VC-25A by Punk and Sabine

[fourteenlines.livejournal.com]

Fandom: THE WEST WING
Pairing: according to the story notes, "It's like a Magic Eight Ball of ambiguity and innuendo!"
Authors on LJ: runpunkrun and sabine101
Author Websites: Punk hangs out in The Underground while Sab claims you guys are just fucked
Why this must be read:

The summary reads, "CJ, Sam, Ainsley, filet of sole, Toby, a raft, some other people, and a room with a glass door, in the great tradition of experimental dinner theater."

Imagine, if you will, that President Bartlet has offended the green bean farmers of the world, or at least of the US. Or, more specifically, of Corvallis, Oregon. Imagine someone gave Lionel Tribbey an inflatable raft. Imagine Toby with food poisoning. Imagine, if you can, that while all of this was taking place on Air Force One, Sam threw a hissy fit and locked himself in the bathroom.

The door swung open and Ainsley breezed in.

"That man," Ainsley said, throwing her hands up in the air. "That man
has locked himself in the restroom. And he will not come out. I think --
I think something has to be done. Don't you all think something has to
be done?"

CJ took her hand off the phone. "Sam locked himself into the
bathroom," she told Donna.

Donna giggled. "I'll get you Josh," she said. "He's not gonna want to
miss that."

CJ jiggled her foot while waiting for Josh to pick up the phone. Toby
practiced moaning.

"Do you think the pilot has a key to the restroom?" Ainsley was asking
Danny. "What if he never comes out?"

"Sam locked himself in the bathroom?" Josh sounded like he'd been
running. "Is he crying?"

"No! Why would he be crying?"

"I dunno. Why would he lock himself in the bathroom?"

CJ moved the phone to below her chin and took a breath. "Was he
crying?"

Ainsley frowned. "Who?"

"Sam!" grunted Toby. "Sam, on whom the fate of this administration
rests, as I am no longer able to perform my duties as Communications
Director. The same Sam, who has, god only knows why, locked himself
in the bathroom. That Sam." Toby rubbed his face against the couch
cushion. "Am I dead? Why aren't I dead?"

"Is that Toby?" Josh asked.

"No," CJ said, "that is a 200-pound baby having an attack of paranoid
hypochondria."

Toby ignored her. "I'm dying here, and yet, in a room full of people that
I would call friends, no one seems to care."

Josh sputtered. "Tell him to stop whining, because I'm the one stuck
here at five o'clock in the morning and Donna's been playing some sort
of, like, girly breakup music all night, and I swear, if I hear the words
'Lilith' or 'Fair' again --"

"Josh says hi," CJ reported.

Even while spoon-feeding us gut-bustingly funny experimental dinner theater, Punk and Sab absolutely nail the indiosyncratic dialogue and manic rhythm of Sorkin at his finest.

This story comes with a beverage warning. Unless you like the feeling of liquid being forced through your nostrils at some astronomical speed - which I couldn't tell you, but Sam Seaborn would most likely know - don't read while drinking.

VC-25A