TITLE: There's One on Every Set
E-MAIL: eli @ popullus.net
ARCHIVE: Ask, please.
RATING: PG-13
POSTED: Oct. 4, 2005
SUMMARY: Wherein Dan does not eat cheese in any form.
AUTHOR NOTES: Apathy managed to stump me with a line from one of my fics. This -- in all of its silliness and with the zombie she demanded -- is her payment.
DISCLAIMER: Read

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It was only rehearsal, so when Dan's stomach interrupted Casey's rhythm on the NFL rundown for a third time with a complaint of what sounded like near-starvation, Casey gladly snapped.

"Go eat a cheese stick!"

Joe's head appeared from behind Camera 2, his mouth hanging open. "What?"

Casey rolled his eyes. "Not you. Him." He jerked his thumb at Dan, and then turned his glare on the man who had swiveled his chair around, the better to prop an elbow negligently on the desk and blink innocently from beneath a baffled frown.

"Stick?" Dan cocked his head. "You needed to be that specific?"

Casey put down his notes before the clutch he had on them gave him a paper cut. "Stick. Wheel. Wedge. Cube. Whatever!"

Dan's lips pressed together for a moment before he cleared his throat and soberly asked, "But it has to be cheese?"

"It can be bison, Dan, it just can't be now!"

Casey knew it wouldn't help, but he twitched, trying to get away from the furious hiss in his ear as Dana continued, her voice climbing with every word, "Because as we've already established -- to my everlasting horror -- I'm fairly confident that there is no televised sport centering around cheese."

"Actually..."

"Jeremy!"

"...it is in England, though."

"Ahhh, yes."

At that knowing sigh to his right, Casey looked back over at Dan.

"The Gloucestershire Cheese Rolling Festival," Dan said, nodding his head and clearly fighting a smile.

"Yes!"

Ignoring the guttural, frustrated noises now in his ear, and determined to not wonder if the additional sputtering meant Dana was strangling Jeremy with a headset, Casey blinked. "How in hell do you know that?"

Dan's eyebrows went up. "Cheese. Rolling. Festival."

Casey narrowed his eyes. Okay, yes, but he wasn't going to laugh.

Dan gave him a patient look.

Casey snorted.

The smile finally broke across Dan's face, pleased and smug, and because of that second part, Casey pulled himself together enough to only sigh.

"You and food still need to meet, though," he said. "It would be better for all, I think, if that happens before I'm forced to club you into silence with my water bottle."

With a dismissive grimace, Dan turned back front to straighten his own notes and shook his head. "Can't."

"Oh, for god's sake, Dan, just shut up and go get a cracker," Natalie ordered, which probably meant that Jeremy was still alive, if not kicking.

Dan's head kept shaking. "Nuh-uh. I'm not going near that table. And nothing that even you can say will make me," he said, pointing at the control room with a severe frown that Casey was sure barely matched the one aimed their way.

"Dan."

Dan switched to a Polaroid grin. "Yes, Dana?"

"There is nothing wrong with the table."

"No, there isn't."

Casey dropped his forehead to the desk. Painful, but it got him out of the line of fire.

"Do you have a death wish?"

"I don't believe so. In fact, I think that's why I'm staying away from the table."

Silence filled the studio. Then the thought pushed Casey upright. "What's wrong with the food? I ate the food!"

Dan reached over and patted his hand. "Nah. Nothing wrong with the food. I don't think." He leaned closer and peered into Casey's eyes while Casey wondered if clubbing was too kind. "Your pupils aren't dilated, anyway."

Casey jerked back. "Then what--"

"Dan!"

The sheer force of sound of Dana and Natalie's merged shout stabbed into Casey's ear, but he glared at Dan through his wince, and one of those things must have gotten through.

"It's the new guy," Dan said quickly. "He..."

Casey turned up the glare another notch. "What?"

"He, well, smells." Dan grimaced again. "Andhelungedatmyhead."

More silence. But not worried, this time. Oh, no. Casey was pretty sure that the rest of them were just as afraid to say it as he was.

Dan leaned in closer than before, and Casey couldn't see even a hint of a smile in Dan's eyes as he whispered, "I think he's a--"

"Don't say it."

Casey didn't look away from Dan, even when Dan turned to face the control room as Dana repeated in the most dire of her dire voices, "Do. Not. Say it."

"I'm just saying," Dan said in a placating tone. "And he really perked up when Jeremy wandered by earlier."

There was a quickly muffled cough from behind Camera 3, among other noises. Casey casually felt around under the desk.

"Thanks for that, by the way," Dan continued. "Even if there wasn't time to grab any cheese, that did enable me to make my escape."

"Um, no problem." Jeremy said, sounding very strangled.

But Dan had turned back to Casey with an expectant look, and Casey had finally decided what to say.

"Next week's movie? Bambi."

"Ooooh, traumatized wildli--"

Casey hit him on the head with the water bottle.

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