Moon Dance: The Niles and Daphne Saga
By Mia Leigharc
Chapter I:Light and Frothy
Niles was sitting across the table from Frasier sipping his coffee after a discussion about their father, they agreed to change the subject. Upon making such an agreement, Frasier spoke first.
"Look, why don't we just change the subject from dad, and talk about something else." Niles nodded and spoke between sips of his Kenya Cappuccino.
"Absolutely, pick a new topic. Something light and frothy." Frasier stopped for a moment to contemplate, then asked the question he's been dying to ask for weeks now...
"I agree. Are you in love with Daphne?" having just taken a sip of coffee, Niles spit out his coffee all over the table. Frasier, startled by this, jumps back for a moment, and pulls the stack of napkins out from underneath the sugar container in the middle of the table.
"That's a little frothier than I had in mind!"
He placed the napkins over the mess as his brother grabbed one off the top of the pile angrily patting his mouth and throwing in down on the table before responding.
"That preposterous! I refuse to dignify that question with an answer." Frasier stares at him for a long moment, raising a brow knowingly. Niles can't help but crack under the pressure. His voice was filled with longing and such a unrequited desire that Niles was almost to the point of tears.
"I don't know! There, I said it. There, are you happy? Oh, why did you have to hire Venus herself? Couldn't you have found some beefy, East-European scrub woman who reeked of ammonia?" Frasier just laughed to himself and raised his eyebrows.
"Well, I asked, but it was an Olympic year. The agency was fresh out." Niles continued his pining, raising his eyebrows to emphasize the lack of passion he feels with Maris.
"Frasier, I can't get her out of my mind. When I look at Daphne she stirs a passion in me I've never known before." Upon hearing this Frasier felt concern for his brother's marriage. He furrowed his brows as he decided to question him about this news.
"Niles, you're not considering leaving Maris?"
"Certainly not!" Niles said with a sigh. Frasier analyzes this news and states what he believes the situation amounts to.
"Well, I suppose the situation you're in is that you'd like to stay with Maris but you'd like an affair with Daphne." Niles agrees and hopes that there is a chance for this to happen...and soon. Frasier already knows where this is going.
"Yes. Can I do that?" Frasier mentally taps his forehead with his hand.
"No, you can't!" Frasier broke a small smile upon Niles pouting slightly, but finally listening to reason.
"I thought that I couldn't but you got my hopes up there for a minute." As the conversation continued and Niles tried to question his older brother if he were indeed happy, in the back of his mind he couldn't help but feel a blow of sadness of not being able to seduce the goddess in his every waking thought. Oh how he longed for her to be Maris instead. When Martin and Daphne both ended up coming back to the Café Nervosa, Niles "valiantly" appointed himself the opportunity to drive them home. The whole drive, he kept staring at Daphne in the rear view mirror. Such a vision and how he wanted to be a part of her perfection...a part of her passion. He let his mind wander further as the ate at Hoppy's Old Hiddleburg that night. Laughing and smiling when someone said something cleaver or heckling when his brother would grace them with a witty antidote, Niles still couldn't shake the feeling he was stuck in his marriage, a passionless marriage. How we wished Daphne could be interested in him too...
A few days later he was visiting Frasier. When Daphne answered the door, he noticed his father was doing his exercises.
"Hello, Dr. Crane."
"Hello, Daphne." He took note of how Daphne's yoga pants clung to her physique.
"Hey, Niles." Martin said from the floor.
"Ah! Doing your exercises I see?" Niles asks while walking inside. Daphne walks back towards Martin, bending over slightly in front of Niles. He took note of this and stood still for a moment.
"Yes, and if someone doesn't let us get on with them, he's gonna get a little spank on his fanny."
Niles, thinking she was talking to him, stood frozen in shock for another
long moment. He stumbled out an awkward reply still confused and hoping she was talking about him.
"Well...Don't let me...unless you want to..." There was no reply, but Niles was already picturing it in his head. Later as the subject of the book Slow Tango in South Seattle, Niles had to laugh at the fact that Frasier as always was getting worked up over things. He also noted that he was the better pianist for enjoying his music lessons than the music teacher. He had to laugh aloud and sigh with lust to himself when Daphne asked about the writer's creative license of the story.
"Oh, then you're not really able to "bring a woman to hidden realms of ecstasy with your panther-like prowess?" Niles bite his bottom lip slightly. How he wanted to bring Daphne to those realms of ecstasy...
"It's true. As Mr. Fallow put it, 'she saw his sensitive, poetic side and you couldn't help noticing the way her ripe, heaving bosom would brush your cheek when she reached for the metronome.' " Niles sighs deeply at Daphne watching her motion to her bosoms. Imagining himself in the situation, he took a long deep breath. In his mind, he saw himself at the piano with Daphne standing next to him as she reached for the metronome. Her bosom gently touched his cheek and he sighed aloud, shivering slightly. She smiled warmly at his reaction and placed a soft hand on his right shoulder. Suddenly her voice was, low, husky and smoldering as her right hand started caressing his neck. Her other hand was playing with his ear lobe.
" Start at center C, Niles." She said in his ear as he began giggling like a smitten school boy. Meanwhile, everyone in the room had ignored his glazed expression until he started giggling. Daphne gave him an odd look and tried to get his attention.
"Dr Crane?" She said with no response, Niles was still wrapped up in his fantasy.
"Dr. Crane?" She said louder this time. Niles snapped out of it and looked around confused.
"I'm sorry, I must've drifted off." Slightly embarrassed he tried to grab the book out of his father's hands so he could read it himself... and once he did read it, he could fantasize about him and Daphne.
Later that evening, Frasier returned home. He had been mulling over the fact that he was still unhappy with his encounter with Thomas Jay Fallow.
Daphne entered with a copy of the book and shouted at Frasier.
"Shame on you!" she said forcefully.
"What for?"
"What for? You just ran out on her." Daphne said forcefully, reading the passage aloud.
" 'Leaving her bed as empty as a swallows nest after fall's first frost.' And you ask me what for?" Frasier startled was taken aback by this.
"I'd just been accepted to Harvard. What else was I gonna do?"
"Oh, so you just leave in the middle of the night without so much as a kiss on the forehead." Daphne stormed off to her room in a huff. Niles would never have done that to his goddess...
"Honestly, Frasier, when will you learn how to care for a woman like that? Don't even think I would do something so foolish to my perfect English rose!" Niles thought to himself.
"You never said goodbye to Miss Warner?" He said still in thought.
"Well, she was sleeping so peacefully. She had an early lesson! I left a rose on her pillow." Now it was all beginning to make sense.
"A-ha!"
" 'A-ha,' what?" Frasier cried defensively.
" 'A-ha' this, I have a theory." Niles declared with a grin.
"Well, why else would you say 'a-ha'? "
"No, no, no. Just listen. You thought you were angry at Thomas Fallow for failing to thank you for the contribution you made to his life. But perhaps the person you're really angry at is yourself. You never thanked Miss Warner for the contribution she made to your life."
"I was only seventeen years old, I'm sure she understood." Frasier said trying to convince both Niles and himself.
"Perhaps she didn't. She was a vulnerable, lonely, middle-aged woman. It is possible that her feelings for you ran deeper than you realized? Feelings which you crushed when you disappeared without so much as a thank you or a goodbye."
"Yes well, thank you and goodbye!" Frasier said in a huff.
"Fine, I'll just leave you with this thought: your encounter with Thomas Jay Fallow was unsatisfactory because it failed to provide you with the closure you were seeking. For that you will have to make amends with Miss Warner - A-ha!" Niles said as he left, closing the door behind him.
Days later, it was discovered that Eddie had gotten another dog pregnant in the park. Niles came to visit because of his wife's Women's League Senior yoga group. They were trying to get rid of the last puppy, but Daphne didn't want to give him up to the family.
"I didn't reject them, the dog did. Canines have a very keen sense of who's a nice person and who isn't. Why, many's the time I've chosen a man based solely on the way my mum's Springer Spaniel took to them." Niles raised an eyebrow at this fact...he had a plan. As Frasier walked over to address Daphne, Niles checked to make sure the others aren't looking. He took a dab of pâté from his cracker and rubbed it behind his ears.
"Oh, Daphne, that is preposterous! Letting a dog choose your dates?"
"It's true! If a dog likes a man, it's a good bet he's warm and sensitive." Niles went to the couch and took the puppy from Daphne, petting him.
"You know, I really didn't get a good look at this little tyke. Come here, boy, come to your Uncle Niles." The puppy began licking behind his ear. Daphne was amazed.
"Look at that! He's taken quite a shine to you." Niles laughed, pretending to enjoy the attention of the dog.
"Yes, happens all the time." Oh the things he would be willing to do to try to win her affections