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Jun. 5th, 2007 12:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nnyMore Sports Night fic. I'll finish it after lunch. :D
Continued from here.
Apparently it wasn’t just the vending machines but the elevators, too, since Casey didn’t see Dan again until the run down meeting, tossing a kooshball back and forth with Chris and Will, grinning and joking and looking admirably normal. He presumed that was what the pat on the head from Natalie was for. Most of the meeting was spent splitting his focus between the elaborate doodle with which he was decorating the lower half of the meeting agenda and the small grin on Danny’s face, which was a little too fixed to be reassuring.
He raised his head briefly to side with Dave over the correct spelling of Coulthard, but was infinitely more focused on the shading of stick Jeremy’s glasses than the meeting until Natalie’s strident voice caught his attention.
“- stole my coke and then tried to eat my arm! I’m telling you, Dana, those things are evil.”
“How did it eat your arm? What was your arm doing in the machine?”
Natalie glared at Elliott, hands planted firmly on hips.
“It stole my coke. Were you not paying attention?”
Dana put a hand up, still scribbling notes on her agenda.
“Call Father Maguire.” There was a pause as everyone gave her a long look, long enough that she raised her head to stare back at them all, quizzically. “The Exorcist?”
“That was Father Merrick,” said Will. She frowned.
“I thought it was Father Maguire.”
“It was Father Merrick,” said Will, imperturbably.
“So who was Father Maguire?”
“Um, he was from Father Ted,” said Jeremy helpfully.
“Father Ted Merrick?”
Natalie rolled her eyes. “Father Ted was that weird Irish programme Jeremy made us watch, Dana, you remember.”
“So Father Ted wasn’t in the Exorcist.”
“It was Father Merrick,” Will repeated, and Chris threw the kooshball at the side of his head.
Casey leaned over to Dan, noticing - but choosing not to react to - Dan leaning a little further away.
“I thought it was Karras,” he said quietly. Dan shook his head.
“Karras was the young priest, Merrick was the old one.”
“There were two priests?” He leaned back in his chair as everyone turned to give him horrified looks. “What?”
By the time Elliott and Kim had finished explaining to him exactly what, with tangents into how bare and deprived his life must have been for not knowing, Dan had disappeared again. He checked the restrooms, Dana and Isaac’s offices, editing, even considered taking a voyage down to the second floor when Dana said she would feed him to the vending machines if he wandered past her office again. He wasn’t sure entirely, though, whether Dan had been eaten by the elevators, so he beat an ignoble retreat back to their office instead to lie in wait.
*
Somehow he went from lying in wait, to lounging on the couch in wait, to waking up with Dan’s hands on his shoulders, shaking him lightly.
“Up and at ‘em, champ,” Dan told him softly, and Casey blinked up at him. Someone had turned the office lights off while he was asleep and Dan’s eyes were black in the dim light, his smile infinitely more genuine than it had been in the meeting. Casey stretched languidly, bracing his feet against the arm of the couch, and returned it with a wide grin of his own. He watched, confused, as Dan blinked a couple of times and then looked away.
“Danny?”
“You know,” Dan’s voice was low, weirdly intimate in the half-light from the glass doors, “it’s really not helpful when you do that.”
“When I do what?”
An increase of pressure on his shoulders as Dan levered himself to his feet, pushing both hands into his pockets and hunching his shoulders a little.
“C’mon, Case, we’re due in Wardrobe.”
“I’m still unclear,” he said, swinging his legs to the floor and sprawling against the back of the couch with a yawn, not entirely awake yet, “what it is I’m supposed to have done.”
“Exactly as it should be, my friend,” said Dan obscurely and walked out, brushing past Natalie who was looming in the doorway menacingly.
“You’re due in Wardrobe,” she told him, rather less patiently than Dan had.
“I have been made aware of this,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck and considering - not for the first time - whether he could get a pillow written of as expenses.
“By Dan?” She cocked her head to one side curiously.
“By Dan.”
“That’s more than he’s said to anyone else today. He’s -”
“- acting weird,” finished Casey. “Yeah, I know.”
“So fix it,” she told him menacingly, “and get to Wardrobe. I have maintenance guys to abuse.”
“- and he’s not the only one,” he continued, although he made sure to wait until she was definitely out of earshot.
*
In Wardrobe and right through Makeup, Dan was acting almost exactly like normal; Casey was starting to worry that his judgement of these things might not be the most reliable, though, since neither of them bat an eyelid when they made their way to the studio and passed Will in a deerstalker being closely followed by Natalie, who was clutching two inflatable baseball bats duct-taped into the shape of a cross. Jeremy was leaning against the wall a few feet behind them, head in his hands, and Casey reached out to pat him consolingly on the shoulder. He regretted it almost immediately.
“Smote!” Jeremy yelled, flailing, eyes wide behind thick glasses. “With lightning!”
He withdrew his hand quickly and hurried to catch up to Dan, who gave him a sidelong look.
“And I’m weird?”
He shrugged. “That’s what they tell me.”
“You’re weird?” Dana had approached without Casey noticing, almost making him jump out of his skin. “Why are you weird?” She folded her arms and glared up at Casey. “Why is Dan weird? You were supposed to fix that!”
“I did fix it!”
Dan’s eyes flicked between them both, his mouth turning down a little at the corner again. Casey hated it when it did that.
“Fixed what?”
“Never mind,” he said.
“Fixed you,” Dana answered at almost exactly the same moment, and Casey gave her a betrayed look.
“Fixed me.” Dan’s face went kind of stiff, his eyes looking shuttered. “I wasn’t aware I was broken.”
“Not broken,” Casey said, still scowling at Dana for a second before he turned to Dan. “Not broken, Danny, just a little… bent.”
It took him a second or two before he worked out what Dan’s blush was about, why Dana’s eyebrow was halfway up her forehead and why one of the cameramen was leaning against the set in silent hysterics. He groaned and covered his face with his hands, accepting the swat on his arm as his due.
“I’m just going to sit down at the desk and be quiet for a while, okay?”
“Might be wise, partner,” and Dan’s voice was a little choked but not overly angry, which he decided to count as a win.
“Seriously, though,” he ventured a little while later, since he was clinically proven to be incapable of silence for more than a few minutes at a time, “what is with you today?”
“Nothing is with me, Casey. Drop it.” His eyes kept flicking over to the camera guy, who was double checking leads with a lopsided smirk on his face.
“Ninety seconds, everybody.” Dana’s disembodied voice floated over the PA, and Casey grabbed his earpiece and stared at the side of Dan’s face.
“Something is definitely with you.”
Dan let out an impatient huff of breath as Alison fussed with his mic.
“You really don’t want to ask that. Trust me, man.”
"Look, Danny, just tell me."
Dan looked his way, hooking his own earpiece over his ear, then looked back over at the camera guy, still fussing with a duster.
"I don't want to tell you."
Casey leaned toward Dan, lowering his voice; it was kind of instinctual, despite the fact that they were both wearing their mics and the control room could hear every word.
"You know you can tell me anything, right?"
"Okay. Fine." Dan let out a breath and picked up his script, shuffling it into alignment and banging it against the desk a couple times for good measure. "We're dating."
"...we're dating." Casey just stared at the side of Dan's face. "We're dating?"
"See, this is why I didn't want to tell you. I knew you'd get weird."
"I like weird," Casey replied, mouth on autopilot. "Weird's a good look for me."
“Not as much as you’d think,” Dan answered, watching with narrowed eyes as the cameraman went over to claim money from one of the sound guys.
“Thirty seconds.”
“Later,” said Casey, shuffling his own script into order. “Later you are telling me everything.”
“Later,” said Dan, then turned to grin at the camera. “Good evening from New York City, everybody. I’m Dan Rydell, alongside Casey McCall, and we have all those stories and more coming up after this. You‘re watching Sports Night on CSC, so stick around.”
*
Part three.
Continued from here.
Apparently it wasn’t just the vending machines but the elevators, too, since Casey didn’t see Dan again until the run down meeting, tossing a kooshball back and forth with Chris and Will, grinning and joking and looking admirably normal. He presumed that was what the pat on the head from Natalie was for. Most of the meeting was spent splitting his focus between the elaborate doodle with which he was decorating the lower half of the meeting agenda and the small grin on Danny’s face, which was a little too fixed to be reassuring.
He raised his head briefly to side with Dave over the correct spelling of Coulthard, but was infinitely more focused on the shading of stick Jeremy’s glasses than the meeting until Natalie’s strident voice caught his attention.
“- stole my coke and then tried to eat my arm! I’m telling you, Dana, those things are evil.”
“How did it eat your arm? What was your arm doing in the machine?”
Natalie glared at Elliott, hands planted firmly on hips.
“It stole my coke. Were you not paying attention?”
Dana put a hand up, still scribbling notes on her agenda.
“Call Father Maguire.” There was a pause as everyone gave her a long look, long enough that she raised her head to stare back at them all, quizzically. “The Exorcist?”
“That was Father Merrick,” said Will. She frowned.
“I thought it was Father Maguire.”
“It was Father Merrick,” said Will, imperturbably.
“So who was Father Maguire?”
“Um, he was from Father Ted,” said Jeremy helpfully.
“Father Ted Merrick?”
Natalie rolled her eyes. “Father Ted was that weird Irish programme Jeremy made us watch, Dana, you remember.”
“So Father Ted wasn’t in the Exorcist.”
“It was Father Merrick,” Will repeated, and Chris threw the kooshball at the side of his head.
Casey leaned over to Dan, noticing - but choosing not to react to - Dan leaning a little further away.
“I thought it was Karras,” he said quietly. Dan shook his head.
“Karras was the young priest, Merrick was the old one.”
“There were two priests?” He leaned back in his chair as everyone turned to give him horrified looks. “What?”
By the time Elliott and Kim had finished explaining to him exactly what, with tangents into how bare and deprived his life must have been for not knowing, Dan had disappeared again. He checked the restrooms, Dana and Isaac’s offices, editing, even considered taking a voyage down to the second floor when Dana said she would feed him to the vending machines if he wandered past her office again. He wasn’t sure entirely, though, whether Dan had been eaten by the elevators, so he beat an ignoble retreat back to their office instead to lie in wait.
*
Somehow he went from lying in wait, to lounging on the couch in wait, to waking up with Dan’s hands on his shoulders, shaking him lightly.
“Up and at ‘em, champ,” Dan told him softly, and Casey blinked up at him. Someone had turned the office lights off while he was asleep and Dan’s eyes were black in the dim light, his smile infinitely more genuine than it had been in the meeting. Casey stretched languidly, bracing his feet against the arm of the couch, and returned it with a wide grin of his own. He watched, confused, as Dan blinked a couple of times and then looked away.
“Danny?”
“You know,” Dan’s voice was low, weirdly intimate in the half-light from the glass doors, “it’s really not helpful when you do that.”
“When I do what?”
An increase of pressure on his shoulders as Dan levered himself to his feet, pushing both hands into his pockets and hunching his shoulders a little.
“C’mon, Case, we’re due in Wardrobe.”
“I’m still unclear,” he said, swinging his legs to the floor and sprawling against the back of the couch with a yawn, not entirely awake yet, “what it is I’m supposed to have done.”
“Exactly as it should be, my friend,” said Dan obscurely and walked out, brushing past Natalie who was looming in the doorway menacingly.
“You’re due in Wardrobe,” she told him, rather less patiently than Dan had.
“I have been made aware of this,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck and considering - not for the first time - whether he could get a pillow written of as expenses.
“By Dan?” She cocked her head to one side curiously.
“By Dan.”
“That’s more than he’s said to anyone else today. He’s -”
“- acting weird,” finished Casey. “Yeah, I know.”
“So fix it,” she told him menacingly, “and get to Wardrobe. I have maintenance guys to abuse.”
“- and he’s not the only one,” he continued, although he made sure to wait until she was definitely out of earshot.
*
In Wardrobe and right through Makeup, Dan was acting almost exactly like normal; Casey was starting to worry that his judgement of these things might not be the most reliable, though, since neither of them bat an eyelid when they made their way to the studio and passed Will in a deerstalker being closely followed by Natalie, who was clutching two inflatable baseball bats duct-taped into the shape of a cross. Jeremy was leaning against the wall a few feet behind them, head in his hands, and Casey reached out to pat him consolingly on the shoulder. He regretted it almost immediately.
“Smote!” Jeremy yelled, flailing, eyes wide behind thick glasses. “With lightning!”
He withdrew his hand quickly and hurried to catch up to Dan, who gave him a sidelong look.
“And I’m weird?”
He shrugged. “That’s what they tell me.”
“You’re weird?” Dana had approached without Casey noticing, almost making him jump out of his skin. “Why are you weird?” She folded her arms and glared up at Casey. “Why is Dan weird? You were supposed to fix that!”
“I did fix it!”
Dan’s eyes flicked between them both, his mouth turning down a little at the corner again. Casey hated it when it did that.
“Fixed what?”
“Never mind,” he said.
“Fixed you,” Dana answered at almost exactly the same moment, and Casey gave her a betrayed look.
“Fixed me.” Dan’s face went kind of stiff, his eyes looking shuttered. “I wasn’t aware I was broken.”
“Not broken,” Casey said, still scowling at Dana for a second before he turned to Dan. “Not broken, Danny, just a little… bent.”
It took him a second or two before he worked out what Dan’s blush was about, why Dana’s eyebrow was halfway up her forehead and why one of the cameramen was leaning against the set in silent hysterics. He groaned and covered his face with his hands, accepting the swat on his arm as his due.
“I’m just going to sit down at the desk and be quiet for a while, okay?”
“Might be wise, partner,” and Dan’s voice was a little choked but not overly angry, which he decided to count as a win.
“Seriously, though,” he ventured a little while later, since he was clinically proven to be incapable of silence for more than a few minutes at a time, “what is with you today?”
“Nothing is with me, Casey. Drop it.” His eyes kept flicking over to the camera guy, who was double checking leads with a lopsided smirk on his face.
“Ninety seconds, everybody.” Dana’s disembodied voice floated over the PA, and Casey grabbed his earpiece and stared at the side of Dan’s face.
“Something is definitely with you.”
Dan let out an impatient huff of breath as Alison fussed with his mic.
“You really don’t want to ask that. Trust me, man.”
"Look, Danny, just tell me."
Dan looked his way, hooking his own earpiece over his ear, then looked back over at the camera guy, still fussing with a duster.
"I don't want to tell you."
Casey leaned toward Dan, lowering his voice; it was kind of instinctual, despite the fact that they were both wearing their mics and the control room could hear every word.
"You know you can tell me anything, right?"
"Okay. Fine." Dan let out a breath and picked up his script, shuffling it into alignment and banging it against the desk a couple times for good measure. "We're dating."
"...we're dating." Casey just stared at the side of Dan's face. "We're dating?"
"See, this is why I didn't want to tell you. I knew you'd get weird."
"I like weird," Casey replied, mouth on autopilot. "Weird's a good look for me."
“Not as much as you’d think,” Dan answered, watching with narrowed eyes as the cameraman went over to claim money from one of the sound guys.
“Thirty seconds.”
“Later,” said Casey, shuffling his own script into order. “Later you are telling me everything.”
“Later,” said Dan, then turned to grin at the camera. “Good evening from New York City, everybody. I’m Dan Rydell, alongside Casey McCall, and we have all those stories and more coming up after this. You‘re watching Sports Night on CSC, so stick around.”
*
Part three.
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Date: 2007-06-05 10:25 pm (UTC)Oh, *Danny*. Casey is just completely clueless.
“Smote!” Jeremy yelled, flailing, eyes wide behind thick glasses. “With lightning!”
I love the B plot *so* much.
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Date: 2007-06-07 09:26 am (UTC)It's just impossible to write Sports Night fic without getting everyone involved because they are all so completely wonderful. Thanks for the comment! :D