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fic: if you're a seascape i'm a listing boat
Title: if you're a seascape i'm a listing boat
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters/Pairings: Sam/Ainsley
Rating: PG
Written for: comment fic-a-thon
It’s a flight from D.C. to L.A. and he’s just emerging from the cupboard of a bathroom. He can feel the thrum of the engines through the floor and thinks that he should be uneven on his feet, but his dad had taken him sailing before he could walk (“Boy was born with sea legs,” he would say approvingly, and all the betrayals in the world can’t take the pride out of that memory), and he hasn’t yet found a mode of transportation that makes him unsteady. Really, there’s something almost comforting about the tiger purr of an engine, even if he prefers wind as a propellant (there’s something cleaner about it, simpler. Beautiful, actually, but don’t tell Josh he said that).
It’s a baby’s sudden wail that causes him to glance over, and as he’s scanning the seats, he sees manicured fingernails against the pages of a copy of Cosmo, flipping idly through them with disinterested grace. He notices the hair next, of course, and though it’s covering her face completely from this angle, he knows it’s her. It couldn’t be anyone but (he’d know that hair anywhere).
He doesn’t even stop to consider, just makes his way down the aisle to her and she tosses the magazine aside with a roll of her eyes just as he reaches her shoulder.
She doesn’t look the slightest bit surprised to see him—but then, she never has. He’s seen her scream and toss a pink squirrel over her shoulder when meeting the president, heard about her walking into a closet, knows she would probably ramble in iambic pentameter if she ever came face to face with Margaret Thatcher, but he’s never been able to make her even slightly nervous. It’s hardly fair, not when she’s left him gobsmacked again and again since their very first meeting when she made him look like a fool on national television. He’d been left gaping and feeling like a schoolboy (Sam’s always felt like a little boy playing dress up anyways, never quite sure he belongs at the adult table but wanting to be there so badly that tries to hide his uncertainties in hopes that no one will notice he’s out of place and send him back to where he belongs). He could have hated her, maybe, if she’d been smug or exulting or even flirtatious about it, but that’s not Ainsley. Ainsley will hand his ass to him in a nice, neatly-wrapped package with a matter-of-factness that will leave with no choice but to openly admire her. He thinks that maybe he should resent how supremely comfortable she seems around him—think that maybe it signals that she doesn’t think him worth getting worked up over, but somehow he knows that’s not it, and instead he finds himself irrationally but secretly pleased that she accepts him as though his presence is the most natural thing in the world.
Which she does now. Not that she doesn’t look pleased to see him—her face splits into a smile, and he thinks for the thousandth time that she could have been one of those FOX news anchors—conservative women with beautiful faces fanning the flames of insanity—except that somehow even though she’s wrong about almost everything (politically at least: she’s always right, he remembers, about SEC football and the best place to buy cupcakes in the greater D.C. area), she never seems irrational or stupid or even hypocritical about it. Her point of view has always made perfect sense, and when she’s the one who’s doing the talking about the NRA or school vouchers, there are moments when he almost agrees with her. He has to jerk himself back from that ledge and remind himself that the world isn’t that way at all, but that’s the power of Ainsley Hayes. It’s why she’s going to win that North Carolina Representative position and why everyone in Santos’s White House is quivering in their boots about her—she’ll take the American political world by storm, no question.
More than ever, he’s convinced that President Bartlett was a genius—a woman like this is far, far too dangerous not to have on your own side (the earth trembles when she smiles).
Irrationally, he finds himself remembering her dancing around her office in a bathrobe and telling him she’s not a teetotaler, her (gorgeous, okay? He can admit it) hair swinging around behind her. Oh, yeah. Dangerous.
But right now she just looks happy. And comfortable. And completely not surprised.
“Hello, Sam,” she says, that grin still reaching all the way to her eyes.
“Hello, Ainsley,” he replies (and maybe this time he’ll trip over his own feet and stick his foot in his mouth and generally act like he’s still fourteen and all arms and legs, but maybe when he does she’ll just smile and he’ll forget that the ground is unsteady beneath his feet and find that he hasn’t lost his sea legs after all)."
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters/Pairings: Sam/Ainsley
Rating: PG
Written for: comment fic-a-thon
It’s a flight from D.C. to L.A. and he’s just emerging from the cupboard of a bathroom. He can feel the thrum of the engines through the floor and thinks that he should be uneven on his feet, but his dad had taken him sailing before he could walk (“Boy was born with sea legs,” he would say approvingly, and all the betrayals in the world can’t take the pride out of that memory), and he hasn’t yet found a mode of transportation that makes him unsteady. Really, there’s something almost comforting about the tiger purr of an engine, even if he prefers wind as a propellant (there’s something cleaner about it, simpler. Beautiful, actually, but don’t tell Josh he said that).
It’s a baby’s sudden wail that causes him to glance over, and as he’s scanning the seats, he sees manicured fingernails against the pages of a copy of Cosmo, flipping idly through them with disinterested grace. He notices the hair next, of course, and though it’s covering her face completely from this angle, he knows it’s her. It couldn’t be anyone but (he’d know that hair anywhere).
He doesn’t even stop to consider, just makes his way down the aisle to her and she tosses the magazine aside with a roll of her eyes just as he reaches her shoulder.
She doesn’t look the slightest bit surprised to see him—but then, she never has. He’s seen her scream and toss a pink squirrel over her shoulder when meeting the president, heard about her walking into a closet, knows she would probably ramble in iambic pentameter if she ever came face to face with Margaret Thatcher, but he’s never been able to make her even slightly nervous. It’s hardly fair, not when she’s left him gobsmacked again and again since their very first meeting when she made him look like a fool on national television. He’d been left gaping and feeling like a schoolboy (Sam’s always felt like a little boy playing dress up anyways, never quite sure he belongs at the adult table but wanting to be there so badly that tries to hide his uncertainties in hopes that no one will notice he’s out of place and send him back to where he belongs). He could have hated her, maybe, if she’d been smug or exulting or even flirtatious about it, but that’s not Ainsley. Ainsley will hand his ass to him in a nice, neatly-wrapped package with a matter-of-factness that will leave with no choice but to openly admire her. He thinks that maybe he should resent how supremely comfortable she seems around him—think that maybe it signals that she doesn’t think him worth getting worked up over, but somehow he knows that’s not it, and instead he finds himself irrationally but secretly pleased that she accepts him as though his presence is the most natural thing in the world.
Which she does now. Not that she doesn’t look pleased to see him—her face splits into a smile, and he thinks for the thousandth time that she could have been one of those FOX news anchors—conservative women with beautiful faces fanning the flames of insanity—except that somehow even though she’s wrong about almost everything (politically at least: she’s always right, he remembers, about SEC football and the best place to buy cupcakes in the greater D.C. area), she never seems irrational or stupid or even hypocritical about it. Her point of view has always made perfect sense, and when she’s the one who’s doing the talking about the NRA or school vouchers, there are moments when he almost agrees with her. He has to jerk himself back from that ledge and remind himself that the world isn’t that way at all, but that’s the power of Ainsley Hayes. It’s why she’s going to win that North Carolina Representative position and why everyone in Santos’s White House is quivering in their boots about her—she’ll take the American political world by storm, no question.
More than ever, he’s convinced that President Bartlett was a genius—a woman like this is far, far too dangerous not to have on your own side (the earth trembles when she smiles).
Irrationally, he finds himself remembering her dancing around her office in a bathrobe and telling him she’s not a teetotaler, her (gorgeous, okay? He can admit it) hair swinging around behind her. Oh, yeah. Dangerous.
But right now she just looks happy. And comfortable. And completely not surprised.
“Hello, Sam,” she says, that grin still reaching all the way to her eyes.
“Hello, Ainsley,” he replies (and maybe this time he’ll trip over his own feet and stick his foot in his mouth and generally act like he’s still fourteen and all arms and legs, but maybe when he does she’ll just smile and he’ll forget that the ground is unsteady beneath his feet and find that he hasn’t lost his sea legs after all)."
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CAPSLOCK FLAIL COMING UP.
SO MUCH LOVE FOR THIS. ♥ TIMES A MILLION.
Boy was born with sea legs,” he would say approvingly, and all the betrayals in the world can’t take the pride out of that memory
YES. THIS DEFINES SAM SO MUCH AND SAYS SO MUCH ABOUT HIM IN ONE MEMORY/ONE SENTENCE.
Ainsley will hand his ass to him in a nice, neatly-wrapped package with a matter-of-factness that will leave with no choice but to openly admire her.
Oh yes she will! That's Ainsley and Southern Women all rolled up together.
her face splits into a smile, and he thinks for the thousandth time that she could have been one of those FOX news anchors—conservative women with beautiful faces fanning the flames of insanity
Gorgeous line. I love this. So evocative and poignant and beautiful.
He has to jerk himself back from that ledge and remind himself that the world isn’t that way at all, but that’s the power of Ainsley Hayes. It’s why she’s going to win that North Carolina Representative position and why everyone in Santos’s White House is quivering in their boots about her—she’ll take the American political world by storm, no question.
YES. YES. YES. A thousand times.
the earth trembles when she smiles
I love this too much.
SERIOUSLY. THANK YOU SO MUCH.
AND YOU HAVE TO WRITE THEM MORE OFTEN.
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I stared at the prompt for a long time thinking, "I know nothing about Cosmo magazine. How can I write this?" and then I just sort of made it very peripheral, because I didn't know what else to do.
YAY!
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You know, sometimes I think that works so much better than being so literal and narrow with the prompt.
YAY INDEED!!! \O/
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Thank you! So glad you liked it!
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And he's just so kind and mischievous and smart.
Sam Seaborne. I love him.
Have you finished all of TWW? I can't remember if you've watched the later seasons yet.
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Ainsley will hand his ass to him in a nice, neatly-wrapped package with a matter-of-factness that will leave with no choice but to openly admire her.
Yep!
Sam’s always felt like a little boy playing dress up anyways, never quite sure he belongs at the adult table but wanting to be there so badly that tries to hide his uncertainties in hopes that no one will notice he’s out of place and send him back to where he belongs
Very much so, I think.
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knows she would probably ramble in iambic pentameter if she ever came face to face with Margaret Thatcher
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I love your characterization of Sam. It's so perfect and the way you describe Ainsley through his eyes is perfection.
One of my favorite details though was how you neatly slipped in that Ainsley's reading Cosmo because it's the only reading material available and she tosses it aside with a roll of her eyes. I'm sure she read something ludicrous that makes her want to write a letter to the editor, but she's immediately distracted by Sam and moves on to something far more delightful: flustering Sam Seaborne.
God, I adore them. Aren't they the best? Pure chemistry.