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December. There is snow on the ground in D.C. and the monuments seem all the whiter for it, the marble all the more majestic. Though he is a true child of California, with his white teeth and his skin which is only ever an hour's worth of L.A. sun away from a fine tan, Sam finds winter on the east coast something like inspiring. He could be poetic about it even, if his boss would let him.
Toby does not find winter inspiring; he does not enjoy the coming of December, slush on the sidewalks and the inevitable stalking of the innocent American consumer by that poor excuse for a celebration which is called Christmas (a lecture which Sam has now heard three times, and hardly any of them anywhere near December). But mostly he hates December because December contains his birthday, huddled towards the end of the month, two days before the festival he can't help but hate and yet not as forgotten as he would want it to be.
And mostly his hatred takes its usual expression: he yells a lot and throws each of the pink rubber balls at Sam's head at various points of the day and with no pattern discernible to Sam's eye; not in punishment for something stupid he's said or written, just because he happens to be there.
This is Sam's role. He's accepted it now. Of course it helps that Sam is so desperately in love with his boss that he'd stay so that he could have a rubber ball thrown at his crotch, if it meant more time with Toby. Though he's pretty relieved that he hasn't had occasion to find out just how low he might be able to sink on account of his crush, and that his testicles are still intact.
But Toby's slow changes of mood, which set in at the very start of the month and are so subtle as to escape everyone else's notice but then begin to deepen and twist, pulling Toby's voice down into the low registers of despair and resignation and only start to lift again once January, and the State of the Union, have come, are more than just a undemonstrative man's hatred of the kind of celebration it is impossible to avoid when you work in a big building with a hundred people who all know your name. If it were just that, then Sam would not feel a parallel sense of depression, a tug at his heart every time Toby utters a sigh just a little longer and more despondent than the last. If it were just that, Sam wouldn't worry about him so much.
Of course, that could be the crush talking as well.
Josh doesn't worry, mostly because it doesn't occur to him. He teases Toby some, and then insists that they all go out for a beer just before the bars close. He sits nursing the single glass of weak, resolutely American beer which Donna allows him to order and tells jokes. Toby nurses a glass of Jack Daniel's and his bad temper. Sam watches the small dips and tilts of Toby's head and half-wishes Josh and Donna and CJ and Charlie weren't there, so that maybe he could get up enough nerve to touch Toby on the arm and ask him: are you okay?
Not that it would produce any meaningful answers.
CJ doesn't worry either. Because she knows she doesn't have to worry about Toby until he starts messing up the State of the Union, and not before. Sam asks her once: do you think he's okay? Don't you think he looks a little ... you know? And she raised an eyebrow and patted Sam on his shoulder and made the half-amused, half-moved face that means 'you're an almost terminally sweet boy, Sam Seaborn' and then shook her head.
"It's December," she had said, "He'll snap out of it. Well, a little anyway."
Which was the end of that. And Sam knows that he ought to be satisfied with that, since CJ's known him about a hundred years longer than the rest of them and certainly better than Sam does, probably better than Sam ever will. But somehow it's not good enough - it can't be, because the small certainty of Toby's unhappiness, temporary or not, niggles at him; curls up in his gut, its weight like a stone, and gives him a cramp. He doesn't pretend to have the answers; it's still 'I wish you could be happy' and not 'let me show you how'. Sam doesn't think he knows how. It's like asking him how he knows how to breathe or raise his right foot and then his left when he's walking. Sam's own happiness is almost like those things; almost a reflex. He supposes that, for Toby, sadness is that way.
And he knows that it's mostly his infatuation, but it's hard to put away desires. It's hard, sometimes, to understand that it can't be that simple.
The big day arrives: the twenty-third of December, Toby's forty-fifth birthday.
The blinds in his office are drawn but through them Sam can see the light of the table-lamp. It's so early in the morning that it's still dark outside, but Toby was here before all of them. Because it's easier to work than think, and Sam knows how that goes. They all do.
CJ says, "You'd think he'd be used to it by now," with a little smile on her face as she turns her head towards Toby's office.
Josh says, "So what have we come up with? Anything good?" He has a can of shaving cream in his desk. But Donna has the key.
Donna says, "Don't you think we should just, you know, maybe leave him alone?"
Ginger says, "Yes, I think we should definitely do that."
Leo, silent steps and a little lopsided grin on his face, says, "Leave him be. I left some whiskey on his desk last night before I went home."
"Definitely leave him then," CJ says. "No wait - what kind?"
"A very expensive kind."
"You know he actually gets worse the more expensive it is?"
"Ah, the socialist's nature cannot be denied!" Josh says, bouncing a little on his heels. "I still think shaving foam."
"In the whiskey, possibly," Donna says, under her breath.
"Seriously, leave him alone. He'll be fine. He always is," Leo says.
"Yup," CJ says.
"But, just a -- "
"Joshua."
"Okay, alright. The day is yet young."
"Keys," Donna says, half-sings, as she walks away, back towards Josh's office, with the keys to his desk drawer dangling from her fingers. He follows her, inexplicably unable to pick them out of her hand.
Leo wanders back towards the Oval; Ginger sits back down at her desk. Sam makes as if to go into his own office, and as he steps across the threshold he feels CJ squeeze his shoulder.
"I think if you went in to see him now, no-one but me would notice, Spanky."
"What, CJ ... I don't want to -- "
"No, no, splutter some more, Sam. It's really convincing."
"CJ, I really don't want to get my head bitten off today. Truly."
"Sure. But you still want to see him."
"What -- "
"It's fine, Sam. Just don't ever tell me about it, okay?"
"I don't know what you're -- "
She gives his shoulder another squeeze. "He really is just fine, Sam. Takes more than a birthday to slay the dragon, you know?"
Sam sighs. "I just ... I just want to see him smile, is all."
"So go on - see if you can work your magic."
"Your imagery is really all over the place now, CJ."
"That is the very top of my list of priorities, Samuel. Go in and see him."
"I ... I can't just -- "
"Since when are you afraid of him? He's done nothing but yell at you since the day you arrived. And you still get starry-eyed whenever you look at him."
Sam raises his eyebrows. "Whenever ... Oh god."
"It's entirely possible that no-one here but me has any senses of perception at all, so you're safe enough, I think."
"Ohh-kay."
"Seriously, Sam. Go talk to him. It might not end the way you think."
"In pain, humiliation and suicide?"
"Which one of you is the grumpy one? I forget."
"Okay, okay. But when you have to hire a new Deputy Communications Director and the search sends you mad, don't say I didn't warn you."
She puts a hand on his back and pushes him through the door. "Go. Tell me what happened later. Or don't, that would be fine too."
Nervousness is expanding in his belly as he knocks on the door, like a schoolboy waiting on his Principal, making his stomach ache ten times worse even if it is psychosomatic, even if there's nothing to worry about, even if it's only Toby. He knocks and waits for an answer and feels the seconds seem to stretch into minutes, filled with nothing but silence. He is about to turn away when,
"What?"
He opens the door a crack. "It's me."
"Yes."
"Happy birthday."
"Sam, I'm busy here."
"I wanted to talk to you," Sam says, inching his way in and shutting the door behind himself.
"And say what?"
"Well, that mostly. Happy birthday, I mean."
"Sam ... "
"I know you hate it. And if I didn't know before this week I'm certainly not short of -- "
"Sam."
"Sorry."
"So you just wanted to say that?"
"Yeah. I guess."
"Not to fill the office full of shaving foam in artlessly designed patterns?"
Sam grins. "No."
"Or steal my whiskey."
"I don't like whiskey."
"Yes, I know. I've been pondering what to do about it."
"What to do about it?"
"Yes. You can't go on drinking beer all your life, Sam."
"Why?"
"Because you graduated college?"
"Ah."
"Yes."
"So you're a whiskey snob, is what you're trying to tell me?"
"I'm trying to tell you it's time to join the big leagues, Sam. You're not a kid anymore."
"Yes. I know."
Toby stares at him, brown eyes made black in the dim light. He blinks slowly, ponderously. Almost, Sam would say, seductively, if he wasn't a really bad person to judge that sort of thing.
"I wanted to say ... I really wanted to say, that I wished you could be happy on your birthday. Or whatever, you know ... 'happy' is the wrong word for -- "
"Sam."
"Yeah?"
"You're babbling a little."
He's still staring, eyes so black now, so dark in his face which is made of darknesses anyway - beard, hair, the smudge of shadow under his cheekbones, the hollow at his neck. Sam swallows.
"I'm sorry."
"No, that's okay. You were saying."
His voice is low, dangerous. And it might be indulgent - Toby's kind of indulgence - or it might be about to kick his ass over the other side of the Potomac. Sam can't really tell. And it wouldn't matter if he could: his mouth is opening to complete his speech; words have taken over.
"Because I ... well, I pretty much hate seeing you unhappy. Or more unhappy. Or, well, you know. I don't like it. I'm not saying you should be dancing on the rooftops or anything like that because really that would be kinda freakish and our polling numbers are bad enough as it is. But I haven't seen you smile all month, I think, and I just wanted to come and say that I missed that and to ask if there was anything I could do about it, because ... because ... "
He has to pause for breath, which is undignified, but by this point, extremely necessary.
"You keep track of how often I smile?" Toby asks, in a quiet, soft voice.
Sam looks up at him. "Well, not in a notebook or anything."
"Okay."
"So, er. Where was I?"
"You were about to tell me what's at the root of all this concern."
"I was?"
"You were. You said 'because' twice."
"Right."
"Sam?"
"Because ... oh god. Because I -- "
He doesn't get that far. Toby gets up from his chair as Sam is drawing breath and around the desk as quick, it seems to Sam, as a strike of lightning. His eyes are black and his hands are warm and for a few seconds that is about the limit of what Sam can think, because his mouth is insistent, hard over Sam's own, persuasive where Sam never needed any persuasion, expansive where Sam would have settled for taciturn; catching him by surprise as the very last thing he had expected, given willingly.
Sam is once more short on breath when Toby breaks the kiss, a minute or two later.
"Okay," Sam says, once he is able.
"Yes."
"So, did that ... work?"
"I enjoyed your discomfort, yes."
"And the, er, the other thing?"
"Yes."
"So, we could ... ?"
"We could."
"Happy b -- "
"Don't."
"Okay."
"I'll pick you up at seven."
"You will?"
"Yes."
"We're going out?"
"Yes."
"Okay."
"Okay."