Sports Night fic: Serpentining
Title: Serpentining
Fandom: Sports Night
Characters: Dan, Abby. Yes, Abby, the Worst Psychiatrist in the History of the Whole World, Ever.
Note: obsidianserpent played stump the writer and won. Although she cheated a bit, if you ask me, picking a drabble when I've written hundreds of the damn things, all more or less identical. But anyway, I must not be a sore loser. She asked for snakes, and this is what she got. (I owe quiesce, who's the only other person who played, something involving the boys' day off. And, er, pinecones. Yes. This may take a while.)
Serpentining
She looks up and he's standing in the doorway, arm braced against the frame. She sighs: it's going to be one of those sessions, the ones where he hovers on the threshold like the stray cat that haunts her yard, so obviously longing for food and shelter and love but too skittish and wary to come to her hand. Still, he's here, and that's something, at least. He's missed too many appointments lately and, when she's reminded him that her fees still apply ("I have rent to pay, Dan, and you're wasting a place that someone else might've needed"), only shrugs and mumbles, "Yeah, I know." Which sets alarm bells ringing. Dan lives for argument, and when he gives up without a word then something's very wrong.
"Good of you to come," she says mildly, and waits. And waits.
Time ticks away, and silence wraps around them like a thick, thick blanket: heavy, scratchy and uncomfortable. After what seems like half the fifty-minute hour but is probably only really five minutes or so, she can't stand it any more. "You mind if I write up some notes while we're waiting?" she asks, and pulls her keyboard toward her.
As if the movement had released him, too, from stasis, he says, suddenly, sharply, "Dreams. Dream analysis. All that shit. Do you do that?"
This is how he talks now, when he talks at all: in rapid, staccato bursts, like gunfire. It's better than the alternative. So she just says, "M'm," and then, "If you think it's shit, why do you care?"
He flushes, and pushes away from the door; he has one foot over the line now. Another step, and he's all hers. "I'm sorry." He's a nice boy, Dan, polite and thoughtful. A little of that is calculation, subconscious, maybe, but still deliberate, part of his ongoing urge to make everybody he meets adore him, to fill the void where his family's love should be; mostly it's natural. "I just - I had a bad night. I'm sorry."
"Uh-huh," she says, and makes a mental note. Dan's insomnia is legendary. She thought they were through that phase. Evidently not. "You want to talk about it?"
He grimaces. "No. Not really."
"But you're going to anyway," she tells him, and sits back, steepling her hands, ready to listen.
"I guess," he says, and takes another two steps forward. He's well into the room now, no going back. He looks around himself as if surprised. She can see him giving himself a mental shake and then resigning himself to his fate. He carries on walking, scoops a handful of candy out of the bowl in passing, sinks down into the big armchair by the window, leans back. He shuts his eyes. "I was at the boathouse," he says, "down by the lake."
"Your parents' place?"
He nods. "I used to pretty much live down there, summers, when I was a kid. My mom would let us kids sleep in the boathouse some nights, go night fishing. David would make the fire, 'cos Sam was too little and he always said I'd mess it up, and we'd cook out there, and swim in the lake, and take the boat out …" His mouth curves in a wistful, reminiscent smile. "It was … I had a great childhood, Abby. I know you don't believe me, but it was - it was magical."
"M'm," she says again. She's willing to believe that's what he believes. But fairy tales all share a hidden heart of horror: there's an ogre in every enchanted forest. "Tell me about the dream."
"Yeah." He shakes himself slightly, physically this time. "I was lying in my sleeping bag, and I could hear this noise - this rustling, this slithering, and I sat up, and it was just me out there, no David and no Sam, so I got up to look for them, and I dropped down to look under the boathouse - that's where it was loudest …" His voice tails away.
"And?" she prompts, when he doesn't seem inclined to speak again.
"Snakes," he says softly, and looks up at her. "Hundreds of them. Thousands. Just - a mass of them, you couldn't see where one ended and the next one started, writhing and hissing, and all their eyes, these yellow eyes, just looking at me, and I knew Sam was in there, they'd wrapped him up and dragged him off, under there, and I was going to have to crawl in and get him out, only - you know, when you dream, and you can see yourself from the outside? It was like that, and I was telling myself, he's your brother, you have to help him, go, go, go, and the other me, he - I - he was just standing there, frozen …" He falls silent again, then lets his shoulders rise and fall, sighs out a deep breath. "I was still yelling when I woke up."
"Uh-huh," she says this time. Just that. Sits, watching him. Waiting.
"So?" he asks her. "So, what do you think it means?"
"Means?" She smiles faintly. "Dan, you said dream analysis was shit. Did you hear me disagree?" But, seeing his face fall, she takes pity on him. "What do you think it means?"
"I dunno," he mutters. "I suppose it's … Sam, you know? I was the one said he should come along - David didn't want him, didn't even want me, really - and he got in trouble, and I couldn't help him. I guess … I guess it's just the same thing, Sam dying, and me - " He doesn't finish that sentence. He never finishes that sentence, never has, not in all the time he's been coming here. If he ever does come right out and say it, He died, I killed him, then maybe, just maybe, they might start to get someplace.
"That sounds logical," she says, still watching him, watching his face. That isn't it. That's not what's troubling him, not today. "The trouble with that, Dan, is that dreams aren't logical. They almost never mean what we think they mean."
"Yeah," he says, and he says it on a long, drawn-out breath. "Yeah. I know. And, see, I thought I heard - I read - aren't snakes, like, this big Freudian thing? Don't they represent … you know …?"
She does know, but she wants to hear him say it. "What?"
He mutters "Penises" and turns red. She tries not to laugh.
"Is that what you usually call them?"
He turns even redder. "I don't usually talk about them in the plural. Hell, I don't usually talk about them at all."
"Not at all?" she asks idly. It interests her, how different men are in this respect. Put any group of two or more women together for more than half an hour, by the end of that time every one of them will know all there is to know about the others' reproductive systems. But men … men show, but, apparently, they never tell.
"Once a year, I talk about it to my doctor," Dan admits, the flush slowly fading. "That's pretty much it."
"And you thought this dream might have meant you were secretly gay?" she asks him. Because that's what he's trying to get at. What else would have a guy like Dan so flustered?
He makes a little, noncommittal gesture, and mutters something inaudible.
"So secret, even you didn't know about it?" she asks in amusement. "Dan, trust me. Sometimes a cobra is just a cobra." She checks her watch. "And our time's up. You want to talk about this some more next week?"
He drags himself out of the chair and gives her a small, tired smile. "Oh, no," he tells her. "Believe me, Abby. We shall never speak of this again."
"If you say so," she agrees, and watches the door close behind him. She pulls her keyboard back over, and makes a note on Dan's case file.
07/24: Homosexual urges? Patient in denial. Monitor.
Sometimes a cobra is just a cobra. And other times … other times? It's something else entirely.
***
Fandom: Sports Night
Characters: Dan, Abby. Yes, Abby, the Worst Psychiatrist in the History of the Whole World, Ever.
Note: obsidianserpent played stump the writer and won. Although she cheated a bit, if you ask me, picking a drabble when I've written hundreds of the damn things, all more or less identical. But anyway, I must not be a sore loser. She asked for snakes, and this is what she got. (I owe quiesce, who's the only other person who played, something involving the boys' day off. And, er, pinecones. Yes. This may take a while.)
Serpentining
She looks up and he's standing in the doorway, arm braced against the frame. She sighs: it's going to be one of those sessions, the ones where he hovers on the threshold like the stray cat that haunts her yard, so obviously longing for food and shelter and love but too skittish and wary to come to her hand. Still, he's here, and that's something, at least. He's missed too many appointments lately and, when she's reminded him that her fees still apply ("I have rent to pay, Dan, and you're wasting a place that someone else might've needed"), only shrugs and mumbles, "Yeah, I know." Which sets alarm bells ringing. Dan lives for argument, and when he gives up without a word then something's very wrong.
"Good of you to come," she says mildly, and waits. And waits.
Time ticks away, and silence wraps around them like a thick, thick blanket: heavy, scratchy and uncomfortable. After what seems like half the fifty-minute hour but is probably only really five minutes or so, she can't stand it any more. "You mind if I write up some notes while we're waiting?" she asks, and pulls her keyboard toward her.
As if the movement had released him, too, from stasis, he says, suddenly, sharply, "Dreams. Dream analysis. All that shit. Do you do that?"
This is how he talks now, when he talks at all: in rapid, staccato bursts, like gunfire. It's better than the alternative. So she just says, "M'm," and then, "If you think it's shit, why do you care?"
He flushes, and pushes away from the door; he has one foot over the line now. Another step, and he's all hers. "I'm sorry." He's a nice boy, Dan, polite and thoughtful. A little of that is calculation, subconscious, maybe, but still deliberate, part of his ongoing urge to make everybody he meets adore him, to fill the void where his family's love should be; mostly it's natural. "I just - I had a bad night. I'm sorry."
"Uh-huh," she says, and makes a mental note. Dan's insomnia is legendary. She thought they were through that phase. Evidently not. "You want to talk about it?"
He grimaces. "No. Not really."
"But you're going to anyway," she tells him, and sits back, steepling her hands, ready to listen.
"I guess," he says, and takes another two steps forward. He's well into the room now, no going back. He looks around himself as if surprised. She can see him giving himself a mental shake and then resigning himself to his fate. He carries on walking, scoops a handful of candy out of the bowl in passing, sinks down into the big armchair by the window, leans back. He shuts his eyes. "I was at the boathouse," he says, "down by the lake."
"Your parents' place?"
He nods. "I used to pretty much live down there, summers, when I was a kid. My mom would let us kids sleep in the boathouse some nights, go night fishing. David would make the fire, 'cos Sam was too little and he always said I'd mess it up, and we'd cook out there, and swim in the lake, and take the boat out …" His mouth curves in a wistful, reminiscent smile. "It was … I had a great childhood, Abby. I know you don't believe me, but it was - it was magical."
"M'm," she says again. She's willing to believe that's what he believes. But fairy tales all share a hidden heart of horror: there's an ogre in every enchanted forest. "Tell me about the dream."
"Yeah." He shakes himself slightly, physically this time. "I was lying in my sleeping bag, and I could hear this noise - this rustling, this slithering, and I sat up, and it was just me out there, no David and no Sam, so I got up to look for them, and I dropped down to look under the boathouse - that's where it was loudest …" His voice tails away.
"And?" she prompts, when he doesn't seem inclined to speak again.
"Snakes," he says softly, and looks up at her. "Hundreds of them. Thousands. Just - a mass of them, you couldn't see where one ended and the next one started, writhing and hissing, and all their eyes, these yellow eyes, just looking at me, and I knew Sam was in there, they'd wrapped him up and dragged him off, under there, and I was going to have to crawl in and get him out, only - you know, when you dream, and you can see yourself from the outside? It was like that, and I was telling myself, he's your brother, you have to help him, go, go, go, and the other me, he - I - he was just standing there, frozen …" He falls silent again, then lets his shoulders rise and fall, sighs out a deep breath. "I was still yelling when I woke up."
"Uh-huh," she says this time. Just that. Sits, watching him. Waiting.
"So?" he asks her. "So, what do you think it means?"
"Means?" She smiles faintly. "Dan, you said dream analysis was shit. Did you hear me disagree?" But, seeing his face fall, she takes pity on him. "What do you think it means?"
"I dunno," he mutters. "I suppose it's … Sam, you know? I was the one said he should come along - David didn't want him, didn't even want me, really - and he got in trouble, and I couldn't help him. I guess … I guess it's just the same thing, Sam dying, and me - " He doesn't finish that sentence. He never finishes that sentence, never has, not in all the time he's been coming here. If he ever does come right out and say it, He died, I killed him, then maybe, just maybe, they might start to get someplace.
"That sounds logical," she says, still watching him, watching his face. That isn't it. That's not what's troubling him, not today. "The trouble with that, Dan, is that dreams aren't logical. They almost never mean what we think they mean."
"Yeah," he says, and he says it on a long, drawn-out breath. "Yeah. I know. And, see, I thought I heard - I read - aren't snakes, like, this big Freudian thing? Don't they represent … you know …?"
She does know, but she wants to hear him say it. "What?"
He mutters "Penises" and turns red. She tries not to laugh.
"Is that what you usually call them?"
He turns even redder. "I don't usually talk about them in the plural. Hell, I don't usually talk about them at all."
"Not at all?" she asks idly. It interests her, how different men are in this respect. Put any group of two or more women together for more than half an hour, by the end of that time every one of them will know all there is to know about the others' reproductive systems. But men … men show, but, apparently, they never tell.
"Once a year, I talk about it to my doctor," Dan admits, the flush slowly fading. "That's pretty much it."
"And you thought this dream might have meant you were secretly gay?" she asks him. Because that's what he's trying to get at. What else would have a guy like Dan so flustered?
He makes a little, noncommittal gesture, and mutters something inaudible.
"So secret, even you didn't know about it?" she asks in amusement. "Dan, trust me. Sometimes a cobra is just a cobra." She checks her watch. "And our time's up. You want to talk about this some more next week?"
He drags himself out of the chair and gives her a small, tired smile. "Oh, no," he tells her. "Believe me, Abby. We shall never speak of this again."
"If you say so," she agrees, and watches the door close behind him. She pulls her keyboard back over, and makes a note on Dan's case file.
07/24: Homosexual urges? Patient in denial. Monitor.
Sometimes a cobra is just a cobra. And other times … other times? It's something else entirely.
***