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I have touched the highest point of all my greatness; / And from that full meridian of my glory, / I haste now to my setting: I shall fall / Like a bright exhalation in the evening, / And no man see me more.
-- Shakespeare, Henry VIII III.ii.224
Part I - Inauguration I
1.
It is Governor Josiah Bartlet that they fall in love with first. It comes to Sam, sudden and deep, in the realisation that he believes in magic. He gets to his feet and claps his hands because he can't help himself, and now he knows that Josh was right. To Toby it comes slower, as hope that starts without stuttering, filling him and his words. He doesn't realise it's there until he reads it, there in his work; hidden in the margins and woven through his syntax.
When he is President-elect Bartlet, both men know that this is the event on which life has turned. Toby determines to work the high that he's sure, even before it's begun, will come to mark his own downturn. He saves up his hope for the new guy, a decent job, and four more years. He tries not to think about what happens in the ninth. Meantime, Sam shines, and thinks he may never stop. There is no space for worry between the words that he gathers around him and assails Toby with over the phone; Sam keeps it out with slogans and promises and positions, hearing the speeches sing in Bartlet's voice.
When he is, finally and still with the touch of a miracle about him, President Bartlet, and he shakes their hands - Sam first, then Toby - in the Oval, both men receive what they didn't expect, bound up in hope and magic, inside Jed Bartlet's handshake. The new staff go out that night to a bar only Josh and Toby among them have even heard of and get very drunk. Sam learns, sometime between midnight and the morning, that CJ really wasn't kidding about the Grasshopper thing and that some women are, much to his amazement, immune to Josh's slurred charms. That night is only the third time that Sam has ever seen Toby laugh, and it's the one he never forgets, despite all the beer. High and sudden, head thrown back - all white teeth and red tongue - and startling enough that Sam's still thinking about it the next morning.
2.
"I can't believe you got us lost."
"Toby, for the last time: we have a phone, I have a map - somewhere - and I'm sorry. The truck guy said to keep on this highway and we'll hit Columbia. And he's right too - this goes straight onto Highway - "
"Please don't finish that sentence."
"We'll get to Columbia, Toby. Trust me."
"In time to miss the bus."
"I think we've already done that."
"He couldn't have just given us a fucking ride?" Toby says, with low venom.
"You, me, and a dozen goats?"
Toby turns to him, "What? I like animals."
"You like them as foodstuffs, Toby. I don't think that's what the guy really had in mind for his livestock."
"That's exactly what he has in mind for them, Sam!"
"Not for ten bucks and the company of two liberal freeloaders. Anyway, you can't eat goats, it's just milk and cheese."
"If only we'd brought Donna along."
"Why Donna?"
"Wisconsin."
"Oh."
"We should have just picked the biggest and ridden it to Columbia," Toby says, looking down the road as if it promises more trucks filled with goats.
"As a triumphal entrance it needs a little work, I think."
"This is idiotic."
"We'll be there soon."
"Is this just an elaborate plot to have the Governor remember your name?"
"He knows my name, Toby."
"Yeah."
"I really think he does."
"Mmmm. Which is fine except that, when we are lost forever in the wilds of South Carolina, not a man among them will remember either of our names. Even CJ will forget us. And the Governor will deny we were ever on the payroll."
Sam laughs and, turning on the road, walks backwards beside Toby, staring down their tracks so far. The light still shines, blue and distant over the low rise of land and the long curve of the road, and he trusts the truck guy. He's happy to be walking.
"It's beautiful," Sam says, still looking back over their tracks.
"I was wondering how long it would take you to say that."
"It's America, Toby - this thing we've been so busy fighting for."
Sam doesn't need to turn his head to know that Toby is rolling his eyes; it took him less than a month in Toby's company to accurately predict which sentiments he needed to express in order to be presented with some variation on that reaction. Sam smiles to himself, and turns back round on the road.
"Well, what are we doing then?" Sam asks, watching his shoes kick up the dust.
"Getting our asses kicked on Super Tuesday."
"Toby ... "
"We are spokesmen, Sam," Toby says, holding his hands up to the sky. "We shape a message that no-one will hear, much less care about. And what is our reward for this thankless task? This labour to which we have given so much of ourselves, our blood and sweat? To miss the damn bus in Columbia, after we walked a half a day to get there."
"No chance they'd wait for us?"
"No. Considering we very nearly left the Governor behind in Iowa, I think the bus-driver is probably an authority unto himself."
"It's a nice walk though," Sam says, looking up at him, grinning.
"We have now reached that point where you're irritating me."
"I really thought it'd take less time than that."
"Yeah, well, sometimes things surprise you."
They walk awhile in silence, and Sam watches the sun fall out of the sky and leave it darker, and he watches Toby. Sam takes in the stutters and stops of his walk, his shoulders leading him, uneven and unmatched to his steps. He wonders if Toby's still composing, inside his head, because his hands still wave and shape, fingers splayed. Every now and then his left hand shifts against Sam's forearm, but he doesn't look up, and they carry on walking.
Some little time after, when it has grown dark enough that Sam has started to worry seriously about the prospect of wolves, although not seriously enough that he mentions it to Toby, they see lights ahead.
"You think that's it?" Sam says, gesturing towards the glow.
"For your sake, I hope so."
"I think it is."
"Does the route map in your head shut down after dark or something?"
"We'll get to the sign in a minute."
"If it reads 'Charleston' don't be too upset."
"We'd probably have noticed the river and the two substantial lakes, Toby, but okay."
"Well you've been so busy with the beauty of America ... "
"Look - it's there! Can you read it?"
"Just go, Sam."
Sam runs the few extra steps to the sign, then: "Nooo. Not Columbia."
"Charleston?"
"Nope, not that either."
"Are we back in Kansas, Toto?"
"Redsville. You sound like CJ."
"It's an occupational hazard at the moment. You want a different nickname?"
"I'm sure you could think of something that would flatter me better than the name of a small, fictional dog."
Toby shrugs, "Well, maybe."
"Shall we just find a hotel?"
"Yeah. Phone Josh, have him tell Leo and the Governor we'll catch up to them tomorrow."
They pool their meagre resources to get a room in the first motel they come to. Sam demurs, but Toby insists and provides enough over-loud complaints to bully him into agreement. The room is less than impressive - off-white walls with over-bright pictures which make Sam wince - but is well-stocked. Toby makes straight for the mini-fridge and hoards the contents with the bottle of Jack Daniels he bargained for at the motel bar. Sam watches him sink down on the leftside bed with the bottle and a glass clutched in his fingers and kick off his shoes.
"I'm going to take a shower," Sam says.
"Yeah."
Toby has alcohol and a bed and seems happy enough, but Sam's thighs and back are aching and he longs for hot water, soap and clean skin. He spends half an hour in the shower, bending his head into the water and allowing it to fall across his mouth and eyes - warm and welcome. He wonders, after he's stepped out and dried himself off, whether Toby will mind if he just twists the towel around his waist and doesn't bother with one of the robes hanging on the bathroom door, but decides on the robe for the sake of peace.
Night has fallen by the time Sam emerges. He wipes the condensation from the windowpane and looks out at Redsville, not that there's much to look at - a few buildings clustered around the highway and the yellow light of the further town beyond that. The motel itself lies unoccupied. The left side of the building, which Sam can see from his window, is entirely in darkness with only the bright orange flash of the vacancy sign lighting its corners. Sam sighs, and comes away.
"Toby?"
"What?"
"You looked, er, asleep ... just then."
"No, just CNN having it's trademark effect."
"Are we on?"
Toby stares at him, then gestures towards the TV, then the bed, "Sit, listen, learn. Be silent."
They watch the news and wait for it to repeat itself. Toby hands Sam the bottle of whiskey and sighs, loud and theatrical, when Sam insists on getting up and searching in the cupboard above the mini-fridge for another glass. He comes back, after ten minutes' ceaseless searching, with a mug bearing the image of the South Carolina state flag. He shrugs at Toby, who raises an eyebrow and fills the mug to the top.
Sam looks down at it for a long moment, "You know, I'm more of a beer drinker."
"Well you should fit right in, then," Toby says. "Just drink it. Indulge the masculinity which is, I'm sure, latent somewhere within you."
"Have you ever seen Josh get drunk?"
"No."
"Try it sometime. I'm Dean Martin by comparison."
"Bad?"
"Astonishingly bad."
"CJ likes Grasshoppers."
Sam frowns, "What, on a stick to stir the drink?"
"It's a type of cocktail, Sam. I've never dared ask what's in it, so you'll have to get her to explain the attraction."
"I'm making a mental note."
"I'm sure she knows the recipe."
"Just don't let her make me try one."
Toby stares at him, then smiles, nods.
Sam lets his eyes pass back across the window. He can see the half-moon high above the 'Vacancy' sign, still blaring orange and too-bright.
"You think there were wolves out on the highway?" He asks, still looking out to the darkness.
"Wolves?"
"Yeah. We're not that far from woodland, Toby, it's not out of the realms of possibility."
"Wolves?"
"Sure!"
"Did you see any wolves, Sam?"
"I would have told you if I had, Toby, shortly before I commenced my speedy run to the nearest evidence of civilisation."
"So all that time - and in the middle of the whole 'beauty of America' thing - you were worried about being savaged by wolves?" Toby manages, then bursts into a short laugh - high and brittle, half-hidden behind his hand. Sam cannot help staring at him, at the red of his mouth; shining wet.
Sam smiles, "Yeah."
"Probably would have been an opossum," Toby says, when the laugh is done.
"Yeah."
Toby sighs, smiles. He throws the TV remote down across Sam's thighs, then leans back on the bed and puts his hands behind his head. "Find something good on TV."
"At ... " Sam glances at his watch, "Eleven-thirty on a weeknight in South Carolina?"
"Yes. I want something to go to sleep to. Find something good," he says, closing his eyes.
"You're going to sleep now?"
Toby opens his eyes, "Trying to."
"Now?"
"You walked me halfway across South Carolina!"
"It wasn't that far."
"It was a good ten miles further than 'that far', Sam."
"You want me to move to the other bed?"
"I really couldn't care less."
"I'm comfortable here."
"Good. Fine."
"Okay."
"Okay, then."
Sam doesn't go to sleep, and he doesn't really believe that Toby sleeps for more than a half hour, although he stays silent and still through three episodes of Batman, flickering monochrome and grainy on the television, muted. He lies curled away from Sam, his white shirt creasing with the bed linen, one hand under his head and the other, as if for counter-balance, thrust deep into his right trouser pocket. Sam can feel the warmth of his body, pressed close against his thigh on Toby's outward breaths, just for a second. Through a couple of them, a bright flash of time, Sam wants to slip down on the bed and lie there with him - chest to back. He's cold, and Toby's not, and it'd feel good to stretch his body out and lean close, and just sleep. But he stays still and silent too, and watches Batman, and Robin close behind him.
Sam moves away when Toby seems to stir, and gives sound back to the television, after turning it back to the first news channel he can find and pretends to watch as Toby stretches, and sits up on the bed.
"Hey," Sam says, looking round at him, noting the way his hair has flattened on one side.
"What time is it?"
Sam gestures at the TV, indicating the clock that sits in the bottom left hand corner. It reads 1:05.
Toby sighs and hauls himself off the bed, then stands beside it rubbing the heel of his hand over his eyes, each in turn. He disappears into the bathroom and Sam hears water running and when Toby re-appears and during the moments it takes him to cross the floor and sit back down on the bed, Sam can see the yellow light reflect a few drops of water still in his beard.
"Couldn't sleep, Toby?"
"No."
"Me neither."
"Did the wolves keep you up?" Toby says, turning his head to Sam.
"No," Sam says, smiling back to him. "Just couldn't sleep."
"What kept you up?" Toby asks, voice soft and low, so Sam can hardly hear him.
"I was thinking."
"About the campaign?"
"Yeah."
"You worried?"
"A little. Hoynes is too strong, Toby. We're going to really need something to beat him."
"We've got it, Sam."
"Yeah."
"Don't worry too much, okay?"
"Okay."
"Good."
"Toby?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you miss Andy?" Sam asks, unsure where his words came from.
Toby looks at him for a long moment. "What?"
Sam shrugs, shakes his head, "I don't know really."
"Why do you want to know that?" he asks, his voice quiet.
Sam shrugs, "I'm curious. I guess I was thinking about Lisa, too. Maybe."
"You broke up?"
Sam nods.
"How come?"
"I'm not what she wants, Toby. I'm ... I'm just not right for her."
"Okay."
Sam smiles - too bright, "I'm over it."
Toby looks up at him, nods. "Right."
"So, what about you?"
Toby reaches for the bottle of bourbon and pours out the last half glass, then drinks it down in one. "I don't know."
"But you miss her?"
Toby stares at his hands, dances his fingers around the rim of his glass. He smiles and says, "Yeah."
"But she knows - you know, that this is ... what you do. What you have to do."
Toby laughs, quick and hoarse. "Yes, she does."
"You love her?"
Toby look up at him, his eyes black in the dim light, unmoving. His head shifts, then he nods, a little tilt of the head, accompanied by the same quick smile - gone when Sam looks back at him a moment after.
"That's good," Sam says.
"Yeah."
"You missed Batman while you were sleeping," Sam says, after a minute.
"Really."
"Yeah. Did you know that there are over thirty-five different sounds which a villain may make when you punch him?"
"I did not know that."
"Late night TV is very educational."
"And now you're kicking yourself over all those student loans."
"Exactly."
"You're incredibly freakish."
"I've been told that."
"I can only imagine."
"But I'm really very talented and unique."
"Yes."
"Really."
"I believe you, Sam."
"I don't think you really do."
"I believe you, Sam!"
"Test me."
"I'm sorry?"
"Test me - give me some kind of test."
"You want a test?"
"Yeah."
Toby stares at him, grinning. "Okay. Is there any paper over there on the desk, hotel paper?"
"Sure."
"Get two sheets. You got a pen?"
"No, actually."
"Ah well, you've now failed section A. Here - " Toby throws a pen at him, seemingly unconcerned with the accuracy of his throw. "Use one of mine."
"Okay."
"Two hundred words."
"On what?"
"You pick. You write two hundred, and I'll write two hundred, then we'll see whose is better."
"Who's going to judge that?"
"Me."
"You?"
"I'm the best judge you're gonna get, Sam. So just write. Two hundred words."
It takes him less than an hour, including polish, which is a personal record. Toby is done ten minutes ahead of him and sits, with his ankles crossed on the bed. The empty glass sits beside him on the table and since he finished, Toby has, instead of fiddling with the glass, taken to tapping his pen on his thigh; attempting distraction. Sam smiles as he caps his pen and holds his paper out, flicks his eyes down to Toby's pen, then back up to him. But he is still aware of every breath and beat of his heart as Toby takes his paper from his hand.
"This is mine," Toby says, and slides it across the bed.
"Thanks."
"Read. Again, silence is preferable."
"Have you ever thought of becoming a librarian if this politics thing doesn't work out?"
"Just shut up and read."
Sam smiles at him, but he has already bowed his head over Sam's words, chin propped on his hand. So Sam picks the paper up from the bed where it lies, between them, and reads.
It takes him three minutes to read Toby's two hundred, then another ten to re-read prose he thinks he might have dreamt. The page is bright with Toby's words; bright with power and clear to hope, bound tight through set-up and crescendo, shot-through with magic. Sam hears them in Bartlet's voice the second time, and lets out a long breath when he's done reading. He doesn't look up from the page until he hears Toby say,
"Sam, this is ... exceptional."
Sam looks up, expecting to hear something much less complimentary appended to Toby's words, but Toby is silent, reading Sam's words a second time.
Sam watches him, just as speechless.
Toby nods to himself, folds the paper and slips it into his shirt pocket. "I'm keeping this."
"Why?"
"To show the Governor."
"He's read - "
"Not like this, and neither have I. So I'm keeping it as something I expect you to live up to in the future."
"Does that mean I win?" Sam says, finally able to smile.
"It's a draw."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Yours was astonishing, Toby."
Toby just looks up at him, and rubs his thumb into his beard.
"You were practising for the Inaugural, weren't you?" Sam says, grinning now.
"Sam ... "
"You were - that's the only thing you could possibly have been writing there."
"Sam, we don't do ... this."
"Oh, come on - you can tell me."
"Sam, shut up while I tell you a story. I realise you've been a lawyer until now and not troubled by the cares of we lesser mortals, we who believe in a little something called tempting fate."
"I didn't know you were superstitious," Sam says, smiling.
"I am not superstitious. This is fact, Sam. This is something we do not do. It will end in tragedy and ass-kicking on Super Tuesday. Tempting fate."
"So you do think we'll win Super Tuesday?"
"I didn't say a word. And neither will you."
"Okay."
"You are no longer a lawyer, Sam, and as an ordinary mortal must begin to observe the natural laws of god and man. You will learn not to tempt the wrath of the supreme being who looks down on us from high atop his mountain, watching our every move and listening to our every word for this very act - tempting fate! Pull this crap on election night and I'll kick your ass out the door."
"You do think we'll win."
Toby just looks at him, with the smile in his eyes rather than his mouth.
3.
For Sam it was Toby's mouth and the memory of his words that started it all and thus he talks himself, half-hearted, out of any responsibility for the things which happened later in the night. Toby tastes of bourbon and stress, and the first sleep which still lies in the corners of his mouth. When Sam pulls away Toby's tongue licks at his lower lip in the spot that Sam sucked on, and his hand trails over the place where his tie would be, if he were still wearing it. His eyes have closed before Sam's done smoothing out the mess they made; his breathing is slow and heavy when Sam gets into the other bed and turns his back on him.
He was half asleep when Sam kissed him and Sam was awake, sober and oddly brave. But Toby kissed him back, groped for his tie and kneaded his knuckles hard down into Sam's stomach, and so that's another way out of responsibility. He sounded so hungry - heavy moans slipped from his mouth and fell past Sam's, lost and empty. Sam had to hold him still, had to kiss his mouth and put his hands down between Toby's thighs. Toby had pushed them away, swift and violent, twisting Sam's fingers in the effort, but Sam felt his erection - pressed hard to his inside thigh as his leg curled up around Toby's hip. Sam doesn't know why Toby kissed him back but he knows Toby wasn't drunk enough not to need a reason.
Sam goes to sleep with Toby's need still in his throat. He curls himself up against the memory of skin and the smell of sex, trying to cover himself in the night and turning his head from the light. But he can still hear everything they did when the morning comes, just like magic.