House of Cards

Author: AJ (another_juxtaposition@hotmail.com)
Category: Sam/Josh
Rating: R
Archive: Ask, and ye shall receive.
Summary: "Somewhere he hates himself for letting this happen, night after
night, beer after beer, but most of all he hates himself for loving the way
Josh says his name as they are a jumbled mess of legs and arms amidst cotton
sheets."
Disclaimer: If I were only so lucky.<g> The characters all belong to the
delightfully intelligent Aaron Sorkin, and to the marvelous actors who
brought them to life. Themes of Euclidean geometry and walking are loosely
borrowed from Jeanette Winterson, genius extraordinaire.
Notes: It all began with Dani Beth's summer challenge ­ I picked 3 of 5
elements: a beach, a boardwalk, and the couple of your choosing. For Ellen,
who understands that even the most beautiful things cast shadows, and as
always, for Rachel, who is anything brighter than even the sun.

* * *
House of Cards (1/2)
* * *

There are times when he thinks he has made the wrong decision, that Gage
Whitney held more than this administration ever could, and he thinks that
Lisa was the best decision of his. There are times when he doubts
everything, when he drinks just so he can stop thinking. There are times
when he thinks he might have a problem.

And there are times when he finds himself in Josh's arms, wrapped in sweat,
legs and arms and skin tangled in a mass of desire and passion, caught in
the moment. Then he knows he has a problem. But then he remembers and his
skin tingles with the memories of clandestine moments and he thinks that
maybe things can be overcome, that maybe you have to be a little crazy to
create something powerful and this is their own version of crazy.

There are times when he loses himself, when he forgets words and his
vocabulary diminishes, when his command of speech disappears into the foggy
nights and humid mornings. And there are times when Josh isn't there and he
wonders why he goes through this. Why he deals with the anger in CJ's eyes
and the feelings of disappointment. Because somewhere amidst the words and
the pages and speeches and the successes and the failures, Sam Seaborne has
lost himself. He doesn't know where to begin looking.

So sometimes he doesn't sleep, instead reads pages and pages of things he
can't do anything about, but thinks he should. And sometimes he goes with
Josh when he knows he shouldn't. And sometimes he drinks, and he drinks more
than he should, and sometimes there's a voice in the back of his head
sounding suspiciously like Mallory's informing him he's fucking up yet
again. But he washes her away with a glass of beer or perhaps a whiskey
sour, and sleeps it off in the morning.

And there are times when he doesn't change his clothes and forgets to
shower, watching television but nothing registers, because he can't
understand the words. They are in a different language from his own. The
Tower of Babel repeats itself and he can't help grinning at the idea that
the President's obsessive Bible Trivia has seeped into his insomniac
ponderings.

* * *
There is a knock on his door, light. He knows without looking up from his
copious notes that Josh has entered the room, and he congratulates himself
for keeping his hands steady.

"Wanna go grab a beer?"

It begins the same way each time, Sam's life stuck in a groove like a
scratched record.

* * *

He is drunk. The room is taking second to focus and he has to clutch his bed
post to remain upright. He is drunk and his pants are around his ankles, and
his dick is in Josh's mouth, and all he can think is that he is drunk.

His head swims with thoughts and words and incomprehensible desires, and he
falls back onto his bed while Josh moves to climb on top of him. He doesn't
want to want this. Somewhere he hates himself for letting this happen, night
after night, beer after beer, but most of all he hates himself for loving
the way Josh says his name as they are a jumbled mess of legs and arms
amidst cotton sheets.

* * *
It is morning now and Sam's shower refuses to get any hotter. He sits down
on the tile, his back straight against the steaming wall, letting the water
pound his neck and his head. The sound drowns out any other thoughts, and he
believes briefly that he can wash the memories of Josh's mouth off his skin.
But it occurs to him that it is too late. Josh has crept into his pores,
been picked up by his red blood cells and swiftly carried off to his heart.

* * *
Meeting in Toby's office seemed reasonable at the time, though Sam finds
himself distracted by the stark reds of the painting hanging on the wall.
Josh perches on the edge of Toby's desk, the epitome of nervous energy. CJ
is covered in papers and post-its, and Sam wonders how she can keep anything
straight with her organizational skills such as they are.

The air is thick with tension, and though ideas are simply being tossed
around, each of them fears heads will be rolling before decisions are made.
It isn't that any of them mind going to California on principle. But this
isn't merely a trip, and this isn't just work, this is an attempt to avoid
the political downfall of the century, and about completing a promise made
in all honesty three years before.

"Dammit Toby! Enough with the green beans. I dropped the ball, I screwed up,
though heaven knows I'm not the only on in this room who has ever made a
mistake." Sam hears CJ speaking directly to him, though her eyes are fixed
elsewhere.

She throws her hands in the air dramatically in an attempt to assuage the
tension. "Karma will come and bite you in the butt!"

"On the butt," Sam corrects without looking up, his dark hair brushing the
edges of his glasses as he scribbles something illegible.

"Oh shut up Sam! He got the point." There is frustration in CJ's voice, and
he finds a reprimand beneath the surface. Recoiling, his father's voice
echoes "Children should be seen and not heard."

Toby takes the cue to throw his pen on the table and paces recklessly around
the room, hands stabbing the air emphatically. "CJ you are not getting the
point! We cannot afford to isolate anymore voters! We are almost worse off
than we were four years ago, because though no one knew Bartlet, we could
invent him for them! Now he's a liar and a cheat, and we're going to ignore
the farmers! The farmers! The foundation of this country! The cultivators of
our resources, and yet the beneficiaries of what? Salinas is the Salad Bowl
Capital of the world, and gang-related crime is rising, English as a second
language is huge, their public schools are horrid, and they have major
immigration and illegal alien problems! Migrant farm workers constitute a
large part of the Salinas Valley livelihood, and we don't even know how many
of them there are because the census doesn't count them! We should use this
stop to address all of these issues, show that we aren't afraid to tacked
the big ones!"

"Toby, I get the picture." Irritation seeps into her tone. "First stop after
Fresno, Salinas. Happy?" She gives him a pointed stare, and he shrugs in
return, but sits down nonetheless. "However, we promised to be a part of the
University of California at Santa Cruz's discussion panel entitled 'The
Shrinking Left: Liberal Policies in the 21st Century'."

"Sam and Josh can deal with them." Toby says this dismissively, throwing his
ball against the wall with excessive force.

"You're going to send the Hardy boys to deal with the neo-hippies? Oh, this
should be fun."

Toby glares in response, and sighs as if inferiors surround him. Rolling her
eyes, CJ notes the change in front of her and Sam looks at Josh, wondering
when the two of them left the conversation. Josh gives him a subtle smile,
promising. And Sam is reminded of his fears, and he worries his eyes will
betray his longing.

"Don't you know the area pretty well, Sam?"

"You probably know it better, thanks to all your time as a Berkeley
feminista," Josh snorts at this but Sam continues nonplussed, "but I know
where the Boardwalk, the UC campus, the city hall, and the best place to buy
incense are."

"Well, what more do you need to know?"

"Can we stay at that new bed and breakfast, the one that provides free weed
with all meals?" Josh's eyes twinkle at the prospect.

"First of all, I'm pretty darn sure you have to prove you need it for
medical purposes, and no, your paper cut does not constitute a need for
medicinal marijuana, and secondly, may I remind you this is a day trip? You
two will be meeting us in San Jose for the tech dinner at 7."

"Children, this meeting is over. I trust you all have work to do in the
comfort of your own offices?"

They file out of Toby's office, Josh's hand resting on the small of Sam's
back, and all his insecurities disappear into the dark recesses of his head
because all he understands is that Josh's hand is on his back, touching him.

* * *

Sam walks through the maze outside of Josh's office, his nose buried in a
report he isn't really reading, and runs smack into Donna. Dozens of
color-coded note-cards scatter across the bullpen carpet, and for a moment
he is mesmerized by the way Donna's hands slide in and out of the colored
cards, shuffling them quickly back into order.

"Nice to know chivalry isn't dead." Donna brushes by Sam, leaving him
momentarily confused.

She yells over her shoulder, "By the way Sam, if you're going to San
Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair." She disappears around
a corner and he likes the way she makes him smile when he thinks he has
forgotten how.

* * *

Gravity affects him more than usual this morning, and he has to fight harder
to keep his feet moving forward, to keep his eyes open and his head up.
There is a heaviness to his existence that he has never felt before, and as
he stands it occurs to him that one day it might all just fall. That this
thing he created with Leo and the President, and the others, is nothing more
than a house built of cards, and he worries he will breathe a little too
hard and everything will come tumbling down. He is heavier today, and older
today, uneasy.

Because Sam is afraid, somewhere, that this isn't going to be the fairy tale
ending that they have all been hoping for. He's tired of looking younger and
being treated younger. He was forced to learn long ago how to deal with
defeat, disappointment, disillusionment, and despite that, he still managed
to hang on to shreds of optimism. Because he thinks life is pointless
without hope.

So he reaches out into the shadows, into the mist of the northern California
morning, and clutches tightly at this tenuous thing that breathes with a
life of its own. And there is Josh, speaking and convincing, the world his
stage and his message the truth, and Sam in the background, waiting.

His eyes are alive, flashing with passion that can't be faked. And Sam knows
his own eyes are cloudy, matching the weather outside and the turmoil
within. He doesn't quite know when they stopped listening to him, and
wonders if perhaps he lost his voice instead. If the fog somehow swallowed
it, light and flowing.

He used to be content with his position in this stress-filled world, working
in the wings to create the magic of the show, hearing his words being spoken
with an element of pride. Now he feels as if they have stopped being his
words, though they flowed from his pen and his thoughts, and became the
President's, and Toby's, and Josh's. As if his words are not good enough
simply being Sam's words. He remembers CJ, talking down to him in ways she
never had, and he remembers being angry, watching her eyes widen at his
fury. But most of all he remembers feeling lonely, and unimportant.
Dispensable, and young.

And he remembers the silence afterwards.

Someone asks him if he knows the time, and Sam is brought back from this
world of misty reverie into the present, this room filled with people
focused on Josh, his Josh with dark smoldering eyes. This is not a time for
pity he admonishes himself, and vows to spend the day focused, at dealing
with words, his words and other words. But he can't quite bring himself to
forget the feeling of the heat of Josh's hand radiating through his crisp
white shirt as they walked into the room or the way their hands kept
colliding during the drive over.

Because somewhere, Sam knows, there is a part of him that wants to announce
to this room of idealistic liberal college students that he sometimes wants
to touch Joshua Lyman so badly he can't think, he can't speak, and he
wonders if that is where his voice disappeared.

* * *
"How's it going?" CJ's voice echoes through the phone, reverberating in
Sam's inner ear. It occurs to him he doesn't know if CJ has ever been in
love. He wants to know, but that's not what she's asking and his courage has
fled for the safety of the shadows. He assures her that Josh is not
isolating any large groups of voters, that they are winning votes left and
right.

"You're winning votes on the Right too? Jeez Sam, I should send the Dynamic
Duo out campaigning more often." Her voice is a little too upbeat, and he
figures she is trying in some small way to tell him that he's doing fine,
that she is sorry for the way she treated him.

He tries to express that optimism they all expect from him. His command of
vocabulary and phrasing seem to have washed out with the last tide, and
finds himself resorting to a weak attempt at humor.

"You know CJ, I think you might want to make a stop in Castroville on your
way up. I hear someone leaked that classified info about the President's
dislike of artichokes, and we wouldn't want to lose the political power of
those artichoke farmers, now would we?"

"I am choosing to ignore the fact you know too much about the agricultural
regions of central California. Instead, I'm going to go talk to the press
from the Monterey County Post and the Carmel Pine Cone, whom, I assure you,
are only the most professional of all reporters, having the best interests
of the nation at heart. It seems the issue getting the most coverage these
days is the debate over whether or not Carmel should have door to door mail
delivery service. They want to know how the president feels about the
presence of mailboxes in the classic village community. Apparently some
people feel it detracts from the quaint atmosphere. So if you'll excuse me,
I'm going to hide behind a giant head of lettuce."

* * *
And now the panel is over and Josh and Sam are alone in their light blue
rental car, and now their lips are touching and their tongues are swirling,
tracing, traveling, laughing. A car alarm goes off and they break apart,
suddenly, startled, and Sam begins to drive.

He questions, as they depart from the relaxed UC campus, if Josh ever wants
to kiss him because he is Sam, or if it is only because he is there, because
he gets caught up in the moment. He wonders if Josh ever dreams of him,
reaches out in the early hours of the morning and wishes he were there
beside him. The answer is often a toss-up, a fifty-fifty deal with fate.
Although Sam wants to believe so badly that this intelligent man desires
him, he knows that wanting doesn't mean existing.

Josh sits beside him in silence, seatbelt fastened, staring out the window
at the passing houses, at the passing people, at nothing at all.

Santa Cruz is a beach town stuck in those formative years of the sixties,
the streets lined with first and second generation hippies and the stores
filled with glass-blown pipes. Sam has always felt out of place here, the
way he feels when he is walking around St. Mark's Place in New York,
suspiciously conspicuous in these laid-back atmospheres with his freshly
pressed suit and impeccable tie.

The car stops. Josh looks ahead to see a long stretch of color, roller
coasters and a carousel. A large sign spans the obvious entrance: "Santa
Cruz Beach Boardwalk."

"I haven't been here in years," Sam says quietly. "Years."

Two car doors open, two car doors slam, and two lean male bodies advance
toward the shore.

* * *
We met because space is curved and time doesn't exist. In space, two
parallel lines always meet, and triangles have more than 180 degrees. The
world is round, and we intersected, and we will always intersect, until we
are one.

There is an interrelatedness to everything around us, to ourselves, to the
world. Look at this sand. Tiny, inconsequential particles banding together
to create this vast and beautiful beach. Look at you, made up of invisible
particles, banding together to create the image before me. We are both the
sand and the beach, the shore and the ocean, the moon and the sun. We are.
We are alive and young, and you are the axis around which my heart rotates.

The seasons change the visual, but you remain stable. My existence is
contingent upon yours. Philosophers wonder what makes humanity get out of
bed every morning, and my answer is you. You with your scars and bruises,
brown eyes and thin fingers. You with the way you say my name half-whispered
in the refuge of the shadows, you with the skin that jumps and trembles at
my touch.

We are two parallel lines, destined to meet because Euclidean geometry does
not fit in a four dimensional world. We intersected against the odds,
against the rules, against the logic. We met because space is curved and
time doesn't exist. Only love, love that permeates all, endures all, exists
beyond all, creates all, and is all.

* * *

The wind ruffles through their hair, lightly covering each strand with the
salty-sweet smell found only near the ocean. It is the smell of Sam's
childhood, comfortable and known. It makes Josh slightly uncomfortable,
aware of the vast expanse of the unknown, the uncontrollable.

* * *

Walk with me.

Walk with me across this sand that scalds in sun and cuts in cold. Walk with
me across this beach and into the sea, vast and unknown. Let it swallow me
whole. You will walk on water, dance lightly on the foam tipped waves,
laughing at impossibility. Walk with me. Along the stone cold bottom of the
ocean, waving at the passing fish, breathing each other. Walk with me where
time doesn't exist and physics don't apply, into eternity, into infinity,
into heaven if it exists.

Walk with me.

Walk with me into the darkness, the strength of each other will illuminate
the night. Walk with me through impossible things and failures and crushed
dreams. If you can't dance on waves I will keep you afloat with the
buoyancy of my own body, with the light in my heart. I will not let you
fall. Walk with me, for I am nothing without you.

Walk with me.

Walk with me into tomorrow, remembering the shattered fragments of
yesteryear scattered in the purples and reds of the sunset. I will slay
your dragons, rescue your fair ladies, juggle red balls of fears to make you
laugh. I'll be the owl and you the pussycat and hand in hand on the edge of
the sand we'll dance by the light of the moon, dreaming in color and
breathing in stardust.

Walk with me.

Let me run my fingers through your dark hair, memorizing each strand. Let me
meld into your skin, filling every pore. You have become part of me, I am
made of your flesh, rib from rib, dream from dream. You have captured my
heart and held it sacred in the shelter of the storm. I will wait for you,
and we will breathe each other's dream for the next years and sustain,
survive. But in the meantime . . .

Walk with me, Josh, walk with me.

* * *

He feels old, walking barefoot on the sand, as if he is attempting to
recapture something long past. Time is cheating him, forcing him to wait,
wait, yet stealing years when his back is turned. Sam's eyes cloud over,
staring out at the expanse of choppy water. He envies Josh's carefree
attitude toward all of this, toward this campaign and toward this
relationship. He wants an acknowledgment of something, and he feels like a 5
year old seeking validation from the revered father figure.

Sometimes, he thinks, I repulse myself.

Their shoes kicked off long ago, Josh swings his loafers in rhythm with
their matched stride as they wander along where the Santa Cruz sand meets
the cold waters of the Pacific. They are waiting for something, though
neither knows what, and Sam desperately wants to taste Josh's skin, but
instead scans the horizon. The water catches Josh's toes, slightly purple in
the evening chill, and Sam notes the way the water always recedes for Josh.
He thinks it might be part of Josh's magic, that he can control not just
Sam, but the seas as well.

Sam is caught unawares and the sea splashes about his ankles, soaking the
ends of his rolled trousers. The sinking sun reflects its reds and oranges
in the rolling water, causing the sand to become a fascinating canvas of
sunset colors, painted with the carelessness of an ambivalent sea.

Josh turns and smiles at Sam, grabs his hand and leads him away from the
water, retreating farther up on the shore until the sand squeaks in the wake
of their damp footprints. They sit, side by side, and stare at the horizon,
far and flat.

All Sam thinks he knows is that he wants to touch Josh, where his shoulder
and collarbone meet, trace the gentle curve with his mouth, taste the salty
sea air on his skin. The words begin to tumble from Sam's mouth, as if he is
afraid of the silence, and he thinks perhaps he is, because unlike Josh he
can't seem to find the control panel.

"We came here, to the Boardwalk, with my senior class as a graduation trip.
The six-hour bus drive pretty much killed the chaperones, but the lure of
the roller coasters and the shadows under the pier created this feeling of
mass excitement. Except for me. I was never really a fan of roller
coasters."

"Now there's a big surprise, Mr. Head of the Gilbert and Sullivan Recording
Club."

He wonders if Josh ever thinks about him seriously, ever gives up the safety
of his sharp wit to reach out, and he hopes that Cathy is wrong when she
says that Josh and Donna have a future together because he wants Josh so
badly he has lost his voice in the depths of that desire.

"Paul Kaiser was my best friend, but he ditched me to hide under the pier
with Jessica Alberts." He pauses, hoping history will not repeat itself. "So
I sat right here, almost in this exact same spot, and stared out into the
ocean. It was one of those foggy nights, where the mist is so thick you can
barely see past your outstretched fingertips, wrapping everything in a cool
shroud of mystery. I thought about where I was going, about Princeton, about
what the future held, and there was no distinction between the ocean and the
sky. They just flowed, flowed into one another and all the lines
disappeared."

Sam tosses some sand in the general direction of the ocean, feigning a
lighthearted attitude he doesn't think he ever possessed.

"And here I am again, in this same spot, and the lines have been erased once
again. But this time it's not the lines that break the sea from the sky, but
the lines that define my life, define my future, define me. There are no
lines anymore, nothing is straight in this world. It's all curved, curved
and spinning. There are no constants, except that nothing is perfectly
still. It spins. It spins because the world is spinning, and it spins
because we spin it Josh. We spin the world to our liking, and we spin it
well, but does our spinning mean it exists?"

His breath catches in his throat, and he yearns to be held by the man next
to him, to feel the warmth of his body, to be reminded that they are alive.

"Do we exist? As a we, and not a you and I?" He almost whispers these last
words, terrified that he has crossed some unspoken barrier. He holds his
breath, silently daring Josh to break the spell. He knows the answer will
come, and he dreads it, because an answer means lives have to be put on hold
and fragmented into circles and spheres, because triangles and squares
aren't easily spun.

"It's only another four years Sam. Four years and then it will be over."
There is a hint of hope in Josh's tone, and Sam so desperately wants to
believe it, to grab it and never let go. Yet he knows, somewhere deep
inside, that four years will meld into six, and then twelve. He understands
that in a world where time doesn't exist, numbers mean nothing, that they
are merely symbolic of the eternal attempt to create reality from dreams.

Exhaling, Sam allows his head to drop to his chest, his dark hair cascading
downward.

Beside him, Josh straightens and opens his eyes widely, as if seeing the
view before him clearly for the very first time. His toes bend and clench
sand between their spaces, and Sam watches them curl and uncurl, grab and
release.

"We exist because we love Sam." Josh's fingers stop making circles in the
sand, and Sam raises his head to see those dark smoldering eyes reflecting a
passion that seems distantly familiar, only this time, directed at him.

He grabs on to that hope, so tangible he can touch it, and promises with his
eyes to never let go.

And that, he thinks, is something.

* * *
The End.
* * *
Feedback treasured at: another_juxtaposition@hotmail.com