it's a sports night fic from the past! what the fuck!
okay, so this was the first sports night fic that i went ahead and actually finished. it's a strange little tale. not sure where it came from. best thing anybody ever said about it was that it lets the reader go insane along with the character. jeez. didn't know i had that kinda skill.
Seeing The Future
by Candle Beck
And then Danny was moving across the room, quick and graceful, cutting like a shadow, the lines of his body perfectly defined, sketched out like something traced on white paper, his eyes dark and shining, somehow both at the same time, and Casey swallowed hard.
And woke up.
Yeah, this was going to have to stop.
He wouldn't have minded so much if the dreams made sense, if they were specific or coated with easy symbolism, if they were something more concrete than just scattershot images, random and inexplicable, nothing to tie them together. He wouldn't have minded so much if the dreams actually came to a goddamned conclusion.
As it was, though, they were just pissing him off.
Casey tossed back the covers and swung his legs out, narrowly missing chipping his toe on his shoes, placed careful and right- angled to the line of the bed. He sat there for a moment, in his boxers and T-shirt, the insomniac city light inching through the curtain, sidling along the wall, car headlights brushing by, blinking red from the crosswalk sign.
He wasn't thinking about anything in particular.
He got up and went to the kitchen, pulling open the refrigerator, a cold wedge of blue-white veering across the dim room. He thought about maybe making a sandwich, BLT, but that would involve frying bacon, and that was far too much effort, right about now. He settled for a glass of milk and some toast with cheese.
Sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for the spring-up of the toast, studying the opaque liquid in the glass, Casey thought of Dan scrunching up his face at the image, because it had always baffled Dan that Casey could drink milk in the middle of the night, with the stale taste of sleep and the sticky remnants of toothpaste still in his mouth.
`Seriously, dude. Let me pour you a glass of water. `Cause that's just gross.'
Casey crooked a smile at the memory, and then crossed his arms on the table and put his head down, thinking maybe he was going to cry, because he was being run over by Danny, and it had been happening for far too long as it was.
* * *
It had started . . . oh, hell, when had it started.
Sometime after Dan had lost it, but before the station got sold. Sometime when things were uncertain, but not as uncertain as they would get. Sometime during that weird halfway period when there had been no cause to worry, but they had all been worried anyway, like something was stalking them.
Like there was a bad omen in the sky.
And Casey didn't believe in omens, didn't believe there was much of anything in the sky that couldn't be explained, words put to it, supernovas, galaxies, falling stars, airplanes, satellites, the half moon pasted up like something unfinished. Everything could be explained.
Except this creeping feeling, this sense that was eerily reminiscent of dread. Because Danny had broken down, he had lost it, worse than he had lost it in years, and in the heartrending chaos of what was happening with Dan, no one had much noticed that Casey wasn't doing so well himself, it was all anger and fear and futility in his mind, and there wasn't a single thing he could do about it.
But then Dan had gotten better, the broken parts of himself krazy-glued back together the way they always were, an imperfect solution, and in the hallway outside on the day of the seder, Casey had opened his arms and Dan had closed the space between them, and they had both been forgiven, they had both been healed. On that renewing day that was sacred to the God of both their fathers.
And yet. This thing that had begun after that moment of restoration. These dreams. This dread. This uncertainty. This white-knuckled grip on Casey's mind.
And no way to explain it.
When the station had gone up for sale, and everything had come crashing down around them, Casey was almost relieved, because at least that was a reason, at least that was some logic, maybe this was what the bad omen had been portending, and it was bad, it was terrible, it was catastrophic, but at least now he knew.
But then they had been saved, there had been this eleventh- hour miracle, this judgment-day resurrection, and the show was safe, and Danny wasn't going to California, and Casey wasn't going to lose him, and that should have made it okay. That should have chased away his dreams and his fears.
But it didn't.
And Casey was honestly getting pretty good and goddamned tired of this.
Was it really all that much to ask to want a full night's sleep? Would it really be some great tragedy if his mind would just leave him alone, for just one fucking hour? What was so important that Danny needed to be there, constantly, nudging him, tugging him away from the rest of his life, taking up residence in his brain like a bad song with a good melody that you find yourself half-singing all day long, tormented, unable to shake it? Why couldn't he shake this?
It was this little itch, it was this tickle in the back of his head, it was like a problem to which he couldn't find the solution, but knew the solution was *right there*, right under his nose, and this kind of thing drove Casey absolutely insane.
Danny with the ocean at his back, squinting his eyes against the thin streams of the sun. Danny with his forearms shaded brown by the Texas dirt, sneezing, whirlwind gusts making dust swarm up around him in clouds. Danny outlined against their office window, his figure drawn on the New York skyline, his shoulders broad and spanning the space between skyscrapers. Danny laughing so hard his whole face was tomato-red, bent over, his arms around his stomach, falling off the curb and stumbling into the street. Danny stretching out his legs on a worn, faded-blue carpet, bare feet at the ends of his jeans, his toes curling. Danny with snow in his hair, trembling on his eyelashes, the spiky shadows of Christmas trees marked on his face. Danny with his hand wrapped around a baseball, his face intent with concentration, arranging his fingers carefully on the stitches, the tip of his tongue caught in the corner of his mouth, working on his curve. Danny with his knees up against the dashboard, riding shotgun with his elbow out the window, the rushing wind with its physical strength making a disaster of his hair. Danny reaching out his hand.
Every night. Every single night. Nothing to be done about it. Just Dan, in all these discordant and out-of-nowhere pictures, no narrative thread, no beginning, no middle, and certainly no end. No way to make sense of it.
The dreams weren't memories, but seemed like they almost could be. It was Dan in the places where Dan had once been, the places where Dan still was, but they were moments that had never happened. Blurry, afterimages, so close to reality, deja-vu, like pictures of an alternate universe, like maybe Casey had turned away and then these moments had taken place with his back turned, like he had just missed them.
No way to make sense of it.
* * *
Flashback. Eight years ago.
Lone Star Sports. The land unfathomably flat when they left the studio, flat and dry and wide, the horizon running away without end, the desert heat like a metal field, shimmering in the midday sun, wavy distorted mirages in the corner of their eyes. The black flag sky like what the night must look like on an alien planet, bigger than anything they could have possibly dreamed.
Driving home one night, taking a new way, unfamiliar roads, the middle of July, Danny talking fast and then faster, about the All- Star game and the deadline trades. Danny drumming his hands on the steering wheel, fiddling with the radio, the clear Texas air pulling in stations from Oklahoma, Kansas, Louisiana. A scratchy, scrambled voice, crowded with static, there then gone in an instant, saying something that sounded like, "And we came to California. Because it was the last place we were supposed to find." Casey wondering if the air was clear enough for them to be hearing voices from the coast, as they drove through the heart of the country, cutting the blank hot sheet of the summer night in half.
Casey smiling, half-smiling, tired, his long legs cramped in the passenger's seat of Dan's beaten-up fourth-hand Volvo. Slouched down, though it was bad for his posture, and Lisa would surely have something to say about that, if she were the one driving. But Dan was driving, and Dan could care less, Dan had once rode all the way to Austin with his feet dangling out the window, his seat tilted all the way back, sleeping to the even thrum of the wheels, his mouth open like a kid and his face smooth.
Casey nodding along, kind of following Dan's conversation, catching words and phrases like they were pulled out of the ether. They passed a sign that read, "Dark, 15 miles," and Casey was about to say something about what a strange name for a town that was, Dark, Texas, when suddenly something caught up in his chest, pressing down on him, and his eyes blinked wide, the rolling stream of the highway coming in illuminated rushes under the car's headlights, and all of a sudden Casey was scared, he was so scared he couldn't breathe.
"Danny," he said, and Danny looked over, not all the way over, a sideways squint so he could keep his eyes on the road, because Dan was a careful driver, he was a good driver, safe driver, he knew too well the irreparable damage that could be done in a car.
Sam had looked just like Dan. Casey had seen pictures. Strangers could pick them out as brothers on the street. Dan hadn't cried when he told Casey that, but he almost had.
And Casey was scared. "Danny," he said again, his voice strangled.
Dan didn't look over this time, and answered, the beginnings of worry creeping through his voice, "What, man? You okay?"
Casey shook his head, shook his head, his hands balled up into fists and pressed to his knees, staring frantic out the windshield, the flood of the night, the flood, and Casey said, "Danny, something . . . something bad is going to happen."
Danny took his foot off the accelerator, and the car began to slow, and Casey knew he was pulling over, he was taking them off the road, and Casey was overwhelmingly grateful, for the slowing car, for Dan and his ability to hear the panic in Casey's voice, and Casey took in a deep breath, his heart calming, the flood dying down, and Casey knew he would have to explain himself to Dan, but he didn't know how, because he didn't know what the hell had just happened, and Casey was deep in the middle of trying to find a way to articulate the numbing, suffocating fear that had come out of nowhere, and then the red pick-up truck came out of nowhere.
Came out of nowhere.
"Casey?"
Washed, tidal wave of headlights, the white exploding into the car, from Casey's left, which meant Dan's window, which meant Dan. Dan lit up for a split second, a stark certain figure carved in the huge blast of light. An endless screech of brakes and horn, this ungodly crunch, this crash, scream of metal on metal, Casey jarred, thrown into the door, hitting his head hard on the window, this flare of pain, this terror clawing through him, this moment, this impossible moment.
Danny saying, "Casey?" in the instant before the truck had slammed into them.
* * *
They'd both been fine. Casey, a concussion, assorted bruises. Dan, a broken wrist, which he was almost happy to have, it gave him a chance to go around and get everyone's autographs on his cast, something he'd never gotten to do when he was a kid. Casey had drawn a little cartoon, a goofy grinning caricature with a big lopsided head and a baseball cap, giving a thumbs-up, a star on his shirt, a lone star.
They'd both been fine.
But Casey had seen the truck coming, even though it came out of nowhere. He'd been afraid before he'd had reason to be, and then he'd had reason to be. So maybe he should watch for omens. Maybe he should believe them, trust them. Because the truck came out of nowhere, but Casey had seen it coming.
* * *
Things falling out of sync. Out of time.
What was going to happen?
What?
Dan was spinning in his chair, tapping a pen on his knee, rat- a-tat, muffled against his jeans. Dan was talking about the wild card, whether the insanely competitive western divisions justified a team going to the World Series without having ever finished first.
"Win 95 games in the American League West and you could finish third. Win 95 in the Central and you're running away with it."
Running away with it. The horizon in Texas, running away without end. The dreams every night, running him over, without end.
"Danny," Casey said softly.
Dan didn't hear, he was spinning, he was a whirlwind. The whirlwind dust, swarming up in clouds, making Danny sneeze.
"Danny."
Danny.
Dan came to a stop, clocking his feet against the table legs, shaking the table, making sheets of paper go drifting downwards dreamily, like snow. Danny with snow in his hair. Christmas trees, spiky shadows.
Dan was looking at him, his eyebrows ticked up questioningly. Dan had been talking about the All-Star game. No, that wasn't it. The wild card, Dan had been talking about the wild card. Because if you win 95 games in the Central, you're running away with it.
On Casey's computer, words floated, the pale false glow, the skinny winking cursor. `Anything can happen in October. It's in the nature of the game.' Casey realizing that it was the first day of October. It was April, Passover. It was the middle of July.
It was now, it was eight years ago. They were in their office, they were in Danny's car, driving home. They were taking a new way, the road was unfamiliar. Casey was asleep, he was watching the sky for omens. The half moon was pasted up like something unfinished.
There was something caught up in his chest.
"Casey?"
Casey?
Came out of nowhere.
"Danny, something . . . something bad is going to happen."
Was that a dream? Was this a memory?
No, Dan's eyes were big, Dan's eyes were huge. Dan's face was stilled with shock, his rat-a-tat hands falling quiet, Dan was staring at him. Dan had only ever heard Casey say that once before. Once before, and he had taken his foot off the accelerator, they were pulling over, they were getting off the road.
There was late afternoon sunlight pouring in, one of the few breaks of day when the sun managed to struggle through the buildings and flood their office. The flood. They were in their office. There was no moon. There was nothing unfinished. There was nothing in the sky that couldn't be explained.
"Casey, what're you . . . what?" Dan asked, his face scared, and Casey was scared too, he was scared. Because it came out of nowhere.
Dan was rising, he was closing the space between them, because Casey opened his arms in the hallway and they were going to be forgiven. Casey was letting out a shuddering gasp, he was falling forward, he was feeling his head slam hard on the plastic-glass of the car window, Casey's elbows were up on the desk and his head was in his hands. Danny with his knees up against the dashboard, riding shotgun with his elbow at the window, Casey slouched down, his long legs cramping, nodding along, catching words like they were pulled out of the ether. Like ether.
Dan's hands on his shoulders pulling him up, pulling him backwards, Danny's hands strong, wrapping around his shoulders, wrapping around a baseball, working on his curve. Dan's hands drumming on the steering wheel, rat-a-tatting a pen against his knee.
Casey's eyes closed, closed tight, because he didn't need them now, he could see it coming.
"Casey. Casey."
Casey?
Dan's hands on his face, brushing back his hair. The wind with its physical strength making a disaster of Danny's hair. Dan's palms pressed to his face, his fingers smoothing across Casey's features. Dan's hands curving around the back of Casey's neck, linking, a voice crowded with static saying, "And we came to California."
Because it was the last place we were supposed to find.
Texas was the last place. New York City. The quiet street in New England where Sam Rydell had run a red light. The stretch of road where a red pick-up truck had come out of nowhere.
"Casey, please, man."
And Danny was scared, his voice strangled, and Casey opened his eyes.
Danny moving across the room, quick and graceful, cutting like a shadow, and Danny kneeling in front of him, his hands holding onto Casey, his face terrified. Casey terrified.
"I don't know what's happening," Casey whispered, his whole body shaking like he was going to fall to pieces, and Dan pulled him down, Casey's knees hitting the carpet, the vibration of the impact in his chest, a sob wracking out of him, and Danny grabbing him tight, Danny grabbing him, tight, hauling him in, wrapping his arms around him, hanging on, holding on.
Hold on.
Just hold on.
Casey clinging to Dan, in the hallway outside on the day of the seder, here in their office, on this day that was sacred to the God of both their fathers, here where they had both been healed, Casey clinging to Dan, and this was something real. This was something he could explain. This wasn't a dream, it wasn't a memory. This was Dan, and he was solid and warm, he was wrapped around him, and Casey buried his face in Danny's neck, and they were kneeling on the floor, and using all their strength to hold on.
* * *
Later, they were in Casey's apartment.
He was steadier now, he was calm. He was still terrified.
Dan brought him a knock-back of whiskey in a glinting cut- crystal glass, and Dan's hands were trembling. Dan sat down next to him on the couch and didn't say anything.
Casey tossed down the whiskey and gasped, his eyes watering, the burn down his throat, the good clean fire in his chest.
He was steadier now.
Casey looked at Dan, and tried out a grin, abashed, apologetic, and it hung rusty and unconvincing on his face.
"So, that was weird today," Casey began, because he knew he would have to eventually.
Danny nodded, but still didn't say anything. Dan's eyes were dark and his forehead was lined, concern and fear making him look old.
Casey rubbed his eyes on his arm, smearing the tears the whiskey had forced. Casey hated feeling like this. He couldn't stand confusion. In the office, flailing against dreams and memories and all the things in between, anarchic and out of control, that had been hell for him, not knowing where he stood or what was real. That was hell.
He spoke again, trying to reassure Dan, trying to reassure himself, "I'm just, you, you shouldn't worry. It's, there's just some stuff going on right now. In my head. I don't know. It'll go away. It'll pass."
Would it? Every second, Casey felt himself losing his balance, tipping over, almost falling back into that panic, that scrawl of images and uncertainty.
Dan spoke carefully, measuring out his words, staring at his hands, twisted together loosely between his knees. "You were talking about the car crash in Texas. Or . . . not talking about it, but . . . you said something bad was going to happen. And the last time you said that, we ended up getting broad-sided by a drunk cowboy. It . . . it scared the hell out of me, man. Hearing you say that again. Because last time . . ."
Dan trailed off, like his breath had escaped him, and he drew in a long pull of oxygen before saying clearly, "Tell me what's going on."
Casey looked out the window, the grid of lights, the sparks and flashes, the glinting neon. The breathing living thing that was this city, cars like blood vessels speeding towards the heart, the hum in the concrete, the beat like a pulse beneath the sidewalks, the warmth of the buildings, the scratched-out fingerprints of the pavement, the wondering glow.
When Casey answered, his voice was wrecked, and he was saying things that he hadn't realized were true. "I've been having these dreams. About you. But not really about anything. They're just . . . you. Not quite memories, but almost. And I get confused, I get lost between what's happened and what I've only imagined. I can't find my way through it. It's foreboding. Ominous. I think about the car crash in Texas and your brother and all the times I've almost lost you, all the ways I've almost lost you, and it all gets mixed up together, and I feel like something terrible is going to happen. Happen to you. If I can't figure it out, if I can't find a way to stop it, I'm going to lose you, and it'll be forever this time. It's like how I knew something bad was coming right before the pick-up hit us that night. And I don't know how to stop it, I don't know . . ."
Casey wanted to put his head down into his hands, he wanted to cover up his ears and block everything out. He was so tired.
Dan put his hand on Casey's shoulder, but Casey wouldn't turn to meet him. Dan reached around and curved his hand across Casey's face, pulling the man's gaze around. Danny kept his hand there, looking dead into Casey's eyes, his fingers carding through Casey's hair, his thumb sweeping over Casey's cheekbone, trying to soothe it all away.
"Casey. You're not going to lose me. You're not. I swear to God."
Dan's voice bleeding certainty, Dan's eyes black in the dim light.
A breakdown built up in Casey's throat, a sob, a collapse, but he held it back. He shook his head, Dan's hand following the movement, never losing contact. Casey said, the words shattered, "You don't know that. You can't promise that. A car jumps the curb while you're getting coffee from that stand on the street . . . one of your neighbors leaves a cigarette lit . . . a plane catches wind shear . . . there's a hole in your heart that was never diagnosed . . . anything could happen, Dan. You can't promise that it won't."
Danny brought up his other hand and he was clasping Casey's head, he was steadying the other man and freezing him with an endless gaze, fierce with intensity. "Yes I can. I am. You will not lose me. It will not happen. Casey. There are some things you know for sure."
And Danny shook Casey, just a little, just to drive his point home, Casey's eyes getting bigger and bigger, and Danny said again, each word slow and deliberate, "You will not lose me."
And Casey believed him.
Casey felt something settle quietly in his chest, and he let out a breath of air that he felt like he'd been holding in for decades. The cascade of his memories and his dreams began to ebb away, the stunning crush of fear dying down, and he knew where he was again. The past faded out of him and he was left with only this moment, this impossible moment.
Casey lifted his own hand, pressing it flat to Danny's chest, feeling the shudders sink out of both their bodies, feeling the calm even beat of Danny's heart under his palm.
They were still for a moment, holding onto each other, breathing in time, and Casey thought maybe the dreams weren't memories of some alternate universe. Maybe they were memories of the future. Maybe they were showing him what was to be.
He smiled, the expression feeling perfect and true on his face, feeling sure, and Dan mirrored it back at him. Casey wanted to thank Dan, for the promise that Dan should not have made, for the salvation that Casey hadn't seen coming, but his words had vanished, all his language gone.
So he pulled Danny to him and thanked him the only other way he knew how.
Danny's mouth was warm and sweet, and Dan made a small noise of surprise, like he was about to cry, something like tears on Casey's tongue, and then Danny parted his lips and they were joined together, there was no space between them left to be closed, and Casey thought that this was the solution. This was how you fix what's broken. This was the last place he was supposed to find.
When they broke apart, Danny rested his forehead against Casey's, his thumb against the pulse in Casey's neck, and he made a low sound that was half-laughter, half-sigh, and Danny whispered, "There's no hole in my heart, Casey. Not anymore."
On the flickering screen of Casey's mind, just before everything else disappeared, he saw Danny laughing, and he saw Danny reaching out his hand.
Danny. Reaching out his hand.
THE END