Work Text:
The beginning was not well thought-out. The beginning was not planned. It is accident that gets them stranded in South Carolina, watching the motorcade kick up mud and listening to their own cries destroyed by the high whine of a dozen cars.
The beginning is the first campaign, and a rainstorm which will not let up, and an ancient beech tree, curled over the horizon; their desperate run for it, as though the rain might melt them into nothing. And it is Sam's neurotic worrying: you know that statistically, we're more likely to get hit by lightning if we're under this tree than if we --
The beginning is Toby kissing him just to stop the empty rushing of words out of his mouth, streaming like the rain over his lips. That is what he tastes of, a sheen of cold over the heat in his mouth, water that is plain and unremarkable, when this is anything but. His hands stay where they were at his sides, about to reach up into a gesture, about to open up into the rain. They pat at the air around Toby's shoulders and do not commit to a touch, as though the air is too thick between them, as though the rain is too heavy. Toby strokes his face, holding it there in both his own hands, stilling him with what he hopes is gentleness. He finds it hard to tell.
The beginning is Sam unfolding; a white piece of paper you thought blank, spread out to reveal a script in black ink. His mouth opening and his belly starting to press against Toby's as the rhythms begin to work themselves out: promising what will come and how they will sit in rooms which contain nothing but blank pieces of paper and the words in their hearts and heads and the struggles in the darkness which run the two together, like ink in the rain.
The beginning is Toby extrapolating from all the nights they have shared already: two offices next door to each other, Sam in an endless run of white shirts and Toby in an endless run of dark ones; communication which contracts into the passing of a look from one to the other, and an understanding of the night which is shaped by the presence or absence of that other, by what he approves and does not, by how much of the night they kept out of the words; how they will write towards the morning. The beginning is Toby realising he wants that and realising it as Sam's lips slip to his neck, sucking at the pulse beat.
The beginning is Toby slipping the wedding ring off his finger and into the depths of his pocket, silently, before Sam reaches for his hand.
*
The beginning is the first day, the very first one. The beginning is shaking his hand. Though there is no spark, no crackle of electricity to prove that it was there, Sam feels a jolt, and he remembers: the shape of his hand, the warmth of his palm, the press of his fingers.
The beginning is being amazed that he has never heard of Toby Ziegler, whose presence forms the shape of the whole so sharply that if ever he is not there Sam can't open his mouth and find words there with any certainty, as though he needs Toby to put a guiding hand behind them; as though Sam's words are only half there without him, the sunlight without the shadow. The promise without the consequences.
The beginning is Toby smiling at him. The beginning is Toby's approval: the only prize Sam never knew he so desperately wanted to win until he already had. It is a small, secret smile, which changes his face without shifting any single thing on or out of focus: hardly any change in the shape of his mouth, only a deepening of the colour of his eyes. A change in intensity that seems to enfold Sam within itself. A delicate thread of understanding between them, joining two men who are not yet friends; two men who are already much more important to each other than that.
The beginning is the bark of the beech tree under his hands, which is there when he doesn't dare reach out for the body in front of him, because he knows what will happen if he does. The beginning is already being sure that this is not just this kiss, not just this storm. The beginning is already knowing how this will end.
The beginning is running into the motel whose neon Vacancy lights they saw in dulled by the sheet rain. The beginning is Toby's credit card on the desk and Sam's gut contracting into a knot of tension, a sudden jolt of propinquity, when he reads T Z Ziegler on the surface of the plastic, and realises he doesn't know what the 'Z' stands for.
The beginning is stripping off wet clothes fast and Toby throwing him a towel for his hair while he lets the water remain in his own, in his beard. It is Sam reaching out for his hand and pulling him close and nuzzling his face, rubbing his own cheeks and chin against the cold, wet bristle of Toby's beard and feeling himself harden and collapse at the same time; something in his heart crumpling, like paper in a fist. The beginning is knowing damn well that it is over with Lisa, and sinking to his knees and unzipping Toby's pants and feeling Toby's hands stroke his hair and Toby's voice, asking, not commanding: get up from there.
The beginning is a series of small discoveries: that Toby is ticklish, in the right places; that he wears a small gold pendant and never takes it off; that his body is the warmest Sam has ever pressed himself to, anxious without really knowing why, and that his hands never do stop moving, stroking, caressing, beating out nervous rhythms that match the hammering of Sam's pulse. It is the way Toby's body becomes tender and cautious as it curves over Sam's, and how he presses a kiss to Sam's cheek at the end, as chaste and silent as a child.
*
The beginning is knowing that this can't last. The beginning is promising that duty comes first.
The beginning is promising that it won't matter, so long as there is a room somewhere, darkened and private, where these moments are not just a memory neither of them are certain is real. The beginning is wondering whether there will be a quick, honest kiss after the victory they daren't hope out loud for. The beginning is redefining, or starting to redefine the word 'partner'.
The beginning is knowing that, some day, this will not be all there is.