obstinatrix | Fic: Nothing Gold Can Stay (PG-13)

Title: Nothing Gold Can Stay
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Denny Crane/Alan Shore
Disclaimer: Do not own, do not has, do not claim.
Notes: This is for, and entirely the fault of,

tootsiemuppet and

hyel, who are vile enablers. The central scenario idea was

hyel's, and as it came with a rather lovely inspirational photograph of James Spader in his 1980s glory, I couldn't resist the pressing urge to write it. Despite my actually rather minimal knowledge of Boston Legal. Fail, self. Also, this was meant to be crack and totally isn't. Ah, well.
Summary: Although Denny doesn't remember, he's met Alan before.
Illustrative Accompaniments: The most illustrious

hyel actually drew them, because she is amazing. :)And this is

tootsiemuppet's inspirational poster. D

Denny Crane remembers the 80s.

Not all that well, really, considering he was already approaching late middle age by
the time the invasion of structured shoulders and neon-striped legwarmers had reached its
blindness-inducing zenith, but he does remember them.

The style of the decade, in the courtroom sense, was shouting. Denny spent long, fruitful
days shouting at other people's clients, and still more days glaring fixedly at juries in an
attempt to intimidate them into submission. Quite a lot of the time, these tactics worked.
Denny had a lot of cases, the result of which was a correspondingly large amount of money,
which enabled him to buy drinks for exactly as many people as he wanted to, when he hit the
bar.

Denny Crane bought a lot of drinks that decade. A lot. Of drinks.

When it came to seduction, Denny believed in keeping it simple. If a girl, or two girls, or
a whole gaggle of Japanese sylphs weren't smart enough to hear 'I'm Denny Crane' and catch
the unspoken 'sex god' on the end of it, that was their loss. Sometimes, they heard 'very
rich lawyer', instead, and that was also okay by Denny, albeit slightly less flattering.
Still, if it meant he ended the evening with a bed full of Bambi-limbed secretaries and a
collarful of lipstick, it would do. Hell, anything would do, as long as it was pretty.

It was this state of blissful unchoosiness that stopped Denny from calling security/his
partner/his secretary/the police, the evening he wasn't quite sure one could call the
androgynous creature in his lap a 'chick'. It had started out, after all, in precisely the
usual way. There was the bar with Denny's fifth shot of whiskey waiting on it, and leaning
against it was a compellingly leggy young thing in a lavender tank, slim-hipped and
smirking, face half-hidden behind a great volume of honey-coloured hair. Beside this
apparition, the whisky was honey-coloured, too, and Denny decided right there and then that
everything gold could damn well stay, and if Robert fucking Frost objected, he could
sue him. And he'd lose, because Denny was Denny Crane.

The leggy thing certainly showed no interest in leaving. When Denny smiled his charming
smile, he got a charming smile back. When Denny described how difficult a life it was, being
a lawyer, his companion's face was all sympathy, voice all soft and husky with concern.
When Denny leaned in, his young friend echoed the motion without preamble. And that was how
they ended up in the front seat of Denny's car, kissing like teenagers surfing a hormone
wave. The kid was all solicitousness, wide-eyed with the sort of understanding Denny hadn't
felt from anyone in a long time, and that was, probably, a large part of why he didn't
actually scream when the heel of his hand encountered something where nothing should have
been - namely, between those endless legs. Leggy took a moment to breathe, and then pulled
Denny back against that mouth, drawing him into another kiss, and Denny, new-churned turmoil
drowning again under a wave of dizziness and alcohol and lust, let himself be drawn.

Afterwards, he would of course have blamed the whisky. Doubtless, the whisky played an
important part. There was also the fact that he really had thought that the slender
figure in his arms was a girl, chalking the superior height up to some kind of feat of
modern genetics. These things, combined with the fact that Denny was already teetering at
the point of no return when his hand stumbled across its incontrovertible, damning evidence,
were surely enough to excuse just that one time. It's not like the kid could really claim to
be a real guy, dressed like that. It's not like Denny could have done anything else.

Nobody ever did ask about it, as it happened. But if they had done, this is what Denny would
have said - if he'd felt they deserved any explanation at all beyond dammit, I'm Denny
Crane. Nine times out of ten, Denny felt that this was all that was required.
When Alan Shore first walked into Denny Crane's office, suited and booted with his honey-
coloured hair cropped lawyer-short, he knew that Denny would say this, if he ever dared
bring it up. He knew that Denny Crane, the Denny Crane, would never admit to having
been moved by the look on a sensual, sexless young face; would never concede that there had
been anything behind that evening but the alcohol. When Denny's eyes fell on him, flashed
greeting, and drifted away again, Alan knew, too, that Denny would never connect the dots in
a million years, not neatly enough to find himself staring at a semi-respectable lawyer
where once had been a long-haired student-age thing in lavender silk, who kissed
disconsolate middle-aged men in bars.

Denny will never understand the possibility that two people so many social poles apart could
be one and the same. Alan is never going to explain it to him.

When Alan falls in love with him, again and properly, it is unsexualised, romantic in the
manner of romantic friendships; reciprocated on its own terms. Denny Crane remembers the
80s, but when Alan tucks himself around Denny's sleeping body, slotting the two of them
together like the proverbial spoons, he knows that Denny will never recognise that this is
the second time they have slept together.

The first was in Boston, on a mild midsummer night; now they are in Nimmo Bay, where the
wind is wild beyond telling. Still, it is warmer, this second time.

***