stuttering stars

dancinginsane @ 2009-08-30T21:51:00

2009-08-31T04:54:05Z

Title: Whatever persists (or turns to pain) between us
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters: Andrea Wyatt/Toby Ziegler
Prompt: un_love_you: 15 – This is my desperation in action. fanfic100: 65 – Passing.
Word Count: ~330
Rating: r
Summary: Because you’re skipping dinner at this two-day political roundtable, and instead you’ve got your hand down your ex-boyfriend’s pants.
Author's Notes: Pre-admin. Unbeta’d, so all mistakes are my own. Just cleaning off the harddrive, finding bits and pieces that aren’t as terrible as I previously thought.

He pins you against the wall in the elevator the instant the doors shut, his body immediately reminding yours that you did this so, so well. Your hands – yours and his alike – are frantic and clutching. Your fingers curl into his shirt, gripping tightly, and he palms your ass, lifting you and fighting for leverage and contact. If you could be assured that the elevator wouldn’t stop, that alarms wouldn’t blare if you stopped it yourself, you’d be fucking already.

You feel whole with him, whole again after months of missing him, and for the brief moment that you allow the thought to cross your mind, you wonder if you’re just setting yourself up for another fall. Because you’re skipping dinner at this two-day political roundtable, and instead you’ve got your hand down your ex-boyfriend’s pants. And you’ll both get on planes, you back to D.C. and he back to New York, and you think it might be even harder than the first time, because at least then you were angry at him. This time, you’re without the jagged words; instead, you’ll have his bruises on your hips, and that bite mark he just left above your collarbone when you stroked him just so.

(At that moment, in the elevator, caught up in the echo of pounding heartbeats and the brush of his fingers against the little skin that he’s managed to uncover, you don’t know that it will slow down once you’re off the elevator and behind the door of his room. That you won’t fuck against his door, needy and animalistic, but instead, it will slow to soft words with heads bowed together. And he’ll carry you to bed, the familiarity of his weight pressing you into the mattress making you whimper. You can’t see it now, but you’ll lie together after, his knuckles tracing your curves, and while you won’t talk about how to fix what’s broken between you, you’ll both understand so clearly that being apart isn’t working.)

dancinginsane @ 2009-07-02T19:10:00

2009-07-03T02:16:08Z

Title: A History of Lovers, Given and Taken in Ink
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters: Andrea Wyatt/Toby Ziegler, brief Huck and Molly
Prompt: tww_minis: Epistolary; fanfic100: #04 – Insides; un_love_you: #07 – Prove it.
Word Count: ~2,560
Rating: r
Summary: Their history was in scraps of paper.
Author's Notes: Thanks to amy_vic and raedbard for the encouragement.

It was a stash of scraps – some half-formed, some not sent – that each had but never talked about.

Andy’s was (embarrassingly, she thought) the closest thing to a hope chest she ever had – a cedar box her mother gave her when she was 16. She’d never known what to do with it; now it held papers from him and underneath it all, a small jewelry bag with her engagement ring.

Toby’s were in an accordion file with everything else even remotely related to her. (Except for the slip of paper on which her phone number was written, given to him in a sweltering parking lot when she was 27. That was faded and creased irreparably but stayed in his wallet.) The file lived at the front of his file cabinet at home, under A for Andrea.

Cobbled together, as Molly and Huck did when they found them decades and volumes later, it became a history of lovers, given and taken in ink.

*****

On the letterhead of the candidate he was working for in Annapolis, just a month into their relationship. It took him three days to get up the nerve to send it, and added the postscript at the last minute, hoping it was endearing rather than demanding.

Andy,

It doesn’t seem right to be in your home state without you to show me around. Come visit next weekend?

Toby

p.s. Bring bagels from Max’s.

She came, and secreted him away to her family’s house at the shore for two days. He didn’t see any more of her home state that way, barely even saw the outside of the house, but he really didn’t mind the trade-off.

*****

Left on his pillow, which didn’t hold any traces of his body heat by the time she woke up.

A –

Out to get coffee - omelets when I get back.

The bruises are a good look for you.

T.

She laughed upon reading it, and tugged on the necktie (still tied to his headboard) that had bound her wrists the night before. That’s how he found her, curled around his pillow, a grin on her face, bruise-blue skin around her wrists just waiting to be kissed and soothed. They didn’t get to omelets until mid-afternoon that day.

*****

Propped against the coffee maker on a Saturday morning; Andrea had come home from work late and knew he’d be going to Temple in the morning and would see it before he left.

TZ –

We need milk.

I adore you.

xx A

Technically, it wasn’t their apartment (yet), but she’d barely left in three months, and all her plants had died at her place. The next week, he asked her to stay for good.

*****

Forwarded to her new address in Maryland, after they’d both fucked it up beyond recognition, from zero to sixty too fast to see what had happened. They were both too stubborn to bend, and it took him weeks to write to her, a whisky-tied tongue preventing his phone call but aiding his bravery.

Andrea –

Let me apologize in person.

I do love you.
Toby

It wasn’t enough. Their fight had been explosive and hurtful, and she’d run far and fast, scared that she’d just shatter for lack of him, scared that he didn’t love her as much in return.

*****

In his file, never meant to be sent, doodles in the margins of speeches, legal pads, anything with blank space. Twists and turns in dark, dark pen that, in his eyes only, always formed her name.

*****

In the margin of a newspaper crossword puzzle, written during their most combative breakup, in pencil fading over the years. Her words trailed lightly alongside the half-completed puzzle they’d started during their first trip to the beach house.

I want to kiss you until we can’t breathe.

It was seven and a half months apart; half of the eastern seaboard between them, all to prove each loved the other just as fiercely.

*****

Finally, a letter that started to repair the rift. He relied on another’s words, not trusting himself not to fuck it up again.

I really couldn’t say it any better than Uncle Walt –

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem;
I whisper with my lips close to your ear,
I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you.

O I have been dilatory and dumb;
I should have made my way straight to you long ago;
I should have blabb’d nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing but you.

I will leave all, and come and make the hymns of you;
None have understood you, but I understand you;
None have done justice to you – you have not done justice to yourself;
None but have found you imperfect – I only find no imperfection in you;
None but would subordinate you – I only am he who will never consent to subordinate you;
I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God, beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself.

Never question that I love you, Andrea.

He was on her doorstep the next day, no flowers (it just wasn’t his style, and she knew that), but so much remorse, so many apologies. He gathered her into his arms in a tight hug, her face buried against his neck as he murmured in her ear.

*****

One note that couldn’t be saved – written in pen on her thigh, with the fancy pen she gave him for his birthday:

I love you.

*****

He had six drafts of wedding vows stuck in his file, but none of them were what he ended up saying that day. He struggled up until the morning of the wedding, the most frustrating writer’s block he’d ever had. He looked at her countless times a day, and nothing could do her justice – the gold of her hair, the twist of her spine, her arch and bend, smile and shine.

Of course he came through in a pinch, as he always did. But he tried so hard to tell her, in all of their quiet moments, the thousand things that didn’t make the final draft.

*****

In her file, the one scrap that was harder to see than the others. Her fingertips burned whenever she came to it in the stack. It was gibberish to her eyes, mostly, except for her name, her medical ID number. To her, it was only a list of tests with letters and numbers, percentages, rises and falls, and glaring spaces where she could always see the name of this child that they’d never met.

*****

Tied together with ribbon, she had a collection of postcards from different states he’d brought her from the Bartlet For America campaign. Some were simple – from Georgia:

I’m bringing peaches. Pie?

Some told her a litany of things that they just didn’t have time to talk about while he was on the road, or that he never wanted to give voice to (tempting fate). From a long trip to California:

Do you really think this isn’t a fool’s errand? CJ does, and Sam, but those two are such incurable optimists that it’s absurd. You are too, but I know your love to prove me wrong will take precedence over your optimism.

He’s finally hearing us, I think – which isn’t to say that he knows our names. Josh still needs a sedative most days.

We’re back on Thursday. See you then, baby.

She had a postcard from almost every state – mostly bought in hotel lobbies and random convenience stores. Her favorite, though, was from Wall Drug in South Dakota:

T ♥ A

*****

Late in the life span of their marriage, he no longer made it home for their scheduled dates. She left this update on the table where he always threw his keys.

Ziegler –

I won the bet – O’s took it in 12 innings. Pancakes tomorrow, please, sweetness.

A.

He slept at the office that night. She could’ve taken the high road and discarded the note, but it was the latest in a string of too many abandoned commitments, so she left it for him to find whenever he finally made it home.

He woke her with pancakes (with strawberries) on Saturday morning, and a daisy, because he missed her smile.

*****

On a buckslip from Rep. Andrea Wyatt, MD-5, clipped to their divorce papers. She delivered the envelope in person, but knew he’d let them sit for a few days before opening it.

T-

I’m so sorry.

Always,
A.

*****

A poem, photocopied from a book, that went in the Andrea file even though he never showed it to her:

I've come by, she says, to tell you
that this is it. I'm not kidding, it's
over. this is it.
I sit on the couch watching her arrange
her long red hair before my bedroom
mirror.
she pulls her hair up and
piles it on top of her head-
she lets her eyes look at
my eyes-
then she drops her hair and
lets it fall down in front of her face.
we go to bed and I hold her
speechlessly from the back
my arm around her neck
I touch her wrists and hands
feel up to
her elbows
no further.
she gets up.
this is it, she says,
this will do. well,
I'm going.
I get up and walk her
to the door
just as she leaves
she says,
I want you to buy me
some high-heeled shoes
with tall thin spikes,
black high-heeled shoes.
no, I want them
red.
I watch her walk down the cement walk
under the trees
she walks all right and
as the pointsettas drip in the sun
I close the door.

-Charles Bukowski

*****

Clipped to a picture he nicked from a White House photographer of the incoming freshman Representative Wyatt’s first official meeting with the President. She’d been sent a copy of the real portrait, but this outtake was the one that Toby loved – President Bartlet laughing broadly, Andrea leaning in with a grin on her face, her hand at his elbow. Conspirators.

You’re going to be trouble for us, I can already tell.
TZ

He had a framed copy in his office, on a high shelf, next to Leaves of Grass.

*****

Scribbled on the top of the White House financial disclosure report and sent to his office:

Sure, we divide up our assets BEFORE your windfall. I think you owe me dinner at the very least. Maybe dinner and diamonds. The Hay Adams on Friday at 8?

xo - AW

*****

On a slip of paper torn, she knew, from the notebook he always kept in his suit pocket. He passed it to her in the middle of the Bloomberg party three years after their divorce.

I could fuck you where you stand.

She’d been in his bed a week earlier, a comedy of errors and alcohol and attraction that had never gone away after their divorce. After he slipped her the note, she waited a few minutes before following him onto a mostly-abandoned balcony, where they kissed impetuously until her knees were weak. It was the dumbest thing she’d done since taking office, and they made it into a blind item in the next day’s gossip column. That was clipped behind the note:

These two usually fly under the radar in Washington circles, and they’re certainly not our usual targets, in spite of their lofty titles (in two different branches of government). They were so hot and heavy on a balcony at the Bloomberg party that we almost turned a fire extinguisher on them. But aside from the PDA, no scandals here – their current dalliance is a surprise, but these two have a history together.

*****

In her nightmares, she could only see the dirty email she wanted to write him being leaked to the Post. Instead, she taped a note to his bathroom mirror before she slipped out while he slept.

There are days when all I can think about is fucking you.

He called her late that night, long after she’d fallen asleep on her couch, and he woke her with a gentle prodding. She was quite alert by the time he started listing the places he’d envisioned them fucking since reading her note that morning. At the end of the list (her skin flushed), Andrea chuckled.

“So not so much with the solving the world’s problems today, huh, Toby?”

“I took a long lunch.” He fidgets a little. “Sorry I woke you.”

“Oh really, honey…it’s okay. Give me a few more minutes and I think you’ll have truly made it up to me.”

“I could do you one better.”

“No doubt you could,” she countered. “Can you get together tomorrow night?”

“Or maybe tonight?” Toby rang her doorbell.

Within minutes, he had something to add to the list: against the wall next to her front door.

*****

In large block letters on a piece of lined paper, the perfect size printing for six-year-old eyes – found inside their suitcase:

Dear Molly and Huck,

Thank you for coming to visit me this week. I can’t wait to see you again for the 4th of July (only 26 days). I hope you’re excited to go to the baseball game. Go Yankees!

Huck, have fun at soccer camp and swimming lessons. When I come see you, we can practice the backstroke more.

Molly, be careful and have fun with the horses. Don’t forget to wear your helmet, and ask your teacher if you can bring the horses some apples or carrots, they usually like those.

Please help Mom at home, especially with cleaning your rooms as nicely as you did in New York. Give her a big hug from me.

I love you,
Dad

*****

He never wrote the book he was planning on writing, nor the book he felt he was always expected to write. Instead, he wrote fiction, and she was on every page, thinly veiled in the headstrong heroine, her words coming out of a grizzled homeless man, their relationship spelled out on with serifs more elegantly than he’d ever been able to say it to her.

Friends, relatives, and former colleagues recognized the pieces of her, but the only outward acknowledgement was the dedication page. He’d kept the book from her until it was bound, with an ISBN and a barcode and a cover he was starting to not hate. He left her a copy on the kitchen table and went to bed. When she arrived home hours later and finally cracked the spine, she sank onto a stool at the kitchen counter when she opened to the page (a copy of which now lived tucked in both of their files):

For AW – bashert.

Though it was nearing midnight, she read until the sun came up, until she finally closed the back cover with a sigh and left her reading glasses on top of the book.

After starting a pot of coffee, she padded into her bedroom (his, too - though unofficially – for the last six months since he moved back from New York). His constant internal clock would wake him shortly, so Andy didn’t feel bad when she slipped into bed behind him, wrapped her arm around his torso, and nuzzled his neck, sinking into his warmth.

Perfect, fated match.

dancinginsane @ 2009-06-16T10:25:00

2009-06-16T17:25:59Z

Title: Band of Gold
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters: Andrea Wyatt/Toby Ziegler
Prompt: jamaillith's TWW fic meme: raedbard's prompt (Toby/Andrea, ring); fanfic100: #24 - Family; un_love_you: #25 - You remind me of someone.
Word Count: 330
Rating: pg
Summary: Filling in my age-old fandom question - what prompted Toby's wedding ring disappearance in season four?

He took off his wedding ring after asking her to marry him for the fifth time (or seventh, depending on if you counted the two times - one successful - he asked her years ago), three weeks after she told him she was pregnant. It wouldn’t be the last time he asked.

The reason was simple enough; he got a cut right there, too close, the metal irritating the injury. He’d complained to Bonnie for three hours until she threw him a bandaid and told him to just take off the ring and go to his meeting. He told her he wasn’t sure which was more painful, the cut or the meeting, and that he might have lost too much blood to go to the Hill. He’s never seen her eyes roll quite that much.

He slid the ring into his pocket and put on the bandaid (it did help), but he found himself flexing his hand under the table throughout the meeting. It was the same action he found himself doing when the jewelry was new, when Andy loved to lift his hand, line up their fingers, twist his ring gently. He would watch her face, never not floored by her beauty. He wanted her most when she was loud, feisty, argumentative, wicked, snarky. But he loved her most when they were silent together.

He saw her the next night, very late, but her voice had been low and flirty when she’d invited him over after his event, so he went. She was already in bed when he got there, so tired lately, adjusting to pregnancy, but when he slipped in beside her and trailed a gentle hand over her hip, up her side, she stirred, turned, smiled that quiet smile that made his heart swell. And as she stripped off his t-shirt, she found the ring hanging from a gold chain, and used it to gently tug him in for a kiss.

Even after his (admittedly minor) cut healed, he left the ring on the chain, the metal always warmed by his skin. And when Andy would rest her head on his shoulder and slip the ring onto one slender finger after another, idly tangle the chain, he was back in their apartment in Brooklyn, newlyweds, his wife lining up their fingers.

dancinginsane @ 2009-02-10T00:03:00

2009-02-10T08:04:50Z

Title: The Hanging Curve Ball (And the Small of a Woman’s Back)
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters: Andrea Wyatt/Toby Ziegler, Molly & Huck Wyatt Ziegler
Prompt: fanfic100: #26 – Teammates; un_love_you: #25 – You remind me of someone.
Word Count: 530
Rating: pg
Summary: The one anniversary that they celebrated without fail was their first date.
Author's Notes: Unbetad, so all mistakes are my own.

Aside from a small exchange (a blank card filled to overflowing on her part, and an index card with a few brief words that cut to her soul from him), they didn’t really celebrate their wedding anniversary. It was a habit from the start; he had a meeting the first year, she had one the next, and in truth, they didn’t last long enough to sort it out farther than cards and kisses that lingered just a little longer than usual.

The one anniversary that they celebrated without fail was their first date. They’d fallen into the relationship backwards, had tumbled into Andrea’s bed as a first step rather than a last, but when he finally took her out, baseball tickets substituted for flowers and hotdogs and beer stood in for fine food and wine. And it was perfect enough to relive every year, regardless of what team was playing or where they were.

Once they moved to D.C., he grudgingly took her to Camden Yard, stubbornly cheering on whoever was playing against the Orioles (bar the Red Sox), but really, it didn’t matter because she laughed as he pouted and tugged on the brim of his baseball cap, and it was impossible for him not to see that she was happy.

He wasn’t sure whether they’d go the first year after the divorce, but she called him the week before and told him that they’d split the cost of the tickets. It stung, but when the day rolled around, he was sitting in the stadium watching his favorite sport with his best friend. The way she grinned when he stole her beer made it easy to take his mind off the fact that she didn’t wear his ring anymore.

After the administration, when he moved back to New York, she cleared his schedule with his secretary and showed up with tickets of her own, and this became their routine for the next four years. And between finishing the peanuts and standing for the seventh inning stretch at that game four years later, she took his hand, just as she had on the first date.

(She extended her trip that time, and they read the box scores in bed the next day for the first time since he’d moved away. She called her mother to check on the twins, and passed the phone to Toby, watching as his face lit up as she heard Molly laugh on the other end. He was quiet for a long time after hanging up, and then his words were low and tentative, unsure whether they could do this again without it shattering at familiar fissures.)

The next April, they weren’t alone in the stands at Camden Yard. Molly was decked out in Orioles attire from head to toe, having begged to change into her new t-shirt in the restroom before the game started, while Huck, more diplomatic, had on a Yankees shirt and an Orioles cap. Toby figured he could do with small steps. After the game, they headed back to the house, and after ten months of being back in the city, there was no longer a question about how long he would stay. He was home.

dancinginsane @ 2009-01-29T20:55:00

2009-01-30T05:20:17Z

Title: She Breathes, She Burns
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters: Andrea Wyatt/Toby Ziegler
Prompt: Porn Battle: power suit
Word Count: 525
Rating: R
Author's Notes: Porn ficlet.

Toby pushed Andrea against the wall in the alley behind the bar, his hands already shoving the skirt of her suit up, groaning as he found the place her thigh-highs stopped, biting her neck as his hands moved higher.

Her gasps mingled with drunken laughter until it became far too serious for her to laugh anymore, until her touch (her hand inside his pants already) needed to be focused rather than playful. She met his eyes when his fingers entered her, and her head hit the wall when she threw it back and drew in a sharp breath.

They’d never even kissed before.

Ten minutes earlier, she’d been on top of the bar. She could, only when drunk, recite all nine stanzas of “Maryland, My Maryland,” and he’d heard nothing dirtier in his life than when she got to the end of the poem:

She breathes! she burns! she'll come! she'll come!
Maryland! My Maryland!

She liked to milk that bit for all it was worth, and there on the eastern shore in a bar filled with their now-former co-workers mourning their loss, the audience was in the right spirit, and wasted enough to cheer her on. Toby had been holding court at the bar, the bottle of scotch stationed right in front of him, but he leaned to keep a hand on the back of her calf to make sure she didn’t fall.

As he offered her a hand to help her down, their eyes met, and the combustible months of flirting hung between them, finally with an opportunity to be released. The next drunken act took the makeshift stage and Andy squeezed his hand and leaned in, her proposition low in his ear. She knew what she wanted; she had all the power – she wore the suit, after all, and he’d been able to see from the beginning that she was a star.

And so she was gasping behind the bar in the darkest alcove they could find, their hands fumbling through layers of clothes, when he finally kissed her. He was already fucking her, exactly like she asked for, exactly like she’d been fantasizing about for months - rough and fast and with utter disregard for their colleagues in the bar.

(And it was exactly the opposite of how it would be the next afternoon when she showed up with a bottle of wine and an apology, and they made love until both were limp and sated, her smile sweet as she lay with him while the sun went down.)

He thought for a moment that they should be careful, that he should cover her mouth, but her groans drove him on as much as her hand grabbing his ass. Her sounds intensified when he bit her neck, so he took her tendons in his mouth as he came, slipping his hand between their bodies to nudge her over the edge.

As their breathing slowed, he stroked her leg, still hitched it over his hip, and their heads rested together. They’d barely said two words to each other since leaving the bar, and now neither knew how to break the silence.

dancinginsane @ 2009-01-25T14:14:00

2009-01-25T22:24:41Z

Title: The Swing of Your Hips
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters: Andrea Wyatt/Toby Ziegler
Prompt: oxoniensis’s Porn Battle VII: dance; fanfic100: #05 – Outsides; un_love_you: #01 - You were right about me.
Word Count: 1,215
Rating: R
Summary: Faith and desire and the swing of your hips.
Author's Notes: For amy_vic. Warning for light bondage, porn, and, you know, snarkiness.

Andy’s voice is low in his ear, gravel rather than silk, and he can feel her lips graze his skin as she speaks. He focuses on that light touch, because otherwise his head would swim.

“I believe in equality in all things, Toby. Are you not with me?”

“On this? No. No. Not really. The, uh, the whole purpose of the scarves was for me to tie you up. Which has worked very well in the past, if you’ll recall, so if you just wanna do that I’m happy—“

Andy cuts him off. “Turnabout is fair play.”

Toby’s eyes narrow, glaring at her when she pulls back to look at him. “Andrea, clichés are not going to help your cause.”

She straddles his lap, her hips grinding slightly, her mouth returning to his ear. She nips his earlobe before speaking. “You have no idea how it makes you feel. Powerless, and frustrated, so when you come, it’s absolutely out of this world.” Her hands slide down his forearms, pinning them behind the back of the stiff wooden chair they sit on. Her fingers curl tightly around his wrists, feeling his pulse radiating against her hands. “Please. I’ll make it worth your while.”

His eyes fall shut as he shakes his head just for a moment before sighing. “Okay, but I want a word.”

“A word?” Andy kisses down his neck, not letting his hands go.

“A safe word.”

She finally pulls back a little, and he takes advantage to slip his wrists out of her grasp and slide his hands around her waist to grab her ass and pull her to him. Her laugh is clear and ringing; it’s his favorite sound in the world. “You scared, baby?”

“Of you? Always. A safe word and no hitting, that’s all I ask for. And please keep in mind that I can’t wear turtlenecks and not look like a history professor, so no marks where people can see ‘em.”

“God, Toby, you really take the fun out of light bondage,” Andy replies with a chuckle. “Pick a word.”

Toby thinks for a moment, running through his mental dictionary. “Daguerreotype.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Nope.”

“Fucking intellectuals,” Andy sighs, leaning in to kiss him soundly. “I would actually really like to see you try to say ‘daguerreotype’ while we’re fucking, Mister Monosyllabic Groans.”

Toby smiles back at her. “You will, rest assured, because this is not at all going to be as fun as you’re expecting it to be.”

Andy gives him one last kiss before slipping off his lap and out of his grasp. She grabs the silk scarf off her coat where it hangs over the back of the other kitchen chair and approaches him slowly, not breaking eye contact. She leans down, teasing him into a long kiss as she takes hold of his wrists; finally breaking away, she circles his chair, lacing the scarf around his wrists and the rungs of the chair. Andrea kisses up his arm to where his t-shirt cuts across his bicep, then leans in to murmur in his ear. “Sit tight.” Circling around him, she shoots him a glance over her shoulder as she leaves the kitchen.

“Oh, hold up,” he groans. “Where are you going?”

No response. As the next ten minutes pass without Andrea returning, Toby’s impatience turns to anticipation. He knows his wife, and especially knows her craftiness.

Finally, he hears her coming down the hall in heels and shakes his head with a slow grin. “Andrea. You do remember that my hands are bound to wooden posts? I suspect you don’t want all the blood in my body going there?” He looks up as she enters the room.

“You’ll be fine, I have no doubt,” she replies, sending him a sultry smile. She stops in front of him, just far enough away that their legs don’t touch, and watches as his gaze travels up her entire body.

Andy’s wearing her most severe suit, cinched and short and ridiculously sexy to him, holder of a longstanding librarian fetish.

Toby shifts in his chair. “Jesus, Andy. I appreciate the thought, but now we’re both wearing too many clothes.”

She lifts an eyebrow at him. “Well, I’ll remedy that.”

Her dance begins slowly, restrained, but as she feels the laser of energy from him, she continues to her own inimitable beat. Her hips move fluidly, her hands sifting the air over her head before sliding down her body. She knows how to slow her touch, how to make him watch as her fingers glance over every place on her body that he loves the best.

She sheds clothing bit by bit – jacket, blouse painstakingly slowly, skirt to reveal lingerie he’s never seen. She turns and glances at him over her shoulder as she let her hair down from the clip, and the curls tumble down her back. Behind the chair, Toby’s fists clench as he bites back a groan.

She’s been moving closer, and by the time she’s in lingerie and thigh-highs her knees are brushing his, but still her dance doesn’t stop and she doesn’t let him go. Instead, she turns her striptease into a full-fledged lapdance, allowing him a momentary nip at her breast, occasionally lowering her hips over his enough to feel his hard cock between her legs. But, teasing, she lifts off as soon as he begins to moan.

“Fuck me, Andy,” he groans, biting at her neck before she pulls back with a reprimanding glare.

She takes his chin in her hand. “I’m not untying you.”

“C’mon,” he sighs. “I need to touch you.”

Andrea’s hands slip between them, stroking his cock through his pants. “You don’t, actually. I am going to fuck you, baby.” She captures his mouth in a long, slow kiss. “Besides,” she murmurs, leaning in against his ear. “I’ll be on top, and I know that’s how you like to come.” Her hands work his zipper, though the sound is lost under his groan. “Lift up.” She slides his pants and boxers off and tosses them aside before finishing her striptease slowly and teasingly, the wisps of satin and lace discarded on top of her other clothes.

And it’s a dance – this one more familiar to both of them – from then too; a dance of strokes and kisses, sharp inhalations and strangled moans. As she lowers herself onto his cock and fucks him achingly slowly, Toby buries his head in her neck. There his words are muffled, and she doesn’t hear everything, but each sentence is dirtier than the last, frustration bleeding into excited panic.

His heart pounds in his ears as her rhythm accelerates, and all he can hear is their breathing, faster and faster, her moans blending with his own. And then the faint trilling of a phone, pulling him out of the moment.

Toby curses and the phone keeps ringing. He opens his eyes for a split second, his hand on his cock breaking its rhythm. Scotch glass empty, CSPAN on the muted television in front of him, this scene and the silence are becoming far too familiar. He forces his eyes shut, his hand regaining its previous pace, and he’s back in their old kitchen in Brooklyn breathing her name when he comes.

dancinginsane @ 2008-12-05T00:37:00

2008-12-05T08:38:27Z

Title: Let the Stone Fall
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters: Andrea Wyatt/Toby Ziegler
Prompt: fanfic100: #32 – Sunset; un_love_you: #13 – I want to hurt you.
Word Count: 1,000
Rating: pg-13 for language
Summary: A moment near the end of a marriage.
Author's Notes: Thanks to purple_elefants for planting the idea seeds. Un-beta’d, so all mistakes are my own.

Andrea is tucking her blouse into her skirt as she walks back into the kitchen where Toby leans against the counter munching on a piece of burnt toast.

“I can’t, Toby. I know we had an appointment, but I’ve gotta do that thing in College Park, and then I’m back on the hill with Ethics. It’s just impossible.”

“Okay, you do realize how ridiculous you sound, right? I mean, College Park will take you, what, three hours at the absolute outside all told. It’s seven a.m.” He shrugs, picking up his coffee mug. “We’ve cancelled this appointment three times. We agreed on a session a week, and now it’s been five weeks since our first session. I’m not an expert, but that math isn’t quite right.”

She brushes past him to pour a mug of coffee for herself, and he slides the plate of toast across the counter to her. “Could you please be more condescending? It’s attractive, especially first thing in the morning.” She takes the coffee but leaves the toast, circling around the island to lean against the counter across from him. “I don’t see what we’ll get from counseling, is all. Not with him, not like that. We sat there for an hour and got more pissed at each other, and felt bad about ourselves. That seems very productive, don’t you think?”

“Andy, we don’t know what it can do. We’ve gone once, and most of that was awkward silence where we tried not to talk about everything we were so pissed about. If you want to go somewhere else, we can. I don’t care. But it should tell you something that it’s hard enough for me to clear fifteen minutes to eat a damn turkey sandwich during the day and here I am, fighting with you to clear an hour once a week for this. Just do it, please?”

She looks at him for a long moment, sizing him up, before nodding, softening as she smiles slightly. “Okay. I’ll have Steven call Dr. Gordon this morning to confirm us for tonight. Six, right?”

“Andy, just pick up the fucking phone yourself, okay? Or ask me to do it, but I thought we said no staffs with this. Nobody needs to know our stuff. Nobody.”

“Can you pretend it’s just not happening that way?” Setting down her mug, Andrea walks away, starting to gather papers and put files in her briefcase.

“No; this way I can be assured that any crossed lines of communication are ours alone.” Toby follows her, grabbing his tie from a chair back.

“That’s rich, because Bonnie cancelled dinner on me twice last week.” Andy quickly holds up one hand, knowing he’s about to protest, and before a full syllable can leave his mouth, she’s interrupting him. “I understand, I really do. I know you were in the Oval. I know you’re changing the world. I just don’t think you can throw rules in my face if you don’t follow them yourself. That’s all, really.”

Toby groans. “Jesus, do you have a tally card somewhere? All the times I’ve fucked up in the last eight years, and you’re just keeping a running count?”

“You know what? I can’t do this now. I’ll let you know if my schedule changes, but otherwise I’ll see you at six.”

“Wait, don’t I have to drop you off?” Toby pulls on his suit jacket, adjusting the cuffs, as Andy slips on her pumps.

She picks up her briefcase. “No, a car’s coming for me. Please, be sure to hold onto all of this hostility you’ve stockpiled, so we have something to talk about tonight with the therapist. It’ll be enlightening, I’m sure.”

“You’re a fucking delight this morning, Andrea. I’d advise you to cancel College Park for fear of showing your constituents this very attractive side of you, but I know that I just have a way of bringing out the harpy in you while they get the charming woman I fell in love with. Very fair.”

“Fuck you, Toby.” She glares at him as she grabs her keys. “That’s over the line.”

He inhales sharply. “What line?! You set all the boundaries, and then you don’t bother to tell me about them.”

“I would tell you, if you were ever fucking home,” she finally says, yelling. “I never see you. I miss you. I hate having to schedule our marriage; that’s not a way to live. We don’t need a counselor, Toby. We need a night off to go to that little bar on that backstreet and get completely wasted, and we need to fuck like we’re still in love, not like we’re just trying to get pregnant, and we need to wake up together, without an alarm or an emergency call from Leo. But I’m beginning to suspect that not only will those three things not happen, not even one of them will.”

“Andy,” Toby sighs, his voice a little softer, counteracting her anger. He still doesn’t move toward her, the small room a vast space between them, his hands curling around the rungs of a chair. “They might if you’d ever once said that’s what you needed. I can’t read your mind.”

“That’s oddly optimistic, from you.” Her small smile is sad. “You’ve been in the White House long enough to see that we don’t have that kind of freedom. So we’ll do the therapy thing. I need to go; I’ll see you at six.”

“Yeah, okay,” he murmurs, avoiding her eyes, but it doesn’t matter because she’s already turning her back on him, the door a solid thud behind her.

He does end up canceling the appointment, and they never make it back to Dr. Gordon. Andrea has fallen into a calm drunken sadness by the time he finally makes it home that night, and while he fucks her like he’s still in love with her (because he is), he’s also already gone to the office when she wakes up without an alarm the next morning. That’s not at all what she needed.

dancinginsane @ 2008-07-20T21:43:00

2008-07-21T04:58:16Z

Title: Strong at the Broken Places
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters: Andrea Wyatt/Toby Ziegler
Prompt: fanfic100: #71 – Broken; un_love_you: #10 – I’m Broken
Word Count: 387
Rating: pg
Summary: Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation. ~Khalil Gibran
Author's Notes: Post-Toby’s pardon.

There’s whiskey in his voice over the phone, and whiskey on his breath when he shows up at her door.

Finally he’s free to tell it, and the story spills out, and it’s the most they’ve talked without yelling in years. He’s sober by the time he finishes, and she wants nothing more than to be drunk. Or dreaming.

She can’t take her eyes off of his, the way they’re shining with tears he won’t shed. He makes her promises that they both know won’t be kept. (He’ll take the shuttle every week to see the kids. He’ll call every day.)

When she leans in to hug him, she stays in his arms just a moment too long, and the air around them changes. When she pulls back, he kisses her hesitantly, and she melts against him. She can’t make him stay, and she can’t give him his job back, so she simply tries to alleviate the pain.

They break apart, and his voice is quiet when he speaks. “If we do this, I’ll never leave.”

She nods, not looking at him. “Go see the kids,” she says hoarsely, and he runs a thumb under her eye before he stands.

***

He doesn’t reappear after long minutes, and she finds him in their children’s bedroom, in the rocking chair he bought her a month before the twins were born, with Molly asleep on his lap.

“She woke up,” he whispers, and he drops a kiss on his daughter’s head, murmuring something inaudible against her hair before Andy lifts her up and tucks her limp, heavy body back in bed.

Toby’s standing next to Huck’s bed when Andy turns, and she stands behind him, her arm around his waist, her chin on his shoulder. His voice is just a little tortured. “This is what he did to me. I woke up one morning and he was gone.”

She can’t convince him that he’s not his father or that his kids will know that he loves them, and so she simply says, “Stay. Stay tonight and we’ll take you to the airport tomorrow.”

His nod is almost imperceptible, but she leads him to her bedroom, and they lie together, entwined, talking quietly, then not talking at all. There’s no easy solution, and never an easy way to walk away.

dancinginsane @ 2008-05-23T12:40:00

2008-05-23T19:41:31Z

Title: You’re Pretty When I’m Drunk
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters: Andrea Wyatt/Toby Ziegler
Prompt: sorkin_fest: not drunk enough; fanfic100: 33 – Too Much; un_love_you: 12 – I’m drunk.
Word Count: 530
Rating: pg13
Author's Notes: Written for round 1 of sorkin_fest.

There was a way Andy’s eyes changed when she got drunk that made Toby remember that she really was dangerous. And she was especially dangerous when she drank tequila.

She’d spent most of the afternoon fighting with him in her office on the Hill until he suggested they’d do better with booze and sustenance. And she hadn’t asked any questions when he’d led her far from both their respective offices and their homes, but she could tell the moment they walked in that nobody there could care less about their job titles.

She continued to fight with him, and her arguments became more impassioned, if less coherent, with every shot. And with each passing moment she argued, she got more turned on. She sat up straighter, her legs nudged his under the table, and her gaze connected with his more often.

She leaned into him in the darkest corner of his favorite bar, and it was like old times, when they used to meet midway between their offices at the end of the day. They’d share a bottle of wine or a few scotches and some onion rings and hide themselves in one of the tall back booths. His arm would be slung over her shoulder and he’d be able to feel as the tension drained from her body. Those were his favorite times with his then wife, and she remembered too.

“Does this remind you of New York?” she asked quietly, her eyes lifting to his.

He nodded. “Think that place is still there?”

“Yeah. Brian still goes there sometimes. They have a wine he really likes.” Andrea slid her hand over his, her fingers hooking between his. “Wanna go there now? We can get on a plane. Forget the vote. Forget the rest of Congress.” Her thumb stroked his skin. “We could make out in the back like we used to.”

(He loved to kiss his wife, and she loved it when he did so in public. More often than not, in those dark bars, he pushed her against the wall just outside the back door and kissed her senseless. More than once they were discovered by other couples stumbling out, and she hid behind him as she giggled. He loved to see the small, secret smile she gave him then, and the way her inebriated high kept her humming on the way home. She loved night, loved the play of shadow and light throughout the city, and loved pulling him in and out of the patches of darkness.)

“Andy,” he said warningly, if not convincingly so. “I’m not nearly drunk enough for this.”

She hesitated for a moment before pulling away from him. Without a glance back, she headed to the bar. Moments later she was back with two doubles, both of which she set in front of him before sliding back in next to him, her leg warm against his.

“Better catch up, then.” She gently turned his face toward her and kissed him, slow but insistent, and when she pulled back, he saw that familiar, dangerous darkness in her eyes. “I just want to kiss you for a while.”

Toby immediately downed one of the shots before turning back to her.

dancinginsane @ 2008-05-13T18:57:00

2008-05-14T01:58:30Z

Title: Coming Back to You
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters: Andrea Wyatt/Toby Ziegler
Prompt: fanfic100: 38 – Touch; un_love_you: 2 – I was wrong about you
Word Count: 815
Rating: pg13
Summary: All my senses rise against this coming back to you.
Author's Notes: Thanks to intopolitics and amy_vic for the extra eyes.

He was staring at her hair, the familiar shade of red that was so different pulled into a tight chignon than it was when he’d last seen it, loose and wild around her shoulders. She turned and caught his glance, and he was surprised to see that it actually was her and not just another nameless redhead who’d caught his eye.

Andy weaved through the crowd toward him, barely breaking eye contact, and when she sidled to the bar next to him, she smiled serenely. She was almost unrecognizable as the same coltish girl he’d known two years earlier, this sleek, professional woman who was tilting her head at him appraisingly. At least the arch of her eyebrow was the same.

He ordered her another drink, remembering that gin was her weakness, and caught her up on what he’d done in the interim (two losses, zero wins, and a consulting job in between), and with every word, she was aware of his fingers sliding along her wrist, curling over her pulse, so when he asked where she was working, she had to regroup before she could answer.

Toby told her that Annapolis politics were too easy for her, that she should be running state campaigns at least, and she laughed when she told him that she was the candidate, watching as his eyebrows raised and his fingers tightened. He’d never asked what she wanted to do, she reminded him, and not everyone was content outside the spotlight.

When networking inevitably forced her away from him and back into the crowd, he followed her for a few steps and returned one hand to her wrist to stop her, whispering in her ear that she should find him before she left. Andy had to stop herself from inhaling sharply at the touch and the low warmth of his voice, and all she could do was nod, meeting his gaze, and disappear among the people crowding the room.

The party was impossibly boring, and by the time she slipped away, he was working on one scotch too many. She found him at the bar and lifted his glass from in front of him, gulping the drink, letting it burn her throat. Toby asked to take her home quietly, decisively, more statement than question, and his hand was strong on the small of her back as he led her to his car.

Neither of them had forgotten the way he’d pushed her away two years ago, and neither had spent the time pining, wishing for what might have been, but the electricity between them hadn’t changed. Their exchanges were heated and flirty, and he knew that she was smarter than he ever gave her credit for. She was an ideal candidate, he realized.

Toby kissed her outside his apartment, gently pulling her against him, and was surprised by her reserve until he pulled back and looked up, meeting her eyes, and saw the flicker of heat behind her gaze. When his hand stroked over her jaw and he leaned in to kiss her again, deepening the embrace, she responded with an unexpected ferocity. And he stepped her backward into the alcove outside the building, pinning her against the wall.

Andrea felt wanton and uninhibited when he pushed her against the stone, and struggled for a moment, stuck between the need to be in control that she always felt and the sudden desire to submit to his touch. She broke away then, breathless, but her resolve didn’t last, and he was pressing against her easily, feeling for the first time the way that her body molded to his. He memorized, in that moment, the way his hand cupped the dip of her waist and the swell of her breast through her clothes, and the way her moan reverberated in him as they kissed made him feel powerful.

He was, in the end, the one who was able to pull away first, though his head ducked to graze along her neck when hers tipped back against the wall and they both took a moment to catch their breath.

“Come inside,” he whispered, nuzzling behind her ear, his hand still on her ass. “You’re running for office; I don’t want to see this in the paper tomorrow.”

Andy nodded, her head dipped down against his shoulder for a brief moment, and he drew her chin up with a gentle hand as he stepped back. Her eyes searched his until his lips quirked into a small smile.

She returned his smile, and twisted her hand around his tie, pulling him to her again. “Two years, Toby. If I had my way, we’d have been doing this two years ago.”

“Yeah, but that would’ve required letting you win, and that’s never, ever gonna happen.” It was the most blatant lie he’d ever told; he knew already that he’d give her the world if he could.

dancinginsane @ 2008-05-04T20:45:00

2008-05-05T03:46:38Z

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.

dancinginsane @ 2008-04-29T23:21:00

2008-04-30T06:22:31Z

Title: Stop Wandering
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters: Molly Wyatt-Ziegler, Toby Ziegler , Andy Wyatt
Prompt: tww_minis: Sons & Daughters; fanfic100: 90 – Home; un_love_you: 23 – You remind me of me
Word Count: 765
Rating: g
Summary: Like father, like daughter.
Author's Notes: Thanks to amy_vic for the prompt (and the Mollylove!), and kiss_me_cassie and purple_elefants for the beta.

It was Molly who brought Toby back to their family, his little girl who broke him down bit by bit until the distance was unbearable and he forgot why he had run away to begin with.

She did it with nothing more than unerring admiration for her father. He spent years wondering what he did to deserve such unwavering love from this girl, and it wasn’t until he voiced the question to Andy on the phone one night that he began to understand.

They spoke the most at night, after he said goodnight to the kids, and sometimes their chats lasted long into the darkness, where they were most comfortable with each other.

“She loves you because you’re her father, Toby,” Andy said patiently.

“It’s not that simple,” he argued, frustrated.

“No, it absolutely is. Molly’s not you, and you’re not your father. She’s ten. You haven’t disappointed her, you’re there for her, and you love her. That’s all she needs from you right now, and she’s not afraid to ask for what she needs. She misses you, but she doesn’t really know another way to live.”

He knew his children; he and Andy both made it a point to keep him involved. So even with half the eastern seaboard between them, they saw him one weekend a month, whether he came to D.C. or vice versa. He helped with homework, watched soccer practices and riding lessons, and on those weekends they were the world’s most normal family. And he forgot, after a while, why he’d given it all up.

So he made the trek back from New York, back to an apartment only blocks from Andy and the kids, back to an easy shared custody and more time spent at Andy’s house than away from it.

And while Huck was excited to have him there, and Andy welcomed him back and made room for him in their lives, it was Molly who won him over and drew him into the heart of his family, this charming, energetic child. She showed him everything, asked for his help and his advice, and Toby realized that Andy was right. His little girl just wanted him there.

*********

Molly grew up tall and independent, not unlike her mother, and she left home without a backwards glance as soon as she was able.

College across the country before work as a photojournalist kept her running around the globe, and it was years before she returned home for more than a day.

She knew her brother resented being left as the sole child for their parents to dote on, and she knew her parents wished she were just a little better at keeping in touch, but she was too busy seeing the world through her lens by day and trying to forget what she saw by night.

As the years passed, though, it became clear that she was no longer the little girl who woke her parents up at night with fears that would never even rival the real-life horrors she would see as an adult. She was no longer the teenager who was fearless and crashed the car on an unauthorized trip to the shore two days after she got her drivers license.

Nor was she the young woman who wanted nothing more than to leave her family, in all of their untraditional, frustrating glory: the brother destined for corporate life, a suit, whose brilliance she couldn’t then recognize, who she’d later realize was saving the world too, in his own way. She was, then, eager to leave her parents, who couldn’t live with each other and could live without each other even less. (The frustration faded with age; as she got older, she saw the love that was there so much more clearly.)

In the end, it was her father who brought her back. He didn’t push like Huck, and he didn’t keep stoically (and so very loudly) silent like her mother. Instead, his emails were consistent and newsy and his favorite thing to write. And in between the family news and updates on whether he or Andy would win the race to finish their respective books (if she won, it was only because he was a more careful writer) and complaining about Andy’s cooking, he found the room for a single line, the same theme every time.

“Let us know where you’re headed next. And don’t forget you’ve always got a home here, Molls. Love, Dad.”

So after too many years of running into carnage, blasts, and horror rather than away from it, Molly finally came home.

dancinginsane @ 2008-04-29T15:58:00

2008-04-29T23:00:57Z

Title: Rain (No Longer Monotone)
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters: Andrea Wyatt/Toby Ziegler
Prompt: fanfic100: 66 – Rain; un_love_you: 3 – This cancels out the hurt.
Word Count: 250
Rating: pg
Summary: Tradition, Wyatt-Ziegler style.
Author's Notes: It’s completely fantasy fluff. I’m not ashamed.

The first year after they were divorced (seven months and six days after the papers were signed), Toby showed up at his ex-wife’s townhouse and kissed her in the rain.

It was all she’d asked for on her birthday six years before, exactly a year after their first kiss. “Take me outside and kiss me senseless every year for the rest of our lives and I’ll be happy,” and he couldn’t deny her. He knew she never expected him to continue the tradition after their divorce, but there were too many things that were broken between them already. He wanted this one thing to remain intact.

And he liked catching her off-guard. She answered the door barefoot, raindrops splashing against her toes as she invited him in out of the rain.

Toby shook his head. “Nope. You come out here.”

“It’s dry in here.”

“The deal wasn’t inside. The deal was outside; you didn’t put a disclaimer on the weather.”

She realized then why he was there, just as he reached for her hand. She protested, but his thumb on her bottom lip silenced her. “We have to do this, Andy.”

He kissed her then, there in the rain, and she rose on her tiptoes to press against him regardless of the water sliding down his coat. His hands searched for skin, slipping under her shirt to slide in slow strokes over her back.

She avoided his eyes when she finally pulled back, and rested her forehead against his instead.

dancinginsane @ 2008-03-20T00:32:00

2008-03-20T07:35:01Z

Title: Unleash Me
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters: Andrea Wyatt/Toby Ziegler
Prompt: fanfic100: 52 – Fire, un_love_you: 4 – I need to want you.
Word Count: 315
Rating: r
Summary: Their professionalism only bends so far before it breaks completely. (It’s smut. I’m not hiding that.)
Author's Notes: I like it when I clean out my harddrive and find oldfic bits that aren’t as atrocious as I once thought! Not beta’d, so any mistakes are my own.

She knows she shouldn’t fuck him on her desk, but it’s far less about intention than it is about the way he gets under her skin when they argue. Their professionalism only bends so far before it breaks completely, and when it does, she can see the change in his eyes as he approaches. She grasps his tie and kisses him, and although he’s been telling her that she’s wrong for the last hour and a half, this is so right.

When he pushes first her jacket then her blouse off her shoulders, he unleashes and undoes her, and though he’s forceful when he turns her around and bends her over the desk, she’s just as rough, reaching to guide him into her, thrusting her hips back sharply to take him in one stroke.

He bites her neck when he comes to keep from groaning out loud, and hits her tendons right at the spot that always makes her swoon. Under him, she arches back and digs her hand into his thigh, holding him inside her through her own climax. When he notices that she’s biting her own lip hard enough to draw blood in order to keep quiet, he slides one hand over her mouth and can feel her scream against his palm.

They’re not supposed to do this anymore, not supposed to fuck and certainly not supposed to care like they do. They won’t talk about it, will clean up and get dressed silently, half-turned away, and they’ll make an unspoken pact that it can’t happen again. And maybe it won’t; maybe they’re finally done with this, done with each other, done with this limbo. But he knows how to get to her, knows how to make her feel vulnerable and powerful at the same time, and in that way, he always wins.

And she’s never been one to shy away from a rematch.

dancinginsane @ 2008-03-19T00:15:00

2008-03-19T07:17:47Z

Title: Talking Without Speaking
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters: Andrea Wyatt/Toby Ziegler
Prompt: fanfic100: 20 – Colourless; un_love_you: 14 – I’m awake and you’re breathing.
Word Count: 544
Rating: pg13
Summary: Missing scene from “Debate Camp,” following the flashback and Toby’s, “I just said a stupid thing.”
Author's Notes: Unbeta’d, which means flying without a net for the first time ever. Thanks to medland for the inspiration.

He came home drunk and reeking of the cigars she hated, the ones he kept at the office out of courtesy. She’d given him nice ones as a replacement, and those were the ones he smoked on their balcony at home, the ones she loved to smell on him when she nuzzled his neck and curled her fingers into his shirt to hold him close. Those were the cigars that reminded them both of when he taught her to blow smoke rings and tried very hard not to kiss her before their first date.

He was too drunk to contemplate showering when he came in, and simply stripped down and crawled in bed, and he could feel her body tense between the sheets. He finally rolled to his side to look at her when the spinning of the room slowed to a manageable pace.

The set of her jaw told him everything he needed to know, and her eyes focused on the ceiling. He knew she was counting in her head, forcing herself to keep going until she didn’t want to snap at him anymore. It was a technique she learned at the one couples therapy session they attended. That night, she made it to 200, and he almost gave up waiting for her.

Their dance from there was slow and quiet and far too familiar these days. She turned to him and studied his face for a long time, and he hoped she could dig deep inside him and find the circle of remorse, that thing he couldn’t say.

Whether she found it or not he never knew; but she tipped her head against his shoulder, and his hand wove through her hair. The sex was sad and silent; he came with his head buried against her flushed neck. She arched and her fingers grasped the back of his neck, and it was all just means to an end that would never come.

His labored breathing was the only sound in the room when he rolled off her, and by rote he immediately handed her his extra pillow so she could tip her pelvis up. He hated this, these long minutes when she shrugged off his touch so she could lie still, silently willing her body to work properly this time.

He slipped out of bed and pulled on his robe with a glance back at the bed where his wife lay, counting and hating both of them. His sigh was shown only through the slump of his shoulders, and he grabbed a coat, a cigar and another ill-advised scotch and headed for the balcony.

He went back to bed an hour later, cold and exhausted and so tired of this cycle they were stuck in. He joined his wife in bed and stared at the straight line her spine made when she was turned away from him. She was awake, he could tell, but she didn’t speak; he hadn’t heard her voice since she left his office earlier in the day. He thought for a long moment about reaching out for her, about how warm she’d be under his chilled palm, about how he could melt even the tiniest piece of her with his touch. In the end, though, he turned away.

dancinginsane @ 2008-02-28T12:11:00

2008-02-28T20:19:38Z

Title: All Straight Things Must Bend
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters: Andrea Wyatt/Toby Ziegler
Prompt: fanfic100: 25 – Strangers; un_love_you: 9 – Always wondered what this’d be like; tww_minis: Beginnings
Word Count: 768
Rating: pg
Summary: I only want it to begin.
Author's Notes: Thanks to christinekh for a fabulous once over.

They met on a Tuesday, just after 6:30 pm, at the town hall meeting introducing the candidates for city council. He was working for a smart guy without a lot of personality, and the moment Andrea walked into the room, he knew the race was going to be harder than he ever expected. She was genuine and clever, witty and sharp, and he had trouble simultaneously looking at her and breathing.

Five minutes into the event, he threw out the entire strategy for the campaign. He and his staff stayed up all night to revise their game plan, and as Toby pounded cup after cup of coffee and slipped outside for his 3 am cigar break, she was constantly in his mind as she’d been at the podium that night, hair aflame, lips quirked into something not quite a smile, but not quite smug either. He blamed the coffee, but she was still there three days later.

He didn’t see her again until a month later, at a neighborhood barbecue, and he ended up next to her while waiting in line for sandwiches. She remembered his name without prompting when they shook hands, and her smile was warm as she asked him to call her Andy.

“Is anybody going to be suspicious that you’re fraternizing with the enemy, Toby?” she asked, her eyebrow lifting just slightly, her smile playful.

“How do you know I wasn’t sent over here to plant a bug in your potato salad or something?” He watched as she glanced down at her plate, skeptical.

“You’re not gonna ruin this potato salad for me. This is why I came. Glad-handing, baby-kissing, kicking Jack’s butt like I have since law school…those I can do anywhere. But I had insider info that this was the place to be for potato salad and the best pulled pork in the city, so here I am.”

He was sold.

*****

They began on a Saturday, four months later, at the end of a tough campaign and months of idle flirtation and tentative friendship. He waited a full three days after the election before going to her campaign headquarters. Only a few staffers were there stacking extra yard signs, and they pointed him back to her office.

She was on the floor, stacks of papers spread out around her, her shoes kicked to the side, and he watched her for a moment before knocking on the open door.

“Congratulations, City Councilwoman-Elect. Quite the mouthful of a title you’ve suddenly acquired.”

Her head snapped up but she was too surrounded by papers to move. “It is. I was thinking of having it put on a baseball jersey or something, but my staff told me it wouldn’t fit.” She gestured for him to come in, and he did, setting the bag he was holding on her coffee table.

He slipped off his coat and sat down on her couch. “Not to mention that it’ll be out of date when you actually take office. Maybe Councilwoman Wyatt.”

“You know, three days in, I’m not tired of hearing it yet,” she flashed him a winning smile. “But you guys gave me a run for my money, seriously. I had a drink with Jack yesterday, so I think we’ll be okay.”

“He’s a good guy.”

Andrea nodded. “He really is. I’m trying to convince him to go the judging route. He’d be fantastic on the bench.” She stood and stepped gingerly around the mess on the floor, joining him on the couch.

“That’s smart. I’ll work on him too.” Toby reached for the bag, pulling it down in front of him. “I brought you some celebratory items.”

She leaned over, trying to peer into the bag, but he shielded it from her before he lifted out a container and set it on the table. “You brought me potato salad?!” Andy exclaimed with a delighted laugh.

“I did. It’s November; I thought you might be missing it by now. And I brought beer,” he pulled out a six-pack, “because champagne didn’t really go with potato salad.”

“Thank you, Toby.” Her hand fell on his forearm as she leaned in to kiss his cheek. “I’ve never gotten congratulatory gifts from someone on the other team before.”

And there were no declarations, as would become their style in this simple romance. Instead, they lingered in her office for the rest of the afternoon, slowly making their way through all of the potato salad and nearly all of the beer, and he told her that he knew the moment she opened her mouth that he had backed the wrong candidate.

dancinginsane @ 2008-01-31T21:53:00

2008-02-01T05:55:29Z

For un_love_you:

01.	You were right about me.	02.	I was wrong about you.	03.	This cancels out the hurt.
04.	I need to want you.	05.	You can be like me.	06.	I want to need you.
07.	Prove it.	08.	I'm cruel.	09.	Always wondered what this'd be like.
10.	I'm broken.	11.	Thought I needed this.	12.	I'm drunk.
13.	I want to hurt you.	14.	I'm awake and you're breathing.	15.	This is my desperation in action.
16.	I want to break you.	17.	Wish I didn't love you.	18.	I pity you.
19.	This isn't about you at all.	20.	I hate you, you bitch.	21.	You'll do.
22.	I hate myself.	23.	You remind me of me.	24.	I want you to hate me.
25.	You remind me of someone.	26.	I can be like you.	27.	Author's Choice.
28.	Author's Choice.	29.	Author's Choice.	30.	Author's Choice.

dancinginsane @ 2008-01-16T10:29:00

2008-01-16T18:44:16Z

Title: Will's Powers
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters: Andrea Wyatt, Will Bailey
Word Count: 200
Rating: g
Summary: Will is very powerful.
Author's Notes: For intopolitics. Andy and Will work together. Deal with my AU - it's 200 words.

Andy is standing behind her desk holding a printout of the email Will just sent her when he enters the room.

“We got it? It’s absolutely done? How did you do this?”

“Honestly, they were scared of the threat of you coming over to yell at them personally, so they backed down.”

Andrea laughs. “Sure, cause that worked so well last time. Seriously, Will, this is fantastic and I’m a little in awe. Do you have other magical powers that I don’t know about?”

Will looks around, making sure there’s no one listening, and steps toward her. “I once made it rain,” he says conspiratorially.

“You made it rain.” Her eyebrow arches.

“Yep. So we’ll see; maybe there’s more to come. I just haven’t explored the full extent of my power yet.”

“You are frightening and delightful at the same time, William, and I think, since I know your secret, you always have to play for my team.” Her face suddenly brightens with an idea. “Hey, do you think this is why you always win at garbage can basketball?”

Will’s smile turns into a smirk. “Due respect, Congresswoman, but I win at garbage can basketball because you’re terrible at it.”

dancinginsane @ 2007-12-17T22:05:00

2007-12-18T06:12:13Z

Title: In This City in the Snow
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters: Andrea Wyatt/Toby Ziegler
Prompt: #67 - Snow
Word Count: 620
Rating: pg
Summary: Love swirls like snow.
Author's Notes: Thanks to raedbard for the prompt ages ago. Sorry that I didn’t get the whole clan in there! And thanks to novepeixes for the once over.

She remembered why she loved him here, in this city in the snow, his city, years after she learned to love him in the first place.

She felt like a girl the first time around, skittish and young and trying so hard not to let herself fall for him. He was a patch of darkness in the snow when he showed up outside her apartment, darkness with the tiniest smile, so tiny it disappeared behind his beard and she could only see it in his eyes.

She came down the stairs slowly, still pulling her coat on, and he reached out a gloved hand to take her bare one, to keep her steady. She came back to him there in the snow, with Manhattan quiet (for once, only for this) around them. They’d done this once, months before, in warm weather that she loved and he hated, falling fast and hard without caution, without warning, without a clue that it might be more than passing the nights on a campaign that would never end.

It was more, and she couldn’t see then that this was the one that would change her life. Instead, he was the man in her bed who got darker as the days did the same, sinking into familiarity, sinking into the loss they were inching toward on the campaign. And it was the easiest thing in the world to be lost in him, in his apartment in Brooklyn, in his arms, in his bed.

Until they’d lost the campaign and suddenly had to face the fact that they’d be getting up in the mornings and going to separate jobs, new jobs, jobs that simply passed the time until the next campaign, and she didn’t think she could do that with him, didn’t think she could watch him do that. She needed something to counteract the winter.

She thought it wasn’t really a breakup when she left him and didn’t come back, because it wasn’t a relationship; it was just hours passed together in the dark, but the twist in her chest that she refused to acknowledge told her otherwise. And he refused to be left that easily; he wrote her letters and sent her pie and brought her lunch at work, and while she wasn’t in his bed, it was her voice low on the phone that was the last thing he heard more nights than not.

He kissed her knuckles, there outside her building in the snow, and teased her for not wearing gloves. “It’s hard to grab the proper attire,” she argued very quietly, an amused smile on her lips, “When someone is demanding that you come outside immediately in spite of winter weather advisories telling us to stay inside.”

“What channel are you watching? This isn’t a blizzard.”

“Maybe they’re just overly cautious.”

He pulled her close against his body, warmth buzzing between them, her breath hot on his neck. “Are you overly cautious?” he asked, tucking her hand in his, holding it to his chest, precious and safe over his heart.

“Not as a rule.”

Their next exchange was soft, and could have been lost in a gust of wind, but the city was still around them when she came back to him, there in the snow, with quiet words and her small smile and a tilt of her head to rest against his.

Years later, she stood in the same city outside another apartment, the cold chilling her a little more quickly now. They got the grand tour of the snow fort their children had built, and he pulled her closer, tucking her under his arm and against his body, making her feel small and cherished and warm, and in that moment, she remembered.

dancinginsane @ 2007-10-06T00:42:00

2007-10-06T07:48:16Z

Title: Untitled
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters: Andrea Wyatt/Toby Ziegler, Molly Wyatt-Ziegler
Prompt: #55 - Spirit
Word Count: 284
Rating: pg
Summary: Mother and daughter through the eyes of the father.
Author's Notes: Impromptu flashfic for amy_vic.

Toby loved watching his women, and he often hung back in a room to take them in unnoticed. He watched his sometime-wife, her back still straight despite infringing age and a bit more frailty than she liked to admit. She leaned one hand on the back of a chair, but he was the only one who could tell that she needed more support than she let on. (She would filibuster the next year, the finest since Stackhouse, would stand tall and proud on the Senate floor, but he saw what it took out of her. The weekend was uncharacteristically quiet around the house they shared, and she fell asleep on the couch in front of the evening news, her head on his leg as his hand sifted through her hair. He always joked that they weren't eighteen anymore, but in moments like this he knew it was true.)

And his daughter, just barely taller than her mother, auburn hair spiraling down her back in loose curls. He loved the way they interacted, the raised eyebrow and small smirk that Molly shot at Andy, so exactly like her own that it drove Andrea crazy. He watched Andy laugh and sling an arm around her daughter's waist, pulling her close, and if the smile wasn't actually on his face, it was certainly in his eyes.

Then Andy turned, just enough to catch his eye, and her smile widened. Just by that, he could read her so clearly. "Toby, you can't even believe this girl we've raised." That was why he watched them - because after twenty-five years, Andrea was still in awe and in love with these children, and he was still in love with her.

dancinginsane @ 2007-08-24T23:27:00

2007-08-25T06:31:28Z

Title: Years Later
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters: Andrea Wyatt/Toby Ziegler
Prompt: #10 - Years
Word Count: 200
Rating: pg
Summary: They often don't do things in a timely fashion.
Author's Notes: Two connected drabbles, though I can't tell if you have to squint to see that or not. Thanks to novepeixes for making me write, and for the prompts.

They’re brought together by his family’s reunion; she couldn’t escape the nagging from his sisters to come for the weekend and bring the kids, and it’s been years since Andrea joined them.

He’s off to the side, watching their children play baseball with their cousins, and he doesn’t notice Andy until she rests a soft hand on his back, and her cheek on his shoulder.

“I’m glad you came,” he finally offers.

She slips his sunglasses off to see his eyes. “I wish you’d been the one to invite us.”

“I didn’t think you’d come if it came from me.”

*****

She does it not because anything has suddenly become uncomplicated between them, but because she’s curious, and because she wonders if he tastes the same.

She kisses him in his kitchen after their kids have been put to bed. Instead of leaving, she leans in and threads her hand through his hair, and he spills coffee when he tries to blindly put down the mug he’s holding and pull her closer.

She does it because it’s been too many years, and despite the men in the interim, his is still the only kiss that makes her knees weak.

dancinginsane @ 2007-05-17T21:28:00

2007-05-18T04:29:53Z

Title: Of Independent Hues
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters: Andrea Wyatt, Molly Wyatt Ziegler (brief Toby & Huck)
Prompt: #28 - Children
Word Count: 600
Rating: g
Summary: Andy took these silent moments to make wishes for her girl.

The night before her daughter left for college, Andy leaned on the doorjamb and watched her sleep. The room was littered with clothes, suitcases still not quite packed, but Molly slept peacefully under her father’s old Amnesty poster.

Molly had only become a sound sleeper in the last few years, when she ran herself to exhaustion and only collapsed when it was absolutely necessary. Andy slipped into the room to sit on the edge of the bed and let one hand stroke over her daughter’s hair (a few shades darker than her own, but with the same underlying fire). She’d fallen asleep with her finger in The Golden Notebook, which made Andy smile even as her throat closed with emotion. She slipped the bookmark into the book and gently pulled it away, holding the girl’s hand so it would fall back to the mattress and wake her.

She was Andrea’s independent child. Huck could certainly stand on his own two feet as well, but he was content to be close to home. He’d been ensconced at Georgetown for a week, and his emails alternated between long, excited tomes and five quick words dashed off on his way out to what Andy presumed was a wholesome party with not a drop of alcohol – “Gotta run. I’ll write later.” Toby laughed at her, having received the same message, and insisted that he’d probably already met his first mistake of a girlfriend. But Andy was fine with that, because she remembered the flicker of relief in the boy’s eyes when she’d reminded him that he could come home for the night anytime he needed rest, or a home-cooked meal. (He sounded just like Toby when he couldn’t hold in the laughter. He’d grown up with her cooking.)

Molly, though, would get on a plane in the morning and would end up halfway across the country at Northwestern, and Andy knew she wouldn’t even think of turning back as she left her family behind. Not because she didn’t love them, but because she couldn’t fathom missing a moment of what was in front of her.

So Andy took these silent moments to make wishes for her girl, the one who was becoming this woman that Andy knew would change the world, somehow. Andy knew that Huck would come back, would spend at least his first summer in college being a lump on her furniture and reconnecting with friends in between part-time jobs. But Molly wouldn’t be back to live in this house again, and Andy had already started to steel herself for the day when the announcement wasn’t that she’d chosen Northwestern over Columbia, but that she’d chosen London or Berlin (or, more probably, somewhere far more exotic and in need of aide) over coming back home. She often felt like Molly never really belonged to them. Molly never really belonged to anyone except herself.

Andy knew exactly where she came from, though. She’s the liberal fighter in herself, and she’s the kid who grew up going to protest rallies in Toby. She’s the one who wouldn’t back down and the one who extended a hand to whomever she might be able to help. She’s the best parts of her parents, and the most stubborn. She’s farther left than either of them dared to be, and secretly, they both admired her for it. She didn’t care about the politics and grew frustrated with the red tape, but knew she’d be able to go farther with an education than she would if she just struck out alone. She was unafraid.

She would change the world someday.

dancinginsane @ 2007-01-26T22:41:00

2007-01-27T06:59:11Z

Title: Romance
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters: Andrea Wyatt/Toby Ziegler
Prompt: #47 - Heart
Word Count: 425
Rating: pg
Summary: Snapshots of romance.
Author's Notes: I’d written this for Once and Again for stagesoflove and scrapped it, but Fsh found it tonight and I really liked it, so here it is. Just a year later.

Toby quickly learned that, with Andrea, his idea of romance (previously thought to be antiquated or, more embarrassingly, simply not enough by girlfriend after girlfriend) was surprisingly on target. He knew that he wasn’t a particularly romantic person, but with her, everything took on a sensual tone.

They danced – he danced, protesting only weakly when she tugged him up from the table – until dawn in a jazz club in Brooklyn, surrounded by music that sounded like it should have scratches and static from record player wear and tear. It was smoky and they were both just drunk enough to allow them to forget their surroundings and kiss endlessly on the dance floor, barely swaying.

He read her Whitman on his balcony in the summer air, and watched as her eyes closed and she breathed the poetry in. (You should have made your way to me long ago.)

Their romance was quiet, intimate, all twining fingers and heads tilted together to talk softly. This was never something he’d found to be effortless, but with her, it wasn’t about empty gestures designed to make a good impression; it was about weaving their pieces together into part of a larger tapestry.

*****

Busy lives take luxuries out of the equation, and Andy realized even as she stepped out of his office (lips swollen, hair mussed – she’d been against the door before it even latched shut) that it would be different for them this time around. They no longer had the ability to linger; while the old familiarity crept back in immediately, she began to miss the simplicity of their romance.

It was easy for her to fall back in bed with him; everything else was harder. They tiptoed around arguments (saving them for working hours, when there were countless excuses to rant and rail), both remembering the day they’d signed away their marriage. It was much easier just to rely on a warm body between the sheets, and so it became scotch on his balcony at midnight morphing into coffee in the dim morning light of his kitchen. It was Chinese takeout eaten out of boxes instead of long, leisurely meals out.

And slowly, she realized that this was romance. That maybe the concessions and tokens were smaller, but they certainly weren’t nonexistent. Maybe they’d matured, maybe they didn’t need grand gestures anymore. Maybe they never had. To Andrea, it was enough that he let her sleep a few extra minutes before waking her with a soft hand in her hair. It became about simply being together.

dancinginsane @ 2007-01-13T19:54:00

2007-01-14T04:01:47Z

Title: Love Calls You By Your Name
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters: Andrea Wyatt/Toby Ziegler
Prompt: #37 - Sound
Word Count: c. 1,125
Rating: nc17
Summary: He knew then that it would be the combination of his name and Andrea’s voice that would unravel him completely.
Author's Notes: For amy_vic, who I challenged to a smutty scarf fic battle of love. I’m glad you took up my thrown gauntlet, and I hope you accept this in return, despite the fact that scarf only makes a cameo. Thanks to ninefish for the beta.

More than anything, it was the way she said his name when he tied her up and fucked her that turned him on.

Her voice had always moved him, from the first time she shook his hand and repeated his name back to him, trying it out on her tongue. Two clipped syllables in first and last name each, the accent she swore up and down didn’t exist discernable only on the upstroke of the “y,” just as he imagined her pen would curl the tail of the letter on paper.

In the days (years) that followed, he was easily distracted by her voice, by the colors there that he was still discovering. He added each to a mental archive: Andrea: frustrated by work. Andrea: frustrated by me. Andrea: flirty. Andrea: pillow talk. Andrea: in love. Andrea: heartbroken. Andrea: disappointed in me. Andrea: disappointed in herself.

(He was amazed that, years later, he could still find nuances he hadn’t heard before. Sometimes, he was amazed that he still listened that closely. She’d left him – not undeservedly; they both knew their faults – and rejected him and he sometimes convinced himself that he was a masochist for hanging on. He didn’t ever want to listen again after the house, but when she woke in the middle of the night and whispered his name, reaching out one hand to curve around his forearm as he sat next to her hospital bed, it didn’t even occur to him. Listening to her was instinctual. He hoped their children had the same instinct, because she’d surely have wise things to tell them about wearing mittens and being kind and respecting their teachers. He’d add on something to be worked out later about how baseball teams in navy blue pinstripes take precedence over all others, but that would have to be done in private, father to son and daughter.)

The first time she came with his name on her lips – just hours after their first kiss and midway through their first date (She didn’t try to tell him that she wasn’t that kind of girl; when he walked in, everything tipped sideways, and whatever standards she might have pretended to hold herself to before were no long relevant.) – it was a quick, uneven grappling in his car. Hot breath and laughter slid into gasps filling the small space along with her legs (too long to be folded comfortably into any semblance of propriety) and his hands (warm and practiced between her thighs). She grasped at his tie as she came, tugging a little too hard and he pitched forward, his head landing against her neck, and he felt the reverb of his name in her throat, flowing out of a moan and back into another. He knew then that it would be the combination of his name and Andrea’s voice that would unravel him completely. He told her as much later that night, in her bed, the skirt that had been shoved around her waist now discarded on the floor with the rest of their clothes. It was her turn to tuck her face against his skin, and he could feel her smiling there. And then, not even a whisper; barely even an exhalation, she said his name slowly, deliberately, first, middle, last lined up neatly.

Their love was fierce from the start, borne of arguments and flashes, moments of inspired passion in more than one meeting that resulted in not only finding compromise between the sides they represented (he the beleaguered candidate, she the city), but also in long moments spent with eyes locked before anything more personal than names were even exchanged. It didn’t change once they began sharing a bed, but they both knew that this was part of the attraction. He loved that her personality matched her physical presence; she could just as easily catch him in a turn of phrase as she could push back against him in bed, and she always burned bright red, in his bed or at a conference table. There was no grey for Andrea, and sometimes it was too much, her color pushing into his darkness, but for the most part, it fit. It didn’t change him; it simply gave his world an aura, the merest suggestion of blush that hadn’t been there before.

He bound her wrists with a necktie the first time, and suddenly her noises were throatier, her hips bucked and she arched against him, her desire for him almost frantic, as though she were afraid that, after all this, he’d tie her up and not satisfy her, would walk away from the bed and read the paper instead, leaving her whimpering. He wouldn’t; couldn’t, of course, but his teasing was admirable, and the flush and sheen on her skin betrayed her. He saw the way her climax spiraled inside her; nearly a step-by-step demonstration of textbook arousal, and this was his doing, his love. Her neck was taut when she stretched back, reaching for release, begging him to push her over the edge, which he’d never deny. The juxtaposition of her begging (“Jesus, Toby, please. I need — fuck, please. Toby.”) and the way her words lengthened on her sighs on the other side pushed him until he shuddered.

He’d never heard her like that before. She’d pleaded and cajoled plenty of times (he loved holding her suspended), but for the first time, he knew just how much power he had, and just how much he’d taken from her, how much she’d given over to him. It was exhilarating for both of them, and when he slid the tie from around her wrists, his thumbs brushed over her pulse gently, feeling it race under her skin. Her eyes were wide as she looked up at him, and for a long time, neither could speak. This high wasn’t ordinary.

And so they did this, from time to time. Sometimes it made up for power that one of them had lost at the office, but the unspoken rule was that it was never punishment for fights they’d had with each other. He bought her a silk scarf one day, picked it out to match her coat, even though he knew it would rarely leave the apartment. He held one strong hand over her eyes to make sure she wasn’t peeking (she would) and wound the fabric around her wrists with practiced ease, his crisscross pattern ensuring the perfect amount of tension, and when his fingers brushed her pulse amidst this process, he could feel how it had already leapt. When she opened her eyes and glanced down, taking in the green of the scarf vibrant against her pale skin and the long, trailing ends of the fabric that would soon be secured around the slats of their headboard, it was first his name that she breathed in her sigh of thanks.

dancinginsane @ 2007-01-03T23:09:00

2007-01-04T05:26:16Z

Title: Left and Leaving
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters: Andrea Wyatt/Toby Ziegler, Huck and Molly Wyatt-Ziegler
Prompt: #72 - Fixed
Word Count: c. 1,300
Rating: pg13
Summary: Someone choose who's left and who's leaving.
Author's Notes: Written as a back-up for the Andy round of tww_minis; for meeshy, who wanted Toby/Andy, s7 around the investigation with Huck and Molly. And for ninefish, who has been the world’s biggest cheerleader for this fic. Thanks to Fsh, intopolitics, and purple_elefants for beta.

They did this so well – a few years on, a few years off – and each time they got back together, they were older, and claimed it was going to last longer, but it never did. There were very real reasons why they couldn’t live with each other.

Maybe that’s why it worked (nearly always) once he left D.C.

They’d always been better at having meetings than they were at just talking, so he told her about Columbia in her office. He watched her eyes closely; he knew from years of experience that, unless she yelled, that was the only place her disappointment showed up. Her eyes flashed for a second, and then shut him out. It was enough.

She couldn’t cut him out of her life, out of the twins’ lives, but she could feel the steps they took backwards when he made the decision to leave. She knew that, in the deepest part of his mind, his thoughts were consumed by wanting to save his family, but she couldn’t understand how that translated to putting half of the eastern seaboard between them. (She was the one who had divorced him, and at that point, she felt like she was saving them by walking away from the marriage. They were so angry with each other, both so able to cut exactly where it would hurt the most. This was different, though she couldn’t tell him why without yelling, so instead they spent the first few months of his residence in New York exchanging chilly words and information about their children.)

But he watched her nearly lose an election because of him. He watched her hurry the kids past photographers, saw those pictures end up in papers and blogs, and knew that as long as he was under scrutiny (despite the pardon – the pardon that she’d begged for, the pardon that he never wanted), he couldn’t protect his family. So he left.

He was back in New York again (it was his town, despite the fact that it was where they’d met, where they’d married; he was surprised to find that it was unnatural being here alone), and his feet hit the familiar sidewalks every day. And there were days when he didn’t think of her, but he’d inevitably come home to the quiet of his apartment and remember a time when there was noise.

They both thawed slowly, and in their minds, they justified it as being for the kids, but privately, it was more than that. Once it relaxed and the conversation after the kids fell asleep became easier, they tried to meet every month – sometimes more – but the kids were busier, and taking them away from friends and activities to visit Dad was something he worried would backfire. But they came, and he always met them at the airport even though she always told him not to bother. He loved the way her eyes searched for him, and he couldn’t imagine letting her down by not being there. And he could still lift his son into his arms when he broke away from Andy and ran to him (Molly was always more subdued).

It started again on one of these visits; until then it had been for the sake of the kids (they both knew they needed the visits as much as Molly or Huck), but she kissed him one night, so softly that you’d have thought that it was their first kiss (ignore the marriage, ignore the children). She was hesitant, and her lips hovered over his for just a moment. She moved in increments, as if she were scared to do this again (they both were). It was always hard to go, but there was something extra (love unmasked, finally translated) in his eyes that made her heart twist as she turned away. (Molly – her quiet child – asked her why she was sad as they were over Pennsylvania. Andy looked at her and saw Toby’s eyes, so she couldn’t help but smile.)

They bought each other plane tickets for every occasion (she was only a little thrown the first time she received one for their lapsed wedding anniversary). He was hesitant to come back to DC too often, but he was on her doorstep every year in early May, bags filled with brightly wrapped presents. Every year they marveled that they could be parents of five year olds, seven year olds, ten year olds. He never forgot the things she’d said to him that day, but it became more and more insignificant the longer they were together (whatever together meant).

She came when he called and told her about his father, and she didn’t say a word when he squeezed her hand so hard it hurt as they stood in the cemetery. They got drunk on expensive whiskey in his kitchen that night, and he talked quietly, with only a little slurring, about how he couldn’t believe he never let his father see his own grandchildren. She didn’t expect the regret to hit so fast, but he kept mumbling about missed opportunities. She thought he might come home after that, but she didn’t hold her breath.

They never put a label on what they were doing now, but when they’d sit together at night after the kids were in bed, she whispered that sometimes she had to remind herself that she wanted it this way. (Because the other times – the ones when she’d expect him to be in her afternoon meeting, or to be sitting beside her at the kids’ play – were just a little too lonely. She’d never quite admit that, though.)

They never asked each other for monogamy, but neither considered other lovers. They began wearing their rings again; she put hers back on after what would have been their eighteenth wedding anniversary, and his reappeared somewhere around her birthday the next year. Neither of them mentioned it, but his lips brushed over the metal worshipfully the first time he saw it, and she knew it was right.

Every so often, she’d leave the kids with her mom and just go, sometimes without telling him she was coming. She’d call him from the airport, or from the cab; once she simply showed up in his classroom, snuck in at the break and watched him lecture about free trade for the last hour of the class. She knew the moment he noticed her, and she smirked when it took him a second to get back on track. He let the class out early that day.

He quizzed her on the lecture in bed that night, and she admitted that she was more interested in the professor than the material. She traced his jaw with a soft hand, and she could feel his fingers play along her spine. She whispered that she wanted to come to his class so she could picture it, picture him there when she’s idly wondering where he is. He was silent, and she began to feel silly and rolled away from him, tangling herself in his sheets. He tugged her back to him, and whispered the only sort of love story he knew in her ear, telling her that he fell asleep to CSPAN every night (she laughed before he could finish, because falling asleep to CSPAN is far from unique) watching as they reran the House’s activities of the day, waiting for a glimpse of her. She kissed him deeply, and it was moments like this that made her wonder how she could ever get back on the plane.

But they’re better apart then they are together, so she got on the plane on Sunday with souvenirs and letters to take back to their kids.

He wondered, as he watched her walk away, his chest tightening just a little as she threw a glance over her shoulder, who was leaving and who was being left.

He caught her just before she disappeared out of sight. He was tired of being left.