Fic: Set Fire To This Town (The West Wing, Josh/Donna)

[amathela]

Title: Set Fire To This Town
Fandom: The West Wing
Pairing(s): Josh/Donna
Word Count: 4657
Rating: NC-17

Summary: What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?

Notes: Spoilers up to episode 6:15 - Freedonia.


She could have killed Will for being busy. Their dinners had become something of a standing arrangement; not dates, exactly, but not something she felt like she had to schedule. They kept roughly the same hours, had roughly the same workload, and, well, it just made sense.

So when he'd cancelled on her at the last minute, she'd been surprised, to say the least. Surprised, but maybe not disappointed; it had been rough week, and she was actually looking forward to being able to spend some time alone. Maybe even get to bed before midnight, barring some inevitable late-night crisis. Except he hadn't just cancelled; he'd cancelled in front of people, and while she didn't care about the appearance of having been stood up, she did care when the three girls she'd all but forgotten about immediately insisted she join them for dinner, instead.

This, she amended later, drink in hand as she sat perched atop a stool at the hotel bar, was not what she'd had in mind when they made the invitation. This wasn't dinner, unless you counted the olives the other girls were studiously picking out of their martinis; she'd stuck with whiskey, feeling old even as she'd ordered it, and were these girls even old enough to drink? Even worse, maybe, than their comically cross-purposed attempts at communication, was the way they were now - not subtly, but with a fair degree of success - trying to pick up a group of men across the room.

That should have been her cue to leave. It wasn't like she had nothing to do; there were policy issues that still needed to be straightened out, media appearances, scheduling. If nothing else, a good night's sleep wouldn't kill her. And maybe she'd never graduated college, but even she should have been able to do the math when Lucy said, "Four of them, four of us," and gestured to a group of three.

Her brain was obviously fried.

But against her better judgement, she picked up her drink, slid onto one of the couches. Her fellow staffers already seemed paired up; like the world is ending, she thought grimly, raising the glass to her lips.

And then she looked up, and saw him; and maybe the world hadn't ended, but it had at least stopped for a second or two.

-

"Um -"

Josh looked as gobsmacked as she felt, his mouth slightly open, eyes wide in surprise. She was sure he could read the shock in her own expression, and she blinked a couple of times, tried to reassure herself that it really was him, that he wasn't just part of a disturbingly real hallucination. But when she looked up again, he was still there, and she forced herself to smile.

"Hi."

He rubbed the back of his neck, shifted his weight; she wished she could stop watching him. "Hi."

She could have sworn they'd been staring like that for hours, but no-one else seemed to have noticed at all, and when he slid into the chair beside her, nobody so much as blinked.

"So ..." And she really had no idea how to finish that sentence; how are you? was too predictable, too much like something she'd say to somebody she didn't have eight years of history with. How's the campaign? was too impersonal, and the last thing she wanted was for him to think she saw him only as political competition. So ...

"I didn't expect -" he started, when she didn't say anything else, and she shook her head, waved him off.

"No, that's okay. I wasn't -"

"So, this is -"

"Yeah." She raised her glass again, finished her drink in one smooth motion.

"It's been a while."

And she couldn't help smiling at that, because, yeah, but also because it felt like the understatement of the century. If somebody had asked her a year ago where she saw herself now, she could have told them any number of things; this wouldn't have been anywhere near her list. Because he was Josh, and she was Donna, and this suddenly felt so unreal it might as well have been happening to two completely different people.

He nodded, sat back, fidgeted with his tie, and she resisted the urge to twirl the empty glass around in her hands. The silence was thick around them, felt like it enveloped the entire bar, and she almost couldn't believe nobody was staring.

She uncrossed her legs, crossed them again. His hands slid down his thighs. The silence stretched for days.

"Aren't you, Donna?"

She was suddenly conscious of somebody talking to her; Melissa, she thought, or maybe that was the other one. Maybe they were all called Melissa. "I'm sorry, what?"

"You're from Wisconsin, right?"

"Um, yeah." Was that something she talked about? She'd obviously mentioned it to one of them.

Beside her, she heard Josh snicker, and she turned to face him again.

"What?"

"Nothing." He'd schooled his features into something resembling casual ignorance, but only if you didn't look closely.

"You laughed."

"I ... may have laughed, yeah."

"Is there something about being from Wisconsin that's particularly funny?"

"What? No, not at all." But he was barely containing his amusement, now, and she probably would have been mad if this wasn't so familiar.

"Well?"

"Really, nothing."

"Nothing about cheese?"

He was definitely smiling. "Not at all."

"Or dairy products of any kind?"

"Oh, come on. Like that's great cultural diversity. Cheese, and dairy products!"

She considered stopping him, but he was on a roll; there was no point in trying to argue with him when he got like this, and she'd learned long ago the best way to get through it was to sit back and let him wear himself out.

"Next you'll be telling us it's not just cheese and dairy products; you've got cows, too. And you weren't even born in Wisconsin; you were born in Michigan, which is actually Canada, and if it weren't for me you'd be saluting the Queen right about now."

"Josh -"

But he'd already moved back to Wisconsin, and she shut her mouth again. "As far as I can tell, their great non-dairy claim to fame is teaching diet tips and passing it off as economics."

"Hey! That was a good tip, and you said the President said the same thing."

By now, his smirk had softened to a smile, and he sat back, his eyes meeting hers. "You're right. You're very smart."

She would have said he was mocking her, but his tone was sincere - well, as sincere as Josh usually got, anyway. "Thank you."

It was a shock to realise, when she finally glanced away, that nobody else was still listening. Instead, the makeshift couples seemed to have moved even closer to one another, if that was even possible, and they were intently holed up in their own private conversations.

She looked back at Josh, whose expression had changed again; the sudden nostalgia was gone, the silence back in full force, and she bit her lip.

"I should -" She gestured towards him with her empty glass, stood up in a rush. He waved a hand, and she closed her eyes briefly as she slipped past him and made her way to the bar. Whatever that had been - and she was still struggling to put a name to it - it had left her light-headed, and she leaned against the bar as she caught the bartender's eye and ordered another drink.

It was a few minutes later when she felt somebody come up beside her, and she looked up to see Josh. He smiled lazily, cheeks dimpling, and she ducked her head to avoid the flush of remembrance.

"Sorry if this is a little awkward," he said, and she smiled as his hands slid onto the bar next to hers.

"Yeah," she said, biting back the hint of regret that threatened to slip into her voice.

And then she turned, leaning back against the bar, and her breath caught as she glanced back to where they had been sitting.

At the two couches, now sitting empty in the middle of the room.

"We were just sitting there, right?"

Josh followed her gaze back over his shoulder, and nodded, raising his eyebrows. "I guess they got tired."

Tired. Right. She was going to kill them in the morning.

"I should -" she started, her brain frantically trying to come up with a way to get out of this that didn't sound like she was brushing him off. It should have been easy; there were a million things she could have been doing, if she wasn't here.

That, of course, was when the bartender finally showed up with her drink.

"Here." Josh leaned over as she turned around, and she pressed her lips together when his arm brushed hers. "Let me get that."

Donna didn't really know what to say to that; didn't have to say anything, as Josh slid the money onto the bar. So she smiled instead, too nervous to really mean it, and followed him back to their seats.

She'd been expecting more awkwardness than before, compounded, now, by the fact that they were alone. So she was surprised when Josh ran a hand through his hair, leaning back casually, and smiled at her like they hadn't spent months becoming virtual strangers.

"Where the hell are we, anyway?" he asked after a minute, and she didn't have to ask for clarification.

"Cleveland." She raised the glass to her lips, took a slow sip. "Where are you headed next?"

"Philadelphia. You?"

"Colorado."

He grinned, and she knew immediately what he was thinking; Bingo Bob, cowboy boots and industry connections. She wished that wasn't how she sometimes thought of him, too.

Then Josh caught her eye, and she knew that he knew, too; there was a moment of silence, and for the first time it seemed she could remember, it wasn't entirely uncomfortable.

"Do you really think you're going to win this thing?" The question wasn't unkind, and she shrugged, leaned forward.

"I guess we'll see."

She breathed a sigh of relief when he didn't ask the obvious next question; do you want him to win? She wasn't quite sure what her answer would have been; yes, probably, but maybe not for the right reasons.

She tried not to follow that thought, because it led to all the places she'd been trying to avoid; the feeling that she was still trying to prove herself to Josh, to justify all the reasons she'd left, convince herself she hadn't made a mistake. The knowledge that they were on opposite sides, now, and she didn't know if that would ever stop feeling wrong.

She glanced up, expecting to see her thoughts echoed in Josh's expression; instead, she found him looking at her almost the way he used to, and she could feel herself relax almost imperceptibly.

In fact, she blamed the way he was looking at her entirely for what happened next. She hadn't wanted to break his gaze; hadn't wanted to look away, to find the all too familiar mask of indifference on his face when she glanced back. So she'd kept her eyes locked with his, leaned forward to find her glass by feel alone -

And had succeeded only momentarily, until it had overturned, spilling the contents of the drink onto her lap.

For a minute, everything stopped, and then Josh laughed, a sound she remembered from what seemed a lifetime ago.

"Smooth," he said, and she could feel herself blush, but she smiled as she placed the now-empty glass back on the table. "How many of those have you had, anyway?"

"I can hold my alcohol better than you," she defended; Josh tilted his head, familiar smile still firmly in place.

"All evidence to the contrary. You know, you might want to do something about that."

She tried to scowl at him, but it was hard; his smile was infectious, and this was the best she'd felt in weeks, ruined skirt notwithstanding. So she stood, settling for a roll of her eyes, and leaned over to grab her purse.

She was so intent on trying to discern the level of damage as she left that she didn't notice Josh following her out until a few seconds had passed. She shot him a sidewards glance before they stepped into the elevator together, and she let him push the button as she swiped her hand down the front of her skirt.

It wasn't until they were out of the elevator and at the end of the hall, Josh swiping a keycard through a lock a few feet ahead of her, that she realised she was on the wrong floor.

"Come on," he said, obviously sensing her hesitation. "We'll get you cleaned up. Unless you want to go roaming the halls looking like that."

The retort was on her tongue - what's wrong with the way I look? - but she bit it back, settling instead for following him into the room. He was letting her in, and she was going to milk the metaphor for all it was worth; when the only other option was walking away from him - again, a traitorous voice in the back of her head reminded her - it turned out not to be such a difficult decision, after all.

His room was exactly like hers, which shouldn't have hit her as hard as it did; but the reminder that they were still living the same experiences, so close but not entwined, made her breath catch.

"Here," he said, closing the door behind her. "Do you want some water?"

"Club soda?" she asked, and he nodded.

"I'll check the mini bar."

A minute later, he handed her a can, and she took it, her fingers sliding over his for just a second. She was suddenly struck by how close he was standing, his presence a reminder of how close they had been, and she leaned into him almost unconsciously.

"We should get you out of those clothes." His voice was startlingly close, his breath hot on her cheek, and she tilted her head towards him, her nose only inches from his.

And this was the part where she should have laughed, made a joke, deflected the obvious tension. She'd been so good at it, once, but that was a long time ago, and she was out of practice.

Besides which, he was the one who'd started this. So she handed the soda back to him, instead, and, reaching behind her, unhooked the clasp of her skirt.

She didn't dare look up at him as she slid the zipper down, tugged the skirt over her hips, and let it fall to the floor. She stepped back, picked it up, and finally met his gaze as she reached for the soda.

To say that she was unprepared for what she found there would have been an understatement. She'd expected amusement, maybe, or disbelief; instead, all she saw was desire, naked in his eyes as he searched her face, glanced down at her bare legs.

"Donna -"

His voice was raw, almost breaking, and she sucked in a breath as he stepped forward, settled his hands on her hips. The club soda fell to the ground with a thump she barely heard, and the skirt slipped from her fingers as she reached a hand slowly up to his chest.

And then he was walking her backwards, his body pressed insistently against hers, her legs almost tangling in themselves as her back hit the wall. She barely had a second to register what was happening before his mouth descended on hers, soft and warm and demanding, and she stopped trying to make sense of it altogether.

She wasn't sure when he'd started pulling at her shirt, but he broke away long enough to pull it over her head, and she took the opportunity to tug one of his buttons open; then he was kissing her again, and she held onto just enough rational thought to finish the rest. She slid his shirt back off his shoulders, his hands leaving her waist for just a second, and then they were back, pressing firmly against her skin. And these were Josh's hands; hands that had held memos and folders, clutched telephone handsets and curled into fists with anger of joy, hands that were now sliding down, working their way under the elastic of her underwear -

She threw her head back, a half-stifled moan on her lips, and then cried out as the back of her head collided with the wall. Josh stepped back, looking at her in concern, and how he could look like that when one of his hands was still trapped inside her underwear -

"Are you okay?" he asked, his eyes dark with concern. "Do you need some ice? I can check -"

The absurdity of the situation was enough to make her laugh, wincing as her head hit the wall a second time.

"No," she said, and shook her head slowly, testing the pain, and if his hand had been a fraction of an inch lower, she was sure she wouldn't be feeling any at all. "I'm fine. I can -"

What? Continue? Everything's fine, nothing to see here. Please resume your regularly scheduled sexual encounter, and never mind the gushing head wound -

"I'm fine," she said again, and smiled, waiting until he did the same. She should have known this wouldn't go smoothly; she'd just never anticipated this particular brand of interruption. Her clumsiness seemed to be a theme, tonight.

"Yeah?" He ducked his head, his eyes still on her, and she nodded a little more eagerly than she'd intended. Then his hand was moving lower, his smile gone, and she forgot to worry about propriety or head injuries or whether the world would still be spinning when she woke up tomorrow. She bit her lip, unable to muffle the cry that came when his fingers slid forward, and she leaned back, letting his other hand on her back steady her as his fingers twisted, slid -

"Josh."

His name was guttural in the back of her throat, her voice ringing out low as he slid her over the edge, pulling her closer to him as her muscles clenched, her knees going weak. She closed her eyes for a second, thankful that he was holding her up; when she opened them, he was gazing at her, all the things neither of them had said written plainly in his expression.

Then his hand was slipping out of her underwear, settling on her hip as he leaned forward to kiss her; softer, this time, with none of the urgency he'd had before, then deepening into something she couldn't quite put a name to.

"You're beautiful," he said, and she almost didn't hear him, his voice soft in her ear. This time she kissed him; slowly, at first, and then faster, harder, drawing his body firm against hers as her hands wound themselves around the back of his neck.

When he stepped back, she was disappointed for a moment, before she realised that he was pulling her with him, drawing her towards the bed. He took a few steps, then spun her around, her knees hitting the edge of the mattress a moment before she fell backwards onto it; Josh followed a second later, the weight of his body pressing down on top of hers.

He leaned down, his lips feathering kisses along her collarbone as her hands fumbled to undo his pants. He reached down a hand to help her, the other still supporting herself, the kisses momentarily stalling as they worked in tandem to tug his pants down over his hips.

She moaned softly as he resumed his caress, his hand brushing the fabric over her nipple, kissing his way up her neck. He kissed her jaw, then the corner of her mouth, and she sat him up with a hand planted firmly to his chest; smiling a little, she reached back, unhooking her bra with one hand before tossing it over the side of the bed, pulling him back down on top of her.

Then his hands were on her again, running over her breasts, down her sides, between her legs. She had to keep saying his name over in her head; reminding herself that this was Josh, that it was Josh who was lying on top of her, Josh who was kissing her, Josh who was making her nerves stand on end and urging her to cry out as he slid a finger inside her. Once or twice, she was sure his name must have slipped past her lips, because he was pulling back, gazing down at her, studying her as if to reassure himself that, yes, this was real, that she was Donna, that this was really happening -

She had to bite back a cry of protest as he rolled away from her, fumbling in the nightstand. She watched as he removed his boxers, trying not to feel suddenly self-conscious, because this was Josh, she was laying on a bed all but completely naked in front of Josh; Josh, who'd had his fingers inside her a matter of moments before, who'd made her come up against the wall of his hotel room, who was about to -

And then he was back, laying a foil-wrapped packet beside her, his fingers tugging at the fabric of her underwear, and she raised her hips to allow him to tug them down. Her eyes stayed on his face as she heard the tearing of foil, caught his movements in the corner of her eye. Then he was on top of her again, hard against her thigh, and still, staring down at her, a question in his eyes, and she realised that this was it, this was Josh giving her a chance to say no, to tell him this wasn't what she wanted. She wanted to close her eyes, to look away, her thoughts whirring in a mixture of how on Earth did we get here? and how did it take us this long? - but then she looked up, saw everything reflected in his won eyes, saw Josh, and she cupped his chin, nodding wordlessly.

He didn't look away as he entered her, and she couldn't, half-believing that if she closed her eyes for even a second it wouldn't be Josh any more; that this, whatever it was, was so fragile, so impossible, like some spell she was still afraid of breaking.

And then he moved, his hips shifting as he thrust into her, and she forgot to think altogether. Her eyes closed reflexively, her back arching up, and she almost forgot to breathe until he touched her, his hand soft on her cheek.

"Donna," he said, and then, "Donnatella," and she moaned, his name falling from her lips. "Look at me," and she did, another cry of pleasure as her eyes closed again, something between Josh and yes and God as she came, forgetting everything except the heat of his body enveloping her.

She came back to Earth as he shuddered, his hands losing their purchase on her skin, and they lay, sweat-slicked and panting, for a moment before he rolled off her again, and she closed her eyes.

"Hey."

She looked up at the sound of his voice, at once familiar and like nothing she'd ever heard.

"Hey," she echoed, and smiled back as he grinned; not cocky, like she imagined he'd be, but sure, tender. And then his grin widened, and there it was; cockiness, satisfaction, but with something beneath it, like he was seeing her for the first time since she left. It was comforting, she realised with a start; she'd found something new since then, something important and good, but maybe there had been good parts of her she'd left behind, too.

"That was ..."

"Yeah." And she really didn't need to say anything more than that, didn't want to say anything more; instead, she laid a hand on his arm as she wriggled under the covers, watched his smile as he did the same, and grinned softly against his shoulder as she closed her eyes.

-

Her cell phone's ring tine, she decided, was obnoxious. It was too loud, for one thing, and definitely not what she wanted waking her up. Besides, anybody calling her at -

She looked at the clock. Six thirty-five. She blinked, trying to decide if her eyes were playing tricks on her, and redoubled her efforts as somebody shifted in the bed beside her.

"Morning." Josh sat up lazily, his cheeks dimpling as his eyes drifted across her bare shoulders, and she could feel herself blush even as she smiled in return, the events of the previous night rushing back over her in a flush of sex and alcohol and stained skirts.

"Morning," she said, sounding more confident than she felt, and she could have sworn that he was picturing her naked - why would he need to? - as his gaze moved lower, down to the thin sheet draped over her.

"Are you going to get that?"

"What?" And then she remembered, her cell phone still chirping somewhere in the centre of the room, and she sat up quickly, running to pull the phone out of her purse and hold it up to her ear.

"Hello?"

Will's voice; "Did I wake you?"

"What?" She was still fighting off the pull of sleep, and she blinked. "Yeah, sorry, I slept in. Where are you?"

"I'm outside your room. Where are you?"

At that, she cast a guilty glance back towards Josh, now sitting up fully. "I'm -"

"Never mind, I don't think I want to know. I was going to go over the latest polling data with you, but it can wait. I'll see you in the briefing room in half an hour?"

"I'll see you there." Half an hour; enough time to get back to her room, shower, put on some clean clothes.

Definitely not enough time for the way Josh was looking at her now, and it wasn't until she was halfway back to the bed that she realised she was naked.

"It's a good look on you," he said, cocky grin firmly in place. She resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him; it didn't seem fitting, somehow.

"I -" She paused as she cast about the room, eventually finding her discarded underwear. "I've got to go. I have a meeting -"

"Yeah." His voice was quieter now, the way she remembered it the past few months, and she frowned. It was like the campaign, the estrangement, everything, had vanished for a night, and now it was back, sitting heavy in the space between them.

"Josh," she said, and she really wished they didn't have to have this talk while she was trying to rehook her bra. "It's ... I don't want things to be like they were before."

For a minute, she thought he was going to argue with her; why not? Then his expression softened, and he grinned, leaning back against the headboard. "I can think of one thing that's changed."

"Hey!" But she was smiling, too, as she zipped up her skirt; too late for club soda, now. "I should ..."

"Go," he said, and his voice was soft, familiar. "We'll be in New York in a couple of weeks."

"Yeah." She pulled her shirt down over her head, bit her lip as she caught his appraising glance. On an impulse, she stepped forward, leaned over the bed, kissed him softly on the lips; he cupped her cheek gently, and the kiss deepened, until she was loathe to break it off. "So ..."

"I'll see you in a couple of weeks."

She nodded, not bothering to hide her smile.

Now, all she needed to do was get back to her room without being spotted, and she'd be home free.