SquidgeWorld Archive

Only the Lonely
by Mr. Denny Crane's Ghostwriter

"I lied."

Alan turned his head toward his friend, not really paying attention. "Hm?"

"I said, I lied."

"About what?" Alan asked, pulling on his pajama bottoms. Navy blue silk, a birthday gift from Denny.

Denny just raised his eyebrows, head cocked like a curious puppy. "Your mind certainly isn't here."

"Isn't that supposed to be your general state of being?"

"Now you're just being a crank. I was trying to do that...what is it you call it? That male bonding...but hey, if you'd rather be lost in an inseam dream, then...well..." Denny waved a hand in the air as he settled into bed. "Good night."

"Male bonding? I thought you weren't taking me fishing again."

"I'm not."

"You lied about not being lonely."

"So did you."

"I'm not accusing, Denny, I'm attempting to repair my earlier lapse in friendship by repeating what you were trying to tell me." Alan stood at the foot of the bed. "I mean, look at us. You, me...we're both constantly after women...I'm blue because Marlene's gone...you have it so bad you had a sex doll made in Shirley Schmidt's likeness!"

"What's your point?"

"If we weren't so rich, I'd think we're pathetic. I mean," Alan continued, pacing the floor and waving his hands for punctuation, "if we have no trouble getting women, if we can sleep with anyone in Bostonâ€""

"Or out of Boston, for that matter."

"â€"then why is it we sleep every night here together in this bed?" Alan ended, jabbing a hand palm-up toward the very bed upon which Denny was reclining.

"I guess you could say I didn't really lie."

"What?"

"I said I wasn't lonely and that's the truth."

"Then what did you lie about?"

"It's only the truth sometimes."

"All right. So when is it you're lonely?"

Denny looked at him, held his gaze for a moment, then pulled the covers back and laid down, mumbling something unintelligible as he pulled the expensive sheet, blanket and comforter over his body.

"I didn't get that."

"You weren't meant to."

"You know, Denny, male bonding only works if one party can understand what the other party is saying."

"This isn't a party."

"You're impossible!" Alan cried, exasperated, as he seated himself on the other side of the bed. "You are not going to sleep until you tell me when you're lonely."

"Why do you want to know so badly?"

"Maybe because I want to know if there's anything I can do to keep my best friend from ever being lonely again a day in his life!"

Denny turned and propped his head up on his hand. "Come to bed."

"I bet you say that to all the girls."

"Yes, I do." Denny stared at him a moment, then winked. "But I don't say that to all the guys."

"I give up."

Alan pulled back the covers and settled himself similarly beneath them. His right arm ran the length of Denny's left arm. There were long, silent minutes that passed, each man lost in his own thoughts, until at last Denny's low, rumbling voice shook Alan to the core.

"When this isn't here," Denny said, nudging Alan's arm. "That's when I'm lonely."

Alan turned his head, regarding his friend with some oddball mixture of bemusement, amusement and a depth of feeling he wasn't nearly ready to explore.

"Then I guess I lied, too."

"I know you did. I can read you like a book."

"That's not good."

"Why not?"

"By the time someone gets to the point where they can read me like a book, I either leave them, they leave me, or they die."

"This is my house, Alan, I'm not going anywhere. And neither are you, I cut off your lease."

"You did what?"

"You don't need that damned hotel room, you haven't stayed in it for over a year."

"Denny, you had no rightâ€""

"And I'm not going to die. At least...not yet."

The two lay stoically silent until the grandfather clock in the foyer chimed midnight.

"You're afraid of being alone, aren't you?"

Alan turned his head once again and the vulnerability in his eyes made Denny balk. "Why are you asking me that?" Alan whispered. "Don't ask me that."

"Why not? It's true." Denny shifted slightly, his arm now resting atop Alan's. "A great man once said, after a moment of peril in which he nearly lost his life, that he knew he wasn't going to die. When one of his best friends asked him how he knew that, he said it was because he wasn't alone. And he always knew he'd die alone."

Alan frowned, not quite getting where Denny's rather distorted train of thought was leading.

"Well, I feel the same way. I think that's why I've been married so many times."

"Because you think if you're alone, you'll die."

"That's about the long and the short of it."

"Is that the reason you want to keep me here? You think if I stay here that you won't die?"

"No one can live forever, Alan," Denny said, rolling over so that his back was to Alan. "But there's no need to live alone."

Alan's hand reached out and hovered tentatively above Denny's side. "I'm glad I have you to keep me from being lonely." Alan sighed as his hand came to rest on the comforter-covered ribcage of his best friend. "But I think what I'm lonely for is that intimacy of touch."

"I'm notâ€""

"I know."

With that, Alan rolled over so his back was to Denny's.

~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~

Denny rose to his feet. He couldn't sleep. Hadn't been able to sleep all night. A glance at the clock told him it was three o'clock in the morning. He groaned. Big case day tomorrow and he hadn't slept a wink. Damn Alan anyway.

Denny walked around the end of the bed, intent on heading for the door, maybe to try the kitchen for a snack. A warm glass of milk might put him back to sleep, or maybe a good, dry martini. But as he passed Alan's side of the bed, he couldn't help but pause, the sight he was seeing making him close his eyes a moment. For there in the moonlight that shone through the window, he saw traces of tears on Alan's eyelashes. They were damp. Alan had been crying. And recently, too, or he'd have seen no trace.

Silently approaching his friend, Denny knelt down next to the bed, his heart both breaking in two at his friend's deep-seated loneliness and bursting at the seams with what he considered an unnatural - yet undeniable - love he felt for the other man. His hand reached up and touched Alan's hair. Alan sighed. Denny's other hand reached out and settled on Alan's hip. A small smile graced Alan's lips.

"I never knew you had it so rough as a kid," Denny whispered. "I'm sorry."

Alan's eyes opened, lashes sticking together a bit form the remnants of tears. "How could you know?" he replied. "It's not like I've ever been that forthright with you."

Denny's hand stroked Alan's hair gently. "I don't know if I can do sex, Alan, but..." His voice trailed off and he looked down at the floor. "What's the first step in that...surrogate's program?"

"The patient is lying in bed naked and she enters, disrobes and asks the patient to look at her."

"Then what?"

"Then she crawls into bed with them and they just lie there side by side."

"And what's the point of that?"

"To get the patient used to the intimacy of being vulnerable in front of another human being. To stop them from being afraid of being intimate with someone." Alan sighed. "Especially someone they love very much."

Denny swallowed hard. He rose to his feet and moved to his side of the bed. Alan heard some rustling, then felt Denny climb into bed and get back under the covers.

"Get out of bed."

"What?" Alan asked, half-turning.

"I said, get out of bed. Go out of the room and come back in."

Alan shook his head. He was used to Denny's eccentricities, but damn. At this hour? Nevertheless he rose from the warm bed, walked out the door and then turned and walked back in. His eyebrows shot up so high they almost reached his hairline. For it was apparent Denny was no longer wearing his pajamas. At least...not the top part of them. The bottom, he couldn't see.

"Denny, what are you...?" Alan stopped, mouth open in mid-sentence. "Oh." A smile crept over his face. "Well, then, in that case..." Alan dropped his pajama bottoms, ditched his top and peeled off his briefs. "Can you look at me, Denny?"

Denny's eyes were squeezed shut. Slowly his head turned and he opened those eyes, only to be confronted with a very manly body. "God, I hope this isn't what Jerry saw when he opened his eyes."

Alan chuckled. "No. It isn't." He watched him for a moment. "Is it okay if I climb into bed with you?"

Denny nodded slowly, eyes never leaving Alan's body. Alan climbed into bed and soon discovered Denny was indeed naked from head-to-toe.

"See now? This isn't so bad, is it?" Off Denny shaking his head Alan added, "How do you feel?"

Denny looked at him and smiled. "Like I'll never be lonely again."

"You won't, Denny," Alan said. "I promise you won't."

"Don't make piecrust promises."

"Piecrust?"

"Easily made, easily broken."

"You're quoting 'Mary Poppins' now?"

"What's the next step?"

"Well, I believe the next step is for the surrogate to hold the patient in their arms in order to show the patient that nothing terrible will happen if they do."

"Like the world exploding, censors banging at the door, series getting canceled...?"

"Exactly. I think you'll find the public is much more tolerant now. After all, you're a big star."

"And you're..."

"Weird."

"Yes. They expect this from you."

"And you?"

"I expect it from you, too."

"Good. Then my work here is done, apparently I've little character development left."

"I wouldn't say that," Denny replied. "We've only ever done things like this in fan fiction before."

"It surprises me that you even know what that is."

Denny barked a laugh. "You have no idea. Next step?"

Alan moved closer, wrapped his arms around Denny and pulled him into his chest. Denny willingly complied.

"Alan?"

"Mm?"

"Are we still on the air?"

"I think so."

"Wow. So it didn't all end."

"No."

"So...I'm afraid to ask this...what comes after...you know."

"That's when the actual act of sex is explored. Very slowly, of course, to ensure the patient feels safe, comfortable and cared for at all times. Eventually one thing will lead to another and the patient and the surrogate will have full-blown sex in a manner that proves to the patient there was never anything to fear from that sort of intimacy."

"It sounds complicated and I'm just not up to the task at this hour. Can the next lesson wait?"

"Absolutely," Alan replied with a smile as he pulled Denny even closer "For now, let's just sleep."

"I'm not having sex with you."

"No, you're not," Alan replied, a twinkle in his eye. "At least...not yet."