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TITLE: An Innocent Kiss AUTHOR: Jo March SPOILERS: "In Excelsis Deo" ARCHIVE: Sure, just let me know where it is so I can come and visit it. DISCLAIMER: They're not mine. They belong to Aaron Sorkin. As is all too obvious, I'm no Aaron Sorkin. Author's Note: Many thanks to the lovely and gifted Ryo Sen for her beta services and encouragement.
Maybe it was the gift. Or that inscription. Or maybe it was just that children's choir singing "Little Drummer Boy" and all those other Christmas carols. I'm a pushover for Christmas carols. Josh complains about this constantly, but I love Christmas music. I bring in my portable CD player and listen to them all day from the Friday after Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve. Josh maintains that this constitutes a violation of the separation of church and state, given where we work. I offered to compromise by only listening to the secular stuff like "Jingle Bells," but that wasn't enough for Ebenezer Lyman. Finally I brought in headphones so that he couldn't possibly tell what I was listening to. "Can too," he replied. There's nothing like an Ivy League education to help a guy with those snappy comebacks. "Josh," I answered, "you can't hear one note when I've got these things on. I could be listening to Tupac Shakur or the Backstreet Boys for all you know." "Tupac Shakur or the Backstreet Boys?" he repeated. "There's two names you don't usually hear in the same sentence." "I have very eclectic tastes," I replied. He continued to complain for awhile about how I couldn't hear him call me if I had the headphones on, but we both knew I'd won. I always hear Josh; hell, I hear Josh before he even calls me. We both know that, but it's one of the many things we don't discuss. When you have that kind of near telepathy with someone, you don't want to analyze it for fear of losing your connection to him. Or having to deal with what it means. And I don't want to deal with what it means. Except I guess I sort of have to now. Which brings me back to Christmas Eve and the choir. And the inscription Josh wrote in the book he gave me. I ask again: Would it have killed him to buy me skis? Okay, I know I'm digressing. I tend to do that. Josh says it's incredibly annoying, although I happen to know that secretly he finds it alluring. He said so to Sam. Who told Toby. Who just happened to mention it to CJ. Carol overheard that, which meant it got back to Bonnie and Ginger, who literally came running to tell me. And, all right, maybe the phrase Bonnie and Ginger used was "kind of cute," but you know how these things get muddled the more removed they are from the source. So I'm guessing "alluring" was the word Josh originally used. I am not basing this on ego, by the way. I'm extrapolating based on first-hand evidence. Which brings us back to Christmas Eve. (I swear I can hear Josh say, "At last," inside my head. Josh seems to have taken up residence there. And that is annoying.) My point is that I was already what you might call susceptible on Christmas Eve, what with the choir and the music and Josh having written this very sweet inscription in the book he gave me. I don't think that what happened later was my fault. Not at all. I prefer to blame Josh. Or CJ. Maybe Toby. Definitely Sam. But mostly Josh. If we get fired over this, I swear I'll kill him. * * *
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