"Hey Casey, I need your advice."

Casey made another adjustment to the commas in his script and nodded without looking up. "Always wear a hat in winter."

"Not that kind of advice," Danny said patiently, "other advice. I have this friend."

"You have a friend?"

"Yes," Danny shot back, "a very nice friend, a very close friend, a friend who doesn't try and make fun of my requests for advice, a friend who would actually *help* me if I asked for advice."

"Hmmm." Casey switched a comma and a semi-colen, studied the sentence, and switched them back. "So what does this friend have to do with me?"

"He wants to come out."

"Out of what?"

"The closet."

"The closet."

"Yes."

There was a long silence. Casey tried to keep his mind on the Bruins, gave up, and looked up to meet Danny's eyes.

"Let me see if I have this. You have a friend."

"Yes."

"Who wants to come out. Of the closet."

"Right."

"And this has to do with me...how?"

"He needs help."

Casey stared at Danny. "He needs help?"

"Are you going to repeat everything I say? Cause I gotta tell you, you're not living up to your reputation for witty repartee here."

"Shut up," Casey said absently, still staring. "Danny...this friend isn't...you, is it?"

"Me?"

"Yeah. You aren't...coming out of the closet, are you?"

"No!" Danny glared at him. "I told you, I have a friend!"

Danny looked pissed, and Casey quickly hurried to revise his earlier statement. He held up his hands placatingly. "Okay, okay--I just thought it was, you know, *that kind* of friend."

"Mmmm. Right." Danny still looked slightly put out, but it was better than pissed. Silence fell again, and Casey stared unseeing at his computer screen.

"It would be okay." What the...had he said that?!

"What would?"

"If you were coming out of the closet. It would be okay."

Danny was looking pissed again. "Look, Casey, it's a friend of mine, okay? It's a guy down the hall, who watches over my plants when I'm gone, and who wants to tell his mom he's gay, but he doesn't know how and he wanted advice, and I wanted to know what you would do! That's *all* it is!"

Casey didn't know quite what to say. "Okay." That was good. Not great, but good. Thankfully, he squelched his initial impulse to ask why this friend felt he could ask for Danny's advice on the subject. "Can he break it to her gently?" Rather lame, but not entirely bad. "Maybe tell her he's happy? That he has a good life, and he's not ashamed, and he hopes she can accept it?"

Danny took a deep breath and nodded. "Yeah, that's what I suggested," he answered. "I'll tell him you said that, I think it might help."

"Okay." He felt tongue-tied, uncertain. There was something he really had to say here--but how? "Danny?"

"Yeah?"

"I meant what I said."

"I'm glad for you."

"I really meant it."

"That's fantastic, Casey--and yet, I'm not entirely sure what 'it' is."

"That it would be okay."

"If what?"

"If you came out of the closet." Holding one hand up in a desperate attempt to forestall Danny's immediate rejoinder, "Just listen. I mean...it would be okay. I'd be okay."

"I'm not gay, Casey."

"I know. But if you were..."

"You'd be okay. Yeah, I got that part. Why are you making such a big deal about this, Case?"

"I just wanted to make sure that you knew. If you were gay, it would be okay."

For a long moment, Danny was very silent. Casey attempted to take refuge in his computer screen, avoiding Danny's eyes. He'd said too much. Shit. Danny wasn't dumb, and he knew Casey a hell of a lot better than anyone else on this planet. He was going to figure it out.

"So," Danny said slowly, "if I said I *was* gay--not that I am, but if I was--what would you have done?"

"I...um." For once, Casey, the glib-tongued devil that he had always secretly considered himself to be, found that he had no words. And Danny was getting up.

"No, tell me, Case, I'm getting interested. What if I said to you, Casey, I'm gay--what would you do?"

"Um..." Danny was moving towards him now.

"What would you do, Case?" Danny was awfully close, sitting on his desk, looking casual and nonchalant--and the look in his eyes was deeply wary, almost afraid.

It gave Casey courage--the kind of reckless, blind courage he'd always imagined that soldiers had facing the enemy, or suburbanites had facing muggers, or the Mets had facing anybody. "I'd say...that I was happy for you. And that...I'd always be there."

"And?"

"There's an and?" Casey could barely breathe. He felt sweat beading up on his forehead, but he couldn't look away from Danny's eyes. He was so close.

"It sounded like there was an and."

"Oh." He closed his eyes, and breathed deeply. "And. And..."

He took his courage in his hands, abandoned the attempt at banter, and reached out a hand, laying it lightly on Danny's thigh.

There was absolute silence.

Then a hand lightly covered his, and Danny moved away. Casey felt a pain in his gut so strong, it almost blacked out the sight of Danny moving away from him, Danny sitting down, Danny going back to his computer.

And then Danny looked back up.

"Hey, Casey."

"Yeah?" he managed, wondering where this amazing ability to speak was coming from.

"I have this friend..."

The End