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TITLE: Every Great Success Story
AUTHOR: S.N. Kastle
CATEGORY: Sports Night, Dan/Casey
SUMMARY: "Nobody thought we'd do this.  Nobody really thinks it will
work, do they?"  Late second season, Casey begins to change his mind.
RATING: R
DISCLAIMER: Not mine.  Props to Aaron Sorkin, and to Cameron Crowe for
the title. Must-have thrift-store reference item: The Book of Lists, by
Wallechinsky, et. al. Also, Scott Simon, author of Home and Away: Memoir
of a Fan, knows a little about hope and experience. And "Take Me Out to
the Ballgame" is all Kelly and Sinatra.
ARCHIVE: List OK, everyone else please link directly or ask permission.
THANKS: The brothers of Philadelphia broke my heart. These kids helped
put it back together: Sabine, who knows how to end things, from
Downtown!  Anna, who brought croutons and common sense.  Dawn, who tried,
and who suggested Geraldine.
Originally posted 11 July 2001.
FEEDBACK: Like oxygen: snk@wearemany.net. 
 
 
 

             EVERY GREAT SUCCESS STORY
 
 

CASEY LOOKED UP and Dan was gone.

They were at WXOU Radio Bar on Hudson because after the show, when Casey
had suggested Anthony's, Dan had made that face, the one he'd been
wearing in the moments between their mid-segment conversations and the
red recording light coming on, like he was lost.  So Casey had shrugged
and steered them here instead, and at some point he'd taken a long drink
and tried to decipher the sodden copy on the coaster.  When he looked
up, Dan was gone.  Probably just in the bathroom.

He cast around for their waiter and a young guy in a tight blue shirt
sitting at the bar gave him a broad, flat stare and a smile.  Casey
smiled back, his TV grin for a fan, and then the guy arched an eyebrow
and bared his teeth a little and Casey slammed the rest of his beer and
looked away.  He was used to people looking at him. He was used to men
looking at him.  Most days, it was mostly men who looked at him.  But
he'd never quite gotten used to the sharp flash of a cruising stare, the
sheer simplicity and confidence of the obvious request.  He didn't quite
know what to do with being wanted that much.

Anyway, it was late, he had to take a leak and Dan was still gone.  He
decided to abandon his coaster and seek out the bathroom, because there
weren't enough people left to worry about losing the table, and if he
stayed there Blueshirt was gonna try to buy him a beer.

The men's room was a single, the door locked. Casey rocked on his heels
and when the jukebox clicked off he heard something that sounded like
retching.  "Uh, Danny?" he said, pressing his ear to the door.  The wood
was oily against his cheek and the toilet coughed and gurgled and
finally quieted.  He knocked twice. "Danny?  You okay?"

The lock slid open with a thunk but the handle didn't turn.  Casey
nudged open the door to find Dan sitting on the lidless toilet, pants up
and shirt open at the neck.  He was flushed and a gloss of sweat danced
above his brow.  "Can I, uh -- is it okay if I come in?"

Danny nodded and stood up, his expression blank.

"Okay if I take a piss?" Casey asked, and Dan nodded again as he moved
to stand with his back against the door.

Cascading urine sounded like whitewater rapids in the tiny room and
Casey was a little embarrassed even though it was just Dan.  Casey's
dick was soft and heavy in his hand and he wondered if the guy was gone
and what Danny would think of the whole thing.  Danny knew, about Casey,
about some of the things he'd given up for Lisa.  But that was all very
much of the past.

As opposed to being of the present, this strange stop in time where he'd
been divorced and practically celibate for two years and Danny was maybe
bulimic or some shit.  He tucked himself back in, zipped up and turned
around to find Danny with the lost look again.

"You know who we forgot?" Danny asked, like they were still sitting at
the table swapping players' names and biggest upsets. They were maybe
five days behind on a package about greatest underdogs in sports history
for Friday's show.

"Who?" Casey asked, leaning a little on the tiny sink.  They were close
enough that Casey could smell hairspray from the show and see a crease
of makeup smudged on Dan's chin.

"Us.  Sports Night, I mean." Danny kicked his shoes back against the
door and it rattled on weak hinges.  He met Casey's eye and his
shoulders slumped.

"I have a feeling Luther Sachs is going to miss the irony in our very
special coverage," Casey said.

Dan sighed and blinked his eyes slowly, like when he opened them again
they'd be in Tahiti drinking something fruity and watching girls play
volleyball on the beach.

"You want to go home?" Casey asked, bending in toward him. "Are you
sick?"

Danny shook his head and bit his bottom lip. Casey wasn't sure what to
do, kept wondering if it had been this much of a pain in the ass to
cover his half of the conversation when he went crazy over the divorce.
Danny had even warned him that it could be like this, and still Casey
didn't understand what Danny needed from him.

"Tell me how to help," he finally said, palm against Dan's ribs across
the wedge of space, and Danny fell into Casey, his face wet and
trembling on Casey's neck.  Casey wrapped his arms around Danny's back.
They stood there like that for a long minute, old Rolling Stones
screaming through the walls, and then Dan put one hand around the curve
of Casey's waist and the other on the fly of his jeans.

"This?" Danny whispered, barely audible, his nose an inch from Casey's
collar, eyes down.  Dan's body was warm against Casey's chest, solid and
familiar, and if this was what Danny thought he needed, Casey knew how
to help after all.

"Okay," he said into Dan's ear, and Dan sucked in his breath and kind of
froze.  Casey slid a hand down around and into one of Danny's back jean
pockets, ducked his neck and ran his lips over the hollow of Dan's
throat where it peeked out of the shirt.  Danny moaned and pushed his
hips toward Casey's and Casey held them close with his hand on Dan's
ass.

Casey hooked a finger into the waistband of Dan's pants and wiggled
against the soft flesh underneath. Dan was clutching at Casey, trying to
work his shirt up out of his pants and then Dan's hands were sliding
across his lower back and he felt himself getting hard.  He exhaled
sharply as Dan snagged open the button on his jeans and slid a hand
inside the boxers in one smooth move.  Casey had no idea where Danny had
learned to do that and for a second he got distracted, imagining, but
then he just shifted and tried to get in a better position.

They had about three square feet between the edge of the sink and the
other wall and Casey leaned his shoulder into Danny's chest until they'd
torqued around and Dan was pressed against the door. Now there was a
little more room to play with, and Casey wandered under Dan's untucked
Oxford as he unzipped Danny's pants. When he wrapped a hand around
Danny's dick, Danny whimpered and almost lost his balance, hitting his
head on the door as he leaned back to catch himself.  He pulled his hand
out of Casey's boxers as he flailed and Casey felt cold but he pinned
Dan to the wall and unbuttoned Dan's shirt in the gap between their
bodies, hand still jerking Dan's cock in time to a pounding bass line
that could have been either "All Along the Watchtower" or "Back in the
USSR," except it was hard to tell which over the panting hiccups that
Dan kept spitting into his ear. He kept rhythm and bent to kiss the
smooth skin of Dan's chest, sucking a little on a dark, flat nipple and
Dan clawed for Casey's shoulders, running his hands up and down the
sides of Casey's arms as Casey moved.  And then Danny grunted and hit
his head back against the door again and came, hot and wet on Casey's
palm.

Danny was sweaty and limp against the door and Casey wanted to kiss him
but instead twisted away, turned on the sink and washed his hands. In
his peripheral vision, he could see Dan buttoning his shirt again and
zipping his jeans.  It was just Danny getting dressed, like in the
locker room after they played ball, except this time he had needed Casey
to help and Casey was just doing what a guy should when his partner
needed him.  It wasn't like he'd never done this before.  Not with Dan,
sure, but not never, and Dan knew that.  It wasn't a crazy thing to
ask.  It wasn't a crazy thing to do.  They weren't crazy.

The single yellow lightbulb buzzed and flickered and in the graffitied
mirror, Casey's eyes looked big and jaundiced.  He was still kind of
hard and also a little queasy.  He remembered the sound of Danny
throwing up and wondered if it would make him feel any better.

Dan cleared his throat and shuffled his feet but didn't come up with
anything to say.  Casey wanted a script.  He turned around and Dan was
looking at the floor, color high on his cheeks and hair a little messy.
He reached out to smooth down the spikes with his watery fingers and Dan
got very still.  Casey touched Dan's shoulder and grabbed the door
handle beside his waist, turning it slowly, counting down.

The blue-shirt guy was still sitting at the bar and he shot Casey a
knowing look.  Casey felt himself blush and he moved away from Dan a
little.  Dan glanced over at him and Casey just nodded and grabbed his
jacket off the chair.  Dan followed him out and never even saw the guy
and Casey was a little embarrassed for Dan, for how naive Danny could
be, how sometimes he never saw what was happening right in front of him.

At the curb Danny flung out a hand and a cab squealed to his feet.  He
opened the door and looked back to Casey.  Casey wasn't sure how
everything had ended so quickly or if they were even done yet.  "You're
okay?" Casey asked, breath making little puffs against the dark.

Dan sputtered a laugh and shrugged, climbing in and pulling the door
shut behind him.  The cab pulled away and Casey swallowed spring air and
cold exhaust.
 

"EVER SINCE DAVID kicked Goliath's ass, we've taken to out feet to
scream for and shout for the underdog, for that three-pointer at the
buzzer, that home run with the bases loaded."  Dan walked into the
office and Casey looked up from the computer where he'd been muttering
the script under his breath.  Casey nodded and Dan cocked his head in
reply and Casey read the sentence aloud.

"Underdog's a person, dude," Dan said. "You gotta make the other two
match. Three-point shooter. Home-run hitter."  Dan was clearing leftover
notes and research off the table from the night before and it hadn't
been twelve hours, it wasn't yet half a day from when they'd left to go
anywhere but Anthony's and Casey wondered if he was supposed to say
something.

"Shit," Casey said.  He was supposed to be the guy who cleaned up their
sentences.  Danny typed better, and Casey was grammar guy.  He was off
his game.

"Parallel construction's a bitch," Dan said, sitting down on the couch.
"That all you've got?"  Casey nodded.  "We are so late."  He nodded
again, keeping his eyes on the screen.  Dan seemed better, more calm,
and that had been the whole point.

"What about, uh, hmm," Casey ran his tongue around his teeth, thinking.
"New York Jets over Baltimore, Superbowl III?"

"They were, like, nineteen-point 'dogs," Dan said, nodding approvingly
and Casey added it to the list.

"How about --" Casey looked up and Dan was staring at him.  He waited.
"Uh, what about UCLA-Notre Dame, '74, with Bill Walton and the
eighty-game streak?"

"Right, right, right," Casey said, pointing at Dan.  "Bruins up by
eleven, three minutes to go, Notre Dame goes full-court press, twelve
straight points --"

Dan was bobbing his head, smiling, "Irish wins seventy-one to seventy,
yeah, now we're talking.  That's it."

Casey laughed, wrote it down, deleted four different typos and danced
his feet around under the desk.  Dan was smiling like Casey hadn't seen
in weeks, like things were okay, and Casey smiled back and said, "Yeah,"
exhaled.  He'd fallen in love with the underdogs once, back when he was
twelve and most of the Padres' single-A farm team lived in a boarding
house on his street and let him tag along to practice.  They'd had the
worst record in the league, narrowed the gap with grit and guts, and
then they lost their focus, or their heart, or their mind, dropping
errors like beads of sweat in the sun of the bleacher seats.

"Case --" Dan said, stopping, still smiling.

"Yeah."  He opened The Book of Lists and flipped through to the chapter
on sports. Twenty-four feats of physical strength.  "Milo of Crotona
carried a four-year-old ox," he read, "weighing about one ton, for six
hundred feet."

"What?" Dan said.

"In 540 B.C., Milo of Crotona, of, you know, Greece, carried a ton of ox
the length of two football fields."

"And in what sense was he an underdog?"

"He carried an ox!"  Casey threw an imaginary ox over his shoulder.
"That doesn't count?"

Dan shook his head, took a breath.  "Case, I'm, I'm sorry I just kind
of, uh, you know."

That came out of nowhere.  Casey held his place in the book with his
thumb.  Freaked, he finished in his head.  You freaked out, Danny, but
it's okay.  That's what friends are for.

"You know, that I bailed like that."

"Oh," Casey said, nodding.  Danny was sorry he'd bailed.  Like that.  A
guy like Dan, knowing Casey like he did, might be a little more careful
how he backed his way out of a situation.  There was helping out an old
friend, and there was getting taken advantage of, and one was a hell of
a lot easier to get past than the other.  Casey opened the book again.
"Sixth century B.C., some guy named Bybon threw a three hundred and
fifteen-pound sandstone over his head.  Archaeologists found a
description inscribed on the rock."

"Still doesn't count, Casey.  Plus, it's like three thousand years ago
so, you know, no way we're gonna have file footage.  You gotta stay
focused, my friend."

"I am focused," he protested.  Danny had no idea.  Modern feats of
strength.  Casey McCall, late twentieth century, reigning champion of
the great dodge, focuses on something other than the feel of Dan's dick
in his hands.  McCall wins the pennant!  McCall wins the pennant!

Dan sat forward on the couch, leaned down a little and stretched and
held his ankles as he talked. "Casey, last night."

"Yeah, Dan, I know."  Casey stood up.  "I'm glad you're feeling better.
Really.  I, uh, I'm gonna see if Jeremy finished his list yet."
 

JEREMY OFFERED ROGER Bannister and the four-minute mile, '91 Twins
worst-to-first in a single season and half of a Snickers.  Casey chewed
on the candy bar and put his feet up on the editing desk.

"You know, it would be hard to find someone who is more of an underdog
fan," Casey said, playing with the knobs and levers on the chair.  "I
mean, I love the Cubs.  I rooted for the Broncos.  First thing I taught
Charlie, before I even said to follow through and always keep the ball
in front of you, is that you always, always root for the underdog.  You
got a choice, you go with the guy who's got the most heart and the worst
chance.  I told him, you've gotta trust hope over experience every time,
because hope and heart is what's gonna win it for you."

"So what's the problem?"

"The problem is -- it's just that -- shit.  I don't know what the
problem is.  We're not where we should be on this."

"It's for tomorrow," Jeremy said reasonably. "You've got time."  Casey
wasn't feeling reasonable.

"Still."  Casey stood up, went over to the couch and sprawled out,
resting his head and not thinking about the sweet, sweaty smell in the
crook of Dan's neck.   Dan wouldn't think about things like that the
next day.  Dan was focused.  Dan wasn't like that, anyway.  "I mean, I
myself am an underdog.  Right here, live specimen, get him while he's
fresh."

Jeremy frowned.  "You're not an underdog."

"Yeah -- yeah we are," Casey said.  "We were Lone Star Sports, I mean,
and look, now we're --"

"The third-most popular sports show about a heartbeat away from getting
shut down?"

"Still.  That, right there, see?"

"Okay," Jeremy said, cutting a half-second of B-roll.  "Except I think
if anyone gets to claim the title of underdog it's likely to be Dan."

Casey turned his head toward the desk.  Over Jeremy's shoulder, Mussina
was mid-windup, arm cocked behind his body, posture tight like a rubber
band.  "Nah, that's just this thing he does to get attention."

"Right," Jeremy said, "I forgot, he LIKES everyone thinking he's the
sidekick."

"He does.  It gives him grousing rights."

"Grousing rights?"

"You know, he gets to complain, he gets to be that guy."

Jeremy pushed his glasses up on his nose.  "Would you want to be that
guy, Casey?"

Casey swallowed and thought about Danny locked in the bathroom, throwing
up.  "I -- it's not, it's not the same.  That's just what Danny does.
And, yeah, sometimes he yells a little about things like that stupid
list or, you know, who's asking the questions during interviews, but
it's not -- it's just Danny, being, you know, Danny."

Jeremy let the full clip play through, not marking anything, not saying
anything, and after a while Casey wanted to say, "Right?"  Even though
he knew he was right.  He knew how Danny was, knew better than anyone.
Except something was wrong with Danny, something was a little sick, and
maybe Casey wasn't the best person to help out with that after all.

He kicked his legs forward to propel himself off the couch and steadied
his weight as he looked down over Jeremy's shoulder, vantage point like
the green giant surveying all his land, Mussina still frozen with the
ball.

"Thanks for the Snickers," he said.
 

"NATALIE SAID NORTHWESTERN in the Rose Bowl, plus Geraldine Ferraro."
Dan was behind the computer and Casey pulled one of the rolling chairs
around to the other side of the desk.  "Please tell me you got something
more from Jeremy."

"But," Casey started, wrinkling his brow, "didn't --"

"I know," Dan said.  "Northwestern lost the Rose Bowl."

"Plus, you know, unless somehow I missed Geraldine Ferraro being a small
forward, I'm fairly sure she never played sports.  And, also, she lost."

"She was pretty cool, though, Case," Dan said through a tight grin.

Casey forced a chuckle and nodded, playing with a paperweight on the
edge of the desk.  It was a heavy, antiqued bronze star that said "Don't
Mess With Texas."  Darryl, the station manager, had given it to them
when they left, when no one thought they'd be able to make their
dog-and-pony show work in New York. "Don't worry," Darryl had said,
"those city people give you any shit, just remember there's no bigger
sports fan than a Texan, and you two did all right here."  They let
themselves think that it could even be easy, because they had each other
to fall back on.

"Did Jeremy have any good ideas?"

Casey chewed at his lip, tried to remember the last time it had seemed
easy.  "Uh, Roger Bannister and the '91 Twins."

"Right, worst-to-first."

Casey nodded.

"That's it?"

"Uh, yeah," Casey said.  "That's all he had to say."  Jeremy didn't know
Dan like he did.  He knew Dan.  He'd known Dan for a long time now, and
that had to count for something.

"Bannister's not a bad idea," Dan said, and he pulled the side of his
mouth down as he thought.  Casey wanted very badly to touch him and
didn't.

Natalie stuck her head in the door.  "So, Northwestern?  Go Cats?"

Casey looked to Dan.  "Did she go to Northwestern?"

"Yes," Natalie said, "she did.  And she knows an underdog when she sees
one.  Forty-nine years with barely a winning season and then they open
'95 by beating Notre Dame, then they beat Michigan -- baby, we're
talking Michigan, not some little liberal arts school -- and go ten and
one to take it to Pasadena. Go Cats!"

"But they LOST," Dan said, rolling his eyes and flailing his arms and
Casey smiled.  Dan's little routine, it was all one package, the
flailing and the grousing and the slow, serious smile that capped off
the end of the joke, the punchline revered above all.  It took two to
tell a joke that well, and when they were in a groove, when they were
grooving, they always knew who was on first.  It was their routine.

"You have to win to be an underdog?" Natalie asked.

"Well, you know, history is written..." Casey started, looking at Dan.
Dan shrugged.  Casey shrugged.

"Because," Natalie went on, "isn't the point of underdogs that they
weren't expected to win?"

Dan frowned.  "That would mean that in every match-up in the history of
history there was an underdog.  And, frankly, Natalie, that's just way
too big a pool of candidates for us to handle right now."

"It's not just that they weren't gonna win," Natalie said. "It's that no
one thought they would. And they went out there and played like they
would anyway.  It's about having more courage.  More heart."

"More heart?" Dan said.  Jeremy was kind of a sidekick, Casey realized.
Except Jeremy and Natalie were going to find their way back to each
other while everyone else was stuck making up stupid plans and getting
drunk.

"Yeah," Natalie shrugged.  "Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose.
But it's always a good story."  She bobbed her head and smiled, turning
to leave.  "We're meeting in twenty, okay?"

"Sure," Casey said, because sometimes they lost so badly it broke your
heart. "Hey," Casey called, and she came back.  "Geraldine Ferraro?"

"That was Dan's idea," she said, pulling the door shut behind her.

Danny batted the blame away with one hand and stood up, pacing.  "Just
stretching my legs, my friend," he said, when he caught Casey's
questioning look.  "Just stretching."

Casey moved to sit behind the computer and Dan pulled one of the bats
out of the umbrella stand they'd commandeered from the bullpen, took a
few warm-up swings.  First thing Casey'd taught Charlie about batting
was the follow-through, the sure step and a solid swing all in one
smooth move, and don't forget to follow through.  Danny had been there
with them, just three boys playing in the East Meadow like it was their
backyard, Casey pitching underhand from maybe 10 feet back, Dan kneeling
with his arms around Charlie's shoulders to help him hit the ball so no
one got too discouraged the first time out.

"So where are we?" Dan asked, stepping into the swing, wooden bat easy
in his hands, and Casey ran his tongue around his mouth and checked the
list.

"We've got Northwestern, Roger Bannister, Twins, Bruins-Irish, the Jets,
uh, the guy with the rock?"

"The crouton guy?"

"Crotona," Casey said.  "Milo of Crotona."

"Right," Danny said, and he pulled the bat up on his shoulders and hung
his hands over it, twisting from side-to-side at the waist, just
stretching.  He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt that had maybe been
dried on hot instead of fluff, the battered navy cotton a size or two
too small.  With his arms like that, the shirt rode up over Danny's
belly.  Dan had dark, almost black hair on his pale stomach and Casey
tried to remember if he'd been able to see that the night before, if
that's what all of Danny's skin and hair looked like.  He wondered if
Danny was okay now.

"Casey," Danny said sharply, and Casey blinked and came back into
himself.  He'd been staring again.  Danny was staring back, looking
cool, leaning on the bat like it was the kind of cane that went with a
top hat in old movies and it reminded Casey of that crazy old Gene Kelly
movie where Kelly played a ballplayer making a living as a hoofer in the
off-season.  Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra and that woman who was always
swimming and singing.  Esther Williams.  Gene Kelly telling Esther
Williams that Frank was so lonely without her that he kept waking Gene
up in the middle of the night and kissing him.

"Gene Kelly was kind of an underdog," Casey said.

Danny dropped the bat, sat down and rolled the chair over to the desk.
"What?"

"More heart," Casey said, and Dan kept staring at him and Casey took a
deep breath.  "Here's the thing, Danny.  I'm kind of used to being the
guy you help.  Not the, uh, other way.  I'm not so good at figuring out
these sort of things."

Dan looked down and Casey could see him swallow.  "Which sort of
things?"

"You know," Casey said.  "Whatever it is that you're going through,
because, I mean, you still haven't really explained to me what's
happening with you."

Danny sniffed and fluttered his hands vaguely.  "Isn't it obvious?"

"Uh, you know, not really," Casey said.  "Not really."  The first time
he'd taken a shower with a guy, hot water fogging up the locker room
windows on an October evening after they'd stayed late at cross-country
practice, Casey had thrown up.  Jason Patroni, a three-sport letterman,
had put an arm around him, crouched there on the floor of the little
stall, and said, "It's not that bad, man.  It's not that bad."

Dan kicked at the leg of the table and the computer monitor quivered.
Casey laid a firm hand on the desk and Dan stared down at his lap.
"Abby says I don't know how to relate to people except on TV."

"Uh," Casey stammered, putting his hand back over the keyboard. "'Kay."

"Which, you know, is something only somebody who's never been on TV
would say."  Dan rolled his eyes and flailed his hands.

"So," Casey said, chewing his lip, thinking about how throwing up always
hurt more than he'd remembered, "you don't think that's what it is?  Is
it possible it's, like, something entirely else?"

"You got something you want to say, Case?"

Casey swallowed hard.  "No, I just meant.  You seem okay on TV."

"Right, that's her point, that it's this need for mass acceptance."
Danny bounced the chair a little.

"But you think she's wrong?"

"I, yeah.  I guess."  Dan picked up the paperweight, put it down again.
"I mean, I'm okay now."

"Right.  But, I mean."  Now they were in the office with all the lights
on and their clothes intact.  It wasn't even a scrimmage.  It was a
paper game, a computer simulation. Fantasy Dan.

"Last night I wasn't so good," Dan said with his eyes down.

"Yeah."

"At first, I mean.  I wasn't okay, I don't know what happened, we were
just sitting there and I really needed, I needed to just, you know.
Go."  Danny stopped and his eyes were kind of shiny and Casey's chest
hurt like he'd gotten the wind knocked out of him.

"I was just trying to help you feel better, Danny," he said, and then
immediately knew he'd gotten that wrong, could feel the words slip and
slide as they came out of his mouth all crooked.  He wanted another
shot.  He wanted best of three.

"Right," Dan said, lips stretched against his mouth as he kicked back
the chair and stood up, and it was too late.  "Right.  Look, I'm sorry
if I, you know, asked for the wrong thing, last night."  Casey bit his
lower lip and felt the back of his throat burn.  "But I don't think you
were just trying to make me feel better.  'Cause you're not usually that
selfless, and I know you like that kind of thing sometimes.  Don't get
me wrong -- I love you, I really do, but you have a very healthy sense
of self-fulfillment, and you usually do exactly what you want."

"But you wanted -- you said you wanted this.  That."

Dan sat on the couch in a heap.  "I do.  Did."

So that's why they called it the sixty-four thousand dollar question,
Casey thought, except that seemed like a low wager.  He cleared his
throat and bit his lip.  "Which, Danny?"

Danny looked down and said, quietly, "I did."

"Well, okay then."  Casey stood up.  "I'll be in editing."
 

JEREMY HAD THE Orioles game up now, this time frozen on a hitter, and
Casey sat down on the couch again.

"Still stuck?" Jeremy asked, not turning around.

"Still stuck."

"That was good, the thing you said before," Jeremy said, "about hope
over experience.  You should use that for your intro."

"Yeah?" Casey said, less sure. Danny was saying he didn't any more,
didn't need him like that after all.  Unless he was just, maybe he was
just trying to avoid the ways that was making everything more
difficult.  When they'd first gotten to New York, he and Dan had gone
out exploring after the show, 2 a.m. in Times Square, down in the
Village, delirious pub crawls and sun rising over the Hudson and Lisa
calling his cell to ask if he'd manage to get home in time to take
Charlie to pre-school.  He'd been stuck with Lisa for way too long.

"Dan's stuck too?" Jeremy asked.  Dan was seriously stuck.  That was the
problem.  He was stuck, and Casey had gotten him un-stuck for a second
and now he was freaking.  He'd known Danny for a long time, and he knew
when he was right.

"Do you think maybe Danny's gay?" Casey asked and Jeremy just laughed
and kept working.  "No, seriously," he said.  "Do you think it's
possible?"

"Do I think Dan is gay?"  Jeremy pushed his glasses up his nose.
"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"Seriously, I have no idea.  I can't say that I've ever really thought
about it."

"I'm not saying I've thought about it," Casey said.

"Isn't he seeing that woman Abby?"

Casey sighed and ran his hands through his hair.  "She's his shrink."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"Well, therapy makes everybody gay," Jeremy said.  "I mean, therapy
almost made ME gay, and I'm not gay at all."

"You're a little gay."  Casey grinned at Jeremy and leaned back on the
couch.

"No, I'm really not.  I'm not saying that to be defensive.  I am just
not in the slightest bit gay.  I am far, far too boring to be gay."

"You're not boring."

"I am also not gay, I promise," Jeremy said, laughing again.  "You're
much more gay than I am, Casey, and you're not even --"

"I'm kind of gay," Casey said, his voice steadily light and musical.
What was once called gay.  Gay of the past.

Jeremy pushed his chair back and tilted his head.  "Seriously?"

Casey nodded, knowing Natalie and Dana and Isaac and then probably even
Dan would hear that one by the end of the night.

"And you want to know if Dan is gay?"

"Well, I just...  Wondered."  He picked at a loose thread on the cuff of
his jeans, recrossed his legs.

"Don't you think maybe you should ask him?"

"I don't think that's such a good idea."

"Why not?"

"Because he's a little -- he's a little -- unstable.  I think.  Right
now."  The worst, what would be at once all of the top 10 worst things
that could happen was for Dan to want something from Casey that he
didn't know how to give.  He'd done enough of that already, between Lisa
and Dana and probably Charlie.  Jesus, Charlie was gonna be in therapy
for sure.  He'd probably end up gay, too.

"So go help him through it, Casey.  Step up."

"What?"

"Seriously, man.  I'm sure that if Dan is, you know, actually gay?  He's
not going to need anyone as much as he needs you."

"You think he needs me?"

Jeremy rolled his eyes.  "Casey."

"I mean..."  Casey stopped.  "You mean, how do you mean, exactly?"

"Go talk to him, Casey.  I'm surprised you can pick out what socks to
wear in the morning with out each other's help.  You're gonna have to
work this through, just you and him."
 

CASEY WAITED TO talk to Danny, and they had a bad show.  Worse than
bad.  Profoundly awful.  In the history of history, it was among the
worst shows ever done.  Dana hissed and cursed in their ears and Dan
fumbled four lines and Casey forgot to throw to Kelly for a stand-up and
Alyson checked his temperature when she was doing a touch-up, maybe just
the flu, she said.

"It's not the damn flu," Casey muttered as she was walking away, and
Dan's head cocked up like he'd heard.

The tie got caught on his ears as he pulled it over his head, standing
in the middle of their darkened, empty office, looking at the bat Dan
had been playing with laying on the floor.  He could picture Danny's
hands choked up around the bat, sliding up and down on the smooth wood,
and he got a little hard and then mad again, the anger heating up his
neck as he heard Dan in his head, stuck in the past tense.  Did.  He
threw the tie across the room, opened the top few buttons of his shirt
and his cuffs and sunk into the couch.

"So I've been thinking," Dan said from the doorway, sounding like he'd
rehearsed.  Casey sat up and somewhere out in the main office, someone
shut off most of the lights.  After a long while Dan sat next to him and
the sofa cushion dented.  "I don't think it's about TV," Danny said,
less confident.  "I think Abby's, I think that part's wrong. Because
tonight, out there, I felt like shit.  I felt sick and stupid and no
good --"

"Danny, that's just not --"

"No, wait," he said, and Casey tried.  "Listen.  I felt useless, Case, I
really did.  It's not about TV, it's not about having three million
people watching."  Danny sighed, turned to face him across the couch.
Took another breath.  "It's about you.  I'm okay when I'm with you.
When we're okay."

Casey played with the hem of his untucked shirt, tried to find a casual
tone.  "We're okay, Danny."

"No, it's just -- we're not.  We're really not.  I mean, I'm crazy right
now, just batty."  Danny stood up again and paced a short track back and
forth in front of the couch.  "I'm insane," Dan said.  "I'm, I'm making
Dana look like she makes sense and that's, that's just not good for
anybody."

"No one's as crazy as Dana," Casey snorted, and Danny nodded.

"Temporarily, then, my friend.  Temporarily, I believe I have won the
title."  Danny was in a good mood again, holding his hands above his
head like Rocky, and Casey couldn't figure out what was different, how
he could be in a good mood about how fucked up everything was.

"It's been -- you've had, it's been hard around here, you know," Casey
said.

"It's been hard for everyone," Danny said, shaking his head, still
pacing, still grinning.  "And now I'm insane, man, just insane, and
CSC's, like, on the brink of some terrible ruin.  There is, there are
monsters in the sea out there, Case, all of it unknown and --"  Dan
stopped, strode toward the couch once, spun around and came back a
second time.  "I mean, see?"  He pointed at his chest.  "Batty, I am.
See how batty."  He sat down, closer this time.

"It's okay," Casey said, because sometimes it was the right thing to
say, after all.

Danny slouched down, opened his mouth like he was going to say
something, inhaled in through his nose and squeezed his eyes shut for a
second.  "I think you have this idea," he said.  "I think maybe -- maybe
you think you can fix me or something."

Casey put his hand on Danny's knee.  "I'd try, Danny, swear to god, I'd
try anything before I'd sit back and watch you actually fall apart."

"I know," Danny said, and he put his hand on top of Casey's and Casey
pushed his knuckles up through Danny's fingers so they were kind of
holding hands, right there in their office.  Right there where they'd
hatched every great idea they'd had since coming to New York to see if
they were good enough together to make it work.

Casey sighed, and Danny nodded like he knew, and then he took his hand
away.

"It's just, this isn't something to try," Dan said.  "Not now,
especially.  I don't want to try this when I can't, like, put myself
into it, you know?  I've gotta believe in it.  We've gotta have five
minutes where we're not worried about being unemployed or having to go
back to BFE Texas or, you know, moving halfway across the world to see
if we're still young enough to take a chance on something completely
different."

"It'd be easier, you know, if..."  Casey shook his head at himself,
trying too hard again.  Maybe it wasn't supposed to be easy.

"It's a good story, Case," Danny said, standing up, reaching for his
coat.  "You and me, against all odds and all that.  It's a great success
story."

"It is," Casey said.  "It could be, we could make it --"

"Know what would be better?"  Danny asked.  It was a long time they'd
been working together, and it didn't take much more than a glance for
Casey to know when he was on deck.  "Making it one for the books, that
would be better."

Casey nodded.  "Being the ones who get to write the book," he said,
because it was his turn.

Danny smiled, reaching out a hand to pull Casey from the couch.  "Giving
it a real shot."

"Making it count," Casey said, and this time he believed it.

"This counts," Danny said, tossing Casey's jacket to him.

Casey caught it.  "Yeah?"

"Yeah."  Danny nodded.  "I'm counting on it."
 
 
 

END
snk@wearemany.net
 
 

DIANE: "Nobody thought we'd do this.  Nobody really thinks
it will work, do they?"

LLOYD: "No.  You just described every great success story."

                          -- SAY ANYTHING
 

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