Commentary: The Choices We Make (Closer)
Read the fic sans commentary here.

The request I got for this one was Dan/Larry, preferably set post-canon. Well, that immediately gave me an idea, so I really didn't struggle at all in that regard. I rewatched the film once as a whole, and then watched the scene in Larry's practice over and over pretty much the entire time I was writing.

I'm really pleased with both my yuletide fics this year. I didn't really think I had a Closer story in me. It wasn't something that was just begging for fic when I saw it, but I'm very glad I got this request, because I'm quite pleased with what I came up with. I'm kinda meh on the title, though, but what can you do?

Dan's fingers scrabble at the desk, leaving sweaty smudges on the glass.

I started off with the scrabbling fingers from the beginning, but it was only after watching again that I realised his desk was glass, so I added in bits about that here and there.

It's always the desk, or the patient's bed, and always at the office - if you don't count the first time, and Dan never does. Larry is nothing if not predictable.

The second half of the first sentence was added in later, when I was trying to pad it out to reach the minimum; originally the second sentence came after the dash.

Out of the corner of his eye Dan can see something fall to the floor. Papers, maybe, since there's not a crash. The only sounds are Larry's grunting and the little noises Dan wishes he didn't make when Larry's cock brushes over his prostate.

I love this bit. A lot.

He's going to hurt when he gets home. He's going to ache all night. Larry might have been exaggerating when he said nine inches, but he's not what anyone would call small. When Rachel rings tonight and asks Dan if he wants to come round, he'll say no, rough day at work. He won't say, "I'm completely knackered as I've spent the afternoon being buggered senseless by the man who ruined my life."

Hee. I love that last sentence. Rachel is just a random girlfriend of Dan's. I figured he'd have picked up someone else by now. (Though I don't really see this as being too horrible long after the end of the film, sometime within a year, I guess.

At one point, he might have, but Dan's gone quite off honesty now.

This is probably my favorite bit of the whole fic.

He has to pull himself off if he wants to come. He's never been able to come just from being fucked and Larry never touches him when they're fucking.

Somehow that felt like Larry.

Not his cock, anyway. Larry keeps his hands on Dan's hips. Big hands, rough hands, hands that Anna hated, or said she hated;

Random bit I noticed while watching that scene again and again, and it seemed to fit well here.

Dan's not sure what the truth is anymore. Larry's fingers dig in hard enough to bruise and Dan is running out of excuses Rachel will believe. There's only so many times you can run into your desk, especially with both hips.

But Rachel wants to believe. She's not like Dan, who's always doubted. If he'd believed Alice, maybe she wouldn't be gone. But he believed Larry. He chose Larry, in a way, though he never imagined it would end up like this, with them fucking in Larry's office every chance they get.

This paragraph was added in to pad it out, but I really like it, especially the bit about Alice, which originally read "maybe she wouldn't be dead", but in beta Cim went "uh, am I missing something?" and I realised that since many, if not all, readers might be familiar with only film canon, I'd better change it. I figured "gone" is ambiguous enough to fit both canons. In my mind, Alice is always dead, even in the film. She goes off to New York and dies; the film just ends before that can happen.

The first time, they'd both been pissed. Completely wasted. This has never been something Dan's done sober, not even at uni when he fucked as many blokes as girls. It's not something he does sober now, though today he's only had a couple beers.

The whole flashback bit here was also added in. Normally I don't write like this, getting to the end and then coming back and filling in. Maybe I ought to try it more often, cause I do like what I got here.

I can easily see both Dan and Larry as bisexual, by the way. I noticed when Larry says he slept with a whore, he doesn't say it was a woman, and of course there's Dan fucking about on the internet, which as I mention below, I can see as something he's done before.

Cim asked what "this" was that Dan doesn't do sober, whether it was bottoming, but I'd meant it just to be sex with blokes in general.

He hadn't planned it, that first time. In fact, he hadn't planned on ever seeing Larry again, and had been more than a little pissed off to find the bastard drowning his sorrows in the same fucking pub as himself.

I think this is what I used as the summary, isn't it? I like it.

All Dan remembers after that is a row, and then outside, an aborted fight that ended with Dan shoved up against the wall. He remembers snogging, grinding, and at some point asking Larry back to his. He remembers the worst hangover of his life, and being convinced it would never happen again.

This paragraph took a lot of rewriting. I don't know why I couldn't get it to flow the way I wanted to, but I'm fairly happy with how it turned out. I do like the last sentence especially.

He'd gone that afternoon to Larry's practice, and it was like the fucking hair of the dog. Another fuck to get you over the first, and anyone could see where that was bound to end up.

I like this one a lot, too.

It ends up with Dan knowing how Larry sounds when he's about to come,

If there's one sure way to tell my writing, it's probably this repetition. "...anyone could see where that was bound to end up" followed by "it ends up with". I do it a lot (as I think I noted in another recent commentary I did). I just like the rhythm of it.

the way he pauses when it hits and then fucks Dan through it. Just like that. And Dan's nearly there himself, hand moving furiously on his cock, thighs so tense they feel like they're about to snap. It's inevitable; it happens like this every time.

This fic didn't feel like it wanted to be very graphic in terms of the sex. Maybe because it had so much other stuff mixed in? I don't know. I suppose if I'd needed to pad it out even more, I could have given more description here, but I like it the way it is. It fits.

Afterwards, they're both panting, Larry's forehead resting on Dan's back and Dan's breath fogging up the glass desk.

Glass desk again, yes.

They stay like that until the awkwardness is nearly palpable and they have to move.

Huzzah for awkwardness.

"I have patients to see," Larry says, snapping off the condom.

Larry's very perfunctory.

Dan casts about for a tissue, but of course Larry never has tissues out. Dan thinks he does it on purpose.

Can't you see Larry doing it on purpose? I so can.

In the end, he manages to haul his trousers half-up with his free hand and hobble over to the little toilet to clean up in there.

This sentence! So awkward, and not in a good way like Larry and Dan! I rewrote it a ton of times, but never did get it to my liking. Too much information I wanted to crowd in there.

"How's Anna?" he asks, because nothing takes the sting out of humiliation like needling Larry.

Too tell-y?

"Dunno," Larry says. "Haven't heard from her lately."

"She's seeing someone."

I love that he asks about her as if he hasn't just seen her himself and then totally makes it obvious that he has.

"Is she?"

Having produced tissues from out of nowhere, Larry is wiping handprints off his desktop when Dan finally rejoins him.

Another awkward sentence.

There's a certain morbid satisfaction in knowing Larry can't needle him about Alice in return.

I don't think this line works too well if you don't know Alice is dead...

"Nice fellow," Dan says, shrugging into his coat. He snorts. "Nothing like us."

"You've met him?" That's got Larry's attention.

"Oh yeah," Dan says, like he sees Anna all the time. Like he'd maybe had dinner with her and not just run into her at the shops. Anna had introduced Dan as "someone I worked with", not "my ex-lover" or "the reason I left my second husband" or even "a friend". Anna seemed to have gone off honesty, too. Dan doesn't really blame her. Not for that, anyway.

I like this paragraph. I like everything about it, yes.

"What'd he look like?" Larry asks after a few moments.

"Blond," Dan says, picking up his briefcase. "Very, very blond."

I don't know if this came across the way I wanted it to or not (that's the problem with subtlety, I suppose; you're never sure if it's going to be obvious enough). But the blondness is part of the "not like us". Like, she went and got someone exactly the opposite of Larry and Dan, not just in personality, but in looks as well.

Larry is silent at that and Dan can see the comparison's already begun, knows that if he doesn't get out of here soon, he'll be asked questions like "Does he look like he's got a big cock?" He doesn't like to think about whether Larry compares himself to Dan when they fuck, but he bets he knows the answer.

Since Larry's obsession with comparing himself to Dan is rather prominent in canon...

He hates knowing Larry this well, hates that they know each other this well. He hates Anna for everything she ever told him about Larry and everything she ever told Larry about him. If it weren't for Anna, they'd never have even met. Larry would just be another guy Dan had fucked around with on the internet.

Totally done it before. Yes.

If not for Anna, Dan would still be with Alice, slowly suffocating to death. He's not sure which is worse.

This and the preceding paragraph feel so true. I think I have a good feel for Dan throughout the fic, but this bit in particular feels very much like him.

The buzzer sounds and, making his way around his desk to pick up the phone, Larry says, "That'll be my five o'clock."

Again, something I got from watching that scene over and over.

And it's Dan's cue to leave. He doesn't say "see you" or "bye" or even "fuck you, you miserable cunt", all of which are on the tip of his tongue, jostling and crowding each other. He turns and leaves, doesn't say any of it.

He never does.

I originally had "He doesn't need to" as the last line there, but Helens didn't think it was quite right, so I changed it, and I'm much happier with what I came up with the second time. Huzzah for betas. I really like the second-to-last paragraph, too. These are not happy guys.