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Josh slammed the door to his office behind him. Under normal circumstances, he would have cringed at the volume of such an action - imagining the reactions of the staff in the bullpen, startled out of their daily tasks and mentally berating himself for disrupting them - but this time, the noise didn’t faze him in the slightest. It hardly registered in his mind. Which isn’t quite to say it wasn’t an extremely loud or forceful door slam, in fact it had been one of the hardest door slams Josh has ever performed. This was evidenced by the small square painting on the adjacent wall that had been knocked loose from its nail and fallen to the ground with an equally-as-jarring shatter - another noise that Josh didn’t even notice.
He stumbled to his desk, cursing Donna, cursing the senior staff, cursing everyone he saw in the hallway. His fingers took the shape of fists, clenching until his knuckles turned as white as his rage, and he shoved the heels of each fist over his ears. Whether he was trying to keep the sound out, or his thoughts in, he couldn’t tell.
Most days went by just fine, Josh only finding mild annoyance in his opponents, or incompetent members of his own party, or sometimes people who were both. Josh was damn good at his job, and he was proud of it, but some days were not as fine. Some days were like this one, and it killed him, this weakness he felt, unable to control it. He came to the White House - a symbol of the nation - to do one thing, to work, and some days he couldn’t even do that.
What hurt him even more was how he never seemed to be able to put his finger on what caused it, or remember what got him out of it the last time. It seemed like he was completely at the whim of someone else, someone who was watching him and controlling his brain with a broken joystick.
Time seemed to go slow for Josh, but everyone and everything around him seemed to be moving at light speed. His neck itched, his shoe was untied, and his tie was loose, and in order to fix any of these issues he had to move his arms, a task that became 400% harder when it felt like his whole body was stuck in molasses, and he was acutely aware that Donna was rapping on his door for about the fifth minute straight, and that his desk phone was ringing, and that his cell phone was ringing, and that someone had left his window open and he could hear all the birds shrieking outside.
He slammed his hands onto the desk in front of him.
“I just need everyone to shut the fuck up!” He screamed from deep within his gut.
Moments later, he collapsed to the ground, unable to support himself with his legs anymore.
Outside the door, Donna’s knocking has stopped. Most of the activity in the bullpen has stopped. A shuffling of papers and fabrics occurs as Donna is ushered away from the door, and Toby begins unlocking it to let himself in.
Upon opening the door, the sight pales Toby’s face. Josh is slumped up against his own desk, on his knees with his body pressed against the front with one arm on the tabletop holding himself upright. He rushes to Josh’s side, carefully handling him by the shoulders to move him out of the precarious spot, maneuvering him into a sitting position against the desk that is far less likely to result in his falling.
Josh’s lack of unconsciousness is starting to register with Toby, the weight of the situation really befalling himself, and he stares intently at his friend’s face as he assesses his options. Toby is by no means a professional fit for dealing with this, and he isn’t arrogant enough to immediately cast aside the idea of calling someone who is. But as he stares at Josh’s rigid form against the desk, he wonders how his friend would want him to handle it. Most likely, he’d want it handled quietly, or, as quietly as possible now that Josh had slammed a door hard enough to be heard in the East Wing. He decides to give it a few minutes before calling anyone, balancing nervously on the balls of his heels and holding a hand over Josh’s forehead.
Toby watches him breathe, slowly, calmly, so unbefitting of the surrounding events, and eventually, not quite a minute later, Josh’s brows scrunch together and he squints his eyes to meet Toby’s.
“What happened?” Josh rasps. “Or is that a little cliché?”
Toby shook his head, dropping his hand from Josh's forehead. Of course the first thing he’d do after coming to would be cracking a joke about it. “Joshua…”
“Uh oh, Toby full-named me.” Josh was smiling, but it fell when he looked into Toby’s eyes and saw sadness. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “What happened?”
Toby rubbed at his own forehead. “I’m pretty sure you blacked out again.” He avoided Josh’s eyes. “It was pretty serious. You…” The task of informing Josh what had happened proved a bigger hurdle than he was expecting. The truth seemed too accusatory. “Uh, you yelled. And slammed the door, and I think it broke the picture frame.” Toby nodded at the wall where the picture once hung, sucking on his lower lip.
All Josh’s wittiness vanished. The situation’s seriousness had revealed itself again. He seemed to go pale, and was now actively trying to avoid eye contact with Toby. A quick fidget of his arms revealed that he’d torn the seams in the underarms of the shirt wide open, and it made Josh’s stomach turn that he couldn’t recall how they ended up that way.
“I gave Donna the day off,” Toby sighed, moving himself to sit on the floor next to Josh, connected at the shoulder. “She seemed pretty shaken up about this.”
Josh put his head in his hands. In this position, he could feel the cold sweat pooled on his forehead, and matting his hair to itself. Almost like before, he could feel everything coming at him all at once, almost too much. From the perspective of this man, this Josh Lyman, sat here in his own tears and sweat, everything - the consequences he’d face, the conversations he’d have, and the apologies he needed to make - seemed like an impossible task he’d never make it through. “I need,” he started anyway, sniffling, “I need to talk to, to Donna, I have to tell Leo, I-”
“Josh,” Toby’s voice was calm, level, a low tone that Josh could focus on. He placed a gentle and forgiving hand on Josh’s thigh. “Donna went home. I told her to. She can deal with it for a few hours, for a day, and you shouldn’t worry about justifying anything to anyone.” He nudged Josh’s shoulder with his own, and met Josh’s eyes when he looked up. “I need you to be okay.”
Josh let his head roll back into the desk with a thud. “Toby, I-” He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “You understand this is a one-time thing, right? I can move on, I can get right back to work. It’ll be fine. I just need to clear it up with Leo.”
Josh’s head lolled to the side to face Toby again, and when their eyes met this time, Toby saw sorrow in them. He saw remorse and pain. Probably the same pain he felt leading up to the door slam, to the passing out, Toby thought. “I think you misheard me, Josh, I said…” Toby took a steadying breath, deep and slow, and Josh watched him carefully. “I said I need you to be okay. I need to know that you’re taking care of yourself.”
The two stared at each other, a neutral silence between them. The weight from Toby’s palm on Josh’s leg was a warm reminder, grounding Josh’s thoughts.
“I need to keep you safe, Josh. I can’t let it happen again.” The façade was cracking, Toby’s voice breaking. “I- I can’t let you out of my sight again and find you later, when it’s too late. I can’t do that again. I need to keep you safe.”
Toby’s hand squeezed the leg under it as tears fell from his eyes, as if Toby just needed to make sure that Josh was really still here with him. And Josh seemed to empathize with that need, his cold hand raising to cover Toby’s slightly larger one, squeezing its fingers as if to say I’m here with you, please don’t worry.
Under normal circumstances, Josh would tell Toby off for worrying too much, for trying to control things he had no possible way of controlling. But this time, Josh was beginning to recognize, was no normal circumstance. He wiped at his own eyes to hide his tears, and leaned into Toby.
Toby retracted his hand from Josh’s leg, instead opting to wrap both his arms around the younger man, taking a long breath in and letting his exhale blow across the top of Josh’s head, watching his curls move out of the way of Toby’s breath. In this position, he could feel Josh’s shuddered breaths, his tiny sobs that he was failing to hide, and Toby accepted it all, squeezing him tighter and keeping him closer.
As Toby nuzzled his head into the back of Josh’s neck, Josh wrapped his arms around Toby’s abdomen in return. He stayed like that for who-knows-how-long, wetting Toby’s dress shirt with his tears and breathing in Toby’s cologne, and settling down, finally, finally breathing.
“No one expects you to just jump back in, you know,” Toby mumbles against Josh’s neck once he’s stopped crying. He reluctantly pulls away a couple inches, revoking Josh of his headrest on Toby’s chest and encouraging the younger to look up at him. “In fact, I all but begged you not to jump back in.”
Josh let out a tired sigh, secretly wishing he could go back to resting in Toby’s embrace, though he knew his friend’s concern was important. “I know,” His voice was small. He brought a hand up to fidget with a button on Toby’s shirt in front of him, pulling at a loose string and twirling it around his fingers. “I just can’t help it. I don’t want to feel as useless as I did that night.” With a final pull, the button came loose from Toby’s shirt, and fell into Josh’s lap.
Toby picked up the button with his thumb and index finger, and dropped it into Josh’s wrinkled front pocket, before wrapping an arm around his neck and pulling him into another tight hug. “I need you to know you were never useless,” Toby spoke into Josh’s shoulder. “I know you probably don’t feel like that, but believe me, Josh, that no one around here would be anything worth keeping here without you here as well.”
Josh sat and let Toby hug him, and let Toby’s words hang in the air between them, with his own hands folded between their laps. He breathed, and let himself close his eyes, and for the first time in a long time, Josh wasn’t scared to fall asleep.
“Will you take me home, Toby?”
“Of course.”