Oh, no. No, nothing. Well, that I know of.” Always safe to hedge your bets where Sam’s concerned. “But um… he didn’t look so good this morning and now… well…”
“Ginger?” I had way better things to do than listen to her stammer, though my interest was piqued when she mentioned Sam not feeling well.
“Yeah,” she said looking down the hall again. “He was sick this morning and about well, like… half an hour ago he ran out of his office and down to the bathroom and he hasn’t come back out yet.”
I had to play the last bit over in my head to separate the words. “Ah. You want me to go check on him?”
She sighed, exasperated. “Well, I’d look awfully silly going in there!”
“Relax, Ginger. I’ll go see if he’s okay.” She looked really worried that she’d get in trouble for worrying about Sam.
“Thanks.” She smiled at me. “I didn’t want to say anything to Toby. He’s… well, being Toby today and either way this goes, Sam’s gonna be embarrassed as it is.”
“Yeah. Clear his schedule and tell Donna to clear mine. I’ll go check on him and take him home.”
I pushed the bathroom door open, heard the retching and stepped back out again. I gave him a couple minutes and tried again. He had stepped out of the stall and was now at the sink, splashing water on his face. “You know I don’t usually feel like this until after I’ve met with the Republicans.” I grabbed a few paper towels and handed them to him and he dried his face.
He opened his mouth to answer me, but instead grabbed the sink and dry heaved over it. I reached behind me and locked the door. He didn’t need anyone else wandering in on him. “That bad, huh?” I moved behind him and rested my hands on his shoulders. Sam just hung his head. With the door locked I could safely move closer, and I slid one hand around his chest, the other across his traitorous stomach and hugged him to me. His breathing was coming in harsh pants, but after a minute I could feel the tense stomach muscles under my hand relax a little. “Done?”
He slumped against me. “I think. God, that sucked.”
“You did it again last night, didn’t you?” Sam got the flu every year at the same time and nothing I said or did would convince him that he could avoid it.
“Could you maybe… yell at me later. I’d like to go fall over somewhere right now.” He was trying hard to be pissy, but he was sick and tired and desperately hoping I’d come over and take care of him, just like I did every winter in Washington.
“Am I going to be able to talk you into going home? I’ve had Donna and Ginger clear our schedules.” I turned him around and hugged him.
“I can make it home.”
I drew back a little and made a face at him. He could barely remain upright without help. “I don’t think so. Come on, I’ll drive you home.”
“Okay,” he relented, or so I thought. “But come back. I know you’re busy. I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Actually, I think you do." I pushed his hair back off his forehead.
"Josh -"
"You know, one of these years I’m going to tape record this conversation so we can just play it and save ourselves the trouble of actually having to have it. I’m taking you home and I’m staying with you for at least the day. We’ll see how you’re doing later. If you feel better, I’ll go. But for now, I’m sticking around. Got it?”
He rested his head on my shoulder and nodded before scrunching up his eyes and raising his hand to his temple.
“Headache?”
“Yeah,” he whispered, apparently having decided that moving his head any more than absolutely necessary was a bad idea.
“Okay, let’s go.” I unlocked the door and steered him out of the bathroom. “I’m going to drop you in your office so you can get your stuff together. I’m going to run down, get my backpack and coat and tell Leo that he can reach us both at your place.”
I knew he felt like hell when he didn’t argue any more. Didn’t even look like he wanted to argue any more.
Sam had slumped into his desk chair, his coat still on the rack and the notes I knew he’d want for the thing in Chicago next week still scattered across his desk. I just shook my head sadly at him. He was my hero when I was in the hospital. He put up with my bitching about the respiratory therapy and still sat with me, helping me hold the damn pillow when I finally gave in and coughed. And when it hurt so bad I cried, he never teased, just held me against his shoulder and rubbed my back until I could lie down again. And every year since the campaign I’d nursed him through flu season on the East Coast. I put all the notes in an empty file folder and shoved it and his laptop into Sam’s briefcase. “What else do you need?” I asked him, causing him to jump. I knew he wasn’t asleep, but he’d apparently faded enough that he hadn’t heard me come in.
He looked at what was in my hands and blinked at me for a second before pointing to the sideboard. “That red book and the file folder under it.”
I grabbed those last things and packed them and pulled his coat off the rack. “Come on.” He wearily pulled himself up and I helped him into his coat, wrapping his scarf around his neck. I shouldered my backpack, put his briefcase in one hand and put the other around him.
“Ginger, I’m taking him home,” I called out loudly enough that Toby would hear it, but deliberately not speaking directly to him. I was telling them that Sam was going home, not asking permission, and I didn’t want Toby to even hint to Sam that he should stay. We’d gone six rounds last year because he wanted to see if Sam would be okay if he slept for an hour or so and then came in to help him on the speech for the National Teacher’s Federation or some damn thing. Sam had sat there, slouched into Toby’s couch, as we argued around him, turning greener and greener. The argument ended when he threw up into Toby’s trash can. At that point Toby’d been glad to let me take him.
I'd found a decent parking spot that morning, but the snow that had fallen during the night had drifted against the passenger's side door and I knew I couldn't get it open. Sam wasn't up to crawling across the driver's seat, so, putting our things up front, I prepared a place for him in the back seat. I had a blanket I'd used to protect my computer monitor when I took it to the shop, so I folded it against the door. I steered Sam into the car and fastened his seatbelt. I pushed gently on his shoulders. "Lay down," I said quietly, leaning over to guide his head onto the blanket. It was a tight fit, but he was able to shift around enough that he was, at the least, resting on his side.
The snow had been coming down in huge, wet flakes since Sam and I had been on our way back from getting dinner the night before. Sam, who has spent four years in D.C. with the administration, four years at Princeton in New Jersey and something like six years at some New Hampshire boarding school still finds snow fascinating. I mean, he’s spent almost half his life in places where it snows, but whenever we get our first big snow, Sam goes out to “experience” it.
And inevitably, he gets sick the next day. Now, I know that snow can’t make you sick. I do. All medical and scientific knowledge points to the fact that the flu is caused by a virus, but somehow, that virus gets Sam right after he goes out to stand in the snow for several hours each year.
“How long were you out there last night?” I asked conversationally.
“Out where?” he mumbled and groaned as I hit a big bump of packed snow.
“In the snow, you lunatic. Last night was the first big snow of the year. I know you stood outside for a while after work.”
“How the hell did you -- I mean, what makes you think…?”
“Oh please, Sam, like we haven’t gone through this for the past three years.” I waited a few seconds for someone to pull out of a parking spot in front of Sam’s building and pulled into it, glad that I didn’t have to try and get my little Saturn over the drifts that had formed in any unoccupied spot.
I killed the ignition and got out of the car, sticking my foot right into the puddle that had formed by the last car’s exhaust. “Hell's bells,” I muttered as I helped Sam out of the car. “I’ll get our stuff later.” I thumbed the auto-lock button on my keychain and led him up the stairs.
His hands were shaking as he tried to get his key into the security door. After about four failed attempts I took the keys and let us in. Sam leaned heavily on me as I got him up the stairs and let us into his second floor apartment. I took both our coats and shook off the worst of the accumulated snow before hanging them in the closet. Sam toed off his shoes and fell over on the couch and curled up in the fetal position. Poor guy.
I shook the snow out of my hair and kicked off my shoes. “I’m going to go borrow some sweats and dry off a little. How about if I run you a bath so you can warm up?” I figured his stomach muscles were still cramping and the warm water would soothe them.
“I can do it,” he muttered, sitting up. He groaned and held his head and aborted his move to stand.
“I doubt that severely. Let me go get out of these wet socks and I’ll give you a hand.” I went into the bedroom and pulled off my socks and draped them over the heating vent. My jacket, shirt and pants went into the closet and I dug up an old Duke sweatshirt and some gray sweatpants. After finding a pair of gym socks, I went into the bathroom and turned on the hot water tap. I waited until it actually produced some hot water before adding a little cold water and dropping the stopper in.
One of the bigger differences between Sam and me is one that really doesn’t matter to us at all. Sam has money. Between his family and his job at Gage-Whitney he doesn’t need to worry about a fairly pitiful government salary. I’d been working on the Hill since virtually the day I’d graduated law school; all I’d ever had was a pitiful government salary. My dad left me a little money when he died, but most everything went to my mom, as it should have. Which means I live in a little place in Georgetown that’s very cute and quaint from the outside, but has been modernized up one side and down the other on the inside. Including new fixtures, like a bathtub that’s about six inches high and a ‘water conserving’ shower head. Makes me crazy. Sam, on the other hand, has an apartment in a four-flat that still has some old stained glass from the 'teens or twenties, beautiful hard wood floors, a working fireplace and a huge, antique, claw-footed bathtub.
I left the tub to fill while I went and rounded up Sam. “Come on.” He groaned as I pulled him to his feet and steadied him when he swayed drunkenly. “You gonna be sick again?” I asked as he went pale.
There was a long pause that made me worry. Finally, “I don’t think so. At least not right now.”
Not terribly encouraging, but it would do for now. I slipped an arm around him and led him into the bathroom where I sat him on the closed toilet seat. Sam sat there, completely passive, while I pulled off his tie and jacket. We’ve done this dance enough times that he knows that he can relax now, that I’ll take care of him. Sam despises being seen as weak in front of anyone. He hates that he’s the youngest and well… the prettiest boy in the West Wing because he thinks it detracts from his credibility, so he compensates - sometimes over-compensates - by being independent as hell.
But this is our time. We’re probably the only couple I know who think of sick time as ‘our time’. Somewhere along the line we decided that we didn’t need to be tough guys in front of each other. It might have something to do with meeting in the back of an ambulance after I’d gotten pinned to a building by a drunk driver. We’d been waiting for a movie to open. He was with Lisa and I was with some friends. We didn’t know each other then, my friends and I just happened to be in line behind him. We were all leaning against the building when some dumbass drunk driver jumped the curb. A buddy of mine died and I was thrown up on top of the car, breaking my leg in several places. Sam had jumped out of the way and when he got up he took control of the situation. He kept me still to make sure I hadn’t done anything to my back and had Lisa call and 911. He stayed with me, holding me down when I tried to move, talking about stupid shit like sports and the weather to keep me calm while we waited. When the ambulances showed up, there were about five injuries. Sam and I were put in one with this girl neither of us knew who’d gotten hit by a falling sign from the building. They put my leg in one of those blow-up splints in the ambulance, which required moving it. They warned me that it would hurt and the next thing I knew, Sam had taken my hand and was telling me to squeeze if it would help. I’m surprised I didn’t break his fingers. That had hurt like hell. At least I passed out after being shot. When we got to the hospital they pumped me full of the really good drugs and my mouth got ahead of my brain and I teased him for flinching when they cleaned up his cuts and scrapes. It was one hell of a way to start a friendship.
I unbuttoned his shirt and chucked it into the hamper and he reached up to pull off his undershirt. I helped him stand again and he leaned on me while I undid his belt and trousers and pushed them down with his boxers so he could step out of them. He leaned over to take off his socks and instantly went pale and started swaying. “Okay, bad idea,” he whispered as I sat him back down. I pulled off his socks and got him back up and deposited him into the hot water. After a few minutes the tub was full and Sam slumped down until the water came up to his chin. I turned off the taps and marveled at how quiet the place was without the sound of rushing water.
I grabbed a towel from the cabinet and rolled it up, putting it behind his head. “Here, lean back.” He let out a completely contented sigh and let his arms float to the surface.
“Rest a bit. I’m gonna put on some coffee for me and get you some ginger ale.” Sam always had ginger ale in the house. He never drank it unless he didn’t feel well, but he kept it in the house like most people keep aspirin. And sherbet. The sherbet goes in the ginger ale, like that punch you got at junior high dances. I started the coffee and after pouring myself a mug before it even finished brewing, I noticed that my hands were freezing cold. I checked the thermostat and noticed that Sam had turned it down before going to work. I nudged it up a little higher than he normally kept it, but really didn’t think he’d mind. While the coffee percolated I found a pair of pajamas for Sam and threw a couple of towels in the dryer so they’d be warm.
After my Christmas meltdown, Sam had come to stay the night with me. He sat with me and we talked until I was hoarse and exhausted and then he tucked me into bed, and then crawled in right after me. Before he tucked me in he made the bed with fresh sheets and the down quilt I hardly ever use, telling me that I’d sleep better. I don’t know that the sheets had so much to do with it than the company, and well… the therapy, but I did sleep very well that night. So while he soaked, I changed his sheets and reset the bed. If he believed in the power of clean sheets… what the hell.
Figuring that his water had to be cooling, I grabbed some ginger ale and found some pills in the kitchen cabinet. I went back in sat on the floor next to his head. His eyes were closed, but I could see his eyes moving under the lids, letting me know he was awake. He didn’t open his eyes to look at me, just turned his head, and I smiled at the ease and familiarity and trust that had formed between us. I reached up and combed my fingers through his hair. “Feeling any better?”
Sighing and sinking just a few more centimeters into the water he whispered, “Yeah, thanks.”
“Here.” I handed him the pills.
“What’re they?” he slurred sleepily, opening one eye to squint at them.
“Whatever you had in the kitchen… some cold and flu stuff.” I gave him the ginger ale and he swallowed them. “Thanks.” He handed me the glass.
I stroked his hair again. “No problem. Let me know when you’re ready to get out.”
“Yeah, in a minute.” His head lolled towards me and I leaned in and kissed him gently.
He moaned and smiled.
I smiled too. “And you can just hold those thoughts right there. I do not need your germs."
“So much for ‘you can share anything with me,’” Sam quipped.
“No, I believe my words were, oh, so long ago, ‘You can talk to me about anything. And you can. But you can keep your damn flu to yourself.” I mussed his hair and the dryer buzzed. “Be right back.”
I grabbed the towels and came back in. “Come on, time to get out before you turn into a prune.” I reached down and hauled him into a standing position. I quickly dried off his chest and shoulders so he could lean on me as he stepped out. Sitting him back on the toilet, I wrapped one of the warmed towels around his shoulders and used the other to dry him off. He sat very still with his eyes closed and let me. God, I loved the way he trusted me to take care of him. He and Leo both give me crap about being a compulsive fixer. I’d be annoyed if they weren’t so damn right. I couldn’t make Sam’s bug go away, but I could make him feel better. I could do all the hundreds of little things we do for ourselves everyday without thinking about it, but become monumental tasks when you’re sick. I could get him meds and ginger ale and change the sheets and all those little things that aren’t so little when your muscles ache and your head is spinning and your stomach is staging its own revolt. And Sam lets me; because he knows not being able to do those things for him would make me much more insane than doing them.
I ran into the bedroom and grabbed the pajamas. I darted back into the bathroom, not wanting Sam to get chilly before I could get him dressed. “Damn!” I ducked back out.
“What?” he called after me.
“Do you want shorts?” I was already digging through his top dresser drawer.
“I don’t care, Josh.” I think he was laughing at me. I took a few deep breaths. Sam wouldn’t say anything now. He’d wait until he was better and give me crap about my overdeveloped mothering instincts.
I found some flannel boxers and went back in to help him get dressed. He probably could have managed on his own, but he kept getting faint and dizzy so I didn’t like him trying to balance and twist and turn without me being there to catch him. And I was fairly confident that the hot water and steam had exasperated the light-headedness.
It was a bit like a four-handed juggling act, but I finally got him into the boxers and pajamas. I was going to go get him some socks, but he grabbed my hand.
“Josh. I have the flu. I don’t have a bleeding head wound, I’m not hypothermic and I’m not a total invalid. I don’t want socks. I’m going to pull the blanket off the back of the sofa and lay down for a while, okay?”
“I’m getting nuts-o again?” I asked, staring at the tile between us.
“As usual,” he said with a soft smile. “Come on, we’ll turn on C-SPAN and see if C.J. manages to embarrass us with that E.I.E.Y.O. thing again. Do you know what that stands for?”
“It's the Environmental Initiative and Education Youth Organization. I almost hope she screws it up again. I mean, I know she clocked me for singing ‘Old McDonald’ at her the first time, but she hasn’t given us this much entertainment since the ‘psychics at Cal Tech’ thing.” I put an arm around him and steered him into the living room. I picked up the remotes for the t.v. and cable box while he unfolded the crocheted afghan off the back of the couch near the window. He started to sit down, but I grabbed him by the waist and pulled him back up, hugging him tight. “Hang on.”
I sat on the end of the couch, my back against the arm with my leg stretched out along the back and the other on the floor. I pulled him down to sit between my legs and snuggled him into my chest. His head fell heavily onto my shoulder and he rolled his head to look out the window next to us. I had the remotes in my hand, but left the t.v. off. Sam was being very quiet, and pensive. “You okay?”
“Mm hmm.” He was still staring out the window.
It occurred to me that I should have gotten him some more ginger ale before we sat down. I looked at how we were sitting, how comfortable he seemed and decided it could wait. “Whatcha doin’?”
He blushed and his gaze slid down to his lap before answering tentatively. “Watching it snow.”
“Okay, I have to ask - I have to wonder why I haven’t asked before - What is it with you and the snow?” Sam seemed overly fascinated with the stuff.
“You’ve never asked me before?” He seemed surprised.
“Nope, I don’t think so. I just usually end up tucking you in bed after you’ve been out in it and gotten sick.” I kissed his temple to make sure he knew I was teasing and not really lecturing.
“It’s beautiful,” he said wistfully. I looked outside, looking at the snow-covered roofs and sidewalks full of footprints. Schools had been closed and there were kids across the street from Sam’s place making a snowman.
“I suppose it can be. But I don’t know…” I stopped to put my thoughts in order. Usually we had these deep discussions late at night, when it was dark and we were curled in bed, and couldn’t really see each other very well. This was novel. Now I had to look at him. “It seems like you have some kind of… attraction to the snow that defies… logic. You know you’re gonna get sick, but you go out and stand in it anyway. Why?”
Sam hid his face in the upholstery. “It sounds corny.”
“So?”
He took a deep breath and then turned back to look out at it again. “Everything looks so clean. I was twelve before I ever saw snow. I mean real snow, not the stuff they make at ski resorts. I was at Exeter and classes had just let out and I was going over to the dorm to change when a kid I didn’t know hit me with a snowball. You could still see the grass through the flakes, but he’d managed to scrape together enough to throw at me. So I threw some back at him and we got to goofing around, rubbing it in each other’s faces and stuff until one of the groundskeepers caught us and sent us on our way. That’s when I realized how different life was there than it was at home. I looked up at the buildings and the trees and the kids and everything seemed so… new. Everything was so completely different than at home. I had some great friends at Exeter, one of them was my roommate at Princeton for a while.”
I sighed. It bugged me a little when Sam talked about his childhood. He’d never once complained about anything, in fact from the way he talked he seemed to consider himself fairly privileged. But when I listened to him, he always sounded lonely. He was sent off to a boarding school at seventh grade. Half of his stories about his early childhood had more to do with someone named Alice who was a Nanny or Au Pair or something, then he stayed on the East Coast for college and law school and then moved to New York. This was a guy who seriously wanted to escape from home.
“That's when I realized that there was a bigger world out there than L.A. That not everything was about my mother’s incredibly dull social agenda and my father’s business trips. The snow always makes me think of everything I haven’t seen or experienced yet.”
Wow. That was heavy. I didn’t tell him that the snow made me think of him. My analogies for snow were a lot more transparent. A few years before the campaign we’d gone on a ski trip in Utah. Only, as our luck runs, the worst blizzard of the season hit just after we’d checked into the lodge. So we’d gotten snowed in on our ski trip. The second night of the storm we were stretched out in front of the fireplace in our hotel room and Sam had gotten very quiet, and I caught him staring at me on more than one occasion. When I asked what he was thinking about he said, no hesitations, no fancy talking, “I think I’m in love with you.”
I’d lain there looking like a carp for a few minutes. That was the last thing I expected him to say. He’d gone on to say that he wasn’t expecting me to return his feelings or anything, but since it involved me, it was probably only fair of him to tell me. I just said something like, “Oh, okay,” and mumbled something about Lisa and how she’d kick my ass.
Nothing had changed after that. Not between us, but I got the feeling that may have been when things got a little touch and go with him and Lisa. I never liked Lisa. I didn’t know her very well, but from the few weekends I’d gone to New York to visit Sam, I grew a definite dislike for the way she treated him. They say kids tend to look for someone like their parents when they look for a significant other. It’s why abuse cycles form. And Sam seemed to have fallen right into that trap. Lisa had that same attitude his mom did about the importance of Style and Position and Society and having the right person on your arm. And Lisa always sent off this vibe that she was doing Sam some big favor by being seen in public with him. More like the other way around, but she and I snapped at each other enough, made Sam feel like the monkey in the middle enough, that I never said that to her face.
Which is why I had absolutely no compunctions about going to him and asking him to come to New Hampshire with me. I wasn’t trying to break them up, per se. But I knew Lisa wouldn’t put up for Sam racing off to pursue his dreams, giving up his high power job and significant salary. And I wanted Sam to see that she wasn’t in it for him. She wasn't even in it for them, let alone him, and he deserved better.
And somewhere along the line I realized that I’d fallen in love with him too. It had been almost four years between the ski trip and the night I finally told him, out there at the end of the campaign trail. It was snowing then too.
We were quiet for a while, watching it snow. We were supposed to get somewhere between eighteen and twenty-four inches all told. I guessed we were at about fifteen or eighteen inches already. Everything was soft. Rain makes so much noise on streets and roofs and cars. Snow is soft and beautiful and that made me think of Sam too.
We lay on the couch, watching it snow. I slipped my hand under his pajama top and let my fingers trail over Sam’s bare stomach, rubbing away any lingering ache, the afghan pulled over his legs and up to his chin. It was a long time before Sam broke the silence. “When did this become easy?” He asked, finally turning to look at me.
“What?”
“When did it become easy to let you take care of me? You know me. I don’t accept help easily or well. But with you it’s so different. When did this get easy?”
“Maybe it was never hard,” I offered. “We met in an ambulance. We’ve been through a lot together. You were there for me when my dad died. I was there when Lisa had her melt down about you leaving. The shooting, the following Christmas, your dad, the M.S…. the list goes on. I’ve never had someone I’ve felt so completely secure with. I never doubt that you’ll be there when I need someone. Sometimes you’re there when I don’t want anyone around, but that’s usually just a case of me being stubborn and you showing me that I really do need someone around. And you’ve never once made me feel weak for being scared or angry or upset. I just want to return some measure of the peace you’ve given me.” I blinked, wondering where in hell that speech had come from.
Instead of an answer, Sam just turned and wrapped his arms around my chest and hugged me hard. I hugged him back and turned back to look out the window at the snow. I suddenly wanted to go on a walk with him, in the snow. I knew we couldn’t, with him already being sick and all, but it seemed like a terribly romantic thing to do.
I started to say something to that effect, but when I looked down, I realized that Sam had fallen asleep. I sighed, snuggling him in close. There’d be time, and more snow. Historically, once Sam had had the flu and gotten over it, he didn’t get it again. So I shelved the idea for the moment. But the next time it snows… Maybe then I can tell him why snow makes me think of him