Title: The Ten Commandments
Author: soaked velvet starlight
Characters: Ensemble
Rating: PG-13 to be safe
Summary: The senior staff are good at breaking every commandment in the book. Ten drabbles, exactly 100 words each.
Disclaimer: Do not own, never will own, yada, yada, yada.
A/N: This is not the first West Wing story I've written, but it's the first I've posted on this site. So please, please read and review. I will be forever grateful.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife.
It's not as though he actually wants her.
She touches Jed's haggard face in sympathy and smiles at him, telling him that it's alright. Even though he hasn't had the time to talk to her properly for three days, she knows Jed cares.
He doesn't have anyone who knows that.
He hates himself for the thought, so he convinces himself that his situation is the one he deserves. You can put your loved one through the burden of a country or two drunken decades, but not both.
He tries to achieve redemption without smiles and caresses that he hasn't earned.
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
"CJ!"
"CJ!"
"Danny?"
"Does the President feel this incident cannot be forgiven, or will he pursue negotiations?"
"No, I have not acquired telepathy Danny. I can't record everything that the President feels."
Liar. She knows perfectly well how he feels. He's white and sick and horrified and wants to blast the bombers into a million shreds.
She's cheapening him for not saying so, but other men would have heartlessly exploited this situation, and the press has a bitter, hard-learned law: guilty until proven innocent.
"That's a full lid folks. Good night."
She marches out of the pressroom, cursing Richard Nixon.
8. Thou shalt not steal
His uncle said at his bar mitzvah that the only fool is he who believes himself to be wise.
His mother liked to warn, when he got home too late, that with personal freedom comes immense responsibility.
His grandfather asked him, shadows of old tortures crossing his face, to remember that the oppression of a collective people's spirit is eviler than anything else, beyond crimes of greed or passion.
It all flows from his fingertips into black symbols, ideas and phrases entwining.
He squirms guiltily, knowing that his will be the only name listed at the top of the page.
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Rob's lips are warm on her skin. His skilled hands make quick work of her clothes.
She arches into him with anticipation, and feels a tiny jolt of guilt as she remembers that she left Josh in the office for the night without company, poring over documents that take him twice as long to read when she's not there.
Neglecting her duty, Josh would say. Betraying his trust —
Careful with the language there. You don't want to sound like a freak do you?
She shoves Josh out of her mind and pulls the other man down for a kiss.
6. Thou shalt not kill.
"You're sure they won't have contingencies?"
"It'll be a crippling strike for sure, sir."
He sucks slowly on the cigarette, savoring the lingering taste. Its tip flares red, reflecting in the gleaming black table. The fluorescent lights glare off the chiefs' glasses in the cramped darkness. Leo waits, solid beside him.
"Expected causalities?"
"Estimated between thirty and fifty, sir."
Silence. He breathes out wreathes of smoke as steadily as he can.
"Do it."
They relax, shifting their papers and muttering to each other as Fitzwallace picks up the phone. Standard procedure.
He stares down at his hands and imagines blood.
5. Honor thy father and thy mother.
It's hard to be a good son when your father is a cheating bastard and your mother refuses to leave him out of spite.
Often times, he can't summon any respect for his father or patience for his mother. So he works as hard as he can to make Leo and the President smile at him. He treasures them, for such teachers cannot be taken for granted, and his reward is the pride in their eyes.
It's all he ever needs.
Guilt brings him back, but never for long. Honor is his bedrock, but he only honors who he can.
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
His phone rings again furiously, jolting him out of the brief daze that he had sunk into while leaning against his desk. The clock flashes 2:48 AM at his stinging eyes. Sunday morning. His whole Saturday has evaporated.
"Hello?"
"Mr. Lyman, I was expecting a call from Leo McGarry an hour ago. If your White House can't-"
"Just a minute - DONNA!"
She emerges from the panicky droves of staffers fighting for priority in the bullpen, looking disgruntled.
"You bellowed?"
"Tell Leo he's got a call. And please find out if we can make working on weekends a federal crime."
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
"Goddamnit!"
"Ma'am, I'm sorry, but we can't-"
"I understand, I understand..." she waves the agent off, feeling slightly guilty through her irritation.
There went her hope for a proper conversation. With people who weren't trying to keep a country from going to hell while getting excited because the NASDAQ had closed gaining for four months. Instead, she would be looking down her nose from an elevated table, like the chairman of a board of directors, because it was easy to shove her under it.
Three goddamn letters...opposing school prayer wasn't even radical, for God's sake.
"Goddamnit..." she mutters again. "Goddamnit!"
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.
He's collecting the President's Treasury memo from the Resolute desk when he backs into the American flag standing behind it. It teeters alarmingly, and he seizes it, before it topples.
It's not so much an automatic response as it is a fear of letting such an object touch the ground.
Deep red stripes, navy blue peppered with vivid white stars. For one quiet moment, he lets his eyes rest on its heavy silken folds.
The memory of why he never complains about his job is refreshed, brightened. He turns back to the desk with a slight spring in his step.
1. I am the Lord your God. Thou shalt worship no other gods before me.
He's speaking, and their blood trembles and spines tingle and the surfaces of their eyes glow hot.
They would do anything that voice asked of them, anything it needed of them.
No one glances towards the heavens. Nothing higher than the halo of sandy hair shining in the spotlight matters. They stand defenseless, small in his presence, heedless of snow and sleet and twenty hours without sleep.
If the thunder of God's voice in all its glory commanded them to turn away from the podium; from those twinkling eyes and beaming smile; they would not consider obeying for a second.
Fin
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