Sam’s Mid-Life Crisis
by
ELG

Title: Sam’s Mid-Life Crisis
Author: ELG
Fandom: The West Wing
Category: Pre-slash, Sam/Josh.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Pre-Slash
Spoilers: References to events in On this Sabbath Day, In the Shadow of Two Gunmen, & 100,000 Airplanes.
Season: Any season before S4 Summary: Sam has a mid-life crisis. Josh tries to help.
Characters: Sam Seaborn, Josh Lyman.

Josh had been watching Sam for nearly an hour now and all he was doing was sitting there, in his office, staring into space. Josh timed him. Still sitting. Still staring. And yes, it was coming up for an hour now.

Josh tapped on the door. "What'cha doing?"

Sam blinked and then slowly came back from wherever he had been in his head to focus on Josh. In a wondering tone he said: "I think I'm having a mid-life crisis."

Josh considered the point and then nodded. "Let's go to lunch."

Instead of the usual visit to Capital Grill on Capitol Hill, he took Sam to a new restaurant designed for clandestine assignments, where one ate in booths like a diner, yet the food was magnificent and the wine so expensive it made even Josh pause and think about ordering a half bottle. Only think about it, obviously, but he did pause before nodding and accepting the wine waiter's recommendation. Sam was still looking dazed and confused and Josh waited until the waiter had brought their starters and placed them in front of them before saying: "Okay, explain?"

Sam explained. It took him a few starts to get going but then he did, and almost immediately Josh kind of wished he hadn't.

"I started thinking about all the roads not taken. All the lives I could be living. What I'd be doing and what kind of man I'd be if I'd say - married Miranda."

"Miranda?" Josh gazed at him levelly. "That girl you dated for three weeks in high school before her father threatened to castrate you with a pair of garden shears?"

"Yes." Sam didn't seem to notice the tone of incredulity at all, still dreamy and slightly removed. "I pictured our lives in a big house with a yard and two children; she was wearing a cotton summer dress and the kids were about ten and eight years old. The girl was the youngest. I was smiling at them from my study as they went off to the kitchen to do baking."

"You and Miranda couldn't hold a conversation that lasted longer than ten minutes, remember? You dated each other because you both thought the other one would look good naked. You made out in the back seat of her father's car and he caught you and told you he'd kill you if he ever saw you near his daughter again. Also, there was a - what you considered very real - threat of castration. Remember?"

Sam still looked dreamy. "He'd come round - in the fantasy. He was very fond of his grandchildren. He and I laughed about the back seat of the Buick thing."

Josh rolled his eyes. "Okay, what other roads were not taken?"

"Well, Lisa." Sam sighed and dug into his melon as if slightly surprised to find it in front of him. "I thought about how our lives would have gone, of course."

"Of course." Josh knew he should really be more amused by this little exercise, or at least slightly amused. He should definitely be some degree of amused. It was harmless, Sam thinking about other possibilities. Josh thought about other possibilities himself sometimes. But this wasn't amusing him. At all. It was just making him increasingly irritable and somehow…depressed. He let Sam drone on about the loft apartment they would have had, and the parties they would have been attending and how in this version of events Lisa was pleased that he had left Gage Witney and approved of him supporting a candidate that most people considered unelectable.

"And did she like you in this fantasy?" Josh demanded. "As opposed to treating you like this burden she had to carry who, selfishly, after working sixteen hours straight on a legal case, would want to crawl into bed with some paperwork instead of going with her to wherever the happening people were…happening?"

Sam swallowed the last of his melon. "Well, yes, Josh. It was a fantasy where we made it work, where we both made a few compromises and…"

"But the only way to have made it work between you and Lisa would have been if you had made all the compromises all the time!" Josh suddenly realized why he was so angry about this part of the discussion. Because he was the one who had taken Sam away from this particular road. He was the one who had encouraged Sam to do something that he knew Lisa would hate, and the idea of doing it had come to him right after Sam had told him that he and Lisa were engaged. And it didn't mean it wasn't the right thing; of course Sam was better off working for the President than being married to Lisa Sherbourne, and Josh had not lured him away from Gage Witney to break up that relationship, but he had thought that it would be a very bad idea for Sam to marry someone who didn't ever seem to show him any affection, respect or kindness, and he did think that Bartlet was something special and that getting him elected was something he and Sam could do together and do well. He did not want to hear that Sam would have been better off married to Lisa or that Josh was in any way to blame for making Sam's life less happy. Even if Sam didn't have a wife or kids now even though Sam had always loved kids and would have made a great father. Marrying Lisa was still too high a price to pay.

Sam said quietly: "It was just considering what might have been, Josh. I'm not saying those roads were better. I'm just saying they were the ones I didn't take and I was trying to imagine how things would have gone if I had."

"You would have been miserable," Josh insisted. "Incredibly miserable. And I would have had to come along in the middle of the night, and climb the fire escape to your oh so trendy loft apartment, and rescue you from Lisa."

Grinning, Sam tackled his next course with more gusto. "That's how you see yourself? Prince Charming rescuing me from the big bad society girl?"

"Yes, and her crappy trendy annoying friends. None of whom liked you if you remember?"

Sam paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. "Well, they thought Lisa was slumming."

"You were the one who was slumming." He hadn't meant it to come out quite so passionately. It would have worked better as a joke.

"Why do you mind that her friends didn't like me?"

"Because there are no good reasons for not liking you, Sam. There are good reasons for being exasperated by you sometimes, or downright annoyed by you, or for wanting to throw you through a plate glass window from time to time - especially if your name is Toby Ziegler - but there are no good reasons for not liking someone who always tries to do what's best for the greater good even if he does screw up from time to time; there are only shallow reasons and bitchy reasons and downright unpleasant reasons."

Sam considered the point for a moment. "So, anyone who doesn't like me is basically…evil?"

Josh could smile now, getting the rhythm of the conversation back. "In essence - yes."

"That's good to know." Sam tucked into his steak, giving Josh one of those cute little grins as he did so. "Underneath the apparent normality, you're quite a strange and interesting person, aren't you?"

"It's part of my charm," Josh assured him, also picking up his knife and fork. He had a mouthful of devilled fillet of gurnard in his mouth when he asked casually: "So, was that it with the roads not taken?"

"No, I thought about what it might have been like if I were gay too," Sam said casually.

Josh almost choked on his gurnard, and had to wash the mouthful down with gulps of that very expensive wine, which the wine waiter, ever vigilant, hurried to replenish in his glass. At this rate this would be a two bottle lunch and Josh would be in a delicate condition for the rest of the day.

"You what…? You thought what…?"

Sam gazed at him in mild concern. "Well, it's another possible way my life could have gone, isn't it?"

Josh stared at him in disbelief. "Did you think about it…vaguely or specifically…?"

"I tried to be very specific. I thought I should try it out in my head and see how I felt about it."

"Did you have someone in mind…?" Even as he asked it, he was worried Sam was going to say it was him, Josh Lyman, that Sam had imagined being with. People had sometimes made that assumption when they turned up at functions together. Lisa had told Sam she would have asked him out earlier if she hadn't been told he was Josh Lyman's boyfriend. But it was still going to be awkward thinking about Sam thinking about him…like that.

"Bobby Zane."

Josh stared at him blankly as Sam took another bite of steak and chewed it carefully.

"This is really good steak." Sam reached for the wine glass and savoured a sip. "And this is an incredible wine. I really appreciate you taking me out to lunch today, Josh, I hadn't realized how much I…"

" Bobby Zane? The guy who used to beat you up in high school?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Sam looked confused by his irritation. "He's the only guy I know well who's gay."

"Bobby Zane is gay?"

"Well, someone told me he was."

"Who told you?"

"I don't remember. Is it important?"

"I don't think he's gay." Josh began to dismember his tomato and mint salad with unnecessary force. "I've never heard that he's gay. I've heard that he used to beat you every single day though."

"We were different people then. I've met him since. He's very committed to what he does. He's a good lawyer. Maybe he's not gay but I thought he was, so that's the guy I used. I thought it would be kind of…iffy using someone in my head who isn't gay. Not that I'm saying Bobby Zane would be attracted to me anyway, but I thought it was better to use someone that I know who I thought is gay."

"Of course he'd be attracted to you," Josh said tersely. "Why do you suppose he used to beat you up in high school? That's what guys do to guys they find attractive. With girls you pull their hair. With guys you shove them up against a wall and take their lunch money."

Sam looked mildly alarmed. "Lots of people used to beat me up in school."

Josh just looked at him. "You know, only my degree from Harvard is preventing me from using the phrase 'Well, d'uh' right now."

That was the look of mild reproach and slight confusion. Josh knew that one of old. He sighed. He definitely wished he'd never waded into this conversation in the first place now but it was too far to get to the near shore so he might as well strike out for that far bank. Perhaps it was closer than he thought and this would soon be over and they could go back to choosing something for their dessert.

"When you were thinking about the road not taken with you and - Bobby Zane - what did you think?"

"I think I covered everything." Sam had returned to his steak with no lessening of gusto. "Prejudice, possible discrimination, insurance problems, whether or not to come out or keep it a secret. I still haven't decided on that yet. Do you think I would tell people or not?"

Josh hesitated. "I don't know. My first impulse is to say that you are incapable of keeping your mouth shut about anything that you think is an ethical issue for five consecutive minutes, but you're very loyal to the President and I don't think you would do or say anything that you thought might harm his administration or put your friends in the firing line. I could imagine you keeping it quiet if you felt it was to the benefit of other people to do so, but I think it would wear you down in the end."

Sam looked at him gratefully and with that steady admiration that Josh had never, not for one second, in all these years of friendship, failed to be warmed by or to ever feel like taking for granted. "Thank you."

"For what?" Josh asked gently, even though he knew.

"For thinking about it, for taking it seriously, for giving that answer. For not telling me to shut up."

"Have I ever told you to shut up?" Josh asked. "Do I look like Toby? I don't treat you like that."

"No, you don't."

"I may occasionally suggest you don't mention something. I may occasionally leave you out of the loop a little until I can catch my breath for long enough to know how I'm going to have to sell something unpalatable to you while knowing that you're going to be disappointed with me…I would never tell you to shut up."

Another look from Sam as if Josh was the greatest guy that had ever lived. Sam had always done that. It occurred to Josh that if Sam had taken the path that led to Bobby Zane then it would be Bobby Zane that Sam would be looking at like that. He had rarely hated an idea so much. Wanting to nip in the bud any possibility of Sam backtracking to take that road after all, Josh pressed on:

"You do know that as well as the medical and the health insurance and the prejudice problems you'd have to have sex as well, right? You can't just announce you're gay and live with a guy and pretend for the cameras. You do actually have to do gay stuff in the bedroom."

"I know." Sam was resolutely unflummoxed, nodding as he ate. "I thought about it."

"You did?"

"Really?"

"Yes."

"With Bobby Zane?"

"Yes."

"You and Bobby Zane naked in a bedroom doing…stuff?"

"Yes." Sam sighed in mild impatience. "I thought about it properly."

Josh considered the point for a moment, still suspecting that Sam had probably skipped over the surface before getting back to the moral issues. "So, who was on top?"

Sam took a steadying breath. "He was."

"All the time?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Sam sighed and met his gaze. "Because I was trying to imagine being gay. I don't know if it counts if you do it the other way. It's like oral sex. Having a guy do…that for you, is it really that different from a woman doing it? But if you're doing it for him, it's completely different. I didn't think I would be properly gay unless I was imagining it with me…you know."

"All the time?"

"Otherwise how would I know I was really gay? I might just be enjoying not having to decipher the complexities of the female thought process while having pretty much the same kind of sex. I could still be heterosexual really, but just very, very lazy. So, I thought through what it would be like and what I would have to do and it was okay. I was okay with that and I decided that in my fantasy I would enjoy it."

Josh thought about Sam having sex with Bobby Zane. Bobby Zane's dick in Sam Seaborn's mouth. Bobby Zane's dick in Sam's Seaborn's… Josh growled.

Sam looked at him in shock. "What?"

"So, how was this going to work if you were the one doing the going down and the…bending over? I mean, if you do the one for him, what happens next?"

"I suppose you do the one and then the…other."

"And he obligingly has another erection straight away?"

Sam obviously hadn't considered that fully. "Well, then you do the oral thing in the morning and the other thing at night. I don't know. I hadn't really thought that through. I just assumed if you were in a relationship with a guy that you would be expected to have more sex than with a woman."

"Why?"

"Because we want more sex than them, don't we? I mean, isn't the reason we have dates with women because they won't just have sex without food or…movies or intelligent conversation or whatever…?"

"You've never had a woman just want you right now with no preliminaries?"

Sam blinked. "Well…yes. Lisa always wanted to… And Karin, and actually Veronica and also Megan and Laurie, of course… But you have to concede that my theory is sound."

"I'm just wondering what this guy in your life is doing to earn all this great sex he's getting, that's all - if he's not expected to buy you dinner, or take you to a movie, or have intelligent conversation with you, and you're there to satisfy his every sexual need whenever he wants it. I don't think that can actually be the way it is or else every guy would be gay. I mean where would be the incentive to be straight?"

"Well…" Sam frowned. "I just thought…"

"Not to mention, how do you know he's really gay? I mean, according to you, he's not really having gay sex, he's pretty much having the same sex as before. He gets his dick sucked and then he gets to put it somewhere warm and jiggle it around. How would you know, in this scenario, that he wasn't just taking a few months out from being heterosexual and was going to dump you as soon as some girl came along who would do what you're doing for him and give him kids."

Sam looked upset and then reproachful. "It wasn't like that in my fantasy. We were happy."

"Well, I bet he was. Why wouldn't he be? He's got the guy he used to beat up in high school taking it up the…you know from him every night and a blow job every morning. You are not taking that road, by the way."

"Well, I didn't." Sam gazed at him in confusion. "That was the whole point - that they were the roads I didn't take."

"I'm just saying. That's not a road you're allowed to take."

"Being gay?" Sam's blue eyes flashed a warning if Josh even thought about being that much of an asshole.

"Being with a guy who used to beat you up in high school and who you can't trust not to run off with some blonde. If you want to be with a guy you need to be with someone else."

"But I don't want to be with a guy," Sam protested. "I just wondered what it would be like if I was. I was just running through possibilities and…"

"Use me, next time."

Sam looked at him in non-comprehension. "What?"

Josh rolled his eyes and leaned forward to say clearly: "Next time you want to fantasize about what it would be like if you had turned out to be gay, imagine that you're with me. I give you permission. We know each other much better than you know Bobby Zane, so you could think it through a lot more, and we would both be working in the same place, and I just think it would be a sounder foundation for thinking about how your life would have gone if you were gay, that's all I'm saying."

"But you're not gay."

"Well, neither are you. The whole point is that it's the road not taken, right? So, imagine it's a road we both took together. Okay?"

Sam seemed to get belatedly that Josh was waiting for an answer. "Okay. Um - thanks."

Josh went back to his food. "I just don't like the idea of you running around in your head with guys you hardly know, giving them blow jobs - especially guys that used to beat you up in school. Just - imagine it with me. And we don't need that much sex. I'm not saying there wouldn't be sex. Of course there would be sex. But it doesn't need to be every morning or every night, it just needs to be when the time is right and you're in the mood and I'm in the mood and we're not too tired and you don't have a speech you should be writing. Because that's another thing - would Bobby Zane even get that sometimes you have speeches you have to write and they're important and you're tired? Much too tired to be having sex with him just because he's a guy and he thinks he's entitled."

Sam looked at Josh in mild concern. "I think you're taking this a little too seriously."

"Hey, it's your mid-life crisis. I'm just saying you should practice safe sex."

"In my head? You do get that this is all in my head?"

"I'm just saying - next time you do this, imagine it was me you moved in with. No one else."

"We're moving in now?"

"What were you doing with Bobby Zane?"

"Well, yes, I was living with him, but we'd known each other since High School. This seems sudden."

"You and I have known each other since college. There's nothing sudden about it. We have a lot more in common than you and Bobby Zane. And it should be me you're moving in with. Okay?"

Sam frowned but nodded. "Okay."

"I'm serious."

"Okay."

"I'll know if you think about someone else."

"I won't think about anyone else. I'll definitely have sex with you next time and not Bobby." Sam looked up to find the waiter in the process of refilling his glass and gave him a sickly smile. "We're just…" He moistened his lips. "You don't actually care what we're talking about, do you? And it would probably be slightly less embarrassing if I shut up now." He did so and the waiter withdrew. Sam winced and gave Josh a look of apology. "Sorry. I hope that's not all over the front page of the Enquirer tomorrow or you and Bobby will have to toss a coin to see who gets to beat me up first."

"Don't joke about that," Josh said shortly. "I'm not him and I would never hit you. Ever."

"Josh, it was a joke. Lighten up."

"It's not a joke to me. I don't hit you. I have never hit you. I have never wanted to hit you. I have never thought about hitting you. There is nothing that you could do that would ever make me hit you."

Sam looked at him wide-eyed. "Are you angry with me?"

"A little," Josh conceded.

"Why?"

Josh picked up his fork once more. "I just don't get why you thought of Bobby Zane. I don't understand that. People have been saying for years that you and I are… You don't even know the guy."

"I haven't seen Miranda in eighteen years, why are you so angry about me choosing Bobby Zane?"

"Because it should have been me."

Sam rolled his eyes. "I felt it would be… I just thought you wouldn't like it. I thought it would be wrong to do that because of our friendship. It was just an exercise."

"Well, I mind that you didn't choose me. Okay? I'll probably get over it in time, but right now, I mind."

"I'm sorry."

"Okay."

"I'm really sorry. If I'd known you would mind I would have chosen you. I just thought I might want to talk to you about it and that you would find it really weird if I said that I'd been imagining you and I…"

"I don't get how you can imagine doing that with a guy you barely know rather than someone who is your best friend."

"I thought he was gay."

"It was a fantasy, you can have anyone you want doing anything they like and you choose him. Did you have a crush on him at high school?"

"No." Sam considered the point and then gave Josh a look of exasperation. "No, I really didn't."

"I don't mind if you had a crush. It would make sense that you chose him if you had a crush. I just want to know."

"I didn't have a crush. I chose him because I thought he was gay and he was someone I knew. That's all."

"Okay." Josh finished his cannelloni. "You know, there were guys at Harvard who had a crush on me. There was a kid called Peter something, who was really kind of smitten."

"I believe you," Sam said in some confusion.

"I'm just saying I don't think it's so totally out there that I could be fantasy material, that's all."

"I promise next time I do this exercise - which will be never by the way - I'll imagine that I took the road with you."

There was sincerity in Sam's tone despite the exasperation and Josh looked up at him, the blue eyes fixed on him under their thick shelter of lashes. Sam's face so familiar he was almost family. He'd sometimes thought that was how he thought of Sam, that maddeningly smart kid brother it was his job to keep out of trouble and help become the best that he could be. Now he found himself thinking that it wasn't quite like that between them; not quite as safe and fraternal after all. A guy might mind his kid brother having sex with another guy; it might make him uncomfortable and uneasy; it shouldn't make him jealous.

"Okay," he said again, finding a smile now to let Sam know that this was just a joke they were having, just something silly, a bit of lateral thinking.

Sam gazed at him for a moment longer, half-smiling yet his eyes were almost questioning for all the fondness. "I promise."

"Okay then." Josh reached across and briefly clasped Sam's hand in his, warm skin, slightly callused on the middle finger from holding a pen for all those hours. He met Sam's gaze, smiling, but his eyes letting him know that he was sincere, that this mattered, for some reason this mattered a great deal. "Just make sure you do."

They were still holding hands when the waiter brought the dessert menu; Josh had to reluctantly untangle his fingers from Sam's but he liked the smile Sam gave him when the waiter had gone with their orders, rueful and amused at once. Josh grinned back; both of them on the same page; both of them thinking it was funny someone else would now be making that mistake about them and their relationship, the way so many people had over the years, yet kind of glad that it kept happening all the same.

The End

Disclaimer: Neither SG1, SGC, nor for that matter SG-anything are mine. We all know who they belong to. I've just borrowed them, cleaned them afterwards and left them (sort of) 'as were'. Written for no money, only love, with no intention to infringe on any copyright, purely for entertainment. Please don't archive without my permission.