Dan stayed exactly where he was, the world shifting around him in jagged, kaleidoscoping patterns while he remained steady at its centre, the point of no change. It still surprised him that this was the case. Every day he would wake and wonder how he was still in the same bed, in the same apartment, getting up to the same breakfast, heading into the same job, exchanging the same banal conversation. It scared him a little, this lack of capacity for change, but not enough to do anything about it.
He should have known it was coming: professional partnerships are forged from a different set of needs than personal ones. He couldn't really have expected to work with Casey until the networks retired them to the old anchors' home in the desert. He couldn't have expected it, but somehow he did and when Casey had moved on (moved up, moved away) Dan had felt betrayed. He'd had the common sense not to show it, to wish Casey well, to smile at the airport gate and to not shake him until his teeth chattered and he promised to always stay. It was only afterwards, after he had watched the plane lifting towards the sky, after he had found himself an anonymous bar, an anonymous bottle of vodka and an anonymous mouth on his cock that he allowed the full weight of his loss to hit him. Gone.
There were too many things to miss. Too much history. Too much potential. All vanished. All packed on the plane with Casey's hand luggage. Of course, there were the modern miracles of phone and e-mail but Dan didn't know how to do this. How to move them from what they were to what they could be. So it was easier to do nothing and nothing is what he did until nothing became the norm and he stopped being an actor in his own story, remembered only how to react.
Then came a day, an ordinary day, nothing special, nothing marking it out as significant. Just a day. But when he woke, Dan felt different. Like someone had shaken the kaleidoscope and now there he was right in the middle of things, transforming. He stared at the sun shafting across his bedroom walls and had a revelation. Every day did not have to be like Sunday. Casey was not the only one who could leave - it didn't have to be an either or. Dan could go too: could take just the parts of himself that he wanted, the best of him, and leave the rest behind. And the excellence of this plan was that he didn't have to go anywhere to get started, because just by accepting the possibility he was already on the road.
Trudging Slowly Over Wet Sand, Sports Night, Dan/Casey, gone, 15
Dan stayed exactly where he was, the world shifting around him in jagged, kaleidoscoping patterns while he remained steady at its centre, the point of no change. It still surprised him that this was the case. Every day he would wake and wonder how he was still in the same bed, in the same apartment, getting up to the same breakfast, heading into the same job, exchanging the same banal conversation. It scared him a little, this lack of capacity for change, but not enough to do anything about it.
He should have known it was coming: professional partnerships are forged from a different set of needs than personal ones. He couldn't really have expected to work with Casey until the networks retired them to the old anchors' home in the desert. He couldn't have expected it, but somehow he did and when Casey had moved on (moved up, moved away) Dan had felt betrayed. He'd had the common sense not to show it, to wish Casey well, to smile at the airport gate and to not shake him until his teeth chattered and he promised to always stay. It was only afterwards, after he had watched the plane lifting towards the sky, after he had found himself an anonymous bar, an anonymous bottle of vodka and an anonymous mouth on his cock that he allowed the full weight of his loss to hit him. Gone.
There were too many things to miss. Too much history. Too much potential. All vanished. All packed on the plane with Casey's hand luggage. Of course, there were the modern miracles of phone and e-mail but Dan didn't know how to do this. How to move them from what they were to what they could be. So it was easier to do nothing and nothing is what he did until nothing became the norm and he stopped being an actor in his own story, remembered only how to react.
Then came a day, an ordinary day, nothing special, nothing marking it out as significant. Just a day. But when he woke, Dan felt different. Like someone had shaken the kaleidoscope and now there he was right in the middle of things, transforming. He stared at the sun shafting across his bedroom walls and had a revelation. Every day did not have to be like Sunday. Casey was not the only one who could leave - it didn't have to be an either or. Dan could go too: could take just the parts of himself that he wanted, the best of him, and leave the rest behind. And the excellence of this plan was that he didn't have to go anywhere to get started, because just by accepting the possibility he was already on the road.
There was just one thing he needed to do first.