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SN WIP: Danny in therapy fic - Part 7
Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five and Part Six.
Everyone knows that the closest I've been to NYC is my TV screen, so if there's any NY-isms that feel wrong, please point them out. (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mecurtin, I'm looking at you as I say this.)
***
Dan sighed and looked around his old room. Without the posters and the newspaper clippings covering the walls, it barely seemed like his room. Susie's kids were staying in it at the moment so the floor was covered with toys and brightly colored children's clothes. He picked his way through the mess.
The telephone was sitting on the bedside table, just where he'd always had it. He stared at it for a moment and then shook his head at his own hesitance. There was no reason for it. The phone didn't bite him when he picked it up and it really wasn't that hard to dial Abby's number, but he still had an urge to hang up before she answered.
He tapped his foot, waiting for the soulless ringing to stop. As soon as it did, he spoke. "Hey, Abby."
"Dan," she replied warmly. "I didn't recognize the number."
"I'm calling from home. I mean, my parents' place," he amended quickly.
"Is your father home yet?"
"Yeah." Dan shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Makes everything a bit hectic. Between Susie and her three kids, and David's lot coming round to visit, it's a bit overrun. I feel a little superfluous."
"Why?"
Dan shrugged and tried to tune out the excited noise of cousins playing downstairs. "Just, you know. Last thing this house needs is another visitor."
"But your dad's fine?"
"He'll be recovering for at least a month, so David will be running the stores. But it's not life-threatening any more." There was a sudden squeal of girlish laughter and Dan briefly wondered how his father could sleep through it. Having heavy painkillers probably helped. "I miss New York."
"Yeah?"
Dan nodded. "It's a great city, Abby. I don't see how people don't love it."
"Why?"
"What?"
"Why do you love New York?" Abby paused for a moment. "What makes New York so wonderful for you?"
"Abby, Abby, Abby. New York isn't just wonderful for me, its wonderful full stop. It's a city that's alive, that's always moving. It has culture and Broadway and symphonies. It has shops where you can buy sneakers at three in the morning and Chinese takeout at six." Dan smiled, thinking about riding the ferry and walking down skyscraper-lined streets. "It isn't a city you live in, it's a city you should fall in love with."
"So when did your love affair with this city begin?"
"I've always loved New York," Dan replied easily. "As a kid, I loved the busyness of it. The way that people were always going somewhere, the way that traffic never really stops. The way that amongst all that concrete and all those buildings, there were gardens and parks. I loved riding the subway. I used to think you could spend all day traveling and never leave New York."
Abby laughed. "You know you can, right?"
"I know that now, but as a kid? New York was magical."
"You didn't like leaving it?"
"It's not..." Dan scrunched his face up, trying to put words to the vague... lack of love he had for Connecticut. "When we moved, it was just... different. I was used to apartments and tall buildings and crowds. Then we moved and it was a house in the suburbs, with a large backyard and my own room. But there were no crowds, and the town was almost empty at six o'clock on a Sunday evening. Mom kept saying that it was a better place to raise a family, but it was empty. Everywhere you looked, there was open space with nothing to fill it."
"You're not much of a fan of nature, are you?"
Dan snorted. "I appreciate seeing nature as I walk by it, preferably as I walk by on a concrete pavement going to a building that's more than four floors high."
"And what about the rest of the family?" Abby asked, sounding genuinely curious. "How did they take the move?"
"Mom and Dad loved it. We moved, Dad bought the store and the pair of them spent the first few years working long hours there. Susie never lived there, she was already at college." Dan counted off family members on his fingers. "David was there for less than a year and then he was out at college. Sam came to a new school, and jumped a class, and suddenly he was popular."
"He hadn't been popular at his last school?"
"He had a few friends, but..." Dan paused, trying to think of the real differences. "He used to hang out with me and my friends most of the time. He was two years younger but he was smarter than any of us. Then we moved, and Sam made his own group of friends. It was weird."
"Did you make friends easily?"
"I was, like, thirteen," Dan pointed out. "Everyone makes friends easily at that age."
"When you moved, did you find it easy to make friends?"
"I was a kid going to school. Friends are kind of automatic."
"Did you have a lot of friends in New York?"
"I had a handful of close friends." Dan found himself staring at the single bed and wondering what had happened to the bunk beds they used to have. Then he remembered. They were put in Sam's room when they moved. It probably still had the stickers he and Sam had plastered it with as small kids. "Sam and I used to go over to their places after school and sometimes stay for dinner. It wasn't like I had a rolodex of friends but you don't really need that many friends as a kid."
"But you didn't make friends in Connecticut?"
Dan sighed. "Not really."
"Why not?"
"My elementary school was bigger than my junior high and high school combined. There were just less kids to get on with."
"And what was the real reason?"
"I didn't fit in," Dan said softly, remembering how much time he'd spent alone during those first two years. "I missed New York. I missed the hectic crowds and all the different people crammed into a small space. When we moved, the schools were full of these small-minded, small-town kids. Kids who'd had friendship groups since they were five, who loved their town and thought I was strange for disliking it." Sometime during that tired, Dan's tone had become harsh and bitter, which was fairly ridiculous considering he was just talking about junior high school.
"But you stayed there until college, right?"
"About six years, give or take."
"And you didn't make friends?"
"Not in those first two years. Sam was always off playing with his own friends and I just didn't fit in." Talking about it made Dan aware of how much he'd hated junior high. "Then I was at high school, so for a year, Sam and I were going to different schools anyway. I made some friends that year, but..."
"But?"
"But they weren't the *right* type of kids, as my mother would say." Dan shifted the phone handset to his other hand. "At the time, I didn't care. They were kids who felt the same way I did, who didn't buy into the whole school spirit thing, who thought that we were stuck in a boring, soulless town. They were also kids who got away from it with drinking and drugs. And as we got older, it just became more frequent."
Abby was quiet for a long moment. Dan had the urge to fill the uncomfortable silence. He didn't want to talk about what happened next; Abby already knew the story. "Is there a reason we're talking about this?" he asked.
"I could say it's because this is the root of a lot of your problems," Abby said gently.
"But you're really lulling me into a false sense of security?"
"I'm really waiting for you to tell me what happened with Casey."
"Nothing happened," Dan replied, a little too quickly.
"He came down. He talked to you. He stayed overnight," Abby recited. "Those are all things that happened. Now tell me about them."
"I already did."
"You told me about him coming down. You told me about going out to lunch." Abby paused and Dan wondered where she was leading this. "What happened for dinner?"
"We had pizza."
"Feel free to tell me in a little more detail."
"Fine. We got kicked out of the hospital at about nine. Apparently visiting hours were over." Dan leaned his back against the wall. "They promised to call us when Dad's status changed and Casey pretty much herded me out."
"Okay."
"We went back to that Italian place and had pizza. I don't even know what we talked about."
"Really?" Abby asked sharply.
"Yeah. We could have been talking about the baseball playoffs or the best way to make scrambled eggs. I have no idea. I just remember being glad to sit there and eat and talk about something normal." Dan smirked and added, "Or as normal as Casey and I get."
"So Casey stayed overnight?"
"Yeah. He got a room at the hotel."
"And you stayed...?"
"At the same hotel."
"In your room?"
The hair on the back of Dan's neck bristled. "What precisely are you trying to trap me into saying?"
"I'm not trying to trap you, Dan."
"It feels like a conversational ambush," Dan shot back, trying not to think about things better left forgotten.
"It's not," Abby said calmly. "It's me trying to get you to talk about whatever you're trying to avoid."
"And what do you think that is?" Dan demanded, carefully not thinking about the feel of Casey's lips against his. Carefully not thinking about Casey's arms wrapped around him or burying his head against Casey's shoulder.
"Honestly?"
"No, lie to me," Dan replied sarcastically.
"I think you either talked to Casey about the kiss--"
"Trust me, Casey isn't the kind of guy to talk about it," Dan interrupted but Abby kept speaking.
"--or you kissed him again."
If Dan hadn't been holding the phone, he would have crossed his arms. Instead, he settled for wrapping one around his chest. "Why would you even think that?" he asked carefully.
"Because you're not telling me anything, Dan. And if you can't tell me what you're hiding, I have to make my own assumptions."
Dan absorbed that for a few moments. "We talked," he admitted.
"Tell me."
"There was a repeat of the Sox game, so I hung around Casey's room to watch it." Dan dug his fingers into the material of his sweatshirt. "You know what hotel chairs are like. They're always over-stuffed and look great but are horrible to sit on. So we sat on the bed."
***
"I can't believe they're going to lose," Casey said, pushing pillows behind him so he could sit comfortably against the headboard. Dan had already got himself comfortable, and wasn't going to offer any of the pillows he'd commandeered. "They should win."
"You've already seen the game," Dan replied. "You know they lose."
"Yeah but I'm saying they shouldn't. They should have won."
"Because you say so?"
Casey grinned. "Because I had money riding on this game."
Dan snorted. "And now you owe Dana money?"
"Dana, Isaac and Jeremy," Casey admitted with a grimace.
"You bet against Jeremy?"
Casey dropped his head, nodding shamefully. "I didn't realize he was betting. He didn't bet until ten minutes before the game started, and I couldn't back down then."
"Of course not." Dan watched the bright green and white of the screen, but to be honest, he'd barely been following it. "Your manly pride demanded that you not back down."
"That's what I'm saying."
"So instead, you spent the entire game waiting for them to lose."
"They should have won," Casey said. They were quiet through the next few innings, just trading a few sarcastic remarks. By the time the sixth inning came around, Dan was starting to fidget.
Casey raised one eloquent eyebrow at him. "Are you on a Ritalin?"
"No, but I probably should be." Dan crossed his arms and tried to stay still. It would have been easier if Casey could just stop looking at him.
"Are you okay?" Casey asked softly, and Dan knew it wasn't meant in the 'you're being annoying, could you please be still' way. Casey was honestly concerned.
Dan uncrossed his arms and laid his hands in his lap. "Things are... weird. But I'm okay. Just a little dazed."
Casey nodded as if those half-sentences made sense. "Okay. But you know..."
"What?"
"I'm here if you need me."
"I don't," Dan said and it sounded so incredibly fake he almost expected Casey to laugh at him. But Casey just watched him quietly. "I'm okay."
Casey must have known he didn't mean it. "I know," Casey replied, meaning I know you're not but I'm here anyway. Casey knew the art of making unsaid things easily understood.
Dan turned away, needing some emotional distance. "I really am sorry about Monday."
"Danny? Don't worry about it."
"That's kind of hard to do." Dan grimaced. "Or not do, as the case is."
"Danny, it's a matter of priorities." Casey sat up and placed a hand on Dan's leg, next to Dan's tense, interwoven fingers. "A bit of... strangeness between friends is nothing compared to the thought of losing your dad. It isn't important."
"It is," Dan said but couldn't explain the sudden fear of losing both Casey and his Dad. He gripped Casey's hand tightly.
"What do you want, Danny?"
"Forgiveness, I think."
When he looked up, Casey was watching him with soft, concerned eyes. "Then you already have it."
***
"He forgave you, just like that?" Abby asked.
"Just like that," Dan repeated defensively.
"I thought Casey was the type to hold a grudge?"
"He normally is." Dan shrugged. "This time, not so much."
"Did you expect him to hold a grudge?"
"Yeah."
Abby didn't let it go. "But this time, he forgave you easily."
"Surprisingly easy," Dan said.
"You don't sound too pleased about that."
Dan scowled, trying to follow Abby's logic. "I did something really stupid. Of course I'm not going to sound pleased about it."
"I meant that you don't sound pleased about being forgiven," Abby said, rather cryptically.
"Well, no," Dan said firmly. "I'm relieved. Who's *pleased* about being forgiven?"
"You don't sound relieved."
"How do I sound?" Dan demanded.
"You sound disappointed," Abby said. "Are you disappointed?"
"What?"
"Are you disappointed that Casey forgave you so easily?"
He snorted at her suggestion. "It was just some stupid thing I did. I'm not disappointed that Casey forgave a friend for being an idiot. Sometimes that's the basis of friendship, forgiving stupid stuff."
"Why was it foolish?" Abby didn't use the word stupid. Dan had noticed she didn't say it, even when it was true. It was oddly irritating.
He scowled at the telephone cord and wound it around his fingers. "Because I knew Casey wasn't interested."
"How?"
"How did I know he wasn't interested? He's straight, Abby. The logic's pretty obvious."
"How?" she asked again, same tone of voice, same gentle prodding.
"How is the logic obvious?" Dan asked, rolling his eyes. "I thought you were medically trained. Do I really need to draw you a diagram?"
She cleared her throat a little, but her tone was still calm. "How do you know he's straight?"
Dan sighed. "He was married for ten years."
"So?" He suddenly wished they weren't on the phone. He'd never been good on the phone. He liked seeing people, seeing their expression. Sometimes it made a world of difference to their words. Of course, that didn't work with Abby. He was never certain of precisely what she meant, and she never let enough show to give him a fighting chance.
"He was married for ten years. Trust me, Casey is straight."
"Did you ever ask him?"
"Did I ever... What kind of a question is that?"
"It's a valid question, Dan. Did you ever ask him?"
"Hey, Casey," Dan's voice rose higher in mockery. "Have you got the basketball scores? Oh, and by the way, do you sleep with guys?"
"I'm serious," she said, and he heard the unspoken rebuke. Stop messing around, Dan. Stop avoiding the question. "Did you ever ask him?"
"People don't introduce themselves with their name, occupation and sexual orientation."
"Dan..."
"I didn't ask. I didn't need to."
"Because he's straight?" Abby asked slowly.
Dan sighed in relief. Finally, she got it. "Yes."
"The same way he thinks you are?"
"That's--" Dan paused, suddenly seeing the conversational trap. "That's completely different."
"How?"
"Well... Because he's straight." Dan had never been more relieved to hear David's voice calling for him. "Abby, I have to go."
"Yeah," she said dryly. "Call me soon."
"I will," he promised and placed the handset back with a tight grip.
***
Everyone knows that the closest I've been to NYC is my TV screen, so if there's any NY-isms that feel wrong, please point them out. (
mecurtin, I'm looking at you as I say this.)***
Dan sighed and looked around his old room. Without the posters and the newspaper clippings covering the walls, it barely seemed like his room. Susie's kids were staying in it at the moment so the floor was covered with toys and brightly colored children's clothes. He picked his way through the mess.
The telephone was sitting on the bedside table, just where he'd always had it. He stared at it for a moment and then shook his head at his own hesitance. There was no reason for it. The phone didn't bite him when he picked it up and it really wasn't that hard to dial Abby's number, but he still had an urge to hang up before she answered.
He tapped his foot, waiting for the soulless ringing to stop. As soon as it did, he spoke. "Hey, Abby."
"Dan," she replied warmly. "I didn't recognize the number."
"I'm calling from home. I mean, my parents' place," he amended quickly.
"Is your father home yet?"
"Yeah." Dan shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Makes everything a bit hectic. Between Susie and her three kids, and David's lot coming round to visit, it's a bit overrun. I feel a little superfluous."
"Why?"
Dan shrugged and tried to tune out the excited noise of cousins playing downstairs. "Just, you know. Last thing this house needs is another visitor."
"But your dad's fine?"
"He'll be recovering for at least a month, so David will be running the stores. But it's not life-threatening any more." There was a sudden squeal of girlish laughter and Dan briefly wondered how his father could sleep through it. Having heavy painkillers probably helped. "I miss New York."
"Yeah?"
Dan nodded. "It's a great city, Abby. I don't see how people don't love it."
"Why?"
"What?"
"Why do you love New York?" Abby paused for a moment. "What makes New York so wonderful for you?"
"Abby, Abby, Abby. New York isn't just wonderful for me, its wonderful full stop. It's a city that's alive, that's always moving. It has culture and Broadway and symphonies. It has shops where you can buy sneakers at three in the morning and Chinese takeout at six." Dan smiled, thinking about riding the ferry and walking down skyscraper-lined streets. "It isn't a city you live in, it's a city you should fall in love with."
"So when did your love affair with this city begin?"
"I've always loved New York," Dan replied easily. "As a kid, I loved the busyness of it. The way that people were always going somewhere, the way that traffic never really stops. The way that amongst all that concrete and all those buildings, there were gardens and parks. I loved riding the subway. I used to think you could spend all day traveling and never leave New York."
Abby laughed. "You know you can, right?"
"I know that now, but as a kid? New York was magical."
"You didn't like leaving it?"
"It's not..." Dan scrunched his face up, trying to put words to the vague... lack of love he had for Connecticut. "When we moved, it was just... different. I was used to apartments and tall buildings and crowds. Then we moved and it was a house in the suburbs, with a large backyard and my own room. But there were no crowds, and the town was almost empty at six o'clock on a Sunday evening. Mom kept saying that it was a better place to raise a family, but it was empty. Everywhere you looked, there was open space with nothing to fill it."
"You're not much of a fan of nature, are you?"
Dan snorted. "I appreciate seeing nature as I walk by it, preferably as I walk by on a concrete pavement going to a building that's more than four floors high."
"And what about the rest of the family?" Abby asked, sounding genuinely curious. "How did they take the move?"
"Mom and Dad loved it. We moved, Dad bought the store and the pair of them spent the first few years working long hours there. Susie never lived there, she was already at college." Dan counted off family members on his fingers. "David was there for less than a year and then he was out at college. Sam came to a new school, and jumped a class, and suddenly he was popular."
"He hadn't been popular at his last school?"
"He had a few friends, but..." Dan paused, trying to think of the real differences. "He used to hang out with me and my friends most of the time. He was two years younger but he was smarter than any of us. Then we moved, and Sam made his own group of friends. It was weird."
"Did you make friends easily?"
"I was, like, thirteen," Dan pointed out. "Everyone makes friends easily at that age."
"When you moved, did you find it easy to make friends?"
"I was a kid going to school. Friends are kind of automatic."
"Did you have a lot of friends in New York?"
"I had a handful of close friends." Dan found himself staring at the single bed and wondering what had happened to the bunk beds they used to have. Then he remembered. They were put in Sam's room when they moved. It probably still had the stickers he and Sam had plastered it with as small kids. "Sam and I used to go over to their places after school and sometimes stay for dinner. It wasn't like I had a rolodex of friends but you don't really need that many friends as a kid."
"But you didn't make friends in Connecticut?"
Dan sighed. "Not really."
"Why not?"
"My elementary school was bigger than my junior high and high school combined. There were just less kids to get on with."
"And what was the real reason?"
"I didn't fit in," Dan said softly, remembering how much time he'd spent alone during those first two years. "I missed New York. I missed the hectic crowds and all the different people crammed into a small space. When we moved, the schools were full of these small-minded, small-town kids. Kids who'd had friendship groups since they were five, who loved their town and thought I was strange for disliking it." Sometime during that tired, Dan's tone had become harsh and bitter, which was fairly ridiculous considering he was just talking about junior high school.
"But you stayed there until college, right?"
"About six years, give or take."
"And you didn't make friends?"
"Not in those first two years. Sam was always off playing with his own friends and I just didn't fit in." Talking about it made Dan aware of how much he'd hated junior high. "Then I was at high school, so for a year, Sam and I were going to different schools anyway. I made some friends that year, but..."
"But?"
"But they weren't the *right* type of kids, as my mother would say." Dan shifted the phone handset to his other hand. "At the time, I didn't care. They were kids who felt the same way I did, who didn't buy into the whole school spirit thing, who thought that we were stuck in a boring, soulless town. They were also kids who got away from it with drinking and drugs. And as we got older, it just became more frequent."
Abby was quiet for a long moment. Dan had the urge to fill the uncomfortable silence. He didn't want to talk about what happened next; Abby already knew the story. "Is there a reason we're talking about this?" he asked.
"I could say it's because this is the root of a lot of your problems," Abby said gently.
"But you're really lulling me into a false sense of security?"
"I'm really waiting for you to tell me what happened with Casey."
"Nothing happened," Dan replied, a little too quickly.
"He came down. He talked to you. He stayed overnight," Abby recited. "Those are all things that happened. Now tell me about them."
"I already did."
"You told me about him coming down. You told me about going out to lunch." Abby paused and Dan wondered where she was leading this. "What happened for dinner?"
"We had pizza."
"Feel free to tell me in a little more detail."
"Fine. We got kicked out of the hospital at about nine. Apparently visiting hours were over." Dan leaned his back against the wall. "They promised to call us when Dad's status changed and Casey pretty much herded me out."
"Okay."
"We went back to that Italian place and had pizza. I don't even know what we talked about."
"Really?" Abby asked sharply.
"Yeah. We could have been talking about the baseball playoffs or the best way to make scrambled eggs. I have no idea. I just remember being glad to sit there and eat and talk about something normal." Dan smirked and added, "Or as normal as Casey and I get."
"So Casey stayed overnight?"
"Yeah. He got a room at the hotel."
"And you stayed...?"
"At the same hotel."
"In your room?"
The hair on the back of Dan's neck bristled. "What precisely are you trying to trap me into saying?"
"I'm not trying to trap you, Dan."
"It feels like a conversational ambush," Dan shot back, trying not to think about things better left forgotten.
"It's not," Abby said calmly. "It's me trying to get you to talk about whatever you're trying to avoid."
"And what do you think that is?" Dan demanded, carefully not thinking about the feel of Casey's lips against his. Carefully not thinking about Casey's arms wrapped around him or burying his head against Casey's shoulder.
"Honestly?"
"No, lie to me," Dan replied sarcastically.
"I think you either talked to Casey about the kiss--"
"Trust me, Casey isn't the kind of guy to talk about it," Dan interrupted but Abby kept speaking.
"--or you kissed him again."
If Dan hadn't been holding the phone, he would have crossed his arms. Instead, he settled for wrapping one around his chest. "Why would you even think that?" he asked carefully.
"Because you're not telling me anything, Dan. And if you can't tell me what you're hiding, I have to make my own assumptions."
Dan absorbed that for a few moments. "We talked," he admitted.
"Tell me."
"There was a repeat of the Sox game, so I hung around Casey's room to watch it." Dan dug his fingers into the material of his sweatshirt. "You know what hotel chairs are like. They're always over-stuffed and look great but are horrible to sit on. So we sat on the bed."
***
"I can't believe they're going to lose," Casey said, pushing pillows behind him so he could sit comfortably against the headboard. Dan had already got himself comfortable, and wasn't going to offer any of the pillows he'd commandeered. "They should win."
"You've already seen the game," Dan replied. "You know they lose."
"Yeah but I'm saying they shouldn't. They should have won."
"Because you say so?"
Casey grinned. "Because I had money riding on this game."
Dan snorted. "And now you owe Dana money?"
"Dana, Isaac and Jeremy," Casey admitted with a grimace.
"You bet against Jeremy?"
Casey dropped his head, nodding shamefully. "I didn't realize he was betting. He didn't bet until ten minutes before the game started, and I couldn't back down then."
"Of course not." Dan watched the bright green and white of the screen, but to be honest, he'd barely been following it. "Your manly pride demanded that you not back down."
"That's what I'm saying."
"So instead, you spent the entire game waiting for them to lose."
"They should have won," Casey said. They were quiet through the next few innings, just trading a few sarcastic remarks. By the time the sixth inning came around, Dan was starting to fidget.
Casey raised one eloquent eyebrow at him. "Are you on a Ritalin?"
"No, but I probably should be." Dan crossed his arms and tried to stay still. It would have been easier if Casey could just stop looking at him.
"Are you okay?" Casey asked softly, and Dan knew it wasn't meant in the 'you're being annoying, could you please be still' way. Casey was honestly concerned.
Dan uncrossed his arms and laid his hands in his lap. "Things are... weird. But I'm okay. Just a little dazed."
Casey nodded as if those half-sentences made sense. "Okay. But you know..."
"What?"
"I'm here if you need me."
"I don't," Dan said and it sounded so incredibly fake he almost expected Casey to laugh at him. But Casey just watched him quietly. "I'm okay."
Casey must have known he didn't mean it. "I know," Casey replied, meaning I know you're not but I'm here anyway. Casey knew the art of making unsaid things easily understood.
Dan turned away, needing some emotional distance. "I really am sorry about Monday."
"Danny? Don't worry about it."
"That's kind of hard to do." Dan grimaced. "Or not do, as the case is."
"Danny, it's a matter of priorities." Casey sat up and placed a hand on Dan's leg, next to Dan's tense, interwoven fingers. "A bit of... strangeness between friends is nothing compared to the thought of losing your dad. It isn't important."
"It is," Dan said but couldn't explain the sudden fear of losing both Casey and his Dad. He gripped Casey's hand tightly.
"What do you want, Danny?"
"Forgiveness, I think."
When he looked up, Casey was watching him with soft, concerned eyes. "Then you already have it."
***
"He forgave you, just like that?" Abby asked.
"Just like that," Dan repeated defensively.
"I thought Casey was the type to hold a grudge?"
"He normally is." Dan shrugged. "This time, not so much."
"Did you expect him to hold a grudge?"
"Yeah."
Abby didn't let it go. "But this time, he forgave you easily."
"Surprisingly easy," Dan said.
"You don't sound too pleased about that."
Dan scowled, trying to follow Abby's logic. "I did something really stupid. Of course I'm not going to sound pleased about it."
"I meant that you don't sound pleased about being forgiven," Abby said, rather cryptically.
"Well, no," Dan said firmly. "I'm relieved. Who's *pleased* about being forgiven?"
"You don't sound relieved."
"How do I sound?" Dan demanded.
"You sound disappointed," Abby said. "Are you disappointed?"
"What?"
"Are you disappointed that Casey forgave you so easily?"
He snorted at her suggestion. "It was just some stupid thing I did. I'm not disappointed that Casey forgave a friend for being an idiot. Sometimes that's the basis of friendship, forgiving stupid stuff."
"Why was it foolish?" Abby didn't use the word stupid. Dan had noticed she didn't say it, even when it was true. It was oddly irritating.
He scowled at the telephone cord and wound it around his fingers. "Because I knew Casey wasn't interested."
"How?"
"How did I know he wasn't interested? He's straight, Abby. The logic's pretty obvious."
"How?" she asked again, same tone of voice, same gentle prodding.
"How is the logic obvious?" Dan asked, rolling his eyes. "I thought you were medically trained. Do I really need to draw you a diagram?"
She cleared her throat a little, but her tone was still calm. "How do you know he's straight?"
Dan sighed. "He was married for ten years."
"So?" He suddenly wished they weren't on the phone. He'd never been good on the phone. He liked seeing people, seeing their expression. Sometimes it made a world of difference to their words. Of course, that didn't work with Abby. He was never certain of precisely what she meant, and she never let enough show to give him a fighting chance.
"He was married for ten years. Trust me, Casey is straight."
"Did you ever ask him?"
"Did I ever... What kind of a question is that?"
"It's a valid question, Dan. Did you ever ask him?"
"Hey, Casey," Dan's voice rose higher in mockery. "Have you got the basketball scores? Oh, and by the way, do you sleep with guys?"
"I'm serious," she said, and he heard the unspoken rebuke. Stop messing around, Dan. Stop avoiding the question. "Did you ever ask him?"
"People don't introduce themselves with their name, occupation and sexual orientation."
"Dan..."
"I didn't ask. I didn't need to."
"Because he's straight?" Abby asked slowly.
Dan sighed in relief. Finally, she got it. "Yes."
"The same way he thinks you are?"
"That's--" Dan paused, suddenly seeing the conversational trap. "That's completely different."
"How?"
"Well... Because he's straight." Dan had never been more relieved to hear David's voice calling for him. "Abby, I have to go."
"Yeah," she said dryly. "Call me soon."
"I will," he promised and placed the handset back with a tight grip.
***
no subject
*huggles feedback* Man, this was so worth staying up for! *bounces and twirls happily*
Oh, I guess such serious and insightful feedback should really be greeted with a thoughtful reply, right? Okay, I'll stop bouncing now. *twirls one more time*
(Although, just for the record, I appreciated the cheerleader dance too. What can I say? I've seen "Bring It On" far too many times to not enjoy cheerleader dances. *g*)
no subject
Well, that's good. I'm actually staying up to write the rest of my 3000 word report on wind farms which is due tomorrow and I've know about for a month. I've also been 'just about to write it' for the last week. I am *so* stupid sometimes.
But hey. It's a learning experiance, right?
no subject
That only works if you learn from your mistakes and don't leave it until the last minute next time.
Don't I sound convincing, sitting up here on my high and hypocritical horse? *laughs*
Yeah, considering I didn't organise my presentation until Sunday evening/Monday morning, although it was due Monday afternoon and I'd had an entire week of doing nothing (read: writing fics, answering email, sitting on AIM) to do it, I really can't insult you about it.
no subject
I think it is a mark of my eternal
lazinessoptimism that it's happened before, and yet I always believe that next time will be different.Hmm. Does that make it an unlearning experiance then? Maybe it's a learning neutral experiance...
no subject
Of course, there's always that niggling hope that next time really will be different. That next time, that magical moment that hasn't happened yet, you'll do the study when you're supposed to instead of avoiding it.