Dan had no idea what they were doing. Well, he knew what they were doing.
He was lying in bed with Casey on top of him, pumping his hips as Casey
sucked hard on the side of his neck. It was hot - very hot, in fact, since
Casey seemed to know, instinctively, exactly how to touch him. He'd find
himself writhing and gasping for air long before he should have been so
turned on, aroused beyond all proportion to Casey's light touches.
It was a good thing that Casey knew what to do instinctively, since they never spoke when they did this. Not a word. The occasional moan or whimper and once something that sounded a lot like a sob, but no words. Dad didn't know if he liked it that way, but he had a feeling that should he ever say a word, they'd stop doing whatever it was that they were doing. And when Casey's hands felt they way they did on his ass, he didn't ever want it to stop.
They had been - doing this, having, - engaged in this activity on and off for a couple of months now. It had started on a Saturday night when Dan had stayed over at Casey's - a night no different than a hundred others when he'd miscalculated his proportion of alcohol to blood. He'd climbed into bed beside Casey, like he always did when he stayed over, because no one had a guest room in Manhattan and Casey's couch was living hell for a six- foot adult. Casey had tried to tell him at first that grown men didn't share beds, but after Dan threatened to make him sleep on his own couch, Casey had given up the fight. Sometimes they even talked as they feel asleep.
That particular Saturday night, Dan had been semi-conscious when he felt Casey slide up behind him, wrap an arm around his waist and pull him tight against his chest. Dan had thought, groggy and drunk, that it was kind of odd, but it had been a long time since he'd been held, so he slid off into sleep without further reflection.
He woke up a few hours later, stifling hot from the blanket and the man behind him radiating body heat. He struggled a little, trying to pull the blanket off, pinned by the arm that held him close. Eventually he managed to get his upper body free of blanket and escape Casey's arm, although in the process his t-shirt had wrapped itself around his neck. He was just beginning to pull it back down when Casey mumbled in his sleep and reached for him again, clamping an arm around his ribs and a hand on Dan's chest. He didn't flinch when he touched bare skin. Instead, he spread his fingers and moved them down to stroke Dan's stomach.
Dan held absolutely still. He didn't know if Casey was awake or asleep, or what he was planning to do next. Casey's hand traced patterns on his stomach, very, very lightly, leaving a trail of sensitized skin and Dan holding his breath. He lay frozen, unable to formulate a coherent response. Had Casey mistaken him for a woman? What woman? How could he mistake Dan's stomach with its trail of hair for a woman's? Or maybe he just wanted to feel his stomach? Liked petting skin?
Or was he actually trying to start something?
But, while from time to time Dan had been known to sleep with a man (he liked to say he didn't believe in gender discrimination) to the best of his knowledge Casey was absolutely straight. He knew he should move - shift, sit up, do something like he hadn't noticed Casey's hand and save them both from embarrassment. He was just getting ready to mumble realistically and roll over when Casey's hand slipped down his abdomen and under the waistband of his underwear.
He gasped for real when Casey grabbed his now-hard cock firmly and began to pull, a slow steady motion that sped up as Dan stared, ferociously turned on and unable to believe this was really happening. He came almost immediately, shock and pleasure and total disbelief mingled in a way that him hardening again almost as soon as he finished. Casey's hand stroked his shaft and balls and Dan could hear him breathing hard against his neck.
"All's well that ends well," he thought, and gently pushed Casey onto his back. There was no way Casey had mistaken that for a woman. He slid Casey's cock from the slit in his boxers and bent his head to take him in his mouth.
That was the beginning. They'd done this a few times a week since then, fucking each other with hands and mouths, wordlessly and without ever taking their clothes off. In the mornings, they acted like they always had together - making coffee, driving to the office, writing their show. Nothing had changed, except that they stayed at each other's apartments more often than they used to, and Casey had taken to sleeping in Dan's bed even though Dan lived in Brooklyn so he did have a guest room. Sometimes he woke up to feel Casey's mouth on his cock, fell asleep sticky with his best friend's semen. Other times he and Casey slept next to each other, didn't touch at all. And they said nothing about it, no matter what happened.
Dan knew that if anyone was going to talk about it, he'd have to start. He was the talker in their friendship - he was the one who bothered Casey until he opened up. Casey would let his Midwestern reserve take over and strand him alone unless you dragged him out of it. And Dan couldn't find the words to speak. Because he knew that talking would be the end, and he liked this, whatever this thing was, he liked it. So he moaned from time to time, but he never, ever whispered.
But after a couple of months he was starting to wonder if it was worth it, because every single time he was sure it would never happen again, if it was really good to have a giant - situation - with his best friend that they couldn't talk about. Not talking was a bad habit to acquire, especially with the one person you talked about everything to. He was thinking about maybe saying something. Maybe next time he woke up to Casey climbing on top of him, or maybe in the morning when he had some blood in his brain. At the moment, though, he was just going to let the feel of the mouth on his neck and the thigh between his legs take over. He'd deal with this later.
--------------
A lot later, as it happened. Dan kept looking for the right time to say something, but it never seemed to arrive. They had been doing whatever they were doing for so long without talking that it had taken on its own logic - they didn't talk about it because they didn't talk about it. How do you break a code like that? And Dan didn't get a chance to talk about it in bed, because while Casey still came over and still slept in his bed, he stopped reaching for Dan in the middle of the night, and since Dan had never been the reacher, always the reachee (the exact opposite of the their usual friendship, he realized) he was not going to try and start something now, because if Casey said no he really didn't know what he'd do.
Sometime in there Dana broke up with Gordon, and Dan did what a good friend does and badgered Casey about the statute of limitations until he finally managed to ask her out. After which, of course, came the kiss and the dating plan and Casey retreating to some fucked-up place inside his own head where even Danny couldn't reach him.
It was a Friday night, at Dan's apartment, they were watching a game and drinking beer, and at halftime Casey switched to Scotch, mixing himself drinks like he was hell-bent on getting drunk. Danny watered his own drinks, sipping slowly, figuring that it looked like someone was going to have to be the grownup here and it wasn't exactly going to be Casey. Who, of course, got so drunk he had to stay over and passed out in Dan's bed, snoring. Dan went to bed beside him, and was not at all surprised when he was awoken a few hours later by Casey's groping hand. It had been pretty clear that Casey was drinking to get drunk enough to stay over. The thing was, he could have just stayed. He didn't need an excuse.
Casey was still obviously drunk, far from the hangover stage yet, and he was nibbling his way down Dan's chest and stomach when Dan pulled him up short. "This is a mistake, Casey. You're seeing Pixley."
"I know," said Casey without taking his mouth off Dan's nipple. "I don't care if it's a mistake." And he reached a hand down to stroke the inside of Dan's thigh.
"All right," said Dan, and lay back, settling in to the bed. The he stopped Casey again. "As long as we're making mistakes, you want to go for broke?"
-later-
Dan eased himself and Casey onto their sides, and lay on the bed behind him, pressed against Casey's back, face against his neck. He lay there, warm and happy, dozing, not wanting to fall asleep and lose this moment, his best friend in his arms, more content than he had felt in - years? And then Casey started to shake. Dan realized Casey was crying. Crying hard - his body was shaking and he could hear Casey gasping for air as he tried to suppress sobs.
Dan's brain slipped a gear as he tried to think. He let go of Casey, sat on the edge of the bed. He had no idea what to do. Something was wrong with Casey, and he'd caused it. Casey moved to follow him, wrapping himself around Dan, who had gone from blissful to miserable in about six seconds. Dan reached a hand out to touch Casey's hair. Casey's breathing slowed down a little. Dan rubbed his scalp soothingly, reached down to rub his back. At Dan's touch on his bare skin, Casey flinched away. He was still crying, speaking now, between sobs. "I don't want this. I don't want this. I don't want this."
Hearing him, Dan stood up fast, almost leaping from the bed. He leaned down, tucked the blanket around Casey, who pulled it onto him, and over his head, still crying and mumbling. "I don't want this." Dan put on his shirt and boxers, and after a pause for thought, located a pair of jeans and put those on, too. He found Casey's sweatpants, and sat down next to the blanket cocoon.
"Casey, it's okay. No one is going to have sex with anyone. I am fully clothed, and I have your pants right here. Okay? I just need you to talk to me. I need to know what's going on. Because you've got me pretty scared." He stopped, caught his breath. "Look, I just need to know if I hurt you."
Dan had been as careful as he could possibly be but he was already worried he'd done something Casey didn't want. When a guy hands you the lube and sticks his ass in the air, you have to think that he knows what he's suggesting, but what if Casey was that naïve? What if he'd meant something else entirely? But what could he possibly have meant? Thoughts chased each other through his mind as he waited what felt like years for Casey's answer.
"No, you didn't hurt me." Casey's voice was thick. "You absolutely didn't hurt me." He went back to crying, leaving Dan relieved but baffled. He sat in silence, wondering yet again what he should say. The silence stretched out between them and was finally interrupted by Casey. "I'm not gay."
"I know you're not gay."
"I'm not gay. I dress like a dork, everyone makes fun of my taste in music, and I like women. I have a job that depends heavily on me not being gay. I have a child. I'm not gay."
"I know you're not gay. You're in love with Dana.'
Casey mumbled something into his blanket.
"Uh, what?" Dan couldn't make out what he'd said.
"I'm not in love with Dana. I'm in love with you."
"Oh shit." For a moment Dan was afraid he'd said it out loud, but he knew he hadn't.
He started talking. "You're not in love with me. You're just emotional right now. That - what we just did - it can hit you that way, after. Letting someone enter you. There's a lot of trust involved. It's intense. Especially your first time." Dan wasn't sure why he was trying to talk Casey out of being in love with him, since he found the idea awfully appealing. But he also wanted Casey to be happy, and if being in love with Dan made him unhappy, he'd talk him out of it. He could always talk Casey out of just about anything.
Casey mumbled something else into the bed.
"What?" Dan thought he'd heard, but couldn't quite believe it.
"It wasn't my first time."
"Huh." Dan wished he had something more eloquent to say, but he couldn't find a single word. Eventually he came up with "Well, maybe it's just a crush. It'll probably pass."
"I've been in love with you for five years. It's not going to pass."
And once again, all Dan could say was "Huh," although his heart leapt into his throat. "You know, being attracted to guys don't necessarily make you gay. I mean, I sleep with men from time to time, but I'm not gay. I like women, too. I like women a lot. You like women, right? The breasts, the dresses, their round hips and little waists?"
"Yeah. Especially the breasts." Casey actually sounded a little less wretched.
"So you're just - bi. Just about everyone's bi. That's not a crisis."
"I am in love with a man. I have been I love with the same man for five years. I might as well be gay."
"Uh. Okay, well, maybe being gay isn't so bad. I mean, men are nice, too. They never withhold sex, they generally like sports, they don't ever turn to you and say 'what are you thinking?' Men aren't so bad."
"Dan, you're not listening. I don't want men. I want you."
"Uh, yeah." Dan was near hysteria. He had no idea what he was going to say next, but he was sure that he had to keep talking. He needed to talk Casey down from this ledge. He needed - Casey. Whole and sane and beside him. "Uh, you know, I'm not so bad. I'm reasonably sane, and I dress okay, and I like sports, and I have a good job on my own TV show, and I have all my hair. And, uh, I love you."
"I know you love me." Casey didn't sound happy about it.
"No, I mean, I love you. In love. For what it's worth."
This time it was Casey who said it. "Huh."
Dan started talking again, to fill the space. "Is it really so bad? The idea of being in love with me doesn't usually make people so unhappy. I don't think. I know I don't have a great track record with relationships, but I do my best. You know that. I don't cheat or anything. Maybe it wouldn't be so terrible, me? We wouldn't have to be all coupley or anything. Just, you know, spend some time together. Kind of like we already are, I guess, only with - speaking." Dan peeled the blanket off Casey's head, put his hand in his hair. Casey smiled briefly and then his face collapsed again.
"I can't do this. I'm from Minnesota. I think gay men are creepy. Just sometimes I want to have sex with them. I - I - I'm not - that is not the life I want. I want to meet a nice woman and get married again someday. This is not me. It's all wrong."
"Well, we wouldn't have to do this forever. We could just be - us - until you, or I, does meet a woman." Dan knew he didn't mean it even as he said the words. He'd been getting part of Casey for months now, and he wanted all of Casey. He wasn't going to ask for that, though, not when the answer he'd get was hysterical and crying beside him. He was running out of things to say, though, and his grammar was slipping. He was beginning to wonder of he could do this. Whatever this was.
"No."
"Okay." Dan gave up. He had no idea what to do or say so he simply was not going to do or say anything else.
"If we do this, we do it right. You know as well as I do that we'd never manage a half-measure. If we do this, I give up on ever getting married again. You do know that, right?"
Dan hadn't known that. He was a little stunned. "Uh," he said. "Uh, I can do that. I mean, I never really expected to get married anyway. If I was going to fall in love with a woman like that, it would have happened by now." He was shocked by his own words, by what he was committing himself to, and even reeling in shock he knew he meant every word of it.
"And you expect me to trade everything I ever wanted in life - home, family, another child, possibly my job - for you?" said Casey.
He felt like he'd been punched in the gut. No wonder Casey was crying. He wanted to cry himself, now. "No." He repeated himself. "No. I don't expect you to do that. I don't want you to do that. I am not worth that." He would not do that to Casey. He couldn't. And he knew he wanted to, so he made his voice even firmer. "No."
"Because I would." Casey's voice was faint, but determined. "Do you want me to?"
That was the question, wasn't it? If Dan said he did, it would be serious. If he let Casey do this, he'd have to be - sufficient. He'd have to be enough, to make up for everything Casey wasn't going to get. He wasn't sure anyone was enough to make up for that. But was he willing to try?
He was, and he said so. "All I can promise is that I'll try. I can't tell you what you should do, or that everything will be okay. But I'll try. I promise. And I love you. I'll do my best."
Casey sat up. "All right," he said. "Let's try."
It was a good thing that Casey knew what to do instinctively, since they never spoke when they did this. Not a word. The occasional moan or whimper and once something that sounded a lot like a sob, but no words. Dad didn't know if he liked it that way, but he had a feeling that should he ever say a word, they'd stop doing whatever it was that they were doing. And when Casey's hands felt they way they did on his ass, he didn't ever want it to stop.
They had been - doing this, having, - engaged in this activity on and off for a couple of months now. It had started on a Saturday night when Dan had stayed over at Casey's - a night no different than a hundred others when he'd miscalculated his proportion of alcohol to blood. He'd climbed into bed beside Casey, like he always did when he stayed over, because no one had a guest room in Manhattan and Casey's couch was living hell for a six- foot adult. Casey had tried to tell him at first that grown men didn't share beds, but after Dan threatened to make him sleep on his own couch, Casey had given up the fight. Sometimes they even talked as they feel asleep.
That particular Saturday night, Dan had been semi-conscious when he felt Casey slide up behind him, wrap an arm around his waist and pull him tight against his chest. Dan had thought, groggy and drunk, that it was kind of odd, but it had been a long time since he'd been held, so he slid off into sleep without further reflection.
He woke up a few hours later, stifling hot from the blanket and the man behind him radiating body heat. He struggled a little, trying to pull the blanket off, pinned by the arm that held him close. Eventually he managed to get his upper body free of blanket and escape Casey's arm, although in the process his t-shirt had wrapped itself around his neck. He was just beginning to pull it back down when Casey mumbled in his sleep and reached for him again, clamping an arm around his ribs and a hand on Dan's chest. He didn't flinch when he touched bare skin. Instead, he spread his fingers and moved them down to stroke Dan's stomach.
Dan held absolutely still. He didn't know if Casey was awake or asleep, or what he was planning to do next. Casey's hand traced patterns on his stomach, very, very lightly, leaving a trail of sensitized skin and Dan holding his breath. He lay frozen, unable to formulate a coherent response. Had Casey mistaken him for a woman? What woman? How could he mistake Dan's stomach with its trail of hair for a woman's? Or maybe he just wanted to feel his stomach? Liked petting skin?
Or was he actually trying to start something?
But, while from time to time Dan had been known to sleep with a man (he liked to say he didn't believe in gender discrimination) to the best of his knowledge Casey was absolutely straight. He knew he should move - shift, sit up, do something like he hadn't noticed Casey's hand and save them both from embarrassment. He was just getting ready to mumble realistically and roll over when Casey's hand slipped down his abdomen and under the waistband of his underwear.
He gasped for real when Casey grabbed his now-hard cock firmly and began to pull, a slow steady motion that sped up as Dan stared, ferociously turned on and unable to believe this was really happening. He came almost immediately, shock and pleasure and total disbelief mingled in a way that him hardening again almost as soon as he finished. Casey's hand stroked his shaft and balls and Dan could hear him breathing hard against his neck.
"All's well that ends well," he thought, and gently pushed Casey onto his back. There was no way Casey had mistaken that for a woman. He slid Casey's cock from the slit in his boxers and bent his head to take him in his mouth.
That was the beginning. They'd done this a few times a week since then, fucking each other with hands and mouths, wordlessly and without ever taking their clothes off. In the mornings, they acted like they always had together - making coffee, driving to the office, writing their show. Nothing had changed, except that they stayed at each other's apartments more often than they used to, and Casey had taken to sleeping in Dan's bed even though Dan lived in Brooklyn so he did have a guest room. Sometimes he woke up to feel Casey's mouth on his cock, fell asleep sticky with his best friend's semen. Other times he and Casey slept next to each other, didn't touch at all. And they said nothing about it, no matter what happened.
Dan knew that if anyone was going to talk about it, he'd have to start. He was the talker in their friendship - he was the one who bothered Casey until he opened up. Casey would let his Midwestern reserve take over and strand him alone unless you dragged him out of it. And Dan couldn't find the words to speak. Because he knew that talking would be the end, and he liked this, whatever this thing was, he liked it. So he moaned from time to time, but he never, ever whispered.
But after a couple of months he was starting to wonder if it was worth it, because every single time he was sure it would never happen again, if it was really good to have a giant - situation - with his best friend that they couldn't talk about. Not talking was a bad habit to acquire, especially with the one person you talked about everything to. He was thinking about maybe saying something. Maybe next time he woke up to Casey climbing on top of him, or maybe in the morning when he had some blood in his brain. At the moment, though, he was just going to let the feel of the mouth on his neck and the thigh between his legs take over. He'd deal with this later.
--------------
A lot later, as it happened. Dan kept looking for the right time to say something, but it never seemed to arrive. They had been doing whatever they were doing for so long without talking that it had taken on its own logic - they didn't talk about it because they didn't talk about it. How do you break a code like that? And Dan didn't get a chance to talk about it in bed, because while Casey still came over and still slept in his bed, he stopped reaching for Dan in the middle of the night, and since Dan had never been the reacher, always the reachee (the exact opposite of the their usual friendship, he realized) he was not going to try and start something now, because if Casey said no he really didn't know what he'd do.
Sometime in there Dana broke up with Gordon, and Dan did what a good friend does and badgered Casey about the statute of limitations until he finally managed to ask her out. After which, of course, came the kiss and the dating plan and Casey retreating to some fucked-up place inside his own head where even Danny couldn't reach him.
It was a Friday night, at Dan's apartment, they were watching a game and drinking beer, and at halftime Casey switched to Scotch, mixing himself drinks like he was hell-bent on getting drunk. Danny watered his own drinks, sipping slowly, figuring that it looked like someone was going to have to be the grownup here and it wasn't exactly going to be Casey. Who, of course, got so drunk he had to stay over and passed out in Dan's bed, snoring. Dan went to bed beside him, and was not at all surprised when he was awoken a few hours later by Casey's groping hand. It had been pretty clear that Casey was drinking to get drunk enough to stay over. The thing was, he could have just stayed. He didn't need an excuse.
Casey was still obviously drunk, far from the hangover stage yet, and he was nibbling his way down Dan's chest and stomach when Dan pulled him up short. "This is a mistake, Casey. You're seeing Pixley."
"I know," said Casey without taking his mouth off Dan's nipple. "I don't care if it's a mistake." And he reached a hand down to stroke the inside of Dan's thigh.
"All right," said Dan, and lay back, settling in to the bed. The he stopped Casey again. "As long as we're making mistakes, you want to go for broke?"
-later-
Dan eased himself and Casey onto their sides, and lay on the bed behind him, pressed against Casey's back, face against his neck. He lay there, warm and happy, dozing, not wanting to fall asleep and lose this moment, his best friend in his arms, more content than he had felt in - years? And then Casey started to shake. Dan realized Casey was crying. Crying hard - his body was shaking and he could hear Casey gasping for air as he tried to suppress sobs.
Dan's brain slipped a gear as he tried to think. He let go of Casey, sat on the edge of the bed. He had no idea what to do. Something was wrong with Casey, and he'd caused it. Casey moved to follow him, wrapping himself around Dan, who had gone from blissful to miserable in about six seconds. Dan reached a hand out to touch Casey's hair. Casey's breathing slowed down a little. Dan rubbed his scalp soothingly, reached down to rub his back. At Dan's touch on his bare skin, Casey flinched away. He was still crying, speaking now, between sobs. "I don't want this. I don't want this. I don't want this."
Hearing him, Dan stood up fast, almost leaping from the bed. He leaned down, tucked the blanket around Casey, who pulled it onto him, and over his head, still crying and mumbling. "I don't want this." Dan put on his shirt and boxers, and after a pause for thought, located a pair of jeans and put those on, too. He found Casey's sweatpants, and sat down next to the blanket cocoon.
"Casey, it's okay. No one is going to have sex with anyone. I am fully clothed, and I have your pants right here. Okay? I just need you to talk to me. I need to know what's going on. Because you've got me pretty scared." He stopped, caught his breath. "Look, I just need to know if I hurt you."
Dan had been as careful as he could possibly be but he was already worried he'd done something Casey didn't want. When a guy hands you the lube and sticks his ass in the air, you have to think that he knows what he's suggesting, but what if Casey was that naïve? What if he'd meant something else entirely? But what could he possibly have meant? Thoughts chased each other through his mind as he waited what felt like years for Casey's answer.
"No, you didn't hurt me." Casey's voice was thick. "You absolutely didn't hurt me." He went back to crying, leaving Dan relieved but baffled. He sat in silence, wondering yet again what he should say. The silence stretched out between them and was finally interrupted by Casey. "I'm not gay."
"I know you're not gay."
"I'm not gay. I dress like a dork, everyone makes fun of my taste in music, and I like women. I have a job that depends heavily on me not being gay. I have a child. I'm not gay."
"I know you're not gay. You're in love with Dana.'
Casey mumbled something into his blanket.
"Uh, what?" Dan couldn't make out what he'd said.
"I'm not in love with Dana. I'm in love with you."
"Oh shit." For a moment Dan was afraid he'd said it out loud, but he knew he hadn't.
He started talking. "You're not in love with me. You're just emotional right now. That - what we just did - it can hit you that way, after. Letting someone enter you. There's a lot of trust involved. It's intense. Especially your first time." Dan wasn't sure why he was trying to talk Casey out of being in love with him, since he found the idea awfully appealing. But he also wanted Casey to be happy, and if being in love with Dan made him unhappy, he'd talk him out of it. He could always talk Casey out of just about anything.
Casey mumbled something else into the bed.
"What?" Dan thought he'd heard, but couldn't quite believe it.
"It wasn't my first time."
"Huh." Dan wished he had something more eloquent to say, but he couldn't find a single word. Eventually he came up with "Well, maybe it's just a crush. It'll probably pass."
"I've been in love with you for five years. It's not going to pass."
And once again, all Dan could say was "Huh," although his heart leapt into his throat. "You know, being attracted to guys don't necessarily make you gay. I mean, I sleep with men from time to time, but I'm not gay. I like women, too. I like women a lot. You like women, right? The breasts, the dresses, their round hips and little waists?"
"Yeah. Especially the breasts." Casey actually sounded a little less wretched.
"So you're just - bi. Just about everyone's bi. That's not a crisis."
"I am in love with a man. I have been I love with the same man for five years. I might as well be gay."
"Uh. Okay, well, maybe being gay isn't so bad. I mean, men are nice, too. They never withhold sex, they generally like sports, they don't ever turn to you and say 'what are you thinking?' Men aren't so bad."
"Dan, you're not listening. I don't want men. I want you."
"Uh, yeah." Dan was near hysteria. He had no idea what he was going to say next, but he was sure that he had to keep talking. He needed to talk Casey down from this ledge. He needed - Casey. Whole and sane and beside him. "Uh, you know, I'm not so bad. I'm reasonably sane, and I dress okay, and I like sports, and I have a good job on my own TV show, and I have all my hair. And, uh, I love you."
"I know you love me." Casey didn't sound happy about it.
"No, I mean, I love you. In love. For what it's worth."
This time it was Casey who said it. "Huh."
Dan started talking again, to fill the space. "Is it really so bad? The idea of being in love with me doesn't usually make people so unhappy. I don't think. I know I don't have a great track record with relationships, but I do my best. You know that. I don't cheat or anything. Maybe it wouldn't be so terrible, me? We wouldn't have to be all coupley or anything. Just, you know, spend some time together. Kind of like we already are, I guess, only with - speaking." Dan peeled the blanket off Casey's head, put his hand in his hair. Casey smiled briefly and then his face collapsed again.
"I can't do this. I'm from Minnesota. I think gay men are creepy. Just sometimes I want to have sex with them. I - I - I'm not - that is not the life I want. I want to meet a nice woman and get married again someday. This is not me. It's all wrong."
"Well, we wouldn't have to do this forever. We could just be - us - until you, or I, does meet a woman." Dan knew he didn't mean it even as he said the words. He'd been getting part of Casey for months now, and he wanted all of Casey. He wasn't going to ask for that, though, not when the answer he'd get was hysterical and crying beside him. He was running out of things to say, though, and his grammar was slipping. He was beginning to wonder of he could do this. Whatever this was.
"No."
"Okay." Dan gave up. He had no idea what to do or say so he simply was not going to do or say anything else.
"If we do this, we do it right. You know as well as I do that we'd never manage a half-measure. If we do this, I give up on ever getting married again. You do know that, right?"
Dan hadn't known that. He was a little stunned. "Uh," he said. "Uh, I can do that. I mean, I never really expected to get married anyway. If I was going to fall in love with a woman like that, it would have happened by now." He was shocked by his own words, by what he was committing himself to, and even reeling in shock he knew he meant every word of it.
"And you expect me to trade everything I ever wanted in life - home, family, another child, possibly my job - for you?" said Casey.
He felt like he'd been punched in the gut. No wonder Casey was crying. He wanted to cry himself, now. "No." He repeated himself. "No. I don't expect you to do that. I don't want you to do that. I am not worth that." He would not do that to Casey. He couldn't. And he knew he wanted to, so he made his voice even firmer. "No."
"Because I would." Casey's voice was faint, but determined. "Do you want me to?"
That was the question, wasn't it? If Dan said he did, it would be serious. If he let Casey do this, he'd have to be - sufficient. He'd have to be enough, to make up for everything Casey wasn't going to get. He wasn't sure anyone was enough to make up for that. But was he willing to try?
He was, and he said so. "All I can promise is that I'll try. I can't tell you what you should do, or that everything will be okay. But I'll try. I promise. And I love you. I'll do my best."
Casey sat up. "All right," he said. "Let's try."