Notes:

Part six in my "Collection of Prompts" series. Many thanks to wingsoflace/invaluabledonna for her patience. Written for the prompt: "Things you said when you were drunk." The prompt guided me in terms of both content and POV—I'm actually a fan of second person, but I know many people aren't. Fair warning!

Title taken from (appropriately) "Tequila" by Terrorvision.

You try and try to tell Josh Lyman that it doesn't matter how long he smirks or how resolutely he pleads: you cannot do shots. You can, however, handle anything else. Chugging Guinness? Easy; your big brothers prepared you for that one. A full bottle of Strawberry Hill? All you'd need is a straw. Jäger or triple sec or apple green schnapps? You could go through them like water, if you really set your mind to it. After all, you did grow up in the general vicinity of farm country. There wasn't a whole hell of a lot to do in high school, or college, for that matter, and you passed the time just like everybody else—in some kid's parents' barn with a bottle of whatever Mitch's older cousin could get his hands on. You were usually the last one left standing, the babysitter holding back all the other girls' hair out in the cornfields (or in the alley behind your best friend's apartment). You drank warm beer, bottom-shelf vodka, and once, moonshine, with ease. You drank bagged Merlot and Andre's finest $5 peach champagne. None of that ever gave you more than a faint headache, because real drinking has never been the problem for you.

There's something about a line of little glasses and a bottle of tequila, though. Shots always leave you filled to the brim with regret, toppling face-first down a flight of stairs. Half the time, you find yourself backed into a corner without your common sense, usually pressed against a completely inappropriate guy. It doesn't matter where the night starts. Throw shots into the mix, and it's always going to end in the same place: you, cotton-mouthed and dizzy, begging to be put out of your hungover misery.

"No," you say, for the fiftieth time. "I'm telling you, I can't. Just let me have a glass! Something I can nurse, Josh."

"This is a celebration!" Josh hollers over the din of the bar. "You can't nurse a celebration, Donna. You have to inject the thrill of victory directly into your bloodstream."

"Leave the poor girl alone," C.J. says, shoving in between the two of you. "Honest to God, Joshua, you're the peer pressure our mothers always warned us about." Josh gets that almost frightening glint in his eye, the one that's accompanied by a grin that makes your stomach lurch, the one that you've learned is how he charms himself out of trouble as fast as he talks himself into it.

"We're projected to pocket the northeast! We're practically on our way to the goddamn White House. This is a night for Patron and bad decisions, ladies. Right, Toby? Sam?"

"Whatever," Toby says, rustling around in his pockets and finally producing a fistful of crumpled bills. He shoves them across the bar at Josh. "Get a round of something and shut up, would you?" Josh makes a gleeful grab for the cash.

"Patron tastes even better when Toby's buying," Josh announces, and then he flags down the bartender. Sam shoots you a look full of sympathy and resignation.

"Sorry I let him drag you into this, Donna," Sam whispers. "Also, prepare yourself. He's a lightweight."

"Am not!" Josh swipes at the back of Sam's head. "I can handle my liquor perfectly well, thank you."

"Oh, sorry, I must be thinking of the other Josh Lyman. You know, the Josh Lyman I so charitably dragged to what was supposed to be the best spring break of our lives. Maybe you remember—this is the same guy who had but two beers and half of a watered-down Mai Tai before vomiting all over Melanie Draper."

"That was one time!" Josh's voice goes shrill. "I told you, it was food poisoning. Bad clams. Anyway, I paid for her dry cleaning."

"She was just about to come back to my room," Sam says, "and it was not bad clams."

"Oh, come on. Are you still pissy about that? She was a Republican, Sam. I was doing you a favor."

"I would almost agree with you, had you not done the same thing to me a couple years later. You had one screwdriver and almost killed yourself falling off a balcony—"

"I had two screwdrivers, and one of those big guys tripped me! I didn't fall."

"Everybody else saw you stumble over the railing and nearly flatten that adorable redhead from Georgia! After spending four hours working up the courage to ask her out, I had to throw it all away to whisk you off to the hospital. Oh, but she was so sweet, so concerned. She just had to ride along and see that you made it through the night. She was even nice enough to sit with you in the backseat and keep pressure on your bleeding, stupid head wound. Maybe she still would have given me her number, but then, you vomited. In her hair, Josh. Let's not even talk about my car."

"Yeah, well, she was probably a Republican, too."

"We'll never know, though, will we? Because of all the vomiting."

"Oh, thank Christ," C.J. cries. The bartender has arrived with five shot glasses and a plate of lime wedges. "Josh, do us all a favor and don't throw-up on Donna, okay? We can't afford to lose her again. You actually show up to all of your meetings on time now! Your desk is no longer a war zone. You also appear to be getting more than five minutes of sleep a night, which, really, I can't emphasize enough what a blessing that is to me. Your insomnia-fueled rants were beginning to wear at the remaining edges of my sanity."

"For the last time—" Josh tries to shout, but Toby slams a palm down on the counter. All the glasses rattle.

"Do you people ever stop talking?" Toby demands. He throws a salt shaker at Josh. "Bartlet might well be the next President of the United States. For the first time in a decade, the guy sitting in the Oval Office might actually deserve to be there. That's why I'm standing here at midnight when I have to be up in four hours, so drink. All of you. Now."

Everyone reaches for the Patron, even you.

"To the Governor." Toby raises his glass, and you all follow suit. You barely remember to lick the salt before the tequila hits the back of your throat. You choke, cough, bite desperately down on the lime C.J. passes you, and just like that, you're about twenty years old again.

"Tequila!" Josh hollers. "Okay, that's what I'm talking about. Next round's on me."

"I can't," you groan, but either he doesn't hear you or doesn't care, because five minutes later, you find yourself knocking back two more shots. And then, hopelessly, another. By the time C.J. gets a pitcher of beer, your brain is buzzing pleasantly, and the lights in the bar seem to shimmer warmly in the background. You've already forgotten why you were so against this whole idea when Josh and Sam showed up at your hotel door an hour ago to drag you out into the wet Chicago night. There's a full day of campaigning and travel ahead, but who cares, when the tracking polls are already showing you've got a twelve-point lead, when likely former-undecideds all across the eastern seaboard are reporting they'll head to the polls for Bartlet? You all might win an election. Might. It's no longer in our wildest, most ephemeral of dreams (Sam), or if America miraculously grows a conscience (Toby), or if we can guilt the college kids into the voting booths (C.J.), or if we just keep pushing, if we never stop pushing (Josh). It's might. It's maybe. It's a bump in the numbers. It's an endless stream of handshakes and Josh left speechless and Leo hugging pretty much everybody and Governor Bartlet remembering your name without prompting and Toby twirling C.J. around the room and you, getting to see it all happen.

Some song Josh likes comes on, and he drags you and Sam out into the crowd. C.J. eventually follows. You dance together until you're all nearly breathless, until the crowd has thinned and the music is fading, all while Toby puffs away at a cigar and finishes off half the pitcher of Sam Adams himself.

Later, walking back to the hotel in the rain, you end up leaning on Josh, who, in turn, is leaning on a reluctant Toby. C.J. and Sam are running ahead, arms linked, holding a newspaper over their heads. You can just make out the bold BARTLET TO SWEEP EAST COAST headline, the one Leo's probably going to plaster all over D.C. headquarters when you eventually get to go back. They call over their shoulders—See you in the morning! Somebody make sure Josh takes off his shoes! Prop him on his side, Toby!—and leave the three of you to pick your way through the potholes and mud. You're freezing, teeth chattering, but Josh wraps his arm around your waist, and you stop caring.

Ten minutes later, after practically falling into the hotel's elevator, Toby side-steps out of Josh's heavy-handed grip on the third floor, growls a good night at you, and disappears off to his room.

"Just us, now," Josh says triumphantly as the doors rattle shut. "What'd I tell you, Donna? A night for Patron and decisions. Bad ones."

"I haven't made any bad decisions," you say, punching at the button for the tenth floor, even though Toby had hit it for you down in the lobby. "Yet."

"We could fix that." Josh grins, swaying slightly. He gropes around for the railing just behind him. "Wanna come back to my room and raid the mini-bar? There's definitely more tequila. Don't worry, I checked."

"I thought we were talking about bad decisions." You're leaning against the far wall, arms folded, smiling right back at him. "You're going to have to try harder than that."

"You're fun like this," Josh says, his grin widening. "I didn't know you would be so fun. You're always so…" He draws himself further upright, smooths back his hair. "…you know, so Midwest. Clean, wholesome, cornfed. Bright-eyed. Young. God, you're young, aren't you?"

"Not that young."

"That's something only young people say." The elevator jerks to a stop, and Josh careens forward. You bump into each other, and then out into the hall.

"Ow," you say, rubbing your shoulder. Josh puts his arm around your waist again.

"Ow," he agrees, digging around in one of his pockets. "Okay, remind me what room I'm in?"

"I can't believe they expect you to govern people," you say. "You won't actually be in charge of anything if we win, right?"

"I'll still be in charge of you, and that's not nothing." Josh is now actually turning his pockets inside out. His wallet hits the ground with a thud, and he scrambles to pick it up. "Shit. We may have a thing."

"A thing?"

"A problem."

"You always have a problem."

"Yes, well, at this exact precise particular moment, it's that I lost my key. Or maybe it lost me."

"Seriously," you say, reaching into your purse and whipping out his key, "they're not gonna give you any nuclear launch codes? No highly classified information?"

"What the hell! Where did you get that?" Josh demands, his voice cracking on the last syllable. "That's not—you can't always just find things, without even trying. It's not fair. How do you always find things?" You lurch off towards his room together.

"You handed it to me on the way to the bar and said, 'If I don't give this to you, I'm definitely gonna lose it.'"

"I don't remember that!"

"Josh, I need you to assure me that at no time in the hypothetical Bartlet Administration will you ever be responsible for anything more important than, oh, I don't know. A filing cabinet."

"You're very mouthy for a farm girl from Nebraska. Did anyone ever tell you that you're mouthy?"

"I'm from Wisconsin. I grew up in a condo."

"That's what I said! A farm girl from Indiana."

"Hilarious. Side-splitting. You're unsurprisingly smug for a frat boy from Rhode Island."

"See?" Josh wags a finger at you as you manage to get the door to his room open. "Mouthy." He tugs you inside, and it's absolutely too dark. The entire world seems to be tilting, so you let yourself slump against the wall; Josh doesn't let go of your arm, just bends his head and whispers, "I'm from Connecticut. I definitely regret the frat."

"That's what I said." You close your eyes. "A frat boy from Massachusetts."

"I like you, Donna."

"You like everybody."

"It's all an act. Really, it's only you I like. Don't tell Toby, though. He'll be heartbroken."

"Your secret's safe. I don't think Toby will ever suspect. Anyway, I'm just gonna..." You flutter one of your hands around. "You know. Sit." You slide down against the wall until you're on the floor, legs splayed, water dripping down from your hair onto your already soaked clothes.

"You're pretty drunk, huh?" Josh asks, crouching down next to you.

"I told you!" you protest, turning to frown at him. "I can't do shots, Josh. They're bad. I get like this."

"Hey, that's okay. You're fun like this," he says, voice softening. "Remember?"

"I don't feel fun. I feel cold."

"God, of course you're cold. I'm an idiot," Josh says, and then he's gone, rummaging around his room, bumping into everything in his path. He returns with a pile of towels and blankets, plus a pillow.

"Josh," you say as he drops down to the ground beside you and shoves the towels at you. "Maybe I should just go."

"Don't be ridiculous. Your room is like a hundred miles down the hall. You have to at least dry off."

"I tried," you say, yanking off your coat. The thin cardigan underneath comes with it, and you're left pretty much in just your camisole and skirt, which makes toweling off a little easier. "I just want you to remember that I tried."

"Tried what?" Josh asks, staring intently at a spot somewhere on the ceiling.

"To get out of here without doing something humiliating." You're not sure why you're still talking, but at this point, you've accepted your tequila-induced fate. Sighing, you kick off your shoes, shimmy under the blanket. "This is why I told you I can't. I broke my arm on my twenty-first birthday. I once almost got an entire bachelorette party, including the bride, arrested. In high school, on prom night, I memorably made-out with my cousin's ex-boyfriend about fifteen feet away from my cousin. Who knows what I'll do or trip over before the night ends! You'll be the one who gets puked on this time, or worse. God, if you weren't my boss, I'm sure I'd be putting the moves on you. That's bad enough!"

Everything gets very quiet. Josh clears his throat, runs a hand over his face.

"Oh no," you whisper.

"Donna—"

"I did not just say that, because you are my boss, and I'm very professional. Ask anybody, Josh."

"Donna, um—"

"I did not just say that. I did not just actually say that out loud."

"It's really—"

"This is all your stupid fault." You glare at him from under the blanket. "What do you think you're doing, anyway, getting me drunk? Not to mention smiling at me and dragging me back off to your room? That's not fair, Josh. Not fair at all."

"I didn't get you drunk on purpose!" Josh yelps, scrambling away from you. "And I didn't mean to, um, smile? I'm sorry about the smiling. And the dragging. I just...I don't know. I had tequila, too, okay? Maybe a little too much tequila."

"Sam was right about you," you snap. "You're a lightweight. Your system must be very sensitive."

"I had two shots in about ten minutes. That's a lot for anybody, isn't it? Besides, you're worse than me."

"I had four! How did you get away with only two?"

"Oh, I just bought those last ones for you guys. I didn't feel like reliving Spring Break '87."

"I can't believe...you know, I could drink circles around you, Josh. Circles. Go make me a rusty nail and I'll show you right now."

"What the hell is a rusty nail?"

"A real drink. None of this...lick the salt, bite the lime, accidentally hit on your boss bullshit."

"Donna," Josh says, his voice going very high, "I really need you to not keep saying that."

"I'm sorry!" you yell, and then you bury your head in your arms. "I'm sorry. God, I'm usually the most professional, okay? This is the, what do you call it, the exception. The exception, Josh."

"It's not your professionalism I'm worried about," Josh mutters, but you don't really hear him. You're busy trying to decide if your stomach's churning because you're going to be sick or because you've just made an incredibly awkward situation even…awkwarder? More awkward? Well, whatever the adjective is, it's not good. You need to fix this. You need to remember how to be convincing and eloquent. You need to do it now.

"This job," you say, sitting up straight, and reaching out to grab Josh's arm, "is everything to me. I just want you to get it, what this all means. I don't know if you know this, but you're the first person to take me seriously in a long time, and to get to witness this campaign, to be even a tiny piece of this—you can't imagine. How it feels, I mean. Josh, you can't imagine how it feels, or how much I appreciate it. I'm so lucky, and I'm so determined to stay that way. I just would never screw this up. You can ask anybody. I would never disappoint you like that."

Josh blinks, his mouth hanging slightly open. He's wringing one of the towels; you can feel the muscles in his arm twisting under your fingers.

"You're so many things, Donna Moss," he finally says. "Disappointing's not one of them."

"I like you, too, by the way," you say, grinning at him. "You always say the right thing in the end."

Josh lets out a breath, drags a hand through his hair. "Maybe I oughtta walk you home. It's late."

"But I didn't make any bad decisions!" you complain. Josh laughs, and then he wobbles to his feet, pulling you with him.

"No," he says. "You didn't."

"I guess I did hit on you."

"That's the best idea you had all night. Ask anybody."

"Are you kidding?" You lean against Josh again. He gathers up your stuff, pushes the door open, helps you out into the hall. "I'm taking this to my grave. In fact, I hope I forget all about it."

"Yeah," Josh says, his fingers skimming across your shoulders. "Me, too."

Five minutes later, Josh fumbles your door open for you, then mutters a good night and spins on his heel, racing off back to his room. You watch him go before shaking your head, letting the door fall shut. You tug off the rest of your wet clothes before you fall into bed, and the next day, you have a dry mouth, a killer headache, and pretty much no memory of anything past the elevator.

Josh doesn't quite meet your eye at breakfast when you and C.J. kvetch at him about bad influences and your mutual hangover. He sips his coffee and stares at the same column in the newspaper for ten minutes, worrying at the corner of the page, jumping when Toby asks him something about demographics in Cook County.

And later that day, when Josh does look at you, it's with a strange sort of expectancy. He lets his gaze keep lingering, his dark eyes flickering over you again and again, until you start blushing if he so much as blinks in your direction. It's like he's waiting for you to deliver the punchline of a joke you don't remember telling.

On the bus, when Josh falls asleep in the seat in front of you with his forehead pressed against the smudged window, you try to bring it back. You cradle your face in your hands and think, sorting through a blurred jumble of memories, until you find the one you want. If you hold your breath, you can almost hear him again, the way he'd whispered to you in the dark.

I like you, Donna.

But it doesn't matter. It can't. He's your boss, and this campaign is everything, and Josiah Bartlet could be the next President of the United States, and you've got more than enough maybes in your life. No shots, you tell yourself, as the bus bumps along past a sea of browning fields. Never again.

You drift off somewhere just east of the Indiana border, and you dream about farm girls and bad decisions, about Rhode Island and rain. About Josh Lyman's smile and the sharp taste of tequila. About long hallways in the middle of the night, and conversations better left forgotten.