Sports Night Fic: After Effects

[waldos_writings]

Title: After Effects
Fandom: Sports Night
Words: 3514
Pairing: Dan/Casey
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Post Quo Vadimus. Depression can make it hard to party, especially if you’re not sure you have something to celebrate.

Anthony’s was one giant party after the show. Isaac and Dana had put the bar on a running tab and people flitted from table to table congratulating each other and pounding each other on the back. Dan and Casey seemed to be the focus of everyone’s attention at some point or another, everyone wanting to get them a drink or give them a hug. The fact that Traeger seemed to like them seemed be the commonly held opinion of what saved their asses. They, of course, quickly pointed out that the show was a team effort and that even if they were the public faces, they couldn’t take all the credit.

“Hey guys!” Natalie called from several tables over, “Wanna call L.A. and tell them where to shove it?”

“Toss me a phone!” Casey called back jubilantly, but before a nominally drunk phone call could actually be placed, his attention was grabbed by Kim and Will.

Suddenly finding that no one was cornering him, Dan had a chance to break for a quiet corner table. He’d kept up the front for as long as he could. He refused to be responsible for breaking the party atmosphere, even if he wasn’t personally in a celebrating mood. He was a t.v. anchor, he could put on a good face at the drop of a hat, but his endurance was quickly waning. It was almost three. The party had started before they’d even gotten their mics off in the studio, spilled into the bullpen and then right on over to Anthony’s. The West Coast guys, Sally and all, were coming in now and he really wasn’t up to another round of “Way to go”s.

He flopped onto the bench and slid onto the darkest corner the booth afforded him. When someone slid in on the other side, he hung his head, covering his face with his hands. He didn’t even bother to look up and see who it was.

“Why do I get the feeling that you’re less enthusiastic about staying with CSC than the rest of us?” Casey asked without preamble.

“I am,” Dan answered quickly, offering no explanation for his morose mood.

Casey studied him for a minute. “So…”

Dan rolled his shoulders and looked up. “I’m fine, Case. Just tired, I guess. I haven’t been sleeping real well while this whole… sale thing was happening. I guess the adrenaline is wearing off.”

Dan made eye contact as he spoke, letting Casey know that there was truth to what he said. But under the table, Casey could feel Dan’s leg bouncing up and down, a nervous habit. There was something he wasn’t saying. “I know. I’ve been there, remember?”

Dan hung his head again. “I know. I’m sorry if I’ve been keeping you awake.”

There was a sadness in his voice that made Casey worry. This was all connected. “Let’s get out of here,” Casey said quietly, reaching over to squeeze Dan’s hand.

“Case – I – I’m not sure –“

“Danny, I’m not sure what I’ve done, but I want us to go somewhere to talk about it.” Casey started to slide out of the booth. The truth was that he had no idea if he’d actually done anything at all, but Dan’s reaction to a line like that would let him know real quick if he had.

“Casey, it’s not like that, it’s not… you didn’t…”

“Yeah, apparently I did,” he said as gently as he could. “Come on.”

It took them almost half an hour to make it to the door. Everyone had to get in a last hug and a last Congrats; the West Coast Update folks had to say hi and bye and Sally had to proposition Casey at least three times, despite his complete and utter lack of response to the overtures.

As they made their way to the corner to hail a cab, Casey began a long stream of colorful ideas of what Sally could screw while Dan just jangled the spare change in his jacket pocket. The ride back to Dan’s place was silent, broken only by Casey giving the cabbie directions. When they pulled up, Dan finally spoke, “You comin’ up?”

Casey tried to reign in his impatience, but wasn’t overly successful. “I don’t know, am I?”

Dan’s eyes clouded over, noticeable even in the dim streetlights. When words failed him, he turned and stormed off towards his building, letting Casey decide if he wanted to follow or not.

Quickly throwing a bill at the driver – not sure if it was a single or a fifty – Casey climbed out and ran after his partner. “Danny, Danny, wait up. Wait up, come on.”

He caught up to him at the elevators. “Hey…”

Dan shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’m sorry, Case… I… I didn’t mean….”

“It’s okay.” He threw an arm around Danny’s shoulders as the elevator door opened. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s just go upstairs and talk, okay?”

Dan nodded and punched his floor.

Dan let them in and dropped his coat on the nearest chair. Casey picked it up and hung both their coats in front closet. He watched as Dan went into the kitchen and came out with two bottles of water. “I think we’ve had enough beer for tonight.”

Casey took his and drained half of it to keep himself from saying, “Or not enough.” This wasn’t shaping up to be a good conversation. He stood in the middle of the room and waited for Dan to land somewhere. When he finally sat on the end of the couch, Casey came over and sat next to him, very close. “What’s this about, Danny? You seemed so excited at first… when we got the news, when we came back from that break you were the one who said we were ‘stuck together’. Now it seems like maybe you’re thinking twice.”

Dan sighed and leaned forward, resting his head in his hands, elbows on his knees. “You really wanted me to go to L.A., didn’t you?” he said after a long while.

There was no good answer to that, Casey realized in a flash. He also knew that the longer he waited, the less likely Dan was to believe whatever answer he did give. “I didn’t think there were a whole lot of options.”

Dan just nodded at the noncommittal answer.

“What are you trying to get me to say here, Danny?” Casey leaned in close, mirroring Dan’s position.

“Nothin’, Case. Nothin’.” Dan leaned back against the couch. “It just seemed that… Where are we now? We can’t pretend that things are going to be the same way they were yesterday.”

“I don’t know. We have no idea what kind of changes Quo Vadimus is going to make, but I get the definite impression that this isn’t about the fact that you may have to cover soccer every once in a while.”

“You wanted me to go, Case. You told me to go to L.A. You said you were staying here in New York, but that I should go out there. Alone.” As hard as he tried, he couldn’t keep his voice from cracking on the last word.

“Oh god…” Casey shifted until he could pull Danny against his shoulder.

“Is this it? Was that… ? If you don’t want to do this, if this was… your way of making it easier – cause I’d be out there and you’d be here and we at least wouldn’t have to see each other everyday – then… I can still call –“

“No.” Casey said firmly. When Dan started to protest, Casey cut him off again. “No. You listen to me for a minute. Danny, we have a colossal misunderstanding here. You kept talking up L.A…. I thought you wanted to go. You know what’s been in my head all day?” he asked suddenly.

“Hm?”

“That quote… my mom had it embroidered on a pillow in the living room when I was a kid: ‘If you love somebody set them free, if they come back to you, they’re yours; if they don’t, they never were.’ I thought you wanted me to let you go,” Casey dropped his head again.

“I wanted you to go with me. I wanted us to go to L.A. I understand that you can’t leave Charlie – hell I don’t want to leave Charlie, he’s the nephew I’ll never have, but I thought that meant that we’d both be staying. Not that… not that you’d tell me to go do it on my own. Not that you’d… send me away.”

Casey toed off his shoes and shifted on the couch so that he could lean against the armrest and slide his leg against the back. He pulled Danny against him, against some significant, though – he hoped – token, resistance. “Come here.” Dan pulled back again, “Come here, Danny, please.” He tugged again and this time Dan pulled up to lay his head on Casey’s chest and curl one arm around his waist. “I’m sorry I made you feel that way. I thought… I thought you were the one looking for the out. I love you and I hope to God we work through this because it was incredibly difficult for me to try and talk you into going to L.A., but I realized that I love you enough to want you to have anything that will make you happy, no matter how miserable it left me.”

Dan pulled away and sat up. Casey sighed, but let him go. “It’s just hard. This isn’t easy. I know that. I know Lisa’s starting to figure things out by some of the things Charlie’s gone home saying and I know she’s giving you shit. I know that sometimes you don’t know what to say to Charlie when he asks about me. I know that sometimes it would be far, far less painful to give into either Natalie or Dana and one of their stupid blind date set-ups than to come up with yet another reason for why you can’t. I know that we have new management and that we don’t need to rock the boat in the slightest bit right now. I know that –“

“I know one thing,” Casey cut him off. “I know I love you. And that makes all the other crap worth it.”

“I love you too,” Dan replied softly. Casey couldn’t help but think it sounded a little obligatory.

“Look, it took me months to convince you the first time that I loved you as more than a co-host and more than a friend. I’m willing to back off and prove it again, if that’s what you need.”

Dan shrugged. “I don’t know what I need.”

“Can I make a suggestion?”

“Sure.”

“Call Abby in the morning. Talk to her about all this. These past few weeks have been pretty rough on everyone. Maybe more for you than everyone else. Or maybe you just did a better job of snowing us into thinking it wasn’t so bad and now that we see that it’s as bad for you as it has been for everyone else and then this…”

“I’m not touching that last sentence. And in any case, I don’t talk to Abby about… this.”

“Which is something I’ve never understood. I know we agreed that we’d keep our private lives private, but she’s your therapist, Danny. It’s okay with me if you want to talk to her about us. Like you need my permission to talk to your therapist about something.

Casey stopped and considered the next thing he was going to say, decided he meant it and continued, “But you know, if you want me to go with you… do the couple’s therapy thing, I would. I’ve gone that route before, you know. It wasn’t so bad. I think Lisa just wanted someone to tell me she was right so she didn’t work at the whole repairing-the-relationship thing too hard, but he said some stuff that made a lot of sense to me. If you think something like that would help us get past this thing, I’m okay with that. In any case, you should ask Abby if you can get in tomorrow or sometime soon. We’ve all had an inordinate amount of stress lately. You always seem to feel better after you talk to her.”

“I feel better after I talk to you,” Danny rebutted.

“I love you too.”

“I’ll call in the morning.”

“You want me to go with?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Okay.” Casey leaned in to kiss his partner, but Danny put a hand against his chest, stopping him.

“Case –“

“No, no, it’s okay.”

“It’s not – I didn’t mean…”

“It’s okay, Danny. I’m sorry I pushed.”

Dan leaned forward and hung his head. He scrubbed his face and sighed. “I’m sorry, Case. It’s not… well, yeah, maybe it is you. But it’s because you mean too much to me. I can’t… I can’t do this casually, I think you know that.”

“I do,” Casey said slowly, wondering exactly what Dan was saying. Was this it? Was Dan ending the more intimate part of their relationship to salvage the friendship and working relationship or was he just asking for space? Just for a little while. Please God, Casey thought, please let it be the latter. He took a deep breath. “I know, Danny. And I never meant to push you away. If there’s still any confusion, I still love you and I still want you, but if you need some time and space, that’s fine.” Casey was shocked at the bitterness he heard in his own voice. He hadn’t heard it since the last time he tried to convince Lisa that they should try again, for Charlie’s sake if nothing else. That had been when he’d realized that he tended to get bitchy and bitter when he was trying really hard not to cry. “Just let me know,” he said softly and stood up, grabbed his coat and left before Danny could stop him.

Casey was gone before Danny could fully comprehend what had happened. When the enormity of it all hit him, he slid to the floor and began to cry. He desperately wanted to fix this. He needed Casey to understand that right now he needed Casey to prove his love. It was selfish and he probably didn’t deserve it, but it was what he needed. There was also no way he could ever ask for those things. If Casey loved him, if Casey wanted to be with him, he’d do it. He didn’t want anything that came only because Casey felt obligated.

But it hurt. His chest was in a vice and his eyes burned. He reached around to grab a throw pillow and tucked it between his chest and his knees and buried his face in it, hoping he’d fall asleep or cry himself out or stop caring. But he knew that none of those would be happening any time soon.

It was ironic. It was unfortunate. It was just awful. In the past when someone had hurt him, he’d called Casey. Once it had been almost four in the morning and he’d called because a girl he’d started getting serious about had freaked when he’d opened up to her about his past and trusted her with knowing about what happened to Sam. Casey had been on his doorstep fifteen minutes later and they’d sat on the back steps of Danny’s apartment in the cool summer breeze and Casey had held him while he cried and told him all about the hurt and the betrayal of trust.

That was the first time Casey’d ever kissed him, he recalled. Casey’d been holding him, sitting side by side, with Dan’s head against Casey’s chest and Casey’d just dropped his head down and kissed the back of Dan’s head and told him that he’d never be alone. No matter how many people broke his heart, he’d never be alone.

And all those years ago he’d believed unreservedly.

All those years ago he could have never envisioned being where he was that night.

And now he had no idea who to call. Abby he supposed, if there was no one else. But how sad was his existence if there was no one else in the world he could trust with this? How completely pathetic was he if he had to pay someone to listen to him bitch about his life because he’d alienated the one person in the world he could trust with his secrets and his heart. He started sobbing all the harder.

The sun hadn’t quite started showing when the phone rang. It was almost six in the morning and anyone who knew him knew that was the middle of the night for him, which meant it was probably important, but he wasn’t in any condition to talk to anyone. The machine clicked on and Dan tried to control his breathing long enough to hear the message.

“Danny? Danny, come on man, pick up, please? Look, I understand if you aren’t really keen on talking to me right now, but I need to know if you’re okay. I… I’m pretty sure you are, but I can’t stop thinking about… you know… Just pick up and tell me I don’t need to call an ambulance, okay? Then I’ll leave you alone. I promise. Danny? Danny, come on –“

“I’m okay, Case.” Danny finally muttered into the phone. “Well, that may not be entirely true, but I don’t need an ambulance this time.”

“Thank God,” Casey sighed into the phone. “You took so long to get to the phone…”

“I’m… okay,” Danny confirmed.

Noting that Dan wasn’t hanging up on him, Casey decided to press his luck. “I love you.”

Dan’s voice broke when he answered. “I love you too, Case.”

“Danny… is there any chance I can come back over and we can try and fix this?”

“You want to?” Danny wasn’t quite sure where the question came from, when he had started thinking that Casey hadn’t meant a damn thing he’d said earlier about only letting him go because he thought it was what Danny wanted.

“Yeah, Danny, I want to,” Casey answered without hesitation. “I really do.”

“’Kay.”

“Give me half an hour. You’ll be okay for half an hour?” Casey asked, a little agitation creeping into his voice.

“I’m okay, Case. I’ll be okay.” Danny was pleased that he was able to get more than two words out without his voice cracking.

Danny tried, somewhat unsuccessfully to scrub the tear stains from his cheeks and wrestle his unruly hair back into place while he waited. He also put on a pot of coffee and pulled out a box of Casey’s favorite pop-tarts.

The knock on the door startled him and he had to take a couple of deep breaths before he could open it.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

Casey barely had the presence of mind to step past Danny into the front hall and shut the door before he wrapped Danny up in his arms. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I handled this so badly. I was so scared you were leaving me that I … I left first. And then all I could think about was that night in Dallas…”

Danny hugged him back and then stepped away, self-consciously rubbing at the scars on his wrists. “I’m okay,” Danny reassured him again.

Casey took him by the arms and looked into his eyes. “Really?”

“Yeah. It… it’s not that it didn’t cross my mind, but more in the way of, ‘as bad as this sucks at least I’m handling things better than I did in Dallas.’ You know?”

Casey hugged him again. “Okay. Good. I never want to think I could hurt you that badly.”

Danny led them into the kitchen and pulled down two coffee mugs from the wall rack. “You probably could if you tried. But I think, deep down, I knew you weren’t trying.” He busied himself with the coffee.

Casey stepped close to him and took the sugar spoon out of his hand and turned him around. “I handled this so badly, Danny. I’m sorry. Walking away was probably the worst thing I could have done tonight. Too many people have walked away from you and never come back. I don’t want to be like that.”

Danny leaned in, resting his chin on Casey’s shoulder, letting Casey slide his arms around him. “When I think about it now, I don’t think I was ever really afraid that would happen. I don’t know why, but I never really thought we’d never speak to each other again. I wasn’t sure what we’d have if I went to L.A. and you stayed, but I always knew there’d be something.”

“Yeah, if you went, there’d still be something, but I don’t want you to go. Please Danny, please stay. Stay in New York, stay with CSC… stay with me. Please.”

Danny just hugged him tighter and nodded against his shoulder. “Yeah.”

Casey leaned his head back and whispered in a nearly silent, very heartfelt voice, “Thank God.”