Fandom:

The West Wing AU

Pairing:

C.J./Danny

Rating:

PG-13 for topic

Distribution:

How much do I owe you for hauling it off?

Spoilers:

Up to and including Full Disclosure, from which the series follows on

Email:

exfilia at livejournal dot com

Disclaimer:

if I owned them, they'd have a lot more fun

Warning:

mentions nonconsensual sex

Note:

Hoynes lovers should probably be hitting delete right about now.

Abbey stepped into her darkened office for a moment, and found Danny sitting at his desk unbending paper clips and twisting them into spirals.

"What are you doing here," she asked, "and have you heard Bostitch on the Hoynes suicide? He thinks it's divine judgement."

"It wasn't suicide," he whispered, and straigtened another of the wire clips. Abbey went and sat on his desk.

"They didn't let you into another crime scene?" she said.

"They didn't, but a woman I know on the city beat got a copy of the autopsy report. He was strangled and then strung up."

"You don't sound all that distressed."

"He raped my wife. I think they strung him up by the wrong body part, and he should have been alive to feel the pinch of the piano wire, which is what I'm doing in the office. C.J.'s a little less bloody-minded than I am, and Leo's really freaked, and I was getting on their nerves."

"Leo is way past freaked. He and Jed talked some during the debate, and then BAM! Hoynes is dead."

"That doesn't make sense," said Danny.

"Don't you? Leo loves Jed, and keeps it a guilty secret, and Jed gets multiple sclerosis. Leo has comfort sex with the vice president, and Hoynes turns around and seduces Mallory. Leo... falls asleep beside my husband, and somebody takes a potshot at their surrogate daughter. We keep asking him how any of this could be cause and effect, but his brain's just stopped working."

"Ask him why it's a problem if it is his fault. About Hoynes, I mean."

"I don't think that would be all that helpful."

"Whoever killed that man should get a medal. Want me to start the paperwork?"

"Leo's not the only one who's freaked, you know."

"Ranting and raving is my stress response. Sorry."

"That's not all that unhealthy, as long as you do it in here. Where are your kids?"

"Home with the nanny. Katie starts occupational therapy tomorrow. Not even two years old, and she gets occupational therapy."

"That's just what they call fine motor work. They'll have her mangling office supplies in no time."

Danny tossed away a paper clip bent into the shape of a face.

"I had this picture of her flipping burgers in McDonald's with an apron over her diaper," he said, "and you had to go and spoil it."

"Sorry. Does she get along with Claudie?"

"As well as babies do."

"You going to be all right?"

"Me? Yeah, I'm fine. Go work on Leo."

"There's not a lot I can do for Leo," she sighed.

"You might be surprised."

"...despair and suicide," Bostitch told the reporter, "that are the natural end of the road of moral lapse that is the Democrat lifestyle."

"We have a lifestyle?" asked Josh.

"I do," C.J. said. "I wasn't trying to make it was an official party thing, though."

"Who writes this stuff?" said Toby.

"The only way," Bostitch continued, "that we will ever free this country from this continuing series of ethical outrages is to elect a president who understands God's plan for mankind."

Toby threw his clipboard on the Leo's sofa.

"This guy isn't just a Republican," he said, "he's flat out crazy!"

"That's good for us," said C.J., patting his shoulder.

"He's a flake!"

"And nobody will vote for a flake."

The door from the Oval Office opened.

"Keep it down a little, will you?" asked the president. "I just got him...."

"What's he saying?" said Leo, peering over the Bartlet's shoulder.

"Just verbal diarrhea," said Josh.

"Ammunition," C.J. corrected him. "Lots and lots of first-rate ammunition."