I'm guessing that most of you are looking for an update to NTWWPI, and im with you, i wanna see an update too 😩 I promise i'm gonna update, I've just been soooo blocked lately and literally unable to write anything. Which is why this little guy comes as such a surprise. I was driving home from work yesterday and suddenly there were words on the notes page of my phone. I have no idea where they came from other than Matt Albie and Danny Tripp give me lots of feelings and I don't know what else to do with those feelings.
If you've never seen Studio60 on the Sunset Strip, first of all, you really should (I have a working link if anyone wants to watch and cry over these guys with me). But the general premise is that it's a behind the scenes look at a sketch comedy show (like Saturday Night Live). Matthew Perry plays Matt Albie, the head writer and Executive Producer, and Danny Tripp is the other Executive Producer, and they're basically the cutest best friends ever. That's about all the background you need for this little ficlet to make sense, but if you ever have the time I would highly recommend the show!
And with that, please let me know what you think of this! It's the first thing I've written for Studio60 and i literally wrote it in an hour, so I have no idea if it's any good!
"Go home, Matt."
"I will," Matt brushed off with a vague wave in the direction of the door. It was Monday night–or Tuesday morning, at this point, a glance at the bottom right corner of his computer screen updated him.
"Go home, Matt."
It was neither a request nor a command, but Matt knew the seriousness of Danny's tone meant business. It wasn't so much firm as it was tired, as though Matt sitting in his office in the middle of the night was keeping him from his own rest.
"I said I will," Matt argued again, looking up from his computer this time to meet the weary eyes of fellow producer and best friend. His chest constricted a bit at the sight, and if he hadn't been so stressed himself he would have felt awful for being at least part of the cause for Danny's obvious distress.
"Matt," Danny sighed, crossing the room to sit on the couch behind Matt's chair. He rubbed his hands down his face before resting his chin on his folded fists. Matt clicked save on the nearly-empty document he'd been staring at for the past way-too-many hours and turned around in his chair so that the two men were eye to eye.
"I've almost got something Danny, I'll be out of here by three," Matt promised, though both knew that it was a complete lie.
"Yeah, you will, because you're leaving now," Danny pressed. "Matt, its late, your brain has gotta be fried by now. Get some sleep, come back fresh tomorrow. It's early in the week. If it were Thursday I might humor you if you wanted to hole up here all night working, but it's two in the morning on Tuesday and you need a full night of sleep in your own bed please, Matt."
"Danny if you're tired just go home! You're not my damn babysitter!" Matt tried not to snap but truth was he was completely tired. He was exhausted, both physically and mentally, but he had a show to put on in three days, twenty-one hours and forty-eight minutes according to the forever-ticking clock on the wall, taunting him day and night with the deadline.
If Matt had returned to the show with any sanity still intact, it was long gone now.
Danny leaned back on the couch, folding his hands behind his head as he did so. His expression was calm, though his own exhaustion was still more than apparent to Matt, who in fairness could practically read his partner's mind by now. The downside was that Danny could read his as well, which means that no amount of bravado on Matt's part could possibly convince the other man that he was anything but falling asleep in his seat. And no one matched Matt's stubbornness like Danny Tripp.
"You done?" Danny asked patiently, as if Matt was a child throwing a temper tantrum. It peeved Matt slightly, Danny's ability to speak to him so condescendingly yet somehow in exactly the way that Matt needed to be spoken to. He wasn't a child. He wasn't.
Though babysitter really was an apt description of Danny most of the time, not that Matt was willing to address that thought at the moment.
"No," Matt grumbled, before deflating and dragging his hands front to back through his hair. "Yeah," he sighed.
"Six hours," Danny said. "Just go home for six hours and I promise you first thing in the morning we'll sit down and go over whatever you've been staring at for god knows how long and get you over the hump. And yeah, I could use a good night's sleep too."
He added the last sentence so casually, like an afterthought. Like his own sleep schedule was completely secondary to Matt's.
"Okay," Matt surrendered. "I'll be back here by nine though I really can't afford to lose any more time than that, god Danny do you have any idea how behind I am?"
"If it's anything like how behind you were at exactly this time last week then, yeah, I think I get the picture," Danny dismissed, standing up and waiting patiently while Matt saved his (little) progress and closed down his laptop, tucking it away in his bag. He ruffled Matt's hair as he passed on his way to the door, and Matt didn't even bother swatting his hand away, so used to the familiar gesture of comfort.
Matt stood up, bag across his shoulder, and took one last look at his desk to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything he couldn't live without for the next six or so hours. Danny flicked off the lights before Matt was even to the door, causing him to glare at the older man but say nothing as his tiredness began to settle in earnest now that he was no longer running on writing-fuelled adrenaline. He covered a yawn but Danny just looked at him knowingly.
"You okay to drive home or do you want me to drop you off?" Danny asked, pulling his car keys out of his pocket. Matt just rolled his eyes.
"I can take care of myself old man," he ribbed, earning a smile.
"You'd be lost without me and you know it, little boy," Danny returned. "And I am your babysitter, just FYI. I make sure you eat, I make sure you sleep, I make sure you play nice with the other kids..."
"You sound more like a mother when you put it that way," Matt huffed, holding the studio door open for Danny to pass through after him and into the garage where they parked their cars.
"You can call me whatever you want," Danny sighed, hitting the remote to unlock his car.
"Be careful what you ask for," Matt sing-songed, unlocking his own door and tossing his bag in the back seat. He paused before climbing into the driver's seat, taking a good look at the weary lines of his best friend's face. Danny was the best that Matt knew at showing a well put together front around other people, no matter how he was feeling at the moment. He made others feel at ease. He certainly made Matt feel at ease.
Still though, Matt could read him like a book when he bothered trying and right now all he could see was how badly Danny needed a rest, maybe even more than Matt himself did, and he felt a surge of guilt for being the one to keep him here so late, almost as strong as the surge of protectiveness he often felt towards his friend that was second only to Danny's own mother hen-ness in strength.
"Are you gonna get home okay?" Matt asked, and Danny laughed and shook his head.
"Get some sleep," he instructed before ducking into the driver's seat. Matt smiled and gave a mock salute and slid into his own car. Two thirty-two the clock on the dashboard blinked back at him when he turned it on.
He glanced to his side to see Danny's car pull out of the space next to his and gave one last wave before throwing his car into gear and following him out of the garage. Danny turned left at the first stoplight and Matt went right, finally parting after god knows how many hours together that day. They would be back in a few short hours to do it all over again, and it was probably only a matter of time before something went dramatically wrong and Matt and Danny would have to fix it and they'd spend a few nights at the studio grabbing forty minutes of sleep at a time between phone calls with important people and frantic edits to the script and the set and meetings with the cast and bitching to each other about why the hell did we ever take this job.
It was only Tuesday, Matt reminded himself as he wound through the irritating but not quite unbearable LA traffic. There would be plenty of time to hate himself later in the week. For now, he was going to take advantage of the calm before the proverbial storm and get a couple of hours of what Danny considered "real sleep" in an actual bed instead of the couch in his office or with his face down on his computer or his morning (afternoon, evening, late night) coffee cup.
He yawned again, no longer even pretending to be awake now that he was alone and not trying to prove a point to Danny (he wasn't entirely sure what point that was exactly, he just knew that it was there and that he needed to prove it).
Two fifty-four. He pulled into his driveway and turned off the ignition. He thought about texting Danny when he got home, just to make sure his friend had arrived safely but before he could, his phone started buzzing in the cup holder next to him.
"Hey," he picked it up as he unbuckled his seatbelt and grabbed his bag from where it had fallen on the floor behind his seat.
"Just wanted to make sure you didn't turn around and go back into your office after I left," came Danny's voice from the other end of the line, and Matt smiled at how in synch they were. "Are you home?"
"Yeah, just pulled up. You?"
"Walking in the front door as we speak," Danny confirmed.
"Good," Matt nodded, even though he knew Danny couldn't see him. He locked his car and opened the door connecting the garage to his house, dropping his bag right inside the door and kicking his shoes off in one motion. "Get some sleep, man, you've been awake just as long as I have."
"Yeah," Danny sighed. "You too, though. I mean it Matt, you can work more after you sleep."
"Yeah, yeah," Matt rolled his eyes, but honestly the thought of turning around and going back, or continuing to work from home had never even occurred to him. Danny had told him to go home and sleep and once he had promised to do so, breaking that promise just hadn't seemed like an option. Not when it came to Danny.
"Nine o'clock at the earliest," Danny emphasised. "Night Matty."
"You're the boss," Matt mocked in return, slowly making his way through his house to his room. "Night Danny." Matt heard the click of the line going dead and within minutes he was fast asleep. Best to take advantage of the rest when he could get it.