Title: For Less
Author: Vesper (Regina)
E-mail: vespertanmer@yahoo.com
Warnings: adult themes, sexiness
Category: Vignette
Keywords: CJ/Sam
Summary: Right now, they are.
Disclaimer: "The West Wing" property of Aaron Sorkin, John Wells
Productions, and Warner Brothers Television.
Website: http://www.vespertanmer.com
Archival: If you wish to archive, please link to my website.

*

You threw a noose around my shadow.
Got me into all this mess.
I would have dove in head first anyway
for less, for a whole lot less.
"Go Down Easy" by Over the Rhine

*

There are no worries under this bright sunshine...no spin, no
speeches, nothing but the two of them.

Her hand hangs loose outside the window, catching wind. Her eyes
are closed against the hot sun, and her hair blows across her
face. She doesn't bother to brush it away.

Under this sunlight he can't call her C.J. Can't call her by the
impersonal letters she’s taken for a first name. They are harsh,
and sharp-edged.

She turns her eyes to him, a smile across her lips and he thinks,
underneath this clear blue sky, with the sun reflecting from the
mirrors and the chrome, with the wind in her hair, and the light
in her eyes, she's not C.J. She's something other, an unnamable
something with Gaussian focus and beautiful colors, something that
flickers.

He drives fast, the way she asked him to, and the shadows and
light through the trees slide and dance and all there is now is
the hot sun on their heads. He will not examine this, will not
hold a magnifying glass up to the way she kisses him, or the
meaning of the look in her eye. It would turn to flame under the
concentration, the ash falling away like a whisper, leaving none
to read what had been.

Later, there will be slow kisses beneath a tree and knowing
touches that no longer scorch like that first brush of her
fingertips on his skin.

He asked her once, when it was all too new and fragile, why she
ever, and he let the question trail away, not even wanting the
words to be heard. She understood. She said she didn't know and
then, "It doesn't matter, Samuel." She kissed him, and her lips
were wet and her tongue was soft.

She is unconcerned.

She tells him that she feels like a queen in his eyes, that she
loves the worship there, that she has fallen so deep into his eyes
she'll never be able to swim up for breath again.

He dreams, underneath the tree, of the way she murmurs his name,
the way it slips past her lips and onto his, tracing the previous
script of her branding. He dreams of water, and of fire, and
wakes gasping for air.

End.