TWW Ficlet: Busted

Fandom: The West Wing
Title: Busted
Rated: PG-13, language
Characters: Leo, Josh
Notes: Set waaaay pre-administration. Josh is 20, and he's home for
the holidays at a New Years party at his parents house. Leo's there
too.


[ b u s t e d ]
by kHo

"You don't smoke now, do you?"

I look up at him and wonder if his face has always been so weathered,
so worn. I think it has, for as long as I've known him anyway, but I
keep hearing my mother's voice in my head. 'Rehab', she'd said. 'Fell
down the hole', she'd said. 'Slow climbing, but he'll get there',
she'd said. "No, just sitting out here. Taking a breather, if you
don't mind the clich‚."

"Mmm," Leo hummed, tapping a cigarette out of a pack that was worn and
old and tattered, and sticking one in his mouth. "Don't tell Mal,
okay?"

I can't help but think I should. I can't help but think 'isn't that
just another addiction?' I smile though and nod my head. "Sure."

He smirks at me. That smirk that says 'I see right through you, ya
know.' "I'm not addicted Josh. It's one, maybe two a month. Really,
only at parties."

I nod. Because everyone has addictions, social lubricants they use at
parties. And his just got taken away from him. I fell a stab of hot
guilt as I look at the beer in my hand. "Okay."

He sits on the stoop next to me, his shoulder bumping mine, and grins
at me. It's amazing a man who has the capacity to make senators quake
in their Armani suits has a smile like that. "So. How's school?"

I shrug. It's school. It's college. It's brats, and trust fund babies,
and elitist assholes. It's classes and the library. "Good. Great."

His smile widens. "Okay."

I have to smile when he directs that thing at me, even when he's
calling me on my shit. It's an impossibility to not. "It's, you know...
College."

Leo nods, and his body leans into me slightly. I can smell his scent.
Nothing overpowering, just after-shave. Soap. Just Leo. "I see you
walking around the edges of this party, Josh, and I think to myself:
God. Me, I deserve to feel like that. He's just a kid."

It feels like a sock to the gut. Like he reached into me and squeezed
around my guts with a cold iron fist. The thing is, it's not the first
time, and he's good at it. He's also never wrong. Still, I try to
ignore it. "I don't know what you're talking about." I laugh and
realize immediately that, with a laugh like that, high and strained as
it was, it's no wonder he caught on so quickly.

He raises an eyebrow and just looks at me. "Yeah," he said, smiling
and laughing that laugh of his that lets me know he knows its
bullshit. "You do, and you know you do, Josh."

"I'm not..." I pause, thinking, my hand wavering through the air. I
realize belatedly that it's the hand with the beer in it and quickly
lower it. "I don't belong here. I have this test when I go back I
should be studying for."

Leo looks dubious. "You've probably already got it in the bag, Josh.
Don't worry about it."

"Yeah," I say, and suddenly the melancholia I've been feeling all
night is turning up the volume. The last thing I need to be right now,
in front of this man, is morose. After everything he's been through, I
don't have the right.

He laughs and I have no idea why. "You know, I understand why you'd
lie to me, Josh. But why your parents?"

I look at him, wide eyed. "I'm not lying."

He takes one more long pull on his cigarette and throws it away.
"Every time you don't tell them how miserable you are, you're lying."

There it is again. That blow straight to the gut. I can feel my hair
stand up on my arms and I raise the bottle of Budweiser to my lips. I
feel sick to my stomach, knowing that for some strange reason, this
time I want Leo to notice it. This time, I want it to hurt.
"Whatever."

He looking at me with those all knowing, all seeing eyes of his and
nods. "You do a good job. Got that cute little impish smile you've
perfected over the years. Most people don't notice. People generally
tend to not want to notice. Don't read behind the smile." He looks at
me and raises his eyebrows. "Don't look in the eyes and see it."

I can't. I can't do this. "Leo--"

"You're not happy at school," he says, and it's not a question. It's
rhetorical and it sounds like and admonishment. "What do you do for
fun? Where do you go to shoot pool? You still like pool, don't you?"

I shrug and try to hide the fact that it's hard to breathe right now. "Yeah."

"So when's the last time you played?"

I laugh. Or, at least, I try to laugh. "I'm busy, Leo. It's a tough school."

He sighs. "Josh."

I sigh too, because what else do I do? "What?"

He fingers the ends of his pants, charcoal gray with a slight tear at
the very bottom where you almost can't see it. "You know what Noah
thinks it is?"

I raise my eyebrows at that. He'd talking to Leo about this? He knows
about this? "Leo, really, I'm just busy. I'm not miserable, I'm just
busy."

He ignores me. Of course he does. He should. "He thinks you're
compensating for Joanie."

And well. There it is. I would walk away, but it's hard to stand when
you can't breathe. "What?" And that was pathetic, the strain in my
voice there. Pathetic.

"He thinks you think you have to be brilliant enough for yourself and
for Joanie. Because you think you're the reason she never got to go to
college."

"Jesus, Leo," I say, squeezing my eyes shut. Because it hurts to hear
that out loud. He's right, but God Leo. Could you be a little subtler?
Could you maybe pull a punch or two? "God."

Leo's arm comes around me, and actually it is kind of comforting,
because I know it's not pity. I'm no good at pity, because usually
it's false. Usually it's some jackass's idea of what he's supposed to
be doing. But Leo's no jackass, and this isn't pity. "You don't have
to be any more brilliant than you already are, Josh," he says in my
ear, his voice low and full of grit and gravel. "And Noah would tell
you that, except to tell you that he'd have to bring up Joanie. And
you learned your reticence to say things that'll hurt the people you
love no matter how much they need to be said from him. So." He smiles
down at me, I can tell. I don't have to see it to know. I can just
listen to the change in his voice. "Luckily I'm unencumbered by that
particular character flaw."

I go to take a deep breath because I'm over this. I'm done with it.
I'm moving on. I go to take a cleansing, deep breath and it turns on
me in the middle of it, leaving me with a sob instead. "It shoulda
been her," I say, unable to look at him and say this. Not wanting to
say it at all. "She shoulda been here. She should have gone to
college, studied in the library. Gotten the good grades. Went to a
frat party and gotten drunk and been stupid and been reckless and had
fun. She should have been sitting here on the stoop with me, bitching
about how fake these parties all are. How obviously miserable these
people are, with their million dollar bank accounts and empty souls."

"Yeah," Leo says, and I can tell by the wavering quality of his voice
that he's on the verge of tears too. Me, I can't stop them. They run
down my face like a fucking waterfall. "But she's not. And ain't
nothing gonna change that."

This time my deep breath actually is one, and I bury my head in my
hands, scrubbing violently at my tears. I feel the shame and
embarrassment filling me even though I know I don't need to be either
of those things around this man beside me. "I'm sorry," I say, shaking
my head and laughing. "I didn't mean to... I should have stopped at one
beer. I'm apparently a light weight."

Leo laughs and suddenly I feel like a dumb careless piece of shit.
"Don't," he says, because he always, always, fucking always, knows how
to read me. "Quit feeling like you need to alter your behavior to
accommodate mine. You're 20 years old Josh. Eat, drink, be merry!
Don't worry about me, I'll be fine."

I clear my throat and nod. "So... Dad knows?"

Leo nods. "Yeah. And don't be mad he told me, Josh. He was worried,
and he didn't know how to do it. He's a good man, your father."

I sigh. "Yeah. I can't believe he knows."

"Yeah," he said, laughing. "Busted, Josh."

I laugh, looking back up at him finally. "I thought I hid it well."

"You do," he says, his arm still around me, hand clamped firmly on my
shoulder. "We just know you, kiddo."

I nod. "Okay," I say, standing up and taking a deep breath. "So I
should...I mean... I have to..." I trail off because honestly? I have no
fucking clue what I feel I need to do.

He smiles. "You should go back in there and say Happy New Year and
mean it. And then you should go back to school and for God's sake,
Josh, enjoy yourself!" He pauses, frowning and pointing at me. "I
don't mean go overdoing it, Josh. I still expect good grades. Just...
enjoy yourself too."

I laugh. "Yeah."

He stands and clasps a hand to my arm. "And stop beating yourself up
so much, Josh. Go talk to your Dad."

I look at him and think to myself that I kind of already did. Smiling
I nod again. "Yeah. Okay."