"Sir," Josh said, narrowing his eyes through the rain mist to make out the tops of tents and shadowy figures of people creeping across sodden grass.
"Yes, Joshua," Senator Nox answered, paging through iteration seven thousand of the budget that they'd received in the last three weeks. The interns had a running bet as to how many pieces of paper would ultimately be wasted in frivolous pursuit before they gave up on fiscal responsibility and rubber-stamped something out of sheer frustration.
Josh turned away from the window to glance warily at Nox. "I was told your alma mater was the Ivy of the South."
Nox cocked one eyebrow. "It is," he said mildly.
"I was just checking," Josh said, "because it looks kind of like a refugee camp out there."
"It doesn't look like a refugee camp," Nox argued.
Josh looked out the window again: the rain, the clusters of tents and bedraggled students, the multicolored umbrellas all over the grass and abandoned lawn chairs, collecting rainwater and crumbling leaves. There was a collected sort of wretchedness to the scene.
"It looks like a refugee camp," Josh told him flatly.
"Krzyzewskiville is a hallowed tradition of Tobacco Road and this is a character building exercise indigenous to the students of this great university," the senator told him easily, peering at him over a stack of annotated pages.
"Does character-building in the South always include contracting consumption?" Josh asked, too-innocently.
"Contracting consumption in the pursuit of tickets for the Duke-UNC game is well within reason for most people who live in the Southeastern United States," Nox answered smoothly, winding around the scattered security and skeleton-crew Nox had brought along to North Carolina and his press junket from hell.
"I'm going to assume that you don't understand that today you're entering the holiest of holies of college--for all--sports, and--" he gave Josh a disapproving glare "--I'm revolted on behalf of all the students who are out there waiting for last-minute tickets while you ask what the orange ball is."
"I know what the orange ball is," Josh protested. "I even know that it has lines on it."
Nox didn't lift his head from the papers, just wound closer and closer to the crowd of players' parents and alums waiting to be ushered into stadium. "Do you know that it's supposed to go into the hoop?" Nox asked.
"I am aware that the orange ball is supposed to into the hoop," Josh sighed.
"And that said hoop is attached to a backboard? And that there are men in shorts that run around a very shiny court that shape the destiny of the universe?" Nox continued.
Josh avoided a large, intimidating crowd of men he knew made their life's work selling cigarettes to teenagers to fall back into step, glancing uncertainly out of the window again at the enormous ESPN tent and the remaining students staring hopefully at Cameron.
"How long have they been out there?" Josh asked.
Nox followed Josh's gaze. "Probably since January."
"Are you aware that there's something more than slightly deranged about this practice, right, Senator?" Josh said.
"The fact that you're casting aspersions when we're in basketball mecca just proves that you're a heathen of nearly unparalleled caliber, Josh," Nox said, shaking hands with somebody wearing a Duke tie. "And I am disappointed in myself for having hired you without realizing that you're not qualified for the job. Tell Leo McGarry I'll carry this wrong against me to the grave."
"Of course, sir," Josh said lightly, and still squinting out the window at the last crowds, starting to take down their tents and fold up their lawn chairs. He said, "Hey--is it normal for them to be passed out face down, too?"
It turns out that the dark-haired guy on the lawn isn't exactly passed out face down in the grass, but he's pretty close--saved from taking a dirt nap only by a copy of a legal dictionary that's beyond saving, stained green and brown from mud with pages ripped and smeared with plant matter that Josh doesn't even want to think about.
There'd been a brief but spirited debate between Josh, the two interns from North Carolina, and one of the aids until he'd strong-armed the blond one into going out in the inclement weather, and then there was another fight about whether or not they'd be subject to legal liability if they moved the guy.
"I'm a lawyer--we'll be fine," Josh insisted, and the blond had given him doubtful looks that all but screamed of Josh's having bypassed taking the bar exam.
"You know that when we end up in court for causing him permanent spinal damage or having lost all of his tenting materials or something," the blond intern said, "we're blaming it on you."
Josh glared at him and reached for the guy on the ground, tugging him up as gently as was possible when there was no cooperation. "Whatever happened to being a good Samaritan?"
Scowling, the intern--one of a thousand mouthy policy majors--said, taking the other arm, "It went down the pipes with our ever more litigious society."
Josh rolled his eyes and hefted the man's dead weight up on his shoulder. The guy was pale and too-light despite how water-logged his clothes were, near-dripping from the rain.
"It's really comforting to see the future leaders of our country so firmly ensconced in total cowardice already," he said darkly, reaching over to smooth the man's dark bangs off of his forehead--too hot to the touch, Josh could tell already, frowning, his cheeks too flushed for how cold his hands were. "Okay--he's definitely got a fever."
"If I miss this game, I'm never going to forgive you," the intern hissed, grabbing the man's other arm and throwing it over his own shoulder.
"I don't think you're allowed to threaten me if I don't even know your name," Josh snapped.
The kid looked hurt. "You hired me ," he said.
"I knew that," Josh said. "Let's just get him inside before he dies on my shoulder?"
They end up in the press row, suspended over the teeming stadium--divided unevenly but with extreme prejudice between dark and sky blues, interrupted with waving signage making shockingly disparaging comments. They're in a back corner where apparently nobody can get a good shot, trying to stay out of the way of the pack of slightly feral AP and local newspaper photographers present, not to jar their telephoto lenses and Leica cameras worth more than Josh has made in his entire life.
Josh felt kind of like a mugger or robber or somebody with a criminal background stuffing his hands into the guy's pants pockets to look for identification. Mostly because he can't bear to continue to call him "that guy," and also because there had been a disturbingly hungry expression on Intern Aggie's face when she'd offered to stick her hands into thje guy's pants for Josh. "Are you trying to grope the deathly ill man?" Josh had demanded, although he was pretty sure the fact that he'd had his hand down the back of the man's pants as he'd said it took away some of the gravitas of the reprimand.
Sam Seaborn--that was the name on all the cards in his wallet--turned out to be a second-year law student at Duke. But more importantly, Sam Seaborn was still pale and shaking and too-hot. But Josh had one of the other interns, one whose name he could remember, go out and fetch Sam a blanket out of what had seemed to be his tent, so at least he was pale and shaking and too-hot beneath a fleece now.
Josh was vaguely aware of the game starting, mostly from the wave of hysterical screams, a weird amalgam of "Go to hell, Carolina!" and "Go to hell, Duke!" that blended into an enormous haze of white noise.
"Oh my God," Josh said, staring at the crowd. "It's like a Nazi pep rally out there."
One of the photographers rolled his eyes so hard Josh could see it through the back of his skull. But before Josh could say that some people were more occupied with trying to help shape the future of politics than pay attention to the college sports circuit, Sam mumbled, "There's no fifth fair use factor," in despair.
Josh stared at him for a long moment before pushing Sam's bangs out of his tightly-shut eyes again, face flushed. "I know," Josh said comfortingly. "There're only four."
On the court, something big apparently happened, because everybody started shrieking again and there were a whole lot of camera flashes--announcers yelling and people stomping their feet, coaches throwing around folding chairs.
"But I can't remember Hustler v. Falwell," Sam moaned, trying to blink his eyes open.
"So I see you're in IP law this semester," Josh said, and glanced up as Intern Aggie return with a plastic sports mug and a white bottle of generic Tylenol dug out of the bottom of her bottomless purse.
"Here," she said, offering both. "I found the staff office in here and used their microwave."
"Have I ever told you that of our interns, I hate you the least?" Josh told her.
"You said last week you hated me the most," Intern Aggie reported.
"Well," Josh assured her. "You've got a mouth on you."
She raised her eyebrows at him. "So what should I tell the senator?"
"About what?" Josh muttered, struggling with the child-proof cap on the Tylenol. "Okay, see, they make these things supposedly so that kids can't get them but--"
"For God's sake," Intern Aggie muttered, snatching away the bottle. "What should I tell the senator about where you are?"
"What do you mean where I am?" Josh snapped, pulling the bottle back. "I'm--I'm in the stadium. I am in the stadium in the press row."
"With the prettiest passed-out law student at Duke," she finished flatly.
"Okay, you're--you're making it sound like I roofied him or something," Josh complained, and finally, shaking the bottle in fury, he yelled, "Okay, God damn it! I am an adult and I am a political consultant and my law degree says I should be able to open this as well as write a contract!"
She took the bottle back and pulled the top off, handing it to him wordlessly.
Josh pointed down the steps. "Go away from here."
Sam finally opened his eyes when Josh tried to get him to open his mouth to take the Tylenol and was in the middle of a moment of panic, wondering if people half passed out still retained functions like swallowing, or would Sam end up like those people who choked on their own vomit.
"What are you doing?" Sam asked, blue eyes blurry with fever, curling into himself underneath the blanket.
Josh blinked at him. "I'm--I'm giving you Tylenol." He held out the pills.
"I need Tylenol," Sam said uncertainly.
"You have a fever," Josh told him. "I have no idea how high, but your skin is uncomfortably hot and also you've been mumbling about First Amendment law and fair use so I assume you have a fever."
"Then I need some acetaminophen," Sam said, frowning.
"Then it's very lucky that I have Tylenol," Josh said, folding the pills into Sam's hands, holding out the plastic mug. "Careful."
Sam stared at him groggily. "Where are we?" he asked, pushing himself up onto his elbows and putting the Tylenol in his mouth, reaching blindly for the mug. "Ow," he said, when he took a sip, swallowing the tablets painfully. "This is really hot."
"Yes," Josh agreed, leaning back on his heels and feeling his knees ache. "That's why I said you should be careful."
"Then that was good advice," Sam mumbled, looking blearily around. "Where am I?"
"You're in Cameron Indoor Stadium," Josh said and motioned to the photographers. "We're in the press row. I thought you might die of exposure if I left you with the rest of the refugees."
It was like Josh was talking to him from a long distance, and when the words finally reached Sam, he said, "I was tenting. My roommates said they'd be right back."
"You were lying face down in a legal dictionary and your roommates were nowhere to be seen." Josh took back the mug. "I'm not sure. Is that tenting?"
Sam made an uncertain face. "No. I don't think so. I think there's sitting in a tent involved."
"You weren't in a tent," Josh reminded him. "You were sort of face down in the dirt."
"Then it definitely wasn't tenting," Sam confirmed, and frowns as another wave of shouting rolls through the stadium. "We're inside Cameron?"
"You are inside Cameron Indoor Stadium." Josh nodded.
"I imagine this will make my roommates hate me even more than they already do for being a bad tenter," Sam mused.
Josh couldn't help but smile. "Big basketball fans?"
Nodding, Sam said, "I think sometimes they came to Duke not for their excellent legal program but for the basketball tickets."
Josh stared at him. "Do you always talk like this or is it the fever?"
Sam opened his mouth to say something but stopped, looking uncomfortable before he admitted, "I'm not sure."
"Okay," Josh allowed.
"I'm pretty sure we're going to be moved to the back of the line, now," Sam said sadly.
Josh gave him a sympathetic look. "You realize I don't understand anything that you're talking about, right?"
"Tenting," Sam explained.
"You weren't tenting, you--I just went over this with you--you were lying face down on the ground in a legal dictionary I'm pretty sure the law library is going to be pissed about."
"I guess I was in the stand-by line." Sam looked thoughtful, which was pretty astonishing given how fever-glazed he seemed. "So I'm not getting tickets for the Carolina game, am I?"
And that's when Josh lost it, laughing helplessly as he said, "Sam--Sam: you're in Cameron . You're at the game ."
It took another ten minutes for Sam to believe it, and then five of apologizing to various irritated photographers before moving Sam to a location slightly off the side where he wouldn't be in the way of their very expensive equipment and press passes. Josh had wanted to take him down to a nurse or a doctor or possibly a mortician, seeing as Sam had clearly contracted the plague, but Sam had insisted he'd rather die than miss an opportunity to see the game. And so Josh spent the rest of the game propping Sam up and listening to him mutter blearily about sports statistics and the long and bloody history of the Duke-Carolina rivalry and how everybody in North Carolina had to pick a side.
"Don't tell anybody," Sam confided, later, slumped against Josh's side, "but I've always kind of liked sky blue better."
"Is that a purely aesthetic decision or one based on divided loyalties?"
Looking torn, Sam whispered, "There's a sort of Jeffersonian purity about UNC. Don't let it get around that I said that."
"That's the kind of thing that can get you lynched around here, I guess," Josh answered.
Sam looked at him seriously. "Yes."
"That's good to know," Josh told him seriously, mouth twitching. "Thank you, Sam Seaborn."
Frowning, Sam asked, "How do you know my name?"
"We looked at your wallet." Josh smirked. "I also know you're a second year law student."
"But I don't know anything about you," Sam protested, voice slurring.
Josh stuck out his hand. "I'm Josh Lyman--nice to meet you."
Sam took it. "I'm Sam Seaborn. I'm a second year law student here."
"I know," Josh assured him, still smiling. "I knew that."
"Oh," Sam said, surprised. "Well. Thanks for getting me in the game."
It was more than a year later when Josh found a memo from Congressman Hutchinson's office on his desk, hastily penned by a new hire that all of the younger, stupider interns were whispering longingly of, all "editor of Duke Law Journal" and " gorgeous " that he put two and two and paragraph three mention of "Jeffersonian purity" together and had to put his head down on his desk to laugh--long and loud.
"Hey, Senator," Josh said later, catching Nox in the hallway later that day. "You remember that Duke game you took me to?"
Nox gave him a considering look. "The one where you disappeared for the entire run in an obvious dereliction of duty?"
"Okay, it turns out that I wasn't derelicting--"
"That's not a word, Josh."
"But more importantly, it turns out I wasn't derelicting duty," Josh pushed forward. "I was recruiting for your office."
"Were you," Nox said, flatly amused.
"Yeah," Josh said, excited. "Sam Seaborn, works for Hutchinson, amazing writer, I'll get him for sure."
Smirking, Nox asked, "What makes you so sure he'll come?"
"Oh," Josh promised, "he'll come--he owes me for a game."
Author's Note: Completely self-indulgent and written for Minervacat's birthday -- although this is a little early. Hilariously enough, my roommate asked if this story was going to be slash, and I said, "No, I mean, not really. But it is Josh and Sam. So it will be kind of gay." Long live Carolina -- go to hell, Duke! Yes, I wrote an entire story so I could write that in my author's notes. - Pru (2/5/2007)