Title: Four Times Toby Wanted to Kiss Andrea (But Couldn’t) and One Time She Wanted to Kiss Him
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters: Andrea Wyatt/Toby Ziegler
Prompt: fanfic100: #39 – Taste; un_love_you: #17 – Wish I didn’t love you; tww_minis: Kissing without kissing
Word Count: c. 1,350
Rating: pg-13
Summary: He kissed her plenty of times; here are five instances when he couldn’t.



1. Three weeks before he first kissed her in earnest, three weeks and four days before he ended up in her bed, four months after they began working together, Toby almost lost all semblance of self-control, and he blamed it completely on Andy’s freckles.

Well, on her freckles and the fact that she’d been flirting with him since day one, but he did take some responsibility for that.

The staff frequented a normally lazy bar two blocks over, and while getting too drunk and sitting too close was usual, wanting so badly to kiss her was new.

Andy leaned into him even more, nudging her glass away, meticulously lining it up with his in her inebriation, intent on controlling the environment even as she could feel the warmth of heat from his leg.

She was telling him about why his media strategy needed tweaking, and she wouldn’t back down. But her hair was pulled back for once, and there was a formation of freckles on her neck that was just begging him to play connect the dots with his tongue. So while he managed to hold his own in the conversation, he couldn’t be sure that he didn’t agree to rethink the entire media buy. He didn’t know; he was too busy wondering what she tasted like.


2. She was citrus. Not really, but that was the taste, scent, aura he always associated with his soon-to-be ex-wife. Clean, clear, familiar, but always a bit acidic.

They met to sign the divorce papers on a Tuesday in a back booth at a nearby hotel bar. It had been months since she’d walked out on their marriage, and his anger had faded into remorse. She was kind – Andrea was gentle with him now, skittish, and he knew she understood that she’d broken his heart – and extended a hand across the table to him.

They sat there holding hands for long minutes, both fully aware of the gravitas of the situation, of the repercussions, of the fact that now, at this point, they couldn’t turn back. There was no need to chat, no need to catch each other up on their lives, because they still talked. Their divorce was not grown out of hatred or wrongdoings; she simply couldn’t live with less than half of him there, and couldn’t fathom the idea that she’d grow to hate him down the line if they continued like that.

So finally she smiled and squeezed his hand, and he returned the squeeze if not the smile. She helped him out of the booth and wrapped him into a tight hug, and in that moment he wondered if he could ask her to stop, to give it up, that he’d do better, that he’d keep on loving her.

But he said nothing, because all he wanted to do was pull back and let his mouth fall to hers. So he held her instead, and pretended that was enough.


3. He didn’t just want to kiss her; he wanted to fuck her. He wanted to shut his door at that moment and back her up against it, rough, bossy, insistent, and pin her hips back with his own.

He knew Victor Stipe fucked his wife. He knew also that it was probably a one night stand, because he knew her well enough to read her clearly. She told him easily, which meant it was over, but that moment of hesitation told him it hadn’t been nothing. And he’d seen her after half a bottle of wine. He loved her after half a bottle of wine.

So he wanted to take that away. Take away the Oriole, mandatory minimums and slaps on the wrist to her colleagues (though he knew that turned her on), and the fact that they now lived across town from each other and spoke almost exclusively under professional circumstances. He'd be left with the fact that he loved her no less than when she’d left him a year earlier.

He knew he could take that all away, too. Knew she’d be weak. Knew she was a flirt who couldn’t back down from his gauntlet. He thought she still loved him too, but couldn’t be sure, but he was willing to risk it. If he could he’d have curved his hands around her upper arms and walked her back, and she’d have known in a second what was going on, because that wouldn’t have been the first time.

He would have kissed her until her knees buckled and she sagged against him. His hands would have been in her hair (just until one was on her ass) and he would have made her melt. And from there, he would have been a Neanderthal, laying claim to her again, fucking his wife as though he could still call her that. She would’ve never forgotten. She would’ve come back.

Instead, he asked her to leave the pie. He thought she probably knew what he was thinking anyway.


4. “Why aren’t you asleep, Andy?”

“I just slept for six hours after expelling two small humans from my body. Do I really need to justify to you why my sleep schedule might be fucked up?” She softened, sinking into the pillow, curling her body so the phone could be tucked against her ear with as little effort as possible.

“Are they there with you? Are you already swearing in front of our children?” he teased, knowing how she wanted to clean up her act for her kids.

“No. A few minutes ago, though. They’re pretty perfect, Toby. Even though Huck still looks skeptical about this out in the world thing. Molly seems to be on board, though.”

“He’s skeptical because you named him Huckleberry, baby. He’s going rename himself Henry after one day of pre-school.”

“But you’ll be on my side, right?”

“Yeah, I will.”

“Good.” She paused. “Any word on Zoey?”

“No. It’s – I don’t know. I’m writing the speeches.”

“Two.”

“Yeah.”

He heard her shift over the phone, and she took a deep breath, and her voice was barely above a whisper. “How do we stop that? How do we stop everything, Toby? We’re not enough. Everything we’ve been doing for as long as we’ve known each other – everything – it won’t keep them safe. What do we do?”

He pictured her lying there, in the sterile hospital, and it was just wrong. This was a conversation like others they’d had a thousand times in the dark, nose to nose, when he’d been able to soothe her with a gentle touch. He could no more do that than he could give her an answer she wanted to hear.

“I don’t know, honey,” he finally murmured.


5. They were on the phone for hours the night he left the White House, the night he called her from the car to warn her not to turn on the television. Reporters were already camped outside their respective houses, so their powwow was held inside, on the phone, when all she wanted was to be able to go to him.

His voice was distant, and his words were more than a little slurred after a time, but as long as he was on the phone, she knew he was safe.

She was angry, but that could wait; she knew it would. Now, he needed his confidante, needed that voice in the dark, the one he’d always trusted as solemnly as a confessional. He needed her to listen, even if it was only to his breathing for long minutes.

She was a healer by nature; through words, through deeds, that’s how she excelled. She wished she could go to him, be with him, the laying on of hands able to calm the inner demons just enough to let him sleep, let him find it in himself to fight another day, and another, and another, because it would never end, she knew. He was a pariah, and in this moment, she stood with him.

She wanted to be there, to let him hide behind her, to stroke her palms down his face and force him to focus on her eyes. To kiss him, just so gently.

Instead, she stayed on the phone with him until the sun came up.