Sports Night ficlet: Cover Me
Title: Cover Me
Fandom: Sports Night
Pairing: Casey/Dan, at least, probably Casey/Dan. Casey/Dan in my head, anyway.
Note: Commentfic (500ish words) written 11/03/07 for amireal's Fuzzy Bathrobe Challenge.
Cover Me
When you're growing up, people will tell you everything about sex (or nothing about sex, or many things about sex, most of which you will find in later life to be inaccurate), but no-one will prepare you for the aftermath: for the sheer flat-out awkwardness of waking in the morning in a stranger's bed. You'll waken early, if you ever slept at all - because how embarrassing to oversleep and overstay your welcome - and then lie for hours, bored and uncomfortable in unfamiliar sheets, wishing your, let's say 'host', at least had something to read close at hand. You could get up and shower, but would that be presumptuous? What if there's not enough hot water? Will they mind you using their soap, their shampoo, their shower gel, their … whatever this scrunched-up netting thing is? What if you can't work out the shower controls to begin with? And you don't have your own toothbrush, and maybe it's ridiculous to be squeamish when you've been so intimately acquainted with another person's mouth that you can still taste their saliva, but using somebody else's? That's gross. Then your stomach starts to growl. So: will they mind if you scout around their kitchen for food? Is it okay to make coffee? (Surely it's okay to make coffee: has anyone ever complained at being brought fresh coffee in bed?)
Before any of that happens, you have to get out of bed in the first place and, again, it may seem absurd, after a night in which you have explored every inch, every crook, every hollow of one another's bodies, but you feel vulnerable and ridiculous as you tiptoe naked across the room. You cast around for your clothes (and oh, god, you'll have to wear yesterday's underwear), find them scattered and jumbled to the four corners of the room and, possibly, the whole apartment and, moreover, as inextricably entangled with someone else's as you yourself were with that someone else last night. Mercifully, there is usually a bathrobe: flannel, worn and ratty, or cotton, crisp and cool; hot, scratchy wool, or slippery, sensuous satin. Most often, terrycloth, big and enveloping and oddly comforting; you've made a game out of noting the hotel chains they've been swiped from.
All this is why Casey prefers to leave before daybreak.
But not today. Today he lies against crumpled, sweat-stained pillows, watching the sun rise, the room brighten; slides his fingers through spiky dark hair. The weight of cotton around his shoulders is for warmth, nothing more; here, he no longer has anything to fear or hide. Today, he will take things slowly: maybe they'll share a shower, or maybe he'll go first, then run out for bagels and coffee and the morning papers (maybe pick up a fresh toothbrush at the drugstore on the corner), get back just in time to be waiting as the bathroom door opens, to be drawn inside, to drown in warm, damp, steamy kisses. Today there is no risk, no uncertainty, no embarrassment.
Today, for the first time in years, he's awakened in an unknown bed. And feels perfectly at home.
***
Fandom: Sports Night
Pairing: Casey/Dan, at least, probably Casey/Dan. Casey/Dan in my head, anyway.
Note: Commentfic (500ish words) written 11/03/07 for amireal's Fuzzy Bathrobe Challenge.
Cover Me
When you're growing up, people will tell you everything about sex (or nothing about sex, or many things about sex, most of which you will find in later life to be inaccurate), but no-one will prepare you for the aftermath: for the sheer flat-out awkwardness of waking in the morning in a stranger's bed. You'll waken early, if you ever slept at all - because how embarrassing to oversleep and overstay your welcome - and then lie for hours, bored and uncomfortable in unfamiliar sheets, wishing your, let's say 'host', at least had something to read close at hand. You could get up and shower, but would that be presumptuous? What if there's not enough hot water? Will they mind you using their soap, their shampoo, their shower gel, their … whatever this scrunched-up netting thing is? What if you can't work out the shower controls to begin with? And you don't have your own toothbrush, and maybe it's ridiculous to be squeamish when you've been so intimately acquainted with another person's mouth that you can still taste their saliva, but using somebody else's? That's gross. Then your stomach starts to growl. So: will they mind if you scout around their kitchen for food? Is it okay to make coffee? (Surely it's okay to make coffee: has anyone ever complained at being brought fresh coffee in bed?)
Before any of that happens, you have to get out of bed in the first place and, again, it may seem absurd, after a night in which you have explored every inch, every crook, every hollow of one another's bodies, but you feel vulnerable and ridiculous as you tiptoe naked across the room. You cast around for your clothes (and oh, god, you'll have to wear yesterday's underwear), find them scattered and jumbled to the four corners of the room and, possibly, the whole apartment and, moreover, as inextricably entangled with someone else's as you yourself were with that someone else last night. Mercifully, there is usually a bathrobe: flannel, worn and ratty, or cotton, crisp and cool; hot, scratchy wool, or slippery, sensuous satin. Most often, terrycloth, big and enveloping and oddly comforting; you've made a game out of noting the hotel chains they've been swiped from.
All this is why Casey prefers to leave before daybreak.
But not today. Today he lies against crumpled, sweat-stained pillows, watching the sun rise, the room brighten; slides his fingers through spiky dark hair. The weight of cotton around his shoulders is for warmth, nothing more; here, he no longer has anything to fear or hide. Today, he will take things slowly: maybe they'll share a shower, or maybe he'll go first, then run out for bagels and coffee and the morning papers (maybe pick up a fresh toothbrush at the drugstore on the corner), get back just in time to be waiting as the bathroom door opens, to be drawn inside, to drown in warm, damp, steamy kisses. Today there is no risk, no uncertainty, no embarrassment.
Today, for the first time in years, he's awakened in an unknown bed. And feels perfectly at home.
***