SN challenge fic
Yep, there be a story under that cut-tag.
The Not-So-Blind Handoff
Sports Night
PG, gen
Written for the sportsbackinsn challenge, for the prompt: Ohio State, Michigan and Florida, and the 2006-07 BCS Mess. Innumerable thanks to barkley, dagnylilytable and nestra for their beta efforts.
The bright yellow stick did three things when it hit Casey's desk:
1) made a very loud thu-dun noise as it bounced on one end before settling;
2) caused the appearance on Casey's screen of a word that went something like HADSP; and
3) scared a shriek out of him that could in no way be construed as manly in nature.
"Today is the day," Dan proclaimed from the doorway.
Casey gaped at him, then down at the-- His head shot back up. "Did you just throw a baton at me?"
"Passed," Dan said, stepping into the office with a solemn look. "I passed the baton to you, Casey."
His heart rate settling down to mildly disturbed, Casey picked up the object in question and pointed it across the room at Dan as his partner sat down behind his desk, acting for all the world like he hadn't just reached a new level of insane.
"Because today is the day?"
Dan nodded. "Indeed. One to be remembered in tales told by generations to come."
"You know, I've put a lot of thought into this," Casey said immediately. "And if there's going to be any dying going on, while I do love you like a brother, I'd like to opt out now."
A bright smile flashed across Dan's face, and Casey couldn't help smiling back even as he shook his head and tossed the baton across the room. "Seriously, Dan, what the hell?"
"No, no, no, this is yours." The baton barely touched Dan's hand before he sent it across to Casey again, who winged it right back.
"Really, I don't--"
"You don't even know what today is," Dan said, the smile appearing again -- and morphing into more of a smirk, Casey thought -- as he gently sent the baton through the air again.
"Since it involved you either going out and hunting down a baton..."
Dan's underhand toss had been soft enough that Casey had had to come half out of his chair to snag it, and he still almost fumbled the stick. Dan snorted, so Casey put a little extra on its return flight.
"...or having it waiting in your closet for just such an occasion..."
Dan made an exaggerated Who, me? face as the baton slapped into the open hand that he quickly put up in front of his face.
"...I don't particularly want to know, thanks."
A throat cleared, bringing a safe halt to the proceedings before Natalie stepped away from the doorframe and into the room with almost theatrical caution, holding her clipboard out in front of her with both hands.
"Dana requests that the Ringling Brothers make an appearance in the conference room," she announced. She raised one eyebrow when Dan just shrugged and threw the baton at Casey once more. "That is, if you're ready," she said, sincere sarcasm at full blast.
Casey's hand twitched on the baton when Dan looked directly at him, pursed his lips, and started nodding.
"Oh, he's ready," Dan told Natalie without taking his eyes off Casey.
Both of her eyebrows shot up, and that was it. End of the line. Casey thrust the baton into his trash can and managed to drown out Natalie's "Oh, really?" with an aggrieved, "For what?"
Dan stood and extended his hands, and said, "To take on the grand and heavy responsibility of making gold out of straw, explaining the outright unbelievable as the fantastically amazing, and possibly turning water into wine if you're into that kind of thing."
Casey was silent. He honestly couldn't speak as Dan sat back down. He was, however, starting to wonder about the odds of this being an even more vivid nightmare than the one where Lisa popped up behind him at the Espys and pantsed him.
He watched his fingers pinch closed on the skin at the inside of his elbow. Winced.
"So..."
When Casey looked up, Natalie was nodding, biting her lip and hugging her clipboard to her chest. Dan's head cocked while he looked at her with wide and innocent eyes.
With a sharp click of her tongue, she spun on her heel and was out the door in three fast steps, asking over her shoulder, "Casey's taking the Florida championship?"
"Yep!" Dan called after her.
She waved one hand over her head.
Both of Casey's hands started waving, one coming up to point at Dan, the other making grasping motions as he fought to find words. "You-- That's--" he sputtered.
Dan wasn't looking at him now; only hmmed and typed something into his computer.
Casey brought his hands together and touched his fingertips to his mouth, almost praying, then took one deep breath, and then another. Dan just kept his head down and went right on typing.
Calmly, Casey asked, "You don't want the Florida championship story?"
"Really? No."
His eyes narrowed. "You demand to be allowed to go off on the BCS every year," he pointed out.
"Until now? Yes."
He sighed. "Dare I ask what makes this year different from all other years?"
Dan finally looked up, a pleased grin splitting his face. "You paid attention!"
"I'll allow that there may be parts of the Passover seder where my attention is not fully on the proceedings..." There was a overly heavy sigh from across the room; Casey shrugged and continued, "But when you make me the wicked child two years running? Yeah, the general gist of those questions sticks."
"Hey." Dan's grin dropped away and, pointing at Casey, he said, "This from the man who is forever wanting to do anything to not look like the square that you are."
"I--" Casey scowled and refused to bite that bait. "Why?" he asked. Then he thought better of leaving anything so open-ended out there, and expanded it to, "Why don't you want to do this story, this year?"
Dan leaned back in chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "Because I've come to the realization that it's not a story."
"Huh?"
"Nope, not."
Blinking, Casey mirrored Dan's pose. "O-kaaay. And that's going to convince me--"
Dan pulled one hand free to gesture at the trash can. "Enter the baton."
"Right." His confusion complete, Casey shook his head. "Wanna run this all by me for the first time?"
Dan set his jaw, suddenly turning serious. "A story means there's news," he said slowly. "News means there's something new."
He paused. And while Casey half-felt like that was his cue, for the first time all afternoon, Dan actually seemed to be building to a point, so Casey pressed his lips closed and only nodded.
"Well," Dan huffed, "other than the score, the last time there was anything new about this, there were glaciers covering Kansas!"
He threw up both hands as he said it, and enlightenment finally struck. Casey pulled in breath to speak, but Dan wasn't close to done, apparently.
"At this point, the real story is: there is no story! The bowl format has always been a sucky way of choosing an actual championship; it still holds that title -- calling it a 'championship series' doesn't make it any less idiotic than 'alliance' or 'coalition,' just possibly less likely to get its ass kicked behind the bleachers -- and; surprise, surprise, nobody's happy!"
Dan was now up and moving, getting randomly closer and farther away as he went from desk to door to couch to desk.
"It's the stupidest kind of story there is, but you never know, maybe the ratings would go through the roof if I told everyone in America how I could have written the copy for the top of tonight's show six months ago and just plugged in the team names! In fact--"
He spun, and both of his hands slapped down flat on Casey's desk.
"How can you be sure that I haven't been doing just that for the last three years?" he demanded, his face close enough for Casey to be absolutely sure that there was no laughter lurking in Dan's eyes behind the ranting. "And the average American. Do you think they could really tell the difference between Michigan and Florida?"
As Casey opened his mouth, Dan stopped short. Frowned
"Besides the average person in Michigan and Florida," he allowed in a more even voice. "But since the state of Ohio is probably finally ready to move forward with plans to invade its northern neighbor, I'm pretty sure that qualifies as a moot point."
"Um, hi! I'm Dana? Your producer?"
Casey saw Dan's head snap around even as his own did, and the bubbleheaded smile on Dana's face went dangerously thin as soon as they were both looking at her.
"Am I paying a hefty annual sum of money to anchors," she wondered to the room at large, "or to two rather oversized monkeys sitting at keyboards?"
Dan carefully straightened to his absolutely fullest height before saying, "I'd go with the former, except for it really not being all that hefty..."
Casey stifled a groan.
"Rundown! Conference Room!" Dana ordered. "Ten minutes ago!"
And she was right, according to the numbers at the bottom of Casey's screen. But there was one thing that should be settled before everyone had the chance to stick their two-to-ten cents in, Casey felt.
"Just so you know, Dana: I'm taking the top."
Dana's whole torso tilted forward in query. "What?"
"I'm doing lead-in to the BCS story. The game result is in the teaser, obviously, but you need 45 seconds, right? Before we send it to Bobbi and Kelly."
Her face screwed up in a confused wince, and her right hand swung weakly toward the door behind her. "Natalie wasn't joking?"
"No," Casey said.
She turned toward Dan. "Are you ill? Is it terminal?"
"Nah, I'm fine," he told her. "Thanks."
"But...you don't want to rip the BCS a new one?"
"Should the opportunity actually present itself, I'd take it," Dan admitted, "but doing it on air has kind of lost its...zing."
From the noises and faces she was making, this was all clearly as baffling to Dana as the baton thing had been to him earlier, so Casey stepped in.
"'Zing'?" he asked.
Dan bit his lip with an uncertain frown. "I should have gone with 'joy'?"
"No, I was going suggest 'glee,' but--"
The growl that escaped Dana when she latched on to each of them and started dragging was a sound that Casey wasn't sure he'd ever heard from her before. Dan was staring at her, too, Casey noticed; he was blinking, an intrigued look coming into his eyes. Before the laugh building in his chest could escape, and get him an elbow or knee in a painful place, Casey jerked his chin to get Dan's attention.
When Dan's eyes met his over Dana's head, Casey said, "You know, 'zing' worked."
##
The Not-So-Blind Handoff
Sports Night
PG, gen
Written for the sportsbackinsn challenge, for the prompt: Ohio State, Michigan and Florida, and the 2006-07 BCS Mess. Innumerable thanks to barkley, dagnylilytable and nestra for their beta efforts.
The bright yellow stick did three things when it hit Casey's desk:
1) made a very loud thu-dun noise as it bounced on one end before settling;
2) caused the appearance on Casey's screen of a word that went something like HADSP; and
3) scared a shriek out of him that could in no way be construed as manly in nature.
"Today is the day," Dan proclaimed from the doorway.
Casey gaped at him, then down at the-- His head shot back up. "Did you just throw a baton at me?"
"Passed," Dan said, stepping into the office with a solemn look. "I passed the baton to you, Casey."
His heart rate settling down to mildly disturbed, Casey picked up the object in question and pointed it across the room at Dan as his partner sat down behind his desk, acting for all the world like he hadn't just reached a new level of insane.
"Because today is the day?"
Dan nodded. "Indeed. One to be remembered in tales told by generations to come."
"You know, I've put a lot of thought into this," Casey said immediately. "And if there's going to be any dying going on, while I do love you like a brother, I'd like to opt out now."
A bright smile flashed across Dan's face, and Casey couldn't help smiling back even as he shook his head and tossed the baton across the room. "Seriously, Dan, what the hell?"
"No, no, no, this is yours." The baton barely touched Dan's hand before he sent it across to Casey again, who winged it right back.
"Really, I don't--"
"You don't even know what today is," Dan said, the smile appearing again -- and morphing into more of a smirk, Casey thought -- as he gently sent the baton through the air again.
"Since it involved you either going out and hunting down a baton..."
Dan's underhand toss had been soft enough that Casey had had to come half out of his chair to snag it, and he still almost fumbled the stick. Dan snorted, so Casey put a little extra on its return flight.
"...or having it waiting in your closet for just such an occasion..."
Dan made an exaggerated Who, me? face as the baton slapped into the open hand that he quickly put up in front of his face.
"...I don't particularly want to know, thanks."
A throat cleared, bringing a safe halt to the proceedings before Natalie stepped away from the doorframe and into the room with almost theatrical caution, holding her clipboard out in front of her with both hands.
"Dana requests that the Ringling Brothers make an appearance in the conference room," she announced. She raised one eyebrow when Dan just shrugged and threw the baton at Casey once more. "That is, if you're ready," she said, sincere sarcasm at full blast.
Casey's hand twitched on the baton when Dan looked directly at him, pursed his lips, and started nodding.
"Oh, he's ready," Dan told Natalie without taking his eyes off Casey.
Both of her eyebrows shot up, and that was it. End of the line. Casey thrust the baton into his trash can and managed to drown out Natalie's "Oh, really?" with an aggrieved, "For what?"
Dan stood and extended his hands, and said, "To take on the grand and heavy responsibility of making gold out of straw, explaining the outright unbelievable as the fantastically amazing, and possibly turning water into wine if you're into that kind of thing."
Casey was silent. He honestly couldn't speak as Dan sat back down. He was, however, starting to wonder about the odds of this being an even more vivid nightmare than the one where Lisa popped up behind him at the Espys and pantsed him.
He watched his fingers pinch closed on the skin at the inside of his elbow. Winced.
"So..."
When Casey looked up, Natalie was nodding, biting her lip and hugging her clipboard to her chest. Dan's head cocked while he looked at her with wide and innocent eyes.
With a sharp click of her tongue, she spun on her heel and was out the door in three fast steps, asking over her shoulder, "Casey's taking the Florida championship?"
"Yep!" Dan called after her.
She waved one hand over her head.
Both of Casey's hands started waving, one coming up to point at Dan, the other making grasping motions as he fought to find words. "You-- That's--" he sputtered.
Dan wasn't looking at him now; only hmmed and typed something into his computer.
Casey brought his hands together and touched his fingertips to his mouth, almost praying, then took one deep breath, and then another. Dan just kept his head down and went right on typing.
Calmly, Casey asked, "You don't want the Florida championship story?"
"Really? No."
His eyes narrowed. "You demand to be allowed to go off on the BCS every year," he pointed out.
"Until now? Yes."
He sighed. "Dare I ask what makes this year different from all other years?"
Dan finally looked up, a pleased grin splitting his face. "You paid attention!"
"I'll allow that there may be parts of the Passover seder where my attention is not fully on the proceedings..." There was a overly heavy sigh from across the room; Casey shrugged and continued, "But when you make me the wicked child two years running? Yeah, the general gist of those questions sticks."
"Hey." Dan's grin dropped away and, pointing at Casey, he said, "This from the man who is forever wanting to do anything to not look like the square that you are."
"I--" Casey scowled and refused to bite that bait. "Why?" he asked. Then he thought better of leaving anything so open-ended out there, and expanded it to, "Why don't you want to do this story, this year?"
Dan leaned back in chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "Because I've come to the realization that it's not a story."
"Huh?"
"Nope, not."
Blinking, Casey mirrored Dan's pose. "O-kaaay. And that's going to convince me--"
Dan pulled one hand free to gesture at the trash can. "Enter the baton."
"Right." His confusion complete, Casey shook his head. "Wanna run this all by me for the first time?"
Dan set his jaw, suddenly turning serious. "A story means there's news," he said slowly. "News means there's something new."
He paused. And while Casey half-felt like that was his cue, for the first time all afternoon, Dan actually seemed to be building to a point, so Casey pressed his lips closed and only nodded.
"Well," Dan huffed, "other than the score, the last time there was anything new about this, there were glaciers covering Kansas!"
He threw up both hands as he said it, and enlightenment finally struck. Casey pulled in breath to speak, but Dan wasn't close to done, apparently.
"At this point, the real story is: there is no story! The bowl format has always been a sucky way of choosing an actual championship; it still holds that title -- calling it a 'championship series' doesn't make it any less idiotic than 'alliance' or 'coalition,' just possibly less likely to get its ass kicked behind the bleachers -- and; surprise, surprise, nobody's happy!"
Dan was now up and moving, getting randomly closer and farther away as he went from desk to door to couch to desk.
"It's the stupidest kind of story there is, but you never know, maybe the ratings would go through the roof if I told everyone in America how I could have written the copy for the top of tonight's show six months ago and just plugged in the team names! In fact--"
He spun, and both of his hands slapped down flat on Casey's desk.
"How can you be sure that I haven't been doing just that for the last three years?" he demanded, his face close enough for Casey to be absolutely sure that there was no laughter lurking in Dan's eyes behind the ranting. "And the average American. Do you think they could really tell the difference between Michigan and Florida?"
As Casey opened his mouth, Dan stopped short. Frowned
"Besides the average person in Michigan and Florida," he allowed in a more even voice. "But since the state of Ohio is probably finally ready to move forward with plans to invade its northern neighbor, I'm pretty sure that qualifies as a moot point."
"Um, hi! I'm Dana? Your producer?"
Casey saw Dan's head snap around even as his own did, and the bubbleheaded smile on Dana's face went dangerously thin as soon as they were both looking at her.
"Am I paying a hefty annual sum of money to anchors," she wondered to the room at large, "or to two rather oversized monkeys sitting at keyboards?"
Dan carefully straightened to his absolutely fullest height before saying, "I'd go with the former, except for it really not being all that hefty..."
Casey stifled a groan.
"Rundown! Conference Room!" Dana ordered. "Ten minutes ago!"
And she was right, according to the numbers at the bottom of Casey's screen. But there was one thing that should be settled before everyone had the chance to stick their two-to-ten cents in, Casey felt.
"Just so you know, Dana: I'm taking the top."
Dana's whole torso tilted forward in query. "What?"
"I'm doing lead-in to the BCS story. The game result is in the teaser, obviously, but you need 45 seconds, right? Before we send it to Bobbi and Kelly."
Her face screwed up in a confused wince, and her right hand swung weakly toward the door behind her. "Natalie wasn't joking?"
"No," Casey said.
She turned toward Dan. "Are you ill? Is it terminal?"
"Nah, I'm fine," he told her. "Thanks."
"But...you don't want to rip the BCS a new one?"
"Should the opportunity actually present itself, I'd take it," Dan admitted, "but doing it on air has kind of lost its...zing."
From the noises and faces she was making, this was all clearly as baffling to Dana as the baton thing had been to him earlier, so Casey stepped in.
"'Zing'?" he asked.
Dan bit his lip with an uncertain frown. "I should have gone with 'joy'?"
"No, I was going suggest 'glee,' but--"
The growl that escaped Dana when she latched on to each of them and started dragging was a sound that Casey wasn't sure he'd ever heard from her before. Dan was staring at her, too, Casey noticed; he was blinking, an intrigued look coming into his eyes. Before the laugh building in his chest could escape, and get him an elbow or knee in a painful place, Casey jerked his chin to get Dan's attention.
When Dan's eyes met his over Dana's head, Casey said, "You know, 'zing' worked."
##