Title: Going Home
Genre: Sports Night (D/C)
Author: scubaluver
Summary: Right after Quo Vadimus, Dan finds himself "Going home,
Alone"- Chapters 1-6 posted, chapter
seven is planned but I haven't finished it in months since writing the rest of
this so……..
Disclaimer: While I would love to own Sports Night or any of the characters on
said show, I do not. I am simply borrowing them, for no pay, but much enjoyment.
Ratings--- PG-13 depends on your level of prudishness
Warnings: male/male contact. Don't care for that sort of thing? Don't read it.
Feedback: Always appreciated, maybe that would inspire final chapter seven…. Or
maybe discourage it J Let me know
what you think, good or bad.
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Two hours after the show ended, the euphoria Danny felt about the show's new
owner had turned into a severe buzz and was teetering on the edge of full-blown
drunkenness, yet it was becoming increasingly obvious it might never get there.
As soon as Sports Night sighed off for the night, the entire group made a
beeline for Anthony's. Apparently Dana had been right, their nightly bar visits
may have been lucky after all. It only seemed fitting to celebrate in the very
bar where they had first spotted the station's new owner.
They planned to toast their good fortune for the remainder of the night. However, as time passed, people began drifting their own way. Jeremy and Natalie cut out first. From the way they were looking at one another everybody within two counties knew they were headed for a marathon session of make-up sex. Dana quickly left the table in search of their savior. Eliot agreed to drive Kim home and Casey followed them out. He said something about having Charlie in the morning. That was all well and good but suddenly Dan felt very alone.
"Who needs him?" Dan groused as he scanned the bar for a companion to help him continue his celebration. "I am single, attractive, witty, and at least marginally famous." Dan muttered to himself as continued his search. The leggy brunette in the corner did nothing for him, the redhead flirting with the bartender seemed a little too needy, and the blonde drinking the champagne cocktail at the bar seemed much too easy. If he wanted easy he would have kept Rebecca's phone number.
Yes, this was a sad group of women and he had no intention of taking any of them home. What was the point? He always enjoyed chasing women more than he enjoyed sleeping with them. He spent less than ten minutes with Rebecca before deciding that he no longer cared for her. Those feelings only existed when they first met. She didn't want to have anything to do with him. He enjoyed changing her mind. He loved how annoyed she became when he refused to stop showing up in her office. However, when it was all said and done, that was the only part he enjoyed. When he was lying in bed at night, he never thought about her.
Dan sighed as he paid his tab and walked out into the rain to catch a cab. He left his car at work so often that he sometimes wondered why he owned one. It would have been useful in LA, however, in New York he spent way too much money on parking and he spent more than that going home in cabs. "Want to buy a car?" He slurred to the taxi driver.
When the cab driver said nothing Dan gave a defeated shrug. "I even get ignored by the people who I pay." For a day that should have been one of the best in his life Dan was not having a good time. His show had been saved, he was able to reject Rebecca as thoroughly as she rejected him and he would not be forced to leave his best friend. However all of that had left him very alone.
"Bed." He mumbled longingly as the cab pulled in front of his apartment complex. Bed never let him down. As soon as he was there he could take make the loneliness go away. No matter what else was going on in his life. He never had to be alone in bed. As soon as he closed his eyes he could be with anybody in the world he wanted.
That thought made him almost giddy as he rode the elevator up to is apartment. "What if Robert Wagner had sent me flowers?" Dan mused as he began plotting his fantasy.
By the time he opened his front door, Dan had flung himself fully into picturing the actor he had admired in his younger years. "Strong, Funny, and capable." Dan smirked as he headed for his bedroom. "Robert Wagner would do." He decided while removing his pants.
"No, Reggie White." He changed his mind as he removed his shirt. The massive, strong, calloused hands of a football player would be so wonderfully rough as they massaged his nipples. Dan moaned slightly as he rubbed his nipples and ran his hand down his body. The texture of Reggie White's hands would be so amazing everywhere, Dan imagined as he gripped his hardened form.
"Want Wet." Danny groaned almost incoherently. He found his knees weak by the intensity of his fantasy. He brought his hand up to his mouth; letting his tongue dance over the tips of his fingers tongue the fantasy morphed again. Robin Williams, he thought with a grin, that man had one amazingly talented tongue.
That delightfully amusing fantasy dissolved with the others as soon as Dan sank down on his bed. "Even rejected by my own head." Dan sighed defeated. As hard as he tried, he failed to recapture the images that had excited him earlier. This was becoming an increasingly bothersome problem. For the past several years he periodically found himself thinking of Casey when he was alone in bed. After a while he even dreamt of Casey while with other women. For the last year Dan began relying on his imagined encounters with his partner to get him through the night. It didn't matter if he was by himself or with a supermodel; as soon as his body hit the mattress all of Dan's thoughts were of his partner.
Tonight was different. Dan's previous fantasy vanished. Casey, on the other hand, did not show up. "Come on Case, don't let me down." Dan pleaded as he again found himself painfully alone. He consciously tried to picture Casey's long slender fingers running up and down his body, nothing. Dan strained to hear Casey's voice, deep with desire, whispering words of encouragement in Dan's ear.
"Finally." Dan's relief was evident in his tone of voice. He could hear Casey. He focused on the familiar voice trying to make out the words that would carry him to a heavenly climax. "Shit!" Dan exclaimed as heard the words clearly.
"You can do it without me." Came Casey's somber voice.
Dan shook his head. "You are my fantasy. You do what I say." Dan demanded as he attempted to change Casey's word.
"You can do it with out me, Dan." Casey's voice remained solid.
"You aren't even here." Dan tried to reason with the voice. "I made you. I can make you do what I want."
"You can do it with out me." Returned the humorless voice.
Dan grew frustrated. "Fine, I will do it with Rebecca." He cringed as soon as the words escaped his mouth. "Make that Raquel Welch..Reese Witherspoon... Robin Wright..." After calling out each name he tried to use them to replace Casey. None of it worked. Casey's statement never changed. Out of frustration Dan attempted to focus on Sam Donovan, as if even an imaginary Casey would recoil at the thought of the ratings man who enticed Dana.
"You can do it without me." Casey insisted stubbornly.
It became increasingly obvious to Dan that he was on his own. He couldn't remember the last time he had touched himself without thinking of his somebody. "I can do this." Dan gave himself a pep talk as he cleared his mind and let his hands work on their own. With several quick thrusts he managed the sticky release that relieved the discomfort of his fantasy-induced erection. It also left him very dissatisfied.
"I can do it without you.' He noted out loud. "But it sucks." Unable to deal with the implications of that realization, Dan rolled over and drifted off into a fitful dream filled sleep.
---CH 2--- Seeking Professional Help---
Realizing his obsession with Casey was only getting worse; Dan called in late for work and went straight to Abby's. So he didn't have an appointment. He had an emergency. That had to be good enough. Dan arrived at the office in record time. He blew past the receptionist and walked straight into Abby's main office.
"This isn't your appointment time, Danny." Abby tried to sound less annoyed than she felt. "This is Mr. Case's time." Abby motioned to the confused man sitting in front of her. "He gets to talk to me, because he called and made an appointment".
Danny nodded at the man who was sitting next to him. "Hi." Dan smiled his most charming smile. Well, the most charming smile that he reserved for people he had no intention of trying to bed. "You don't mind me being here do, you?"
"Well.." The man stuttered, trying hard to express his thoughts on the subject.
Before he could come up with something more profound, Abby interrupted. "You can not do this Daniel." Her stern tone warned that she meant business.
"Only my mother can call me Daniel, Abigail." Dan glared at her. He was less than amused at her use of his full name. Honestly, he preferred Daniel, but that name combined with that tone of voice sent shivers up his spine. Before Abby had any chance to react, Dan started speaking. "I am talking to you, Mr. Case. What do you liked to be called?" He shot a look at Abby and then returned to the patient.
The man looked taken aback but answered anyway. "Justin, I suppose. That is my first name.
Dan tried hard to keep a smile from playing across his face. "Aside from the obvious, what seems to be your problem?"
Justin Case studied the man in front of him before answering. "It seems like nobody ever listen to me. That is a problem in my profession; I am a trial lawyer. Dr. Jacobs thinks my problem stems from low self esteem." He smiled helpfully.
"Well, Justin, do you know what I do when people don't listen to me?" Dan waited for the man's reaction. Seeing a feeble nod, he continued. "I speak louder. Sometimes I even use a bullhorn." Dan's voice dripped with a surprising sincerity.
"And people listen to you?" Justin's eyes sparkled with amazement.
"Millions everyday." Dan answered truthfully. "I have my own television show. In fact, I think TV is a great way to get your voice heard. You need your own TV show." Dan smiled brightly. If he thought the idea was absurd he never let it show. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out a business card and wrote down a name and number. "Cal Davis, he runs a local public access station. I think you would be perfect in the 2 am slot he needs filled. You should call him today, soon, now. If you catch him before racquetball he is much more receptive to new ideas."
The man stood up in one quick surprisingly graceful move and snatched the card from Dan's fingers. "I will get right to that. Thank you so much." Without another word he sprinted to the door and was gone from sight.
"I don't think he recognized me." Dan sounded a little disappointed as he sat down in the chair across from Abby's desk.
"He will be devastated if he doesn't get the show, Dan. Do you ever think about that?" Abby sighed. Sometimes she wondered if they had made any progress at all.
"Relax." Dan smiled soothingly. "The show that just vacated the two o' clock slot was "Taxidermy By Numbers". I think our friend, Mr. Case, will have no problems landing an hour long program. I just hope he has something to say." Dan pondered that for only a second before continuing. "Enough about Justin, we have more important things to discuss."
"You; I gather?" Abby sighed in a defeated tone.
"What else? You know I am your favorite subject."
Abby shook her head. "What is it this time, Dan?"
"I think I am in love." Dan groaned a little as he spoke.
"And the problem is?" Abby sighed of all the problems her patients had falling in love was usually not high on the list of emergency situations, at least not for her single patients.
"I am in a professional relationship with the person." Dan explained in part. He just couldn't quite bring himself to admit that Casey was the object of his affections.
"Dan." Abby searched her head for the right words. "It isn't that I am not flattered. You are very handsome, and talented and you have many great qualities." Abby never had a chance to finish her polite brush off. She was interrupted by Dan's almost hysterical laughter.
After Dan had a second to curb his laughter he attempted to explain where Abby had gone wrong. However, he found it hard to begin speaking without triggering another round of giggles.
"Natalie then? Or Dana?" Abby offered, attempting to ignore the beet red color of her face. Dan obviously thought of her as more of a friend than a doctor, he tried to pick her up the first night they met; surely it wasn't a stretch to believe that he had developed feelings for her. Still, she shouldn't have said anything until she was sure, and for that she was humiliated, and maybe a little disappointed.
Finally, Dan composed himself. "If only it were that easy." He took a deep calming breath before admitting the truth. "Casey."
"Your partner Casey? The 92nd most influential person in sports? That Casey?" Try as she might she was unable to hide her amazement. "When did this happen?"
"No, Casey Afleck." Dan retorted sarcastically. "Of course my partner Casey." Dan sighed, in the last fourteen hours he had spent a good deal of time trying to figure out when exactly he had fallen in love with Casey, truth be told he was still a little hazy on that question.
After a long pause he continued, "Well, I imagine I always found him attractive. We met at a broadcasters convention when I was senior at Dartmouth. He had recently won his first major award and was just famous enough to excite convention goers; but still low enough on the totem pole to agree to do that sort of thing. I wanted to get as far away from this coast as possible. New York was too close to Boston, too close to Philadelphia, too close to any major market in the east. My parents still barely tolerated me; and I thought I deserved it. Casey was quickly moving up the ranks in Sacramento and they needed somebody to fill his shoes.
"We talked for a couple of hours at the conference and I flew out a few weeks later to interview. From the moment I walked into the offices at KSAC it was like we were best friends. The interview was a joke. Casey and I had a great rapport from the beginning. The station manager saw that immediately. It was enough to persuade him to give me the job. I went home and finished school. Two months later I was living in Sacramento. Of course, by the time I got there, Casey had moved into a better job in Portland. We didn't work together for another five years. But we never went a week without calling one another, and never a month passed that we didn't find some excuse to see each other.
"You see the thing is," Dan continued, "I had better offers, much better offers. Something drew me to Casey. Something kept me from losing touch with him. I have never kept up with friends. I know where maybe three of my friends from college are today, and that is only because I periodically run into them in the city. Casey is the only person I have ever made any real effort to remain close with. I have never been able to let him go." Dan shook his head. "I wish he could say the same thing about me."
Abby knew Dan had just admitted to his core problem. "What do you mean by that? You wish he couldn't let you go?"
Dan blinked hard against the pain of remembering the day before. "You know the station was up for sale, right? Well, we were saved. However, for a long time it didn't look good. We got a great offer in LA. Casey, Dana and I could have stayed together. However, Casey turned it down. He wouldn't uproot Charlie, his son." Dan sighed. "And I understand; I do. Casey is a good father; Charlie will always be his number one priority. However, I almost lost him. We would have stayed friends. But it wouldn't have been the same. By some miracle we were saved by billionaire with a crush on Dana and a better business sense then any of the morons who ran Continental Corp. However, I came way too close to losing him."
Abby walked out from behind her desk and put her hand on Dan's shoulder. "You didn't lose him. Now you need to capitalize on that."
Dan shot her a look that could only be read as confusion. "What do you mean by that?"
"Wish I could tell you more, however, our time is up." Abby dismissed Dan with a smile. "Make an appointment next time, Danny." She called to him as he opened the door to leave.