Title: Bobbin' 'n' Weavin' II: Drowning
Author: Jadecow
Email: nuttynutgirl@yahoo.com
Summary: Dan makes a painful decision and has to deal with the aftermath.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: General storylines.
Warnings: Oh, the angst! Mild violence and a few foul words thrown in for fun.
Thank you: (In no particular order) Jenny, for beta reading this monster. Sarah, for being the first pair of eyes to read it and listening to me whine constantly about writing problems. Jay, for reading it even though he is one of those weird souls who have never watched Sports Night (is there a grievance hotline for that?). And Laura, for also listening to my whine about my writing problems. These are the people that helped me write this bad boy.
Notes: The second in a series of fics. If you haven't read the first, you may be a little lost. You can find it at: http://fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=462510 or at my home page (http://jade.nothing-less.net). All said and done, the finished product is over 16,000 words, so we'll do this slowly to prevent flooding or exploding the head of my wonderful beta reader.
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Bobbin' 'n' Weavin' II: Drowning
Chapter 1
By Jadecow
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Life was good. I can honestly say after the end of August, I snapped out of my funk. I moved on as much as I ever really moved past Sam and the whole closet of skeletons. The show was rising in the ratings and, after I was back for a week, all the looks and questions stopped. In three months I had only gotten nervous twice, and both times it ended with simple nervousness and not nausea. Around me, everyone was happy too. The rising ratings and job security made us all calmer, happier people. My relationship with Rebecca was thriving. When I told Abby I was happy, she smiled back and actually believed me.
And then I fucked it all up. A simple screwed isn't enough. I fucked it all up. I know I only have myself to blame, but that's not much of a consolation. In fact, that just made the misery worse. I guess I could blame the month of December.
December was always a rocky month. It's too family orientated. You can't walk through the streets, turn on a television, or even the radio without being bombarded with the holidays. Which is wonderful if you can get yourself into the holiday spirit, of love, peace, and all that other propaganda the media shoves down your throat twenty four hours a day. Not so wonderful if you can't.
It's silly, really, what actually pushed me from the normal December semi-depressed state to obsessed with a stupid idea. I watched a movie. I can't remember the title, but it's still on "Dan Rydell's List of Movies I Will Never Watch Again, Even At Gunpoint." I can't even remember where Rebecca was. I just know she wasn't there, watching this stupid inspirational Oprah book of the month type movie.
The general gist was that this family made up after some past fight. A big fight, scattering the family members all across the country. Of course, it took two hours of almost getting back together and almost talking until they finally do. Great. Tearjerker for hormonally imbalanced women, maybe, but I thought it wasn't realistic. Maybe I'm a little cynical when it comes to family movies.
Yet, that night, I lay in bed thinking about my own family. It's always fun to think about my family. What family I had was pathetic. One brother dead at sixteen. Another all the way across the country in California, who only calls me on about half the major holidays. And lets not forget my mother who denies reality by pretending my father actually cares about me. My father who on more then one occasion made it known that he wished I was the one who died.
After that, it all went down hill. I cannot even put into words how much I hated myself for watching that damn movie. I realized that I needed family in my life. Everyone at Sports Night was a family for me, but it wasn't the same. It wasn't what I needed, what I had been needing all my life.
After two days of agonizing over all this, I made a stupid decision. Somehow --maybe it was the forty-eight hours with no sleep-- I thought if I just went and confronted my father, we would work it out. It was stupid, it was beyond stupid. I was setting myself up for disappointment and part of me knew it, that dark part of me where Sam's memory lived. The part that thought I didn't deserve to be happy.
I didn't tell anyone how I was spending my day off. I took a cab all the way out to New Haven because it seemed like a good idea. I could drive again, but I never bought another car. I just sat in the back seat of the cab and watched my hands shake.
By the time I got there I wanted to turn around. All the courage I had worked up melted away when the cab pulled to a stop in front of my parents' house. A thousand memories, even a few pleasant ones, raced through my mind. I stood out in the cold watching my breath cloud in front of me until I realized that standing there wasn't going to accomplish anything. I climbed the porch steps and rang the doorbell.
I don't know if I was hoping, or expecting my mother to answer the door. Of course, it was my father who cracked open the door, standing there looking surprised to see me. Not a pleasantly surprised, mind you.
"Danny." He said at last, as he opened the door and let me in.
There was no offer of a handshake, no hug. I had decided on the ride over that I wasn't going to be the one to break first. I almost lost my resolve, but I forced myself not to. It was something I had to do.
"You're mother's out. She's grocery shopping."
I pulled off my hat and coat, hanging them on the hook behind the door, not enjoying the feeling of being home at all. I turned to face my father.
"I'm actually here to see you."
For a long time, he was silent. "You're growing out your hair."
I nodded. "A little yeah." Before I really thought about it, I was showing him the scar from the accident. "It's kind of noticeable on television if my hair's not covering it." The hidden words: Don't think your advice had any affect on me.
"What happened?" He threw the question over his shoulder as he led me into the den.
"I, uh, got into a car accident."
He stopped walking, halfway towards his chair. He didn't turn around; he didn't have to. I knew the question and I knew what his face looked like. "Were you--"
"No, Dad, I wasn't drunk and I wasn't high."
He just shrugged it off and sat down in the chair. I sat on the couch opposite him, but neither of us really looked at each other. It reminded me of the time that Dana and I were invited to Casey's house, right when the shit was hitting the fan between him and Lisa. We were acting like Dana and Lisa. Two people obviously weary of each other but stuck together at the same time.
"But don't worry, I'm okay, thanks for asking." I said after the long silence.
"You're always such a smart ass."
"And you always didn't give a shit about me." The words were out before I had time to agonize over them. It was a half-second before he said anything when I made the decision. I was coming out of this with or without a father, but I wasn't going to back down.
"You come into my home and disrespect me."
"You've never once shown me anything to respect."
Another two seconds where I had time to realize my heart was pounding away and watch my father's eyes pop out of his head. He shook his head and caught my eyes with his. "What the hell are you...?"
He trailed off and I wasn't sure if he meant to ask me of I was on something or what was I doing. I didn't let the implications of the former bother me. I knew I couldn't. "I came here to talk to you."
"You came here to disrespect me."
"No. I came because I was hoping you could at least answer a question for me. Actually, it's a few questions."
"Do we have to do this?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because this…you, have been bothering me my entire adult life and I'm tried of pretending that it doesn't hurt. It's not fair to me."
"You're not going to get all weepy are you?"
"Just shut the hell up and let me speak!" I didn't realize I wanted to yell, or that I was going to yell until I did. If I knew him well enough, knew his bad moods anyway, I only had about five seconds before he blew. I talked fast. "I just want to know what it is in me that's not good enough for you. And don't even say a word about Sam. You've always hated me; before he died, you hated me. And I think I deserve to know why."
No answer.
"Fine. At least admit the truth. You hate me."
No answer from that either.
"You blame me for Sam's death."
That at least got a nod.
"And you wish it was me."
Another nod, a little hesitant, but a nod all the same.
I bit the inside of my lip until I could taste blood, refusing to let him get to me. When I could finally talk, my voice wasn't entirely steady. "Why?"
He stood up. "I'm not doing this with you!"
I stood up too. Until my second year in college, I was the one who had to look up to look him in the eye. It was disturbingly satisfying to be the one doing the looking down. "You are doing this! It's been thirteen years now, Dad. Thirteen years of knowing that you'd rather see me dead than look at me! Thirteen years!"
"It was your own doing."
"How is it my doing!?"
"You're the one that turned him on to that shit! That stupid reckless behavior that he would have been too smart for otherwise."
I shook my head at him. "Do you even know the first time Sam got high? It was the night Mom and Dave here away looking at schools and you had some stupid hissy fit over something Sam did. And we fought. Do you remember that?" I waited for a nod, but didn't get one. I could see it in his eyes, though. He remembered. "He was scared, Dad. He was terrified of you and he was so upset that he had gotten me hurt. That you hurt me instead of him….It calmed him down." I bit my lip again, trying to keep the tears out of my yes but almost failing. I kept talking to keep from crying.
"You stupid, pathetic, son of a bitch. It's your fault as much as it is mine, if not more so because you were our father and if you weren't too wrapped up in your own fucking alcoholism, you would have noticed that your two sons were stoned out of their minds almost every night!"
I'm not surprised by his next action, really. I was taken by surprise, but at the time I was still trying not to completely lose it. He hit me. Hard. Hard enough to knock me back onto the couch. A sixty three year old man laid me flat, or would have if I didn't land on the couch. I had to use every ounce of control I had left not to jump to my feet and hit back. When he spoke his voice was dangerously low. The one that had scared the crap out of me when I was a kid.
"Get the hell out of my house you little bastard. I never want to see you again." He bent over me, close enough that our noses were almost touching. "You are not my son."
I just nodded. I couldn't think of anything to say. I left without a word, almost forgetting my coat. I walked through the town, trying to figure out if I had expected it to go any better. I realized somewhere on the sixth block, that I hadn't expected, but I had hoped. In my heart I had known how it would go.
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End of Chapter 1.