Strange Beast
Rating: PG13
Archive: Just let me know where
Feedback: Is delightful and very much welcome: lina_wilson@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: I just make them dance
Summary: “They are so different and so completely alike.”
Author’s note: Quotes are from Psalms 22

~*~

CJ knew someone would find her. She always came here when she was upset, when she wanted the world’s injustices to melt into the crisp evening sky. When things were good it was difficult to keep up with her. She flitted between neon bars, a social moth attracted to easy laughs and empty drinks that couldn’t touch her. Tonight the lights were dim and she was huddled in the corner of her favourite booth. She watched anonymous faces move past her, knowing that someone would find her soon.

Her glass was cold and she should have expected it to be so. She *had* asked for ice in her drink. But nothing was what it should be at the moment, and she half expected to see steam rising off melting ice cubes. She pulled the glass towards her, watching droplets creep over her fingers. Ice bounced and knocked against the side, as she lifted the glass, but she put it back on the table before the liquid reached her mouth.

She shouldn’t find it hard to drink alone. Not in these haze filled days. Wasn’t loneliness a natural state of being?

Voices reverberated in her head, intensifying the ache that hung like Los Angeles smog. She could hear the press, calling to her, picking at her and feeding like wild animals at an abandoned carcass. They could sense fear and they could sense weakness, and there was a distinct possibility she reeked of both. She was losing control of the briefings, their accusations and questions were sharper and they were finding real targets. Carol was finding preparation harder, and resignation had become a trendy word in the Communications office.

She heard other voices as well. the President’s stump speech with its balance and rhythm and a full quota of lies. Leo, whose voice was tired and old, and orders were becoming more impossible. She heard Toby and Josh and Sam arguing, each of them with something important to say, and none of them getting through the fog that surrounded. Their yelling was loudest in her head, bouncing and gaining volume with each new issue. Why couldn’t they see the pain they were causing?

“Stop it! Just stop it!” She doesn’t know if they heard her. maybe she should have whispered louder. Maybe she should have left the room.

The glass lifted and ice cubes rattled again. The liquid reached her mouth this time and she took a sip, just enough to rub her lips and tap dance off her tongue. It barely touched her throat going down, and the moment it disappeared, she regretted not taking a bigger mouthful. She could start again, but the glass was on the table now. The glass was on the table, and her hands were in her lap, playing with the hem of her jacket. She didn’t have the energy to lift the glass again.

*My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?*

The door of the bar would open any time, and someone would have found her. It wouldn’t be Carol, she refused to work 24/7 on a job she was beginning to hate. Anyway, she knew when to take a step backwards, when she should leave CJ alone. But maybe Sam, who has hurt and betrayal seething from his pores, and is so angry that no one can bear to look him in the eyes. Or Josh would bring Donna, because it wouldn’t constitute a date, but he’d get to spend extra time with her, and anyway, she was more subtle than him.

The worse thing would be if Toby were to come. He wouldn’t need her to talk, because he can see right through her anyway, and she can return the favour. And their anguish and anger would be obvious, and that would be more than she could possibly bear.

There is no one in the world she knows the way she knows Toby. They met in a crowded and overdressed room, spotting each other over the heads of boring people. His eyes caught hers and she knew him. They were too young, and he liked to rest his hand on the small of her back, and she liked to whisper in his ear. They explored each other with their hands and eyes, but she was unable to give herself to him, and he accepted that it would go no further.

He met Andrea Wyatt and CJ went home, and they put what they had started in an antique music box.

She hadn’t known that he was watching her work from across the country. They wrote on a semi-regular basis, but CJ expected her letters to be read over Toby’s shoulder, so she spoke of nothing important. Instead she filled blank pages with nothingness, her family and the beach and her latest round of datable schmucks. His letters were better written than hers, but he preferred to talk of political theory and ideas, or the latest thing he had discovered about New York, or something he had read in the paper. Neither of them spoke of their work. They hated it and were afraid their disillusionment might seep into the paper and be seen between the lines.

She often wondered if Toby or Leo had thought of her name first. She knew that Josh had bought Sam on board, but Sam had done Washington earlier in is life. CJ had worked West Coast and New York. She wasn’t a Washington insider, she hadn’t done her political apprenticeship in the right part of town. She was the rank outsider, and this is why they brought her in. And this is how they would treat her.

Toby’s offer had been unbelievable and she had been caught up in it. She flew across America on the edge of some great adventure. There were dozens of people to meet, names she had to remember and co-workers she barely knew who she had to put her trust in. She grew harder and caustic, and people knew better than to wrong her. She gained respect, built a reputation from the filmy lengths of former jobs. She started to stand up straight. She was the voice of the campaign and then the administration, and it was only a matter of time before they turned on her.

*Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help.*

Ice has slivered in her drink, whispering as they glide into each other. Her mouthful is bigger now and the alcohol fills her mouth with sweet heat, circling her teeth and slipping down her throat in a warm burst. She’s been drinking scotch for more than fifteen years now, drinking it to fulfil social duties, drinking it to get drunk. She’s drunk until it fills her head and she’s found herself bent over in dirty bathrooms and grimy alley ways. She holds it better than she did fifteen years ago.

She still remembered her first drink of scotch. Her boyfriend had been older than her and superior, in his own mind at least. She had spent the evening drinking cheap red wine and her head was buzzing. He offered her the bottle, and she gulped from it, and he laughed as it burnt and she grimaced. They were the only people in the world and moonlight flooded his bedroom. He had undressed her, and licked wine and scotch off her stomach. Then he gave her more scotch and laughed as she ran to the bathroom.

Her glass was empty. The waitress with black hair and blond roots brought her another one. The room was steady, but her head was shaking and there’s no way she can get through this in one piece.

The door is opening and CJ leans forward on her hands, her hair falling over the sides of her face. She counts to ten under her breath, and hears the leather squeak as someone slips into the seat across from her. In a few seconds she’ll know who it is. Sam would call her name, and concern would drip from the two syllables. Josh would crack a joke and she’d want to hit him across the head if she only had the energy. Toby would say nothing . . .

Silence. She raised her head a little and her eyes meet his and she wants to cry. He looks at her steadily, and he says nothing, and she wishes that they were young and stupid again. Then they could get drunk, and throw up in the gutter, and she could beg him to take her home and screw her silly. It wouldn’t matter that they were noticeable and important, wouldn’t matter that the ground is crumbling beneath them. They’d have each other and that’s all they really want, isn’t it?

He puts his hand over hers and she shudders. He feels the subtle movement of her shoulders, the confusion that crosses her face and disappears into the ether. She blinks, once, and her eyelashes glance off her cheek bones. She balls her hands into fists, and his fingers fall between between her knuckles. her hands are smooth and hot, and his fingers are rough. They are so different and so completely alike.

“It’s hard.” Her voice has been smoothed by the scotch, and Toby lets it roll over him. The waitress comes up behind her, and he points to the drink already sitting on the table. She nods and heads to the bar.

“It’ll be over soon.” He tells her this, and it’s supposed to be a comfort, but it stabs them both, and makes it hard to breathe. His drink arrives, and he pushes it towards hers, leaving a trail of moisture as he knocks the rim of her glass. He looks up at her and her smile is bitter.

“Are we supposed to celebrate?” There’s a bump in her voice, and Toby swallows half of his drink trying to ignore it. “Are we supposed to drink to it?” She lifts her glass and scorn wraps itself around her tongue. “May I offer a toast to the glorious Presidency of Josiah Bartlet. If only his people had gone down, he would have remained triumphant.”

Pain has mixed with scorn and he can’t tell where it is directed. But he knows where she is coming from. He has run the same notion through his head thousands of times. “We couldn’t have gone down.”

“Of course not.” Her head falls forward and her eyes are hidden. “He wouldn’t let us. So we’re all going to sink together.”

“It’s not why he’s resigning, CJ.”

“Yeah.”

They weren’t convinced and they knew it. Convincing meant conviction, and conviction was a strange beast that had flown away.

Toby leant his head against the dark green wall, finding it comforting to find something steady. His eyes hold a straight line to hers. She is weary, but her eyes are wide, and there’s a streak of red running through them. She unballs her fingers and threads them through his, surprising him with a slight squeeze. He lowers his eyes and examines the smooth cut of her light grey suit and the low neck of her milky white blouse.

“Toby?”

He pulls away his right hand and rubs the ache from the side of his neck. “Yeah?”

She rubbed her finger down the side of his other hand. “Why didn’t we do the right thing? Why couldn’t I give myself to you when we were young and stupid?”

Truth is harsh, and he aims for jest. “I was never young.”

“You were.” She laughs, a flat line laugh. “We were young, and beautiful, and everything was in one piece, but I can’t remember how.”

“It was twenty years ago, CJ.” He sighed and dust settles back on his years. “I’m not sure I remember anything that’s, you know, twenty years old. “

Her voice is lilting, and she’s a girl, and an old lady, and he can’t see through her. “I remember you. You understood me. We talked of things that didn’t matter, because you understood what really mattered. You held me, and I whispered things in your ears, and you shivered at the warmth of my breath. And I shivered when you touched me. I remember.”

He shrugs and scratches his eyebrow, because words can change history, and he’s not sure if he has the words he needs. She looks at the door, and a smile is playing at the corner of her lip, and she knows that he remembers too. They’ll go home together, because that’s the best way to end night like these, when the thin ice begins to crack. But they won’t sleep together, because that’s not the way this relationship works, and they’re too old to try something new.