Sports Night fic: Every Day a Little Death
Title: Every Day a Little Death
Fandom: Sports Night
Characters: Dan Rydell
Rating: PG
Category: Gen, slash overtones, 1,875 words
Summary: Casey's gone, leaving New York in search of someplace safer for his family. Dan's lead anchor on Sports Night now. And everything is fine. Perfectly fine.
Written: March 2005. Bouncing off the sn100 'Birthday' challenge.
Every Day a Little Death
It’s his 34th birthday; that makes it ten years since Lone Star Sports. Ten years on television - regularly on television, that is, he’d done reporting before he got the anchor desk, interviews, subbed sometimes. Other stuff. But still, call it ten years. You’d think by now he’d’ve got used to the idea. Got used to the fact that it’s really him up there on the screen, him that a couple of million people tune in to every evening to see, that it isn’t some huge, hideous mistake. But no, he’s still half-expecting someone to walk in the door, tell him it was all a clerical error, or a joke, that they actually meant some other Dan Rydell, some other guy altogether. He’s never going to believe that this was honestly meant for him, that he really deserves it.
He looks so old now, he thinks, checking himself in the mirror, watching his hairline … remembering when he had a hairline. There are lines round his eyes. Crows’ feet. Laughter lines. Laughter lines. What the fuck was ever that funny?
He thinks he’s looking fat in the face; taking off his shirt, he thinks his stomach’s too soft, too flabby. He’s never stopped running, he runs every morning (never fast enough, never far enough), but now he’s started swimming too, and working out every chance he can get. It left him breathless and shaking and exhausted at first; then he got used to it, it became a routine, and he’s starting to feel better, look better, he thinks. He’s read up on Atkins, stopped to think about the side effects and decided it’s not for him. He starts to watch his diet instead: no more pizza, no more Chinese food. Pasta, he allows himself, pasta with no sauce, just maybe some steamed vegetables, grilled chicken, fish. Fruit. No cake, no cookies, no candy. That’s okay, he’s not a pre-school kid, or a bored housewife. He’s cutting down on the drinking, too: beer’s bloating, spirits are ageing. Wine’s okay. White wine. One glass a night, no more. Otherwise, water, lots of it. No coffee, no soft drinks. God knows what they put in that crap anyway. He doesn’t miss it. Any of it. Even if he did, it’s worth the hunger pangs, the cravings. It isn’t vanity; his career depends on how he looks. And, god help him, on his talent.
He needs to stay in shape.
(Dana buys him a birthday cake: Pavlova, she calls it, it’s meringue and strawberries and a lot, a lot of whipped cream. Casey would have approved. He wishes he had the nerve to turn it down; takes the smallest slice he can get away with, and scrapes off the cream. Natalie and Kim descend on him, forks poised at a menacing angle, and polish off everything he’s left. He thinks, if they had more privacy, they’d be licking the plates; Kim, as it is, is licking her fingers. He wishes he hadn’t thought of that image, because now he’ll be seeing it all day, Natalie and Kim as cats, slim, sleek, exotic, purebred cats with smug faces and sharp, sly, unexpected claws. Not that he doesn’t like cats; a guy who spends as much time as he does in single women’s apartments can’t afford not to. He meets a lot of cats. He has the scars to prove it.)
Monica, now in charge of making him look good on television, comes and yells at him and tells him he’s looking ‘stringy’. He thinks, Stringy? but nods and smiles. He also thinks that Monica has a nerve talking to him about being too thin, when she herself looks as though a strong wind would blow her away. He doesn’t quite dare say so, though. There are too many ferocious women about the place, and without Casey to back him up, he doesn’t want to take them on.
Not that Casey ever did back him up.
Dana scolds him gently (everyone, it seems, treats him more kindly now; it’s been months since Kim last cut him down to size, since Natalie last slapped him); he’s a grown man, she points out, not a teenage girl, he should know how to take care of himself. He listens with half an ear; he wonders whether she resents it, that he’s the one who stayed, that Casey left. She’d rather it’d been Casey who stayed, he knows. She’d have preferred Casey. Everyone would. Who wouldn’t? Even he, given the choice … he’d rather have Casey.
“I take care of myself, Dana,” he says, when he thinks she’s finished, and she looks at him oddly and he realises that she was not, in fact, through with him after all. He plasters on a fake smile and settles in to listen. His eyes stray over Dana’s shoulder, and settle on the still-strange, still-alien new skyline. He reminds himself, once again, how lucky he is, they all are, to be here when, for a time, even that had seemed uncertain; and, even when they’d taken stock and realised they were still alive, the network, the show, their jobs, everything, all of it had still hung in the balance for days. And at the time, none of that had seemed to matter very much.
Things had shifted back since then. Time and distance had come between horror and the here and now; images he had once thought ineradicably burned on his retinas had faded, first to nightmare, then to memory, now to history: still recent, still vivid and immediate. But everyday life that, for a few days, had seemed so impossible had, after all, picked up and gone on as usual.
Or almost as usual.
It was Lisa - naturally it was Lisa, wouldn’t she just? - who’d made Casey go. “As a Mother,” she’d said, and Dan could hear the capital letter even second-hand, in Casey’s voice when he told him, as a Mother she could not, in all conscience, bring up Charlie in a town where such terrible, terrible things could happen, she had to take him away, take him somewhere they’d be safe. Dan had thought, yeah. Good luck finding that, lady, and, out loud, had said, well, the way things are, I guess you can’t blame her.
And then he’d realised that Casey wouldn’t stay behind without Charlie. Casey was leaving. Casey would be on the other side of the country, where there might or there might not be Laker Girls to keep him entertained. This time, it really was over. And whether or not he could, whether or not he wanted to, Dan was going to have to make it on his own.
So that was it then. Thirteen years of friendship, and then “Be seeing you.” Thirteen years. Lucky for some. Or, you know. Not.
What could he have said? He couldn’t ask Casey to choose between himself and Charlie; Casey’d made that choice already, and Dan had lost. Even if he could have, he wouldn’t. He’s a lot of things, god knows - petty and shallow, arrogant and egotistical, mean, jealous, resentful - and he knows well enough that he’s going to hell, but still, nevertheless, he’s not that guy.
Oh, he whined, and he begged and he pleaded, all right. He did all but get down on the floor and cling to Casey’s ankles, all but stand in front of the door and bar Casey’s way. But only in his mind; only in his too-vivid, too-fertile imagination. He replayed the scenario a hundred times: him, at the airport, waving as Casey went through the gate; turning away to head back to his empty apartment, perhaps a manly tear in his eye, perhaps not; then a familiar voice calling, him turning, seeing Casey, running, running back to him: “I couldn’t do it, Danny. I can’t do it without you.” And they’d hug, and …
… the picture never went any further than that. Thank god. It was bad enough to know he really could be that selfish, that needy. Enough humiliation was enough.
The irony is, of course, that before all this happened it’d been Dan who’d been thinking, almost seriously, of going. He’d been getting bored, restless, tired of being a sidekick (nothing had happened to make him think otherwise), sick of the same thing night after night. He’d wanted to move on. He’d had offers. There was a book itching to be written, and a publisher interested, several, in fact. He had options. And then there was this thing with Casey, this unspoken, unacknowledged … tension, strangeness, awkwardness, hostility … thing. He’d thought it was over, all cleared up, after … after. But it had started to creep back, making them both edgy, uneasy. It was bad for the show. It was bad for them. And since Dan was the one who wasn’t happy, it would’ve only made sense for him to be the one to go.
And yet, here he is. And here, it seems, he’s going to stay. Whether he likes it or not.
He’d wanted change. Change, he got. It just wasn’t the change he was expecting.
He should’ve been careful what he wished for.
He hasn’t said any of this to Molly - Molly is the therapist after the therapist after Abby, who Dan had dropped after Isaac had commented dryly that Abby’s methods had come this close to sending Dan right over the edge, and was Dan sure that that was really what was best for him? - because while openness in therapy is one thing, and while doctor/patient confidentiality is fine in theory, the fact is that a national TV personality with a massive adolescent crush on his former co-anchor would make a pretty good story. A pretty good joke. One that he would never live down. If Molly thinks she’s going to get that out of him, then fine. Let her try. She’s got another think coming.
Instead he talks to her about the show, about how different it is without Casey. They’ve never replaced him; Calvin had agreed that would be impossible. There’s a roster now, half a dozen new and different faces (and Bobbi, and Tina, who still looks at Dan oddly even after all this time), all of them female. It makes an interesting dynamic, Dana said, quoting someone, Dan’s sure - Calvin, probably, Isaac would never say ‘dynamic’, or if he did he’d use it in its correct context. Dan flirts with them all he likes. No-one minds, and the viewers seem to eat it up; the ratings barely even blipped when the changeover came. But try to convince Dan of that. He’s sure the show’s going to hell in a handbasket, and that he’s at the wheel.
“At the wheel of a handbasket?” Molly asks quizzically, peering over the top of her glasses, and Dan shrugs.
“Gotta steer it somehow. Unless it’s going downhill, you know, just freewheeling. Maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s what’s happening …”
“And when you get to the bottom?” Molly prompts, and Dan looks up at her, then closes his eyes; the light’s very bright suddenly, it hurts his head. Yes. It’s his head that aches so fiercely he fears it might shatter at any given moment. Only that.
“Crash,” he says, softly.
***
ETA: It just dawned on me that that the track playing when I posted this was totally appropriate. Ahhh, coincidence.
Fandom: Sports Night
Characters: Dan Rydell
Rating: PG
Category: Gen, slash overtones, 1,875 words
Summary: Casey's gone, leaving New York in search of someplace safer for his family. Dan's lead anchor on Sports Night now. And everything is fine. Perfectly fine.
Written: March 2005. Bouncing off the sn100 'Birthday' challenge.
Every Day a Little Death
It’s his 34th birthday; that makes it ten years since Lone Star Sports. Ten years on television - regularly on television, that is, he’d done reporting before he got the anchor desk, interviews, subbed sometimes. Other stuff. But still, call it ten years. You’d think by now he’d’ve got used to the idea. Got used to the fact that it’s really him up there on the screen, him that a couple of million people tune in to every evening to see, that it isn’t some huge, hideous mistake. But no, he’s still half-expecting someone to walk in the door, tell him it was all a clerical error, or a joke, that they actually meant some other Dan Rydell, some other guy altogether. He’s never going to believe that this was honestly meant for him, that he really deserves it.
He looks so old now, he thinks, checking himself in the mirror, watching his hairline … remembering when he had a hairline. There are lines round his eyes. Crows’ feet. Laughter lines. Laughter lines. What the fuck was ever that funny?
He thinks he’s looking fat in the face; taking off his shirt, he thinks his stomach’s too soft, too flabby. He’s never stopped running, he runs every morning (never fast enough, never far enough), but now he’s started swimming too, and working out every chance he can get. It left him breathless and shaking and exhausted at first; then he got used to it, it became a routine, and he’s starting to feel better, look better, he thinks. He’s read up on Atkins, stopped to think about the side effects and decided it’s not for him. He starts to watch his diet instead: no more pizza, no more Chinese food. Pasta, he allows himself, pasta with no sauce, just maybe some steamed vegetables, grilled chicken, fish. Fruit. No cake, no cookies, no candy. That’s okay, he’s not a pre-school kid, or a bored housewife. He’s cutting down on the drinking, too: beer’s bloating, spirits are ageing. Wine’s okay. White wine. One glass a night, no more. Otherwise, water, lots of it. No coffee, no soft drinks. God knows what they put in that crap anyway. He doesn’t miss it. Any of it. Even if he did, it’s worth the hunger pangs, the cravings. It isn’t vanity; his career depends on how he looks. And, god help him, on his talent.
He needs to stay in shape.
(Dana buys him a birthday cake: Pavlova, she calls it, it’s meringue and strawberries and a lot, a lot of whipped cream. Casey would have approved. He wishes he had the nerve to turn it down; takes the smallest slice he can get away with, and scrapes off the cream. Natalie and Kim descend on him, forks poised at a menacing angle, and polish off everything he’s left. He thinks, if they had more privacy, they’d be licking the plates; Kim, as it is, is licking her fingers. He wishes he hadn’t thought of that image, because now he’ll be seeing it all day, Natalie and Kim as cats, slim, sleek, exotic, purebred cats with smug faces and sharp, sly, unexpected claws. Not that he doesn’t like cats; a guy who spends as much time as he does in single women’s apartments can’t afford not to. He meets a lot of cats. He has the scars to prove it.)
Monica, now in charge of making him look good on television, comes and yells at him and tells him he’s looking ‘stringy’. He thinks, Stringy? but nods and smiles. He also thinks that Monica has a nerve talking to him about being too thin, when she herself looks as though a strong wind would blow her away. He doesn’t quite dare say so, though. There are too many ferocious women about the place, and without Casey to back him up, he doesn’t want to take them on.
Not that Casey ever did back him up.
Dana scolds him gently (everyone, it seems, treats him more kindly now; it’s been months since Kim last cut him down to size, since Natalie last slapped him); he’s a grown man, she points out, not a teenage girl, he should know how to take care of himself. He listens with half an ear; he wonders whether she resents it, that he’s the one who stayed, that Casey left. She’d rather it’d been Casey who stayed, he knows. She’d have preferred Casey. Everyone would. Who wouldn’t? Even he, given the choice … he’d rather have Casey.
“I take care of myself, Dana,” he says, when he thinks she’s finished, and she looks at him oddly and he realises that she was not, in fact, through with him after all. He plasters on a fake smile and settles in to listen. His eyes stray over Dana’s shoulder, and settle on the still-strange, still-alien new skyline. He reminds himself, once again, how lucky he is, they all are, to be here when, for a time, even that had seemed uncertain; and, even when they’d taken stock and realised they were still alive, the network, the show, their jobs, everything, all of it had still hung in the balance for days. And at the time, none of that had seemed to matter very much.
Things had shifted back since then. Time and distance had come between horror and the here and now; images he had once thought ineradicably burned on his retinas had faded, first to nightmare, then to memory, now to history: still recent, still vivid and immediate. But everyday life that, for a few days, had seemed so impossible had, after all, picked up and gone on as usual.
Or almost as usual.
It was Lisa - naturally it was Lisa, wouldn’t she just? - who’d made Casey go. “As a Mother,” she’d said, and Dan could hear the capital letter even second-hand, in Casey’s voice when he told him, as a Mother she could not, in all conscience, bring up Charlie in a town where such terrible, terrible things could happen, she had to take him away, take him somewhere they’d be safe. Dan had thought, yeah. Good luck finding that, lady, and, out loud, had said, well, the way things are, I guess you can’t blame her.
And then he’d realised that Casey wouldn’t stay behind without Charlie. Casey was leaving. Casey would be on the other side of the country, where there might or there might not be Laker Girls to keep him entertained. This time, it really was over. And whether or not he could, whether or not he wanted to, Dan was going to have to make it on his own.
So that was it then. Thirteen years of friendship, and then “Be seeing you.” Thirteen years. Lucky for some. Or, you know. Not.
What could he have said? He couldn’t ask Casey to choose between himself and Charlie; Casey’d made that choice already, and Dan had lost. Even if he could have, he wouldn’t. He’s a lot of things, god knows - petty and shallow, arrogant and egotistical, mean, jealous, resentful - and he knows well enough that he’s going to hell, but still, nevertheless, he’s not that guy.
Oh, he whined, and he begged and he pleaded, all right. He did all but get down on the floor and cling to Casey’s ankles, all but stand in front of the door and bar Casey’s way. But only in his mind; only in his too-vivid, too-fertile imagination. He replayed the scenario a hundred times: him, at the airport, waving as Casey went through the gate; turning away to head back to his empty apartment, perhaps a manly tear in his eye, perhaps not; then a familiar voice calling, him turning, seeing Casey, running, running back to him: “I couldn’t do it, Danny. I can’t do it without you.” And they’d hug, and …
… the picture never went any further than that. Thank god. It was bad enough to know he really could be that selfish, that needy. Enough humiliation was enough.
The irony is, of course, that before all this happened it’d been Dan who’d been thinking, almost seriously, of going. He’d been getting bored, restless, tired of being a sidekick (nothing had happened to make him think otherwise), sick of the same thing night after night. He’d wanted to move on. He’d had offers. There was a book itching to be written, and a publisher interested, several, in fact. He had options. And then there was this thing with Casey, this unspoken, unacknowledged … tension, strangeness, awkwardness, hostility … thing. He’d thought it was over, all cleared up, after … after. But it had started to creep back, making them both edgy, uneasy. It was bad for the show. It was bad for them. And since Dan was the one who wasn’t happy, it would’ve only made sense for him to be the one to go.
And yet, here he is. And here, it seems, he’s going to stay. Whether he likes it or not.
He’d wanted change. Change, he got. It just wasn’t the change he was expecting.
He should’ve been careful what he wished for.
He hasn’t said any of this to Molly - Molly is the therapist after the therapist after Abby, who Dan had dropped after Isaac had commented dryly that Abby’s methods had come this close to sending Dan right over the edge, and was Dan sure that that was really what was best for him? - because while openness in therapy is one thing, and while doctor/patient confidentiality is fine in theory, the fact is that a national TV personality with a massive adolescent crush on his former co-anchor would make a pretty good story. A pretty good joke. One that he would never live down. If Molly thinks she’s going to get that out of him, then fine. Let her try. She’s got another think coming.
Instead he talks to her about the show, about how different it is without Casey. They’ve never replaced him; Calvin had agreed that would be impossible. There’s a roster now, half a dozen new and different faces (and Bobbi, and Tina, who still looks at Dan oddly even after all this time), all of them female. It makes an interesting dynamic, Dana said, quoting someone, Dan’s sure - Calvin, probably, Isaac would never say ‘dynamic’, or if he did he’d use it in its correct context. Dan flirts with them all he likes. No-one minds, and the viewers seem to eat it up; the ratings barely even blipped when the changeover came. But try to convince Dan of that. He’s sure the show’s going to hell in a handbasket, and that he’s at the wheel.
“At the wheel of a handbasket?” Molly asks quizzically, peering over the top of her glasses, and Dan shrugs.
“Gotta steer it somehow. Unless it’s going downhill, you know, just freewheeling. Maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s what’s happening …”
“And when you get to the bottom?” Molly prompts, and Dan looks up at her, then closes his eyes; the light’s very bright suddenly, it hurts his head. Yes. It’s his head that aches so fiercely he fears it might shatter at any given moment. Only that.
“Crash,” he says, softly.
***
ETA: It just dawned on me that that the track playing when I posted this was totally appropriate. Ahhh, coincidence.