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aprilmay430.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
lj_snarchive2005-10-25 12:56 pm
aprilmay430.livejournal.com) wrote in lj_snarchive2005-10-25 12:56 pm
Postcoital by April May, Dan/Casey, Rated: R
Title: Postcoital
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aprilmay430
Pairing: Dan/Casey
Rating: R
Category: Slash
Summary: After an eventful vacation, Dan and Casey spend some time apart and do some thinking about their future.
August 2000
"Case?"
"Hmm?"
"You'd better get out of here if you want to get to the soccer game on time."
No response. Well, no verbal response anyway. They were in the parking lot of La Guardia Airport, having just returned to New York from what had turned out to be a very, well, eventful week long trip to Canada. The original plan had been that Casey would leave immediately for his son's soccer game, but instead, after Casey put his suitcases in the trunk of his car, they had both headed the most secluded spot they could think of for a good-bye kiss, which turned out to be the back of Dan's SUV. This one kiss had turned into several more, though, and before long, Dan found himself lying on his back, pinned under Casey, who had apparently forgotten that he was ever in a hurry to leave. He could feel the hard metal floor under the carpeting, and he could also feel himself getting hard, to the point where if he didn't stop this now, he probably wouldn't be able to soon.
"Case?"
"I was just thinking it wouldn't be so bad if I got there a little late, would it? I mean, Charlie's going to be so busy with the game he probably won't even notice if I miss the first quarter..."
"Case..."
"That's the third time you've said that. It's a good thing I'm not with you for your conversation skills."
Oh, fine. You want words, you'll get words. After a moment to collect his thoughts, Dan said, "As much as I would like to go along with whatever lascivious ideas are percolating in that complicated brain of yours, I know you'll end up hating yourself if you missed one moment of your son's Important Final Playoff Game."
"Yeah, I guess you're right," Casey agreed, but instead of making any attempt to leave, moved in for another kiss.
Dan broke it off and pushed him away, gently but firmly. "Casey. Out of here. Now. And don't even think of touching that."
Casey pulled his hand back reluctantly. "Okay," he said, sounding a bit like a sulky child who had just been told he couldn't get any ice cream before dinner. He slid over to the door, clambered out, then turned around to look at Danny, who was struggling to get himself into a sitting position. Maybe it was him getting older, Dan thought, but making out in a car was definitely not as appealing as it used to be.
"Are you sure you don't want to come with me?" Casey asked.
You have no idea how much I want to come with you now, Dan thought. Oh, wait. He meant to the game. "No, this is your time with Charlie, and I don't want to get in the way of that. Besides, Lisa' s going to be there and..."
"Good point," Casey said with a grin. "Maybe I'll drop by your place after the game to give you the highlights."
"Do that. And be sure to bring the game film," he added teasingly. Dan knew very well Casey wasn't allowed to bring his camcorder to the games any more. Not since that incident several weeks ago when, following Charlie's first goal, it had flew out of his sweaty, excited fingers and nearly knocked out the mother of a player on the opposing team.
Casey made a brief sour face at that, but he was still smiling, so he couldn't be too pissed off. "I'll call you," he said.
"Okay. Say hi to Charlie for me." Seeing Casey just standing there staring at him, he said, "Would you get going anyway?"
Casey leaned forward and, after looking around, gave Dan another quick kiss and then reluctantly turned and hurried to his car. Dan climbed over to the driver's seat, his erection feeling about as hard as the stick shift, trying to get his body calmed down to the point where he felt capable of driving.
It was then that he realized he had yet another reason to hate soccer.
I really am going to be late, Casey thought. Shit. He craned his head out the side window of his Volvo sedan and stared glumly at the stalled line of cars in front of him and the series of orange cones that were forcing them to merge into one lane. He was only a few blocks from the school where Charlie's game was being played, but the way things were going, it would take him about another fifteen minutes to get there. If he was lucky. The last time he had driven this way, about a week and a half ago, this had been the shortcut and the road hadn't been under construction. Of course, a week and a half ago, he hadn't been having sex with Dan either, so that just showed how quickly things could change.
Take today's impulsive make-out session, for example. Until recently, he would have thought, like everybody who knew him, probably, that it would have been totally out of character for him to do something like that. But in the last few days, he had been in an unfamiliar mood for him - elated, optimistic, and more than a bit silly - what was that called again? Oh, right, happy.
"I'm in love," he said out loud, testing it. Okay, that sounded weird. And embarrassing. He was glad he had remembered to roll the window back up.
He wondered if he had ever really been in love before. He had thought he had been in love with Lisa, at least in the beginning, but it now seemed to him that he had taken a close friendship and a small amount of sexual attraction and blown it up into something it wasn't just to prove how "normal" he was. With Sally, on the other hand, there had never been any pretense of love, not on his part anyway. It had all been just sex, a way to make his nights seem less empty and to stop those unsettling thoughts that would surface when he was alone in his bed.
And Dana? How did he really feel about her? Not that long ago, he had been convinced he had been in love with her, that if she hadn't decided to test his feelings with that absurd Dating Plan, he would be with her right now. But, if he was honest with himself, he had to admit that it was just another case of his trying to turn friendship into love - that even though he did like being with her and, at times, even felt an attraction to her, she had been just another substitute for the person he really wanted but thought he couldn't have. Danny.
Oh, yes. Danny. He thought about those wonderful last four days of their vacation. About waking up Thursday morning finding himself naked with Dan, also naked, curled up around him, then realizing it wasn't one of his dreams this time.
"Mornin'" he had mumbled, feeling somewhat tongue-tied and self-conscious on top of his usual morning fogginess. What was the right thing to say to your best friend the morning after he had just given you the best blow job of your life, he wondered.
"Good morning," Dan responded, smiling-no-*beaming* at him in that radiant way he got when he was especially happy and not seeming to be uncomfortable at all.
Noticing how quiet it had gotten outside, he remarked, "It stopped raining." Oh, great, he thought. Now I'm doing weather reports.
"Apparently." Dan agreed, still smiling, and for a moment, Casey had wondered if he was making fun of him.
Still struggling to find the right thing to say, he asked, "So do you want to go fishing again? Or play golf?" Not that he really wanted to do either of those things.
Without seeming to consider it, Dan replied. "Not really."
"So what do you want to do?"
At that, Dan smiled even more broadly. "Let me show you," he said. And did.
They had ended up spending most of that day in bed, as if making up for lost time, their bodies entwined, kissing, touching each other all over, rubbing their swollen cocks together in an almost frenzied way until they came, resting for a while, then starting all over again.
There had been a few times when he had stopped to wonder what he was doing. He imagined the disapproval of his mother, the rest of his family, the church he grew up in, Lisa, probably most of the people who watched him on Sports Night, hell, probably almost everybody. But then Danny would say, "You all right, Casey?" while looking at him with those intense dark eyes of his, and he'd feel cared for in a way he never had before in his life. And when he'd respond "Yeah," Dan would smile again, and then he'd do something with his hands that would make Casey think that nothing else mattered....
Someone's horn honking broke Casey out of his daze, and he realized the traffic was moving again and there was now a large space in front of him. I'd better start concentrating on my driving, he told himself. The last thing I need right now is to be the first person to be arrested for Driving While Mentally Masturbating.
When he finally got to the school, the parking lot looked like the Attack of the Mini-Vans, and he had to drive all the way to the back to find a space to park. Then, to get to Charlie's game, he had to walk past another field where the under-12 girls were playing their championship. By the time he got there, it was a little over ten minutes into the first quarter, and, as Dan predicted, he felt a nagging sense of guilt about it. He also felt overheated and sweaty from walking around in the sticky August heat (another reminder that he wasn't in Canada any more). He hoped that at least the sweat might wash away any lingering Danny smell still on him - Lisa had been very good at picking up things like that. Once, in LA, after Dana had given him an impulsive kiss at an office party, Lisa had accused him of cheating on her because "that's not Dana's lipstick color." He, on the other hand, hadn't had that kind of awareness when it came to Lisa. Obviously.
He scanned the packed bleachers as he approached them, trying to see if he could find Lisa. Then he spotted her sitting in the front row with her latest boyfriend, Gary, the dentist. No, the endodontist. Lisa always got pissed off when he got that wrong, as if she suspected he was doing that as some kind of subtle put down. Which he wasn't. From the little he'd seen of him, Gary seemed to be a nice enough guy and he seemed to have what Lisa was looking for, which was somebody with loads of money and the willingness to do whatever it was she wanted. Lisa, whose shoulder-length dark blonde hair was pulled into a neat ponytail, and who looked like the only parent who wasn't frazzled by the heat, was holding onto Charlie's water bottle with her left hand as if it was a sacred trust while her right arm was wrapped equally tightly around her boyfriend.
He tried to walk past them without being noticed, but, of course, someone had to call out "Casey," which made both Lisa and Gary turn their heads to look for him. Gary, who was a slightly shorter than average, balding man about the same age as Casey (although he looked a few years older), gave him a friendly smile and a wave. Lisa, on the other hand, just looked at him with a withering stare that, if it could have talked, would have said. "So where the fuck have you been?"
Trying to not let her get to him, he turned around and began climbing up the bleachers, looking for a place to sit. Fortunately, the other parents were friendlier to him than his ex-wife. He had gone to enough games to have gotten to know many of them, and while there had been some initial awkwardness and jokes about whether he was going to cover the games on his show, they now seemed to accept him as just another soccer dad, which was just fine with him.
When he got to the fourth row, one of the parents, Amy, a single mother who had a son Charlie's age, moved down so he could sit next to her. He remembered that Danny had commented to him once (the day after the one time he had been persuaded to watch a game) that he thought Amy was interested in him. He had replied that he hadn't noticed, and he remembered Dan responding "You never notice" and wondering at the time why he had said it as bitterly as he had.
After he sat down, Amy offered him a bottle of water from her cooler, which he accepted gratefully. She really was a nice person and attractive in a kind of generic soccer mom way, with short, neatly cut dark hair and what looked to be a fairly nice body under her T-shirt and shorts. Before he had left on his trip, Casey had actually had some vague ideas of asking her out, but now, obviously, that wasn't going to happen.
"How was your vacation?" she asked, smiling at him. "Did you do anything special?"
"No, just, you know, mainly..." A flashback of Danny's mouth on him, Danny's arms pulling him down. "...relaxing." Well, he had spent a lot of time in bed, although "relaxing" was probably not the best way to describe it.
"Charlie's doing a great job out there," she told him, pointing to the field. When he spotted his son, he could see that he was, indeed, doing well, moving confidently up and down the field and moving the ball around so skillfully, it was hard to believe it was only his first year on the team.
He didn't remember being that confident at that age. In fact, he had been kind of a geek, with long thin arms and legs he didn't seem to be able to control most of the time, large dark framed glasses (a bit like Jeremy's) and braces on his teeth. About the only time he had felt any confidence at all was during his gymnastics practices and competitions, and he remembered how he had almost had felt as if he was flying as he had gone though his routines and how great it had felt to hear people applaud him. Except his father who had always been "too busy" to go to any of his competitions, something that still hurt him a little when he thought of it, and one of the reasons he had tried so hard to go to as many of Charlie's games as he could. His father had never really approved of his going into gymnastics, anyway, saying it was meant for men who "weren't big enough to play a real sport" and that most of them were "probably sissies and homos."
Thinking about that now made Casey feel a little sick. What would his father have thought of him now, he wondered. Even though he really knew. Trying to put that thought out of his mind, he leaned forward, trying to concentrate on the rest of the game.
When Dan opened the front door of his apartment and stepped inside, he couldn't help notice how quiet it seemed. In the past, when he had returned home from a trip with Casey, as much as he had enjoyed being with him, he was always a little relieved to get a bit of solitude for a change. But this time, he felt a little too alone. Not only that, he was still feeling aroused and, now, starving because the only thing he had had to eat so far was the undersized sweet roll he had gotten on the plane as part of their "continental breakfast." So, for a moment, he stood in the middle of his living room trying to decide what he wanted to do first, jerk off or make dinner.
About five minutes later, he emerged from the bathroom and went into the kitchen to find something to eat. Since he had cleaned out most of the food in the refrigerator before leaving, there wasn't much. In the refrigerator part itself, there was nothing but part of a six pack of beer, several packages of ketchup that he had picked up from fast food places, and a few slices of processed American cheese. In the freezer, there was a package of frozen sandwich steaks, a bag of bagels, and a couple of Klondike Bars in the freezer (the really good Heath bar kind).
He considered ordering out for something, but decided he was too hungry to wait for a delivery, so he went ahead and made himself dinner with what he had, ending up with a steak and cheese sandwich on a toasted bagel, along with a bag of Fritos that he remembered he had in one of the cupboards. Pulling a beer out of the refrigerator, he went back in the living room and settled into the armchair in front of the TV, putting his dinner down on the table next to him.
While he ate, he clicked around the channels until he found a golf game, but ended up not paying that much attention to it, and instead, once again began thinking about the last few days. It was still hard for him to believe that it hadn't been just another one of his fantasies - that he really had been with Casey and that Casey had turned out to have wanted it just as much as he had (or maybe even more, he thought with a grin, thinking about their farewell scene at the airport). He thought about how, in bed, Casey had seemed to have turned into a different person - able to express his feelings with his body in a way he never seemed to be able to with words, almost insatiable to the point where Dan teasingly called him a "male nympho" and an "orgasm junkie" (To which Casey had merely responded with his raised-eyebrow look, "Do you have a problem with that?" and Dan had admitted he hadn't.), and willing to go along with everything Dan suggested until...
That brought his thoughts to the day before, when they had driven to Toronto, and after checking in at their hotel, had gone downtown, where they had killed time before the Blue Jays game by playing tourist, going to the Hockey Hall of Fame and gawking at the decorated moose sculptures that were scattered throughout the city. He remembered Casey being appalled by what he called the "tackiness" of the whole thing.
"Is this what civilization has descended to?" he had ranted. "From the pyramids, the Great Wall, the Eiffel Tower, Mount Rushmore, to people getting excited about painted replicas of animals in funny clothing?" To which Danny had responded, "Shut up and let the nice woman take a picture of us."
It didn't take long for them to realize - after several people had come up to them and asked for autographs - that they were now close enough to the border for them to be recognized and that they'd better start acting more discreet. (Although they did manage to sit with legs and arms touching during the game, but was it their fault the seats were a little too small and close together for a couple of men their size?) So by the time they got back to their hotel after the game, they were ready to start ripping each other's clothes off.
That was the night when Dan had managed to persuade Casey to enter him for the first time, and he remembered the look of astonishment, of hey-this-isn't-that-bad on Casey's face at the moment of penetration and then later, as he recovered from his orgasm, opening his eyes and seeing Casey collapsing next to him, looking as blissful as he felt.
"It wasn't what you imagined, was it?" Dan said, gently brushing a strand of sweat-soaked hair from Casey's forehead. "Not disgusting or degrading, just..."
"Pretty fucking amazing." Casey said, still looking slightly dazed.
"Yeah," Dan agreed, and he should have left it at that. But instead he continued, as he moved his hand down Casey's face, "It'll feel even better when I do that to you." That's when Casey had pulled away, his face getting that closed-off look Dan hadn't seen in days.
"I'm sorry," he had apologized. "I guess I'm not ready for that yet."
Dan had tried to reassure him that it didn't matter, but the mood of that night seemed to have been spoiled, and soon after that, Casey had rolled onto his side and fallen asleep. Now, sitting alone in his living room, Dan wondered, Was that when I blew it? Did I push him too far? Did I scare him away and that's why I haven't heard from him yet? Okay, he didn't seem too scared off when I saw him last, but who knows what happened since then? Maybe spending a couple hours in the middle of all that suburban heterosexuality was going to make him the past few days had all been a horrible mistake that he never wanted to repeat. Was he going to get a phone call starting with "Hey, Danny, I've been thinking..."
And why hasn't he called yet? Where is he?
At that moment, Casey was sitting in a booth in one of those pizza/video game places he had thought had all gone out of business a couple of years ago but apparently hadn't, watching Charlie playing at the machines with some of his friends. Definitely not his first choice of where to spend the evening - in fact, it was nowhere on the list - but after Charlie's team had won the championship, several of the parents had decided to take their kids there for a celebration, and Charlie had wanted to go, so he had agreed to go along. He had even attempted to play a few games, although the only video game he had ever been very good at was Pac-Man (but he had been really good at Pac-Man), but eventually all the rushing around he had done that day (along with getting very little sleep during the last few days) had caught up with him, and he needed to sit down somewhere. There was one slice of cold, greasy pepperoni pizza remaining on the platter in front of him, and he idly picked at the crust, wondering if he was hungry enough to actually eat it.
I really should call Dan, he thought. Knowing him, he's probably going nuts right now wondering what happened to me. Just as he was about to go to the pay phone (His cell phone was in one of his suitcases in the trunk of his car. He could imagine Danny saying sarcastically, "*Great* place for it."), Lisa, who had been talking to some other mothers, came over to his table and sat down across from him. "I'm sure you're probably tired out from your trip," she said, "But I wanted to thank you for coming here with us. I know Charlie appreciated it."
Casey shrugged. "No problem," he said. His voice now had a slight crack to it after developing laryngitis from, first, all the cheering he had done at the game and then from trying to talk in the noisy restaurant.
"Casey, can I talk to you for a moment? There's something I wanted to tell you."
Okay, that got his attention. He sat up a little straighter in the booth. "Sure."
"Well, as you probably know, Gary and I have been together for a few months now, and things are going really well and..." She actually looked a little flustered. He couldn't remember the last time that had happened. "We've decided that we want to live together and...I just wanted to let you know."
"That's great, Lisa. I'm happy for you." He looked over at Gary, who was now playing a video football game with his son. From what he could see, they seemed to be getting along pretty well together. It wouldn't be so bad if Charlie had another father in his life, he thought, adding, with a stab of guilt, someone who could spend more time with him than I can.
"His apartment is a little too small for the three of us, so he's going to be moving into our house. You're not going to have a problem with that, are you?"
"No, why should I? It's your house now."
She looked relieved. And then she asked the question that he had both expected and dreaded, "Are you seeing someone right now?" Seeing him hesitate, she added teasingly, "You are, aren't you? So that's why you were so late to the game today."
"Well, let's just say I'm kind of involved with someone right now, but I'm not sure what's going to happen with it." At least that was the truth. He wasn't.
"Well, I hope things work out for you. I do want to see you happy, Casey. I'm really not an evil bitch, despite whatever propaganda Danny may be feeding you about me." She had turned her head to look at Gary and Charlie, so she couldn't see Casey frown at that last remark.
He started getting up from the booth. "Hey, Lis, I think I'll get going now. I've still got some unpacking to do, and I'm going back to work tomorrow...I'll just go over and say good-bye to Charlie."
If she noticed a change in his tone, she didn't act like it. "Good night, Casey. See you Wednesday."
He lifted a hand in response, and continued walking over to the game area.
What really is going on with him, she wondered. Maybe it's about time I made a phone call to my old friend Dana....
At about 10:00 that evening, Dan was stretched out in his armchair with a beer next to him, channel surfing, just like he was about every Sunday night when he wasn't working. The only difference this time was that sitting on the small round table next to him, next to the TV Guide and the bag of Fritos, was his cordless phone, which he kept looking at anxiously as if he could will it to ring.
Did "I'll call you" really mean I was going to get a call tonight, he wondered. Or...
Stop it, Rydell, he told himself. You're starting to sound like most of the women you've dated. Or, worse yet, Bobbie Bernstein.
When the phone finally did ring, the first thing he said, after looking at the caller ID and picking the phone up was, "God, please tell me you haven't been thinking", to which Casey responded with an understandable "What?"
"Sorry. Never mind. It's me being crazy again."
"I just got home," Casey explained in a voice that Dan noticed sounded a bit raspy. "Lisa roped me into taking Charlie and some of his friends to the victory celebration."
"You mean -"
"Exactly."
"And guess who scored the winning goal in overtime?"
"It wouldn't happen to be the promising young soccer star Charlie McCall, would it?"
"Okay, actually it was Kyle Maroni who scored the goal, but Charlie assisted, and that's just as important."
"Absolutely."
"What's so funny?"
"Nothing...Just enjoying you sounding so happy, that's all. Well, that and my sadistic amusement at your voice problems."
"I'm just relieved that things have worked out so well for Charlie. It took a lot for him to admit that he really didn't want to go back to Little League this summer and that he'd rather play soccer, but he seems to be a lot happier..."
"Since he switched teams?"
"Are you trying to make some kind of analogy here?"
"Oh, yes, I'm definitely making an analogy." Casey could imagine him sitting back on his couch right now, smiling his infamous but somehow cute Smug Grin. "So how's Lisa? Is she still with the dentist?"
"Endodontist. Lisa said he's moving in with her."
"Yeah? So how do you feel about that?"
Danny's been spending too much time with his therapist, Casey thought. He's staring to *sound* like one. "I don't know. He seems like an all right guy. And he and Charlie seem to get along just fine. He'll probably end up being a better father for him than I ever was."
Dan couldn't stop himself from sighing at that. The last thing he wanted to hear right now was the return of Self-Pitying Casey. "That's not true, Case. You've done the best job you could with that kid. And he thinks the world of you."
"Yeah...right...whatever."
Dan decided it was time to change the subject. Fast. "Why don't you come over and let me give you something for that throat?"
"Danny!" He sounded a little grossed out, but in an amused way, which was much better than Self-Pitying Casey.
"Hey, I was just talking about making you some tea and honey. I don't know where your mind is going. Seriously, do you want to come over?"
"I don't think so. I'm bushed."
"Bushed? Damn, I love it when you get all folksy and Midwestern on me. Next thing I know, you're going to be telling me you're 'plum tuckered out'."
"Oh, go tucker yourself, Danny."
Dan groaned at that. "I guess I'll have to." After a brief silence, he continued, "Well, I guess I'd better let you go rest your voice. Dana'll be ready to kill you if you go in sounding like that tomorrow."
There was silence, and then Casey said, sounding more serious as well as worried, "Tomorrow. Work. How are we ever going to be able to manage this, Danny? What are we going to tell people? Are we going to tell people? I hate the idea of keeping us a secret, but if we don't..." He sighed. "This could fucking ruin our career, you know? I mean, J.J's been looking for a reason to fire me for months, and Trager - well who the hell knows how he'll react. And if this gets out to the media..."
He was starting to sound too frantic. Dan decided he'd better step in. "Casey. I know all this. But you know what? I don't care. Okay, I do care a little. But all I know is that after waiting all this time for us to get together, I don't want to give it up now just because of what might happen. Do you?"
Another pause, and then he heard Casey say, "No...Not really."
"So as far as tomorrow goes, I think we should just...you know, play it by ear."
"Is that anything like showing up and seeing what happens?"
"Something like that," Dan said. "Except hopefully this time we won't lose our pants. Unless you want to."
Casey laughed a little at that, then, almost whispering, said, "Love you, Danny," and the crack in his voice seemed to be from more than laryngitis this time.
"I love you, too, Case." Dan responded. "Good night." When he hung up, he felt a sudden surge of exhilaration that made him wish there was somebody there he could high-five. But since there wasn't, he finished his beer and watched the local news. At about 11:30, he finally started to feel sleepy enough to go to bed, but once he got there, he found that he couldn't sleep. In the past few days, he had gotten too used to having Casey curled up next to him, had even gotten used to bony elbows and knees cutting into him, thick wiry hair brushing against his face, and the occasional soft gurgly snoring sounds in his ear.
After a while, he got up and, going to the closet, took out the body pillow his mom had gotten for his birthday. It was supposed to be good for his back, she had told him, but he couldn't help imagining her thinking, this may be the only thing you get to sleep with. Not that he could blame her since he hadn't brought a woman home to meet her in over five years.
Feeling more than a little foolish, he lay the pillow next to him and put his arms around it. Then he closed his eyes, imagining it was Casey he was holding, and before he knew it, he was humping the pillow in a way he hadn't done since he was a young, horny teenager, until, with a moan, he began to inseminate his bedding.
Hell, I was going to do the laundry tomorrow anyway, he thought, just before he finally fell asleep.
After Casey hung up, he found that he didn't feel tired any more. In fact, he felt more than a bit hyper, and he could feel the beginnings of a migraine digging in around his left eye. So he got up, took a couple of Motrin, started unpacking his suitcases, and put his dirty clothes in the hamper. Then he picked out what he was going to wear the next day, took everything off but his boxers, and went into the bathroom, where he brushed and flossed his teeth, washed his face, and applied cream around his eyes in his continuing, apparently futile fight against his developing crow's-feet.
Then, going back into the living room, he turned the TV on and sat in his armchair staring without real interest at an infomercial for an exercise machine, still worried about what was going to happen the next day.
Author:
aprilmay430Pairing: Dan/Casey
Rating: R
Category: Slash
Summary: After an eventful vacation, Dan and Casey spend some time apart and do some thinking about their future.
August 2000
"Case?"
"Hmm?"
"You'd better get out of here if you want to get to the soccer game on time."
No response. Well, no verbal response anyway. They were in the parking lot of La Guardia Airport, having just returned to New York from what had turned out to be a very, well, eventful week long trip to Canada. The original plan had been that Casey would leave immediately for his son's soccer game, but instead, after Casey put his suitcases in the trunk of his car, they had both headed the most secluded spot they could think of for a good-bye kiss, which turned out to be the back of Dan's SUV. This one kiss had turned into several more, though, and before long, Dan found himself lying on his back, pinned under Casey, who had apparently forgotten that he was ever in a hurry to leave. He could feel the hard metal floor under the carpeting, and he could also feel himself getting hard, to the point where if he didn't stop this now, he probably wouldn't be able to soon.
"Case?"
"I was just thinking it wouldn't be so bad if I got there a little late, would it? I mean, Charlie's going to be so busy with the game he probably won't even notice if I miss the first quarter..."
"Case..."
"That's the third time you've said that. It's a good thing I'm not with you for your conversation skills."
Oh, fine. You want words, you'll get words. After a moment to collect his thoughts, Dan said, "As much as I would like to go along with whatever lascivious ideas are percolating in that complicated brain of yours, I know you'll end up hating yourself if you missed one moment of your son's Important Final Playoff Game."
"Yeah, I guess you're right," Casey agreed, but instead of making any attempt to leave, moved in for another kiss.
Dan broke it off and pushed him away, gently but firmly. "Casey. Out of here. Now. And don't even think of touching that."
Casey pulled his hand back reluctantly. "Okay," he said, sounding a bit like a sulky child who had just been told he couldn't get any ice cream before dinner. He slid over to the door, clambered out, then turned around to look at Danny, who was struggling to get himself into a sitting position. Maybe it was him getting older, Dan thought, but making out in a car was definitely not as appealing as it used to be.
"Are you sure you don't want to come with me?" Casey asked.
You have no idea how much I want to come with you now, Dan thought. Oh, wait. He meant to the game. "No, this is your time with Charlie, and I don't want to get in the way of that. Besides, Lisa' s going to be there and..."
"Good point," Casey said with a grin. "Maybe I'll drop by your place after the game to give you the highlights."
"Do that. And be sure to bring the game film," he added teasingly. Dan knew very well Casey wasn't allowed to bring his camcorder to the games any more. Not since that incident several weeks ago when, following Charlie's first goal, it had flew out of his sweaty, excited fingers and nearly knocked out the mother of a player on the opposing team.
Casey made a brief sour face at that, but he was still smiling, so he couldn't be too pissed off. "I'll call you," he said.
"Okay. Say hi to Charlie for me." Seeing Casey just standing there staring at him, he said, "Would you get going anyway?"
Casey leaned forward and, after looking around, gave Dan another quick kiss and then reluctantly turned and hurried to his car. Dan climbed over to the driver's seat, his erection feeling about as hard as the stick shift, trying to get his body calmed down to the point where he felt capable of driving.
It was then that he realized he had yet another reason to hate soccer.
I really am going to be late, Casey thought. Shit. He craned his head out the side window of his Volvo sedan and stared glumly at the stalled line of cars in front of him and the series of orange cones that were forcing them to merge into one lane. He was only a few blocks from the school where Charlie's game was being played, but the way things were going, it would take him about another fifteen minutes to get there. If he was lucky. The last time he had driven this way, about a week and a half ago, this had been the shortcut and the road hadn't been under construction. Of course, a week and a half ago, he hadn't been having sex with Dan either, so that just showed how quickly things could change.
Take today's impulsive make-out session, for example. Until recently, he would have thought, like everybody who knew him, probably, that it would have been totally out of character for him to do something like that. But in the last few days, he had been in an unfamiliar mood for him - elated, optimistic, and more than a bit silly - what was that called again? Oh, right, happy.
"I'm in love," he said out loud, testing it. Okay, that sounded weird. And embarrassing. He was glad he had remembered to roll the window back up.
He wondered if he had ever really been in love before. He had thought he had been in love with Lisa, at least in the beginning, but it now seemed to him that he had taken a close friendship and a small amount of sexual attraction and blown it up into something it wasn't just to prove how "normal" he was. With Sally, on the other hand, there had never been any pretense of love, not on his part anyway. It had all been just sex, a way to make his nights seem less empty and to stop those unsettling thoughts that would surface when he was alone in his bed.
And Dana? How did he really feel about her? Not that long ago, he had been convinced he had been in love with her, that if she hadn't decided to test his feelings with that absurd Dating Plan, he would be with her right now. But, if he was honest with himself, he had to admit that it was just another case of his trying to turn friendship into love - that even though he did like being with her and, at times, even felt an attraction to her, she had been just another substitute for the person he really wanted but thought he couldn't have. Danny.
Oh, yes. Danny. He thought about those wonderful last four days of their vacation. About waking up Thursday morning finding himself naked with Dan, also naked, curled up around him, then realizing it wasn't one of his dreams this time.
"Mornin'" he had mumbled, feeling somewhat tongue-tied and self-conscious on top of his usual morning fogginess. What was the right thing to say to your best friend the morning after he had just given you the best blow job of your life, he wondered.
"Good morning," Dan responded, smiling-no-*beaming* at him in that radiant way he got when he was especially happy and not seeming to be uncomfortable at all.
Noticing how quiet it had gotten outside, he remarked, "It stopped raining." Oh, great, he thought. Now I'm doing weather reports.
"Apparently." Dan agreed, still smiling, and for a moment, Casey had wondered if he was making fun of him.
Still struggling to find the right thing to say, he asked, "So do you want to go fishing again? Or play golf?" Not that he really wanted to do either of those things.
Without seeming to consider it, Dan replied. "Not really."
"So what do you want to do?"
At that, Dan smiled even more broadly. "Let me show you," he said. And did.
They had ended up spending most of that day in bed, as if making up for lost time, their bodies entwined, kissing, touching each other all over, rubbing their swollen cocks together in an almost frenzied way until they came, resting for a while, then starting all over again.
There had been a few times when he had stopped to wonder what he was doing. He imagined the disapproval of his mother, the rest of his family, the church he grew up in, Lisa, probably most of the people who watched him on Sports Night, hell, probably almost everybody. But then Danny would say, "You all right, Casey?" while looking at him with those intense dark eyes of his, and he'd feel cared for in a way he never had before in his life. And when he'd respond "Yeah," Dan would smile again, and then he'd do something with his hands that would make Casey think that nothing else mattered....
Someone's horn honking broke Casey out of his daze, and he realized the traffic was moving again and there was now a large space in front of him. I'd better start concentrating on my driving, he told himself. The last thing I need right now is to be the first person to be arrested for Driving While Mentally Masturbating.
When he finally got to the school, the parking lot looked like the Attack of the Mini-Vans, and he had to drive all the way to the back to find a space to park. Then, to get to Charlie's game, he had to walk past another field where the under-12 girls were playing their championship. By the time he got there, it was a little over ten minutes into the first quarter, and, as Dan predicted, he felt a nagging sense of guilt about it. He also felt overheated and sweaty from walking around in the sticky August heat (another reminder that he wasn't in Canada any more). He hoped that at least the sweat might wash away any lingering Danny smell still on him - Lisa had been very good at picking up things like that. Once, in LA, after Dana had given him an impulsive kiss at an office party, Lisa had accused him of cheating on her because "that's not Dana's lipstick color." He, on the other hand, hadn't had that kind of awareness when it came to Lisa. Obviously.
He scanned the packed bleachers as he approached them, trying to see if he could find Lisa. Then he spotted her sitting in the front row with her latest boyfriend, Gary, the dentist. No, the endodontist. Lisa always got pissed off when he got that wrong, as if she suspected he was doing that as some kind of subtle put down. Which he wasn't. From the little he'd seen of him, Gary seemed to be a nice enough guy and he seemed to have what Lisa was looking for, which was somebody with loads of money and the willingness to do whatever it was she wanted. Lisa, whose shoulder-length dark blonde hair was pulled into a neat ponytail, and who looked like the only parent who wasn't frazzled by the heat, was holding onto Charlie's water bottle with her left hand as if it was a sacred trust while her right arm was wrapped equally tightly around her boyfriend.
He tried to walk past them without being noticed, but, of course, someone had to call out "Casey," which made both Lisa and Gary turn their heads to look for him. Gary, who was a slightly shorter than average, balding man about the same age as Casey (although he looked a few years older), gave him a friendly smile and a wave. Lisa, on the other hand, just looked at him with a withering stare that, if it could have talked, would have said. "So where the fuck have you been?"
Trying to not let her get to him, he turned around and began climbing up the bleachers, looking for a place to sit. Fortunately, the other parents were friendlier to him than his ex-wife. He had gone to enough games to have gotten to know many of them, and while there had been some initial awkwardness and jokes about whether he was going to cover the games on his show, they now seemed to accept him as just another soccer dad, which was just fine with him.
When he got to the fourth row, one of the parents, Amy, a single mother who had a son Charlie's age, moved down so he could sit next to her. He remembered that Danny had commented to him once (the day after the one time he had been persuaded to watch a game) that he thought Amy was interested in him. He had replied that he hadn't noticed, and he remembered Dan responding "You never notice" and wondering at the time why he had said it as bitterly as he had.
After he sat down, Amy offered him a bottle of water from her cooler, which he accepted gratefully. She really was a nice person and attractive in a kind of generic soccer mom way, with short, neatly cut dark hair and what looked to be a fairly nice body under her T-shirt and shorts. Before he had left on his trip, Casey had actually had some vague ideas of asking her out, but now, obviously, that wasn't going to happen.
"How was your vacation?" she asked, smiling at him. "Did you do anything special?"
"No, just, you know, mainly..." A flashback of Danny's mouth on him, Danny's arms pulling him down. "...relaxing." Well, he had spent a lot of time in bed, although "relaxing" was probably not the best way to describe it.
"Charlie's doing a great job out there," she told him, pointing to the field. When he spotted his son, he could see that he was, indeed, doing well, moving confidently up and down the field and moving the ball around so skillfully, it was hard to believe it was only his first year on the team.
He didn't remember being that confident at that age. In fact, he had been kind of a geek, with long thin arms and legs he didn't seem to be able to control most of the time, large dark framed glasses (a bit like Jeremy's) and braces on his teeth. About the only time he had felt any confidence at all was during his gymnastics practices and competitions, and he remembered how he had almost had felt as if he was flying as he had gone though his routines and how great it had felt to hear people applaud him. Except his father who had always been "too busy" to go to any of his competitions, something that still hurt him a little when he thought of it, and one of the reasons he had tried so hard to go to as many of Charlie's games as he could. His father had never really approved of his going into gymnastics, anyway, saying it was meant for men who "weren't big enough to play a real sport" and that most of them were "probably sissies and homos."
Thinking about that now made Casey feel a little sick. What would his father have thought of him now, he wondered. Even though he really knew. Trying to put that thought out of his mind, he leaned forward, trying to concentrate on the rest of the game.
When Dan opened the front door of his apartment and stepped inside, he couldn't help notice how quiet it seemed. In the past, when he had returned home from a trip with Casey, as much as he had enjoyed being with him, he was always a little relieved to get a bit of solitude for a change. But this time, he felt a little too alone. Not only that, he was still feeling aroused and, now, starving because the only thing he had had to eat so far was the undersized sweet roll he had gotten on the plane as part of their "continental breakfast." So, for a moment, he stood in the middle of his living room trying to decide what he wanted to do first, jerk off or make dinner.
About five minutes later, he emerged from the bathroom and went into the kitchen to find something to eat. Since he had cleaned out most of the food in the refrigerator before leaving, there wasn't much. In the refrigerator part itself, there was nothing but part of a six pack of beer, several packages of ketchup that he had picked up from fast food places, and a few slices of processed American cheese. In the freezer, there was a package of frozen sandwich steaks, a bag of bagels, and a couple of Klondike Bars in the freezer (the really good Heath bar kind).
He considered ordering out for something, but decided he was too hungry to wait for a delivery, so he went ahead and made himself dinner with what he had, ending up with a steak and cheese sandwich on a toasted bagel, along with a bag of Fritos that he remembered he had in one of the cupboards. Pulling a beer out of the refrigerator, he went back in the living room and settled into the armchair in front of the TV, putting his dinner down on the table next to him.
While he ate, he clicked around the channels until he found a golf game, but ended up not paying that much attention to it, and instead, once again began thinking about the last few days. It was still hard for him to believe that it hadn't been just another one of his fantasies - that he really had been with Casey and that Casey had turned out to have wanted it just as much as he had (or maybe even more, he thought with a grin, thinking about their farewell scene at the airport). He thought about how, in bed, Casey had seemed to have turned into a different person - able to express his feelings with his body in a way he never seemed to be able to with words, almost insatiable to the point where Dan teasingly called him a "male nympho" and an "orgasm junkie" (To which Casey had merely responded with his raised-eyebrow look, "Do you have a problem with that?" and Dan had admitted he hadn't.), and willing to go along with everything Dan suggested until...
That brought his thoughts to the day before, when they had driven to Toronto, and after checking in at their hotel, had gone downtown, where they had killed time before the Blue Jays game by playing tourist, going to the Hockey Hall of Fame and gawking at the decorated moose sculptures that were scattered throughout the city. He remembered Casey being appalled by what he called the "tackiness" of the whole thing.
"Is this what civilization has descended to?" he had ranted. "From the pyramids, the Great Wall, the Eiffel Tower, Mount Rushmore, to people getting excited about painted replicas of animals in funny clothing?" To which Danny had responded, "Shut up and let the nice woman take a picture of us."
It didn't take long for them to realize - after several people had come up to them and asked for autographs - that they were now close enough to the border for them to be recognized and that they'd better start acting more discreet. (Although they did manage to sit with legs and arms touching during the game, but was it their fault the seats were a little too small and close together for a couple of men their size?) So by the time they got back to their hotel after the game, they were ready to start ripping each other's clothes off.
That was the night when Dan had managed to persuade Casey to enter him for the first time, and he remembered the look of astonishment, of hey-this-isn't-that-bad on Casey's face at the moment of penetration and then later, as he recovered from his orgasm, opening his eyes and seeing Casey collapsing next to him, looking as blissful as he felt.
"It wasn't what you imagined, was it?" Dan said, gently brushing a strand of sweat-soaked hair from Casey's forehead. "Not disgusting or degrading, just..."
"Pretty fucking amazing." Casey said, still looking slightly dazed.
"Yeah," Dan agreed, and he should have left it at that. But instead he continued, as he moved his hand down Casey's face, "It'll feel even better when I do that to you." That's when Casey had pulled away, his face getting that closed-off look Dan hadn't seen in days.
"I'm sorry," he had apologized. "I guess I'm not ready for that yet."
Dan had tried to reassure him that it didn't matter, but the mood of that night seemed to have been spoiled, and soon after that, Casey had rolled onto his side and fallen asleep. Now, sitting alone in his living room, Dan wondered, Was that when I blew it? Did I push him too far? Did I scare him away and that's why I haven't heard from him yet? Okay, he didn't seem too scared off when I saw him last, but who knows what happened since then? Maybe spending a couple hours in the middle of all that suburban heterosexuality was going to make him the past few days had all been a horrible mistake that he never wanted to repeat. Was he going to get a phone call starting with "Hey, Danny, I've been thinking..."
And why hasn't he called yet? Where is he?
At that moment, Casey was sitting in a booth in one of those pizza/video game places he had thought had all gone out of business a couple of years ago but apparently hadn't, watching Charlie playing at the machines with some of his friends. Definitely not his first choice of where to spend the evening - in fact, it was nowhere on the list - but after Charlie's team had won the championship, several of the parents had decided to take their kids there for a celebration, and Charlie had wanted to go, so he had agreed to go along. He had even attempted to play a few games, although the only video game he had ever been very good at was Pac-Man (but he had been really good at Pac-Man), but eventually all the rushing around he had done that day (along with getting very little sleep during the last few days) had caught up with him, and he needed to sit down somewhere. There was one slice of cold, greasy pepperoni pizza remaining on the platter in front of him, and he idly picked at the crust, wondering if he was hungry enough to actually eat it.
I really should call Dan, he thought. Knowing him, he's probably going nuts right now wondering what happened to me. Just as he was about to go to the pay phone (His cell phone was in one of his suitcases in the trunk of his car. He could imagine Danny saying sarcastically, "*Great* place for it."), Lisa, who had been talking to some other mothers, came over to his table and sat down across from him. "I'm sure you're probably tired out from your trip," she said, "But I wanted to thank you for coming here with us. I know Charlie appreciated it."
Casey shrugged. "No problem," he said. His voice now had a slight crack to it after developing laryngitis from, first, all the cheering he had done at the game and then from trying to talk in the noisy restaurant.
"Casey, can I talk to you for a moment? There's something I wanted to tell you."
Okay, that got his attention. He sat up a little straighter in the booth. "Sure."
"Well, as you probably know, Gary and I have been together for a few months now, and things are going really well and..." She actually looked a little flustered. He couldn't remember the last time that had happened. "We've decided that we want to live together and...I just wanted to let you know."
"That's great, Lisa. I'm happy for you." He looked over at Gary, who was now playing a video football game with his son. From what he could see, they seemed to be getting along pretty well together. It wouldn't be so bad if Charlie had another father in his life, he thought, adding, with a stab of guilt, someone who could spend more time with him than I can.
"His apartment is a little too small for the three of us, so he's going to be moving into our house. You're not going to have a problem with that, are you?"
"No, why should I? It's your house now."
She looked relieved. And then she asked the question that he had both expected and dreaded, "Are you seeing someone right now?" Seeing him hesitate, she added teasingly, "You are, aren't you? So that's why you were so late to the game today."
"Well, let's just say I'm kind of involved with someone right now, but I'm not sure what's going to happen with it." At least that was the truth. He wasn't.
"Well, I hope things work out for you. I do want to see you happy, Casey. I'm really not an evil bitch, despite whatever propaganda Danny may be feeding you about me." She had turned her head to look at Gary and Charlie, so she couldn't see Casey frown at that last remark.
He started getting up from the booth. "Hey, Lis, I think I'll get going now. I've still got some unpacking to do, and I'm going back to work tomorrow...I'll just go over and say good-bye to Charlie."
If she noticed a change in his tone, she didn't act like it. "Good night, Casey. See you Wednesday."
He lifted a hand in response, and continued walking over to the game area.
What really is going on with him, she wondered. Maybe it's about time I made a phone call to my old friend Dana....
At about 10:00 that evening, Dan was stretched out in his armchair with a beer next to him, channel surfing, just like he was about every Sunday night when he wasn't working. The only difference this time was that sitting on the small round table next to him, next to the TV Guide and the bag of Fritos, was his cordless phone, which he kept looking at anxiously as if he could will it to ring.
Did "I'll call you" really mean I was going to get a call tonight, he wondered. Or...
Stop it, Rydell, he told himself. You're starting to sound like most of the women you've dated. Or, worse yet, Bobbie Bernstein.
When the phone finally did ring, the first thing he said, after looking at the caller ID and picking the phone up was, "God, please tell me you haven't been thinking", to which Casey responded with an understandable "What?"
"Sorry. Never mind. It's me being crazy again."
"I just got home," Casey explained in a voice that Dan noticed sounded a bit raspy. "Lisa roped me into taking Charlie and some of his friends to the victory celebration."
"You mean -"
"Exactly."
"And guess who scored the winning goal in overtime?"
"It wouldn't happen to be the promising young soccer star Charlie McCall, would it?"
"Okay, actually it was Kyle Maroni who scored the goal, but Charlie assisted, and that's just as important."
"Absolutely."
"What's so funny?"
"Nothing...Just enjoying you sounding so happy, that's all. Well, that and my sadistic amusement at your voice problems."
"I'm just relieved that things have worked out so well for Charlie. It took a lot for him to admit that he really didn't want to go back to Little League this summer and that he'd rather play soccer, but he seems to be a lot happier..."
"Since he switched teams?"
"Are you trying to make some kind of analogy here?"
"Oh, yes, I'm definitely making an analogy." Casey could imagine him sitting back on his couch right now, smiling his infamous but somehow cute Smug Grin. "So how's Lisa? Is she still with the dentist?"
"Endodontist. Lisa said he's moving in with her."
"Yeah? So how do you feel about that?"
Danny's been spending too much time with his therapist, Casey thought. He's staring to *sound* like one. "I don't know. He seems like an all right guy. And he and Charlie seem to get along just fine. He'll probably end up being a better father for him than I ever was."
Dan couldn't stop himself from sighing at that. The last thing he wanted to hear right now was the return of Self-Pitying Casey. "That's not true, Case. You've done the best job you could with that kid. And he thinks the world of you."
"Yeah...right...whatever."
Dan decided it was time to change the subject. Fast. "Why don't you come over and let me give you something for that throat?"
"Danny!" He sounded a little grossed out, but in an amused way, which was much better than Self-Pitying Casey.
"Hey, I was just talking about making you some tea and honey. I don't know where your mind is going. Seriously, do you want to come over?"
"I don't think so. I'm bushed."
"Bushed? Damn, I love it when you get all folksy and Midwestern on me. Next thing I know, you're going to be telling me you're 'plum tuckered out'."
"Oh, go tucker yourself, Danny."
Dan groaned at that. "I guess I'll have to." After a brief silence, he continued, "Well, I guess I'd better let you go rest your voice. Dana'll be ready to kill you if you go in sounding like that tomorrow."
There was silence, and then Casey said, sounding more serious as well as worried, "Tomorrow. Work. How are we ever going to be able to manage this, Danny? What are we going to tell people? Are we going to tell people? I hate the idea of keeping us a secret, but if we don't..." He sighed. "This could fucking ruin our career, you know? I mean, J.J's been looking for a reason to fire me for months, and Trager - well who the hell knows how he'll react. And if this gets out to the media..."
He was starting to sound too frantic. Dan decided he'd better step in. "Casey. I know all this. But you know what? I don't care. Okay, I do care a little. But all I know is that after waiting all this time for us to get together, I don't want to give it up now just because of what might happen. Do you?"
Another pause, and then he heard Casey say, "No...Not really."
"So as far as tomorrow goes, I think we should just...you know, play it by ear."
"Is that anything like showing up and seeing what happens?"
"Something like that," Dan said. "Except hopefully this time we won't lose our pants. Unless you want to."
Casey laughed a little at that, then, almost whispering, said, "Love you, Danny," and the crack in his voice seemed to be from more than laryngitis this time.
"I love you, too, Case." Dan responded. "Good night." When he hung up, he felt a sudden surge of exhilaration that made him wish there was somebody there he could high-five. But since there wasn't, he finished his beer and watched the local news. At about 11:30, he finally started to feel sleepy enough to go to bed, but once he got there, he found that he couldn't sleep. In the past few days, he had gotten too used to having Casey curled up next to him, had even gotten used to bony elbows and knees cutting into him, thick wiry hair brushing against his face, and the occasional soft gurgly snoring sounds in his ear.
After a while, he got up and, going to the closet, took out the body pillow his mom had gotten for his birthday. It was supposed to be good for his back, she had told him, but he couldn't help imagining her thinking, this may be the only thing you get to sleep with. Not that he could blame her since he hadn't brought a woman home to meet her in over five years.
Feeling more than a little foolish, he lay the pillow next to him and put his arms around it. Then he closed his eyes, imagining it was Casey he was holding, and before he knew it, he was humping the pillow in a way he hadn't done since he was a young, horny teenager, until, with a moan, he began to inseminate his bedding.
Hell, I was going to do the laundry tomorrow anyway, he thought, just before he finally fell asleep.
After Casey hung up, he found that he didn't feel tired any more. In fact, he felt more than a bit hyper, and he could feel the beginnings of a migraine digging in around his left eye. So he got up, took a couple of Motrin, started unpacking his suitcases, and put his dirty clothes in the hamper. Then he picked out what he was going to wear the next day, took everything off but his boxers, and went into the bathroom, where he brushed and flossed his teeth, washed his face, and applied cream around his eyes in his continuing, apparently futile fight against his developing crow's-feet.
Then, going back into the living room, he turned the TV on and sat in his armchair staring without real interest at an infomercial for an exercise machine, still worried about what was going to happen the next day.
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