SN Fic: Untitled ("You know, it's kind of romantic.")

[out_there]

Well, it's been hanging around inside my head for the last few nights as I walked to the station, so here it is. (Written at work, rough and unbeta'd.) I don't have a title, so if you want to suggest one, leave a comment. *g*

Untitled Fic
Fandom: Sports Night
Pairing: Dan/Casey



"You know, it's kind of romantic."

Dan Rydell regularly said a lot of stupid things. It was part of his charm: cheeky grin, twinkling eyes, and an idiosyncratic brilliance, all mixed together with moments of utter stupidity. Casey thought it was the universe's way of making sure you didn't take that brilliance for granted.

"I mean it, Casey," Dan continued, just a disembodied voice irritating Casey from the other side of their dark office. "Add a couple of candles, or an emergency exit sign or two, and it's a seduction scene waiting to happen."

Casey sighed the sigh of the very annoyed. "It's so dark I can't see a foot in front of me, and you want to start planning dates?"

"Don't gripe at me," Dan responded and Casey directed himself towards the sound, taking small steps to avoid tripping over any abandoned items on their floor. "I had nothing to do with the banner currently blocking all natural light from our floor."

"It's not the floor, it's just this side of the building."

"It's still a damn large banner that took away our view. And our sole light source," Dan complained and Casey groaned. He'd spent all day hearing Dan's objections to the huge advertising banner now hanging down one side of the building. For a while, he'd been with Danny, complaining just as loudly. Then they'd been assured it was only temporary and Isaac had basically told them to like it or lump it, so Casey had moved on. He'd left the complaint behind and concentrated on writing his script.

...until the power disappeared.

Casey stopped, stranded in the darkness and honestly not sure which direction he was now facing. "Where are you?"

"Me?"

Casey huffed. "No, the other sports anchor trapped in the darkness with me."

"Oh. I'm at the desk."

"Okay, I'm coming over," Casey announced, and Dan remained irritatingly silent. "If you talk this would be much easier for me."

Danny sniggered. "Where's the fun in that?"

"The fun is that I won't trip over something," Casey said, keeping a hand in front of him to feel for furniture.

"But where's the fun in that for *me*?"

"Danny…"

"Fine." Danny sighed, and then started singing. "I'm Henry the Eighth I am. Henry the eighth I am, I am. I got married to the widow next door..."

"Danny, if you keep singing that I'm going to kill you when I find you."

"You're awfully picky for the guy who's lost in his own office," Dan replied easily, and then started singing again. "This is the song that never ends, it just goes on and on my friends..."

Casey stopped to glare at Dan, or where he assumed Dan was. "You're just being annoying for the sake of it, aren't you?"

Dan didn't reply.

Sighing to himself, Casey forged his way forward. Eventually, his out-stretched hand touched something. Material, he realised with a sinking feeling and guessed he'd somehow found the back of the armchair. Then, he noticed that it felt a lot like denim.

"Were you trying to find my thigh?" Dan asked with obvious amusement. "Because if so, that's a gold star for you, Casey. Top of the class."

"I was trying to find the desk." Now that he concentrated on it, there was a faint warmth beneath his hand.

"You're pretty warm," Dan said, echoing Casey's thoughts surprisingly well. Then Casey realised Dan was talking about the desk. "But you're not the top of the class anymore."

"You're sitting on the desk?" Casey asked, noting that Dan's leg was warm and solid under his hand.

"I am, indeed." It was frustrating not to be able to see Dan. He knew from Dan's tone of voice that he was grinning, but it was annoying not to be able to see Dan's lips quirked up invitingly.

"Ah."

"Since you weren't looking for my thigh, you could take your hand off," Dan said, barely containing his sniggers.

If the lights had been on, Casey would have rolled his eyes and tried to hide his embarrassment. Instead, he just pulled his hand back. "I'm looking for the phone."

"Why?"

"To call Dana."

"Casey?" Dan asked slowly.

"Yeah?"

"Her office is on the same side of the building. If she's in there, she'll be just as blind as us." Casey sighed and Dan continued, "Plus, the phones are down."

"You already tried?"

"I called maintenance to ask when everything would be fixed." Casey amended his description to '*occasional* stupidity from a brilliant mind'. "No dial tone."

"Ah."

"You know, you left your hand on my thigh for quite a while, Casey."

"What?"

"I'm just pointing it out. Most guys would have pulled their hand back pretty quickly," Dan said idly. "You didn't."

"You regularly have guys touching your thighs?" Casey asked, and then cringed at the unintentional rhyme.

"You're a poet and you know it," Dan replied in a sing-song tone.

"No more singing, Danny."

"Still, the question remains."

"What question?"

"Why you left your hand on my thigh," Dan said, and then Casey heard the noise of Dan shifting on the desk.

Casey hadn't survived ten years of strained marriage without learning that sometimes it was best to play dumb. The real trick was to just be stubborn about it. Don't let on that you know what they're talking about. "Did you want me to leave it there?"

"You could have," Dan replied warmly. That was the trouble with Dan. He flirted. Danny did it without meaning to, with girls and guys. The flirting really wasn't something that Dan could control. He just couldn't help it. He'd spent weeks trying not to after Abby pointed it out, but it just meant that he stopped talking to women, that his conversation ended up becoming monosyllabic, which was amusing in its own right.

Dan was instinctively charming; a natural-born flirt. The important thing to remember was that Dan didn't mean anything by it. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about your hand, my thigh, and the reason it isn't still there."

"Your thigh isn't there?" Casey said, in his most confused tone.

"You could always check," Dan said smoothly, and Casey was suddenly glad for the lack of lighting. Light would have made it much harder to hide the flush creeping up his neck.

Casey tried to keep his tone light. "No thanks."

"Why not?" Dan asked archly. Casey wondered why he'd never noticed Dan's voice, never noticed the low promise in his tone.

Then he remembered: he had noticed that. He'd noticed a lot of things about Dan. He'd noticed Dan's smile; Dan's eyes. He'd noticed the way Dan bit into an apple, the way Dan's fingers playing with a pen. He'd noticed Dan's legs in wardrobe; and Dan's arms when he hung around in a wife-beater after work.

Casey had also noticed another important detail: Dan was *straight*.

"Dan, what are you talking about?"

"You know what I'm talking about."

"I have no idea," Casey said obtusely, hoping that he sounded convincing.

There was a rustle of movement, and then Dan's voice was very close. "I think you do."

"Do you have some sort of dependent relationship with the light?"

"What?" Dan said sharply, clearly confused.

"Do you need to keep the lights on in your apartment to keep yourself sane?" Casey asked, hoping to distract Dan while he was off-balance. "I'm just wondering if you always stop making sense during blackouts."

Dan paused. "This has nothing to do with the black out."

"Are you sure?" Casey asked in a patronising tone.

"Casey, this has nothing to do with the blackout." Dan must have been standing far closer than Casey realised, because Dan's hand was suddenly pressed against his thigh. It was unexpected; it was the unexpectedness of it that made Casey gasp shallowly. Really. It had nothing to do with the firm pressure of Dan's hand, nothing to do with the low growl of Dan's voice. "This has to do with your hand on my thigh."

"That's your hand," Casey pointed out, trying to stop his voice from rising. Like Dan's hand was doing right now.

Casey could feel the warmth of Dan's breath against his cheek. "Yeah."

He swallowed as Dan's hand slowly moved higher. "And that's my thigh."

"Technically," Dan breathed against his ear, his hand moving higher still, "that's your hip."

"Ah." There had to be a better response to the situation; like saying that this really wasn't a part of most male friendships. It probably wasn't a part of any friendships. Maybe he should have pointed out that Dan was straight. But Dan's hand was now creeping across his waistband and Casey's brain deserted him. "Huh."

Dan laughed softly. Casey had always loved Dan's laugh. "'Huh?' That's all you got to say, Casey?"

Casey blinked, trying to focus on more than Dan's fingers undoing the button on his pants. Of course, that just led to thinking about Dan's body so close to his, about Dan breathing against the side of his neck, about Dan's lips being so damn close. "Um…"

"Master of the spoken word," Dan teased as he pulled down Casey's fly.

"The lights…" Casey trailed off as Dan's fingers skated over the waistband of his boxers, as his own hands rose to rest lightly on Dan's arms. Dropping his head to Dan's shoulder, he breathed in the smell of expensive aftershave and cheap laundry detergent.

Dan's fingers kept moving back and forth as he spoke, teasingly skating over his hips and stomach. "The lights, Casey?"

Casey groaned, and then reached down, grabbing Dan's wrist and pulling it away from any thought-preventing areas. He breathed deeply, and then forced the thoughts into words. "The lights will come back on."

"Eventually maintenance will fix it, yes," Dan mumbled against his skin, sending shivers down his spine.

"We will be... caught in a very... compromising... position," Casey managed as Dan's mouth kept nuzzling his jaw line. It was unfair that Dan was making it impossible to think by doing that...

It was worse when Dan stopped.

"I hate to say it, but you have a good point."

Casey sighed. "In a few hours, the show will be over…?"

Dan pressed a soft kiss against his cheek. "A rain check for a few hours. We can do that."

"A few *hours*," Casey repeated mournfully, as Dan stepped back.

"We can do that," Dan repeated uncertainly. "Probably."

"Or we could wait for the lights to come back on and say we're going out to eat?" Casey suggested hopefully.

"And your place is only a ten-minute drive away," Dan finished and Casey wanted the lights back on now. He wanted to be able to see Dan's smile. He wanted to be able to pull Dan's shirt off and see his bare skin. The number of things he wanted to do right now was pretty high, but most of them involved being naked with Dan.

Dan interrupted his lustful thoughts. "Come on. We might as well sit down."

Casey looked around at the non-view of black darkness. "I can't see a thing," Casey pointed out.

Dan snorted, and then took his hand and walked him across the office. Casey followed the tug of Dan's hand and cautiously sat down. Feeling around, he realised they were both sitting on the couch. "How could you see that?"

"Ate a lot of carrots as a kid," Dan said, and Casey could feel Dan's shoulder move against his in a shrug.

"So what do we do now?" Casey asked listlessly.

"Wait for the lights to come back on?"

Casey huffed and settled back into the couch, his side pressed against Dan's. "Guess so."

Dan's hand snuck across, resting lightly on Casey's knee; the type of small gesture that could be easily hidden or explained. It still made Casey wish the lights would either work now or stay off forever.

"I still say it's kind of romantic."

"You do?"

"Depends on the company, of course." Dan paused, and then added, "But with you, definitely romantic."

Casey rested his head on the back of the couch and smiled.

The End