(no subject)
Title: To Explain
Author: Kasey
Prompt: Matt/Danny A guy falls in a hole
Fandom: Studio 60
Rating: Teenish for drug references.
Characters: Matt, Danny, an appearance by Harriet
Warning: Drug reference (obviously). Nothing else really. More of a best-friend relationship than out-and-out slashy, purely because it's short.
Disclaimer: Don't own them, please don't sue.
Summary: An attempted intervention, a meeting at a church, and the passing-down of a story.
Harriet chickens out exactly ninety minutes before the intervention's supposed to happen.
“I'm sorry, Danny, I'm sorry - you know I'd do anything to help Matthew, but this just...it doesn't feel right to me. It feels like we're going to corner him, and we both know him well enough to know that he's not going to magically agree with people accusing him of being wrong just because he's outnumbered.”
I respect why she's saying no, I just wish she would've, y'know, said something more than an hour and a half in advance.
I'm not sure how to be on the other end of this.
I've been on that side a couple times before. Hell, I spent twenty-one years on that side, with some drug or another. Between the booze in college, the cocaine, the random uppers I tried when I was out of what I really wanted...I know what it's like to be where he is now.
I wish I didn't know.
That's the part that makes this side about a thousand times more wrenching - I know why he's doing it. I'm not a worried mother or an angry girlfriend or even a childhood best friend who sees his buddy sinking and can't figure out why.
I know why. I know what he's going through and I hate that. It fucking kills me that I can't protect him from it. I would do anything to prevent him from having to wake up every morning and have the first thing he thinks about be getting a fix. To keep him from feeling like the only way he can ever feel good is to get high. To always have that nagging-
I would go through rehab again, with all the withdrawal and the pain and the sweats and the therapy and the crappy food, if it would protect him.
...I can't believe how completely I missed it. I've known him a couple decades, I've worked with him every day for the last seven years. At this point I can predict when he's going to take a breath and I couldn't see how badly he was hurt, I didn't realize he'd started taking pills, I actually believed him when he said he was quitting.
Now, I realize that I theoretically have an excuse for the last one. It was kind of a big night, what with my fiance almost dying and my daughter being born, but I'm the only one in the building who could possibly know all the tricks he might use. But I know him, and I know addiction, so maybe-
-Hang on.
Maybe I've been overthinking how to help him.
I swing out of my office and walk quickly to his. “How is he?” I ask Suzanne.
A frustrated call of “I'm eating it!” comes from within the office.
“He's...y'know. Being him,” she offers.
“So I hear,” I smile faintly and go in. “Matt.”
“I'm eating it.” He's slumping in the chair, leaning back so far I think he might crash through the window.
“Yeah. Come with me?”
“Where?”
“Get out of the office awhile. We'll go to a thing, we'll grab dinner.” He doesn't question me, and I feel a little bad because 'a thing' is so purposefully vague that it borders on a lie. Things like this can't be done through lies and trickery, it has to be honesty and an actual desire to stop. We head out to my car, and he's not chattering enough; the silence on the drive makes me jittery.
It's not until I park the car that it occurs to me that the meeting I usually go to happens to be held in the basement of a church.
“Did you lose a bet with Harriet or something?” he asks.
“No.”
“Then what are we doing here?”
“It's a...meeting.”
“What kind of meeting?”
“Matt.” It comes out as almost a whisper.
“What kind of meeting?” he asks again, louder, voice more tense.
“God, Matty, you think I didn't- You think I don't know enough signs to tell if you're- I did what you're doing for a couple decades, I know the tricks. You didn't quit taking pills when you told me you did.”
“So you thought you'd ambush me and drag me to a church?”
“Meeting, but yes.”
“Why?”
The question isn't belligerent, it's not angry, it's not some desperate cry for help...and it catches me off-guard.
“Because I know better than to think you'll go to inpatient treatment anytime before a hiatus, and Harriet thought an intervention would make you feel cornered.”
“No, I mean...why?”
I don't know how to explain it well enough. It's something he'll understand - I hope - after he's gone through it, but until then, until he decides to accept help, he's not going to get any of the explanations I could give that sound like I've swallowed the blue book. It's hard to explain, and even harder to understand.
But I try anyway.
“A guy's walking down the street and he falls in a hole...”
Author: Kasey
Prompt: Matt/Danny A guy falls in a hole
Fandom: Studio 60
Rating: Teenish for drug references.
Characters: Matt, Danny, an appearance by Harriet
Warning: Drug reference (obviously). Nothing else really. More of a best-friend relationship than out-and-out slashy, purely because it's short.
Disclaimer: Don't own them, please don't sue.
Summary: An attempted intervention, a meeting at a church, and the passing-down of a story.
Harriet chickens out exactly ninety minutes before the intervention's supposed to happen.
“I'm sorry, Danny, I'm sorry - you know I'd do anything to help Matthew, but this just...it doesn't feel right to me. It feels like we're going to corner him, and we both know him well enough to know that he's not going to magically agree with people accusing him of being wrong just because he's outnumbered.”
I respect why she's saying no, I just wish she would've, y'know, said something more than an hour and a half in advance.
I'm not sure how to be on the other end of this.
I've been on that side a couple times before. Hell, I spent twenty-one years on that side, with some drug or another. Between the booze in college, the cocaine, the random uppers I tried when I was out of what I really wanted...I know what it's like to be where he is now.
I wish I didn't know.
That's the part that makes this side about a thousand times more wrenching - I know why he's doing it. I'm not a worried mother or an angry girlfriend or even a childhood best friend who sees his buddy sinking and can't figure out why.
I know why. I know what he's going through and I hate that. It fucking kills me that I can't protect him from it. I would do anything to prevent him from having to wake up every morning and have the first thing he thinks about be getting a fix. To keep him from feeling like the only way he can ever feel good is to get high. To always have that nagging-
I would go through rehab again, with all the withdrawal and the pain and the sweats and the therapy and the crappy food, if it would protect him.
...I can't believe how completely I missed it. I've known him a couple decades, I've worked with him every day for the last seven years. At this point I can predict when he's going to take a breath and I couldn't see how badly he was hurt, I didn't realize he'd started taking pills, I actually believed him when he said he was quitting.
Now, I realize that I theoretically have an excuse for the last one. It was kind of a big night, what with my fiance almost dying and my daughter being born, but I'm the only one in the building who could possibly know all the tricks he might use. But I know him, and I know addiction, so maybe-
-Hang on.
Maybe I've been overthinking how to help him.
I swing out of my office and walk quickly to his. “How is he?” I ask Suzanne.
A frustrated call of “I'm eating it!” comes from within the office.
“He's...y'know. Being him,” she offers.
“So I hear,” I smile faintly and go in. “Matt.”
“I'm eating it.” He's slumping in the chair, leaning back so far I think he might crash through the window.
“Yeah. Come with me?”
“Where?”
“Get out of the office awhile. We'll go to a thing, we'll grab dinner.” He doesn't question me, and I feel a little bad because 'a thing' is so purposefully vague that it borders on a lie. Things like this can't be done through lies and trickery, it has to be honesty and an actual desire to stop. We head out to my car, and he's not chattering enough; the silence on the drive makes me jittery.
It's not until I park the car that it occurs to me that the meeting I usually go to happens to be held in the basement of a church.
“Did you lose a bet with Harriet or something?” he asks.
“No.”
“Then what are we doing here?”
“It's a...meeting.”
“What kind of meeting?”
“Matt.” It comes out as almost a whisper.
“What kind of meeting?” he asks again, louder, voice more tense.
“God, Matty, you think I didn't- You think I don't know enough signs to tell if you're- I did what you're doing for a couple decades, I know the tricks. You didn't quit taking pills when you told me you did.”
“So you thought you'd ambush me and drag me to a church?”
“Meeting, but yes.”
“Why?”
The question isn't belligerent, it's not angry, it's not some desperate cry for help...and it catches me off-guard.
“Because I know better than to think you'll go to inpatient treatment anytime before a hiatus, and Harriet thought an intervention would make you feel cornered.”
“No, I mean...why?”
I don't know how to explain it well enough. It's something he'll understand - I hope - after he's gone through it, but until then, until he decides to accept help, he's not going to get any of the explanations I could give that sound like I've swallowed the blue book. It's hard to explain, and even harder to understand.
But I try anyway.
“A guy's walking down the street and he falls in a hole...”