![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
out_thereAlthough, I guess equal blame goes to all the enablers who encouraged the crazy idea. (Yes, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
apathocles and ahab99, I'm looking at you. *g*)
===
The first thing Casey noticed was the height. He woke up short.
Okay, that wasn't the first thing he noticed. It wasn't something he noticed at all. But if Dan asked him, the first thing he noticed was the height.
***
The first thing he really noticed was the sparse, but dark, hair on his arms. Blinking the shower water out of his eyes, Casey took a good look at his arms. They were good arms, but he was fairly sure they weren't quite that tanned last night. And his hair definitely wasn't that dark.
Glancing down, he noticed there wasn't quite as much hair on his chest as usual. And his legs seemed too tanned as well.
Casey got out of the shower, and reached for a towel, wondering how drunk he'd gotten last night. It was Dan's bathroom, and he didn't actually remember coming over, so he must have been pretty wasted.
If they'd ended up mucking around with self-tanning lotions, Casey must have been *really* wasted.
The other alternative was that this was Dan's idea of a practical joke. Casey shrugged, thinking that both were equally plausible. Dan's practical jokes had been ridiculous, and far more embarrassing, than this in the past.
He wandered over to the sink, and grabbed the spare toothbrush that Dan kept for him. He struggled to get the cap open, and then looked up. He almost gave himself a heart-attack when he saw Dan staring back at him.
He spun around to face Dan, but he was alone in the bathroom. When he turned, slowly, back to the mirror, he noticed something. There was only one reflection. It was highly unlikely that he'd lost his reflection overnight...
When he blinked, Dan's eyes blinked back at him. Casey wasn't sure whether he should scream or flee, or possibly do both, but he was saved by Dan's phone ringing.
He dashed out of the bathroom, lunging across Dan's bed to pick up the receiver.
"Casey?" The voice was familiar. It was a voice Casey was used to hearing on his own machine. It was the voice that said, 'please leave your message after the tone, and I'll call you back as soon as I can.'
His own voice... the voice he was talking with, was little more than a squeak. "Dan?!"
"Casey, you are never going to believe this." Dan sounded shell-shocked. Casey totally understood the feeling.
"Oh, I think I will." Casey sighed. He'd just known that April Fools Day was going to bad. He just hadn't expected it to be unbelievable as well. "I really think I will."
***
When the front door opened, Casey was surprised to see himself look... Well, first of all, he was pretty surprised to see himself. He'd always thought he was, you know, taller than that. And he'd always thought Dana was just teasing him about the blockhead thing.
Once he got over the shape of his head, he looked at the overall picture, and was surprised to see himself look so Danny-like. Danny had dressed in the jeans he'd meant to throw out last summer. (After Casey had somehow washed them and shrunk them to an almost uncomfortable size.) Danny was wearing them as if it was... decent to leave so little to the imagination.
Danny was also wearing a white t-shirt with a royal blue shirt hanging open over the top. It was a shirt that Casey had liked in the store, but it always seemed a little too bold to actually wear. His hair was sticking up messily. (Dan would probably call it a just-fucked look.) It kind of worked.
Danny blinked at him. Well, Casey's body blinked at him, and Casey was going to have to think of it as Danny, or he was going to give himself a migraine. "Flannel? That's got to be the only flannel shirt I own. How the hell did you find it?"
Casey shrugged, but didn't offer to take the large shirt off. "I like flannel."
"Well, at least pull those sleeves up. They're ridiculously long."
Casey shrugged and rolled the sleeves over. "So what do we do?"
Dan shrugged, and Casey watched his own face form into a frown. It was like watching yourself on camera, except... stranger. "I don't know."
"You're not imagining this?" Casey asked with a vague hope.
Dan made an expression that was a half-frown and half-sneer. "No."
"And you're not in any pain?"
Dan buried his head in his hands. "You're not going to tell me about some embarrassing personal condition, are you?"
Casey snorted. "No."
"Good."
"So."
"So."
"I guess we go to work," Casey offered.
Dan shrugged. "Guess so." They stood up, but Dan walked over to the bathroom.
Casey followed. "What?"
"Checking your hair," Dan replied, staring critically in the mirror. "Seriously, Casey, how the hell do you manage this?"
Casey blinked. "I wash it. It dries. Alison styles it."
"Well, that explains your hair in the mornings," Dan said, still staring at their skewed reflections.
Danny's-face-in-the-mirror scowled. "I don't have bad hair."
"Not today," Danny replied with a grin, lightly pushing at a section of hair. "But you have no idea how much effort I put into making it look this good."
"It does look good, Danny."
Danny grinned, a wide smile of square white teeth that was sort of disconcerting. "I know."
***
Oddly enough, it really wasn't that hard to get through the day. They just made a simple announcement at noon rundown.
"I have changed my name," Danny-in-Casey's-body announced before the rundown started. "I am no longer Casey McCall, I am now Dan Rydell."
Dana watched Dan closely. "You remember the no Aprils Fool Day pranks, Casey."
"Dan," Dan corrected. "It's not an Aprils Fool Day thing, Dana. It's an argument between him," Dan pointed at Casey-in-Danny's-body, "And me."
Natalie stared at him. "So now there's two Dan's?"
Casey knew his cue. "No. I'm not Dan anymore. I'm going to be Casey."
"Okay," Dana said slowly, looking from one to the other. "But we can still use yesterday's names on the show's graphics, right?"
"Sure," Danny replied.
"So, he's Danny, and he's Casey," Dana said, pointing at each one of them. "We don't care why they're doing this, but they're the talent, so let's indulge them. Everyone okay with that?"
There was a general murmur of shrugs and 'whatever's, and then the rundown went as smoothly as it always did. Well, it was no worse that it normally was.
***
"Casey?" Dan asked sometime after the eight o'clock rundown.
"Yeah?" Casey replied, trying to finish his sentence.
"Have you noticed Kim's shoes?"
"Silver and pink, with the tiny bows? I think they're Monolo Blahniks." Casey stopped typing, and thought about what he'd just said. "Huh."
Danny sighed. "You noticed."
"Yeah," Casey said slowly. "I'm pretty sure I didn't know what a Monolo Blahnik *was* yesterday."
"Yeah," Dan muttered and turned back to the laptop. "I didn't notice them."
"Huh."
***
Apart from Dan's misery at not noticing Kim's shoes, they got through the entire day without any real problems. On-air it was a little harder, but they made sure they were careful about writing each other's names on the script. Normally they didn't worry about it in the teasers or the throws, but tonight, they needed it written in front of them.
Natalie even took the extra step of underlining and bolding each name.
They faltered a little, but mostly it was fine.
After the show, Jeremy wandered over to them. "Are you guys going to be doing this tomorrow?"
Casey sighed. "Hopefully not."
"But there is a possibility," Dan said mournfully.
Jeremy shook his head and went back to the control room to help Natalie with the floor report.
***
They headed back to Dan's apartment with Danny driving, because as Danny explained, Dan's car was a level of sacred that not even supernatural body-switching could interfere with. In other words, just because Casey was driving Dan's body, didn't mean he had a chance in hell of driving Dan's car.
The trip was silent, with Danny frowning petulantly, and neither spoke until they got inside.
"Why the long face?" Casey asked, and then grimaced at the wording.
Dan glared at him. "We could be stuck like this."
"So?"
Dan stared at him like he was insane (and Casey hadn't known that half-raising one eyebrow looked so effective). "Stuck. Like this."
"You know, I really don't think I have a bad life," Casey pointed out, somewhat offended. "Or a bad body."
"I didn't say it was a bad body, Casey," Dan said with a cheeky grin that made Casey flush slighty. "It's just... I'm sure I'd appreciate it more if I wasn't inside it."
That made Casey swallow and color even more.
"Wow. I didn't know I could still blush." Dan grinned, and lightly ran fingertips over Casey's cheek. "It's kind of cute."
"Okay, Dan, this is getting weird on a variety of levels," Casey said practically, but Dan didn't pull his hand back. Instead, he wrapped it around Casey's neck.
"You mean because we're best friends and co-workers, and this could screw up both our friendship and our careers?" Dan asked lightly, stepping closer. "Or is it the fact that I thought you were straight, but you're obviously not *that* straight?"
Dan was standing close enough that Casey could feel the body-heat radiating from his skin. "Um..."
"Because I'm thinking that's not enough weirdness to stop me from kissing you," Dan whispered against his lips.
Casey blinked, trying to gather his thoughts. "I meant that I'm thinking about kissing my own mouth."
"Close your eyes," Dan said, and Casey barely had time to obey before Dan's lips were on his; warm and soft, and kissing him in a slow, thorough way that was all Danny.
Then Dan pulled back and rested his forehead against Casey's.
"Huh." It was the only thing Casey could think to say. Casey blinked his eyes open. And watched his own face split into the smuggest smile he'd ever seen. It was incredibly disconcerting.
"It'd probably be too weird to do anything else...?" Dan suggested cheekily.
"Yeah, it really would."
"Pity," Dan said and licked his lips in a way that made Casey reconsider his weirdness-sensitivity.
Then he remembered it was technically *his* mouth he was staring at. "Far too weird."
Dan nodded and didn't push any further. "Any ideas for tonight?"
"I guess we both go to sleep in the right beds, and hope for the best." Casey shrugged.
Dan shrugged back. "Can't hurt."
***
The first thing Casey noticed when he woke up was that he was tall.
Okay, that was a total lie. The first thing he noticed was his arms, which were paler and covered in thicker, sandy blond hairs. He had a quick look down at his chest, and the furry hairs covering it, and then dashed for the bathroom mirror.
He'd never been so happy to see his own face in his bathroom mirror.
Laughing in sheer relief, he picked up his phone and dialed Danny's number. It rang for a few long seconds, and then was picked up with a groan. "Danny?"
"Mphmgh?"
"Danny?" There was a slight note of panic to his voice, but he tried to hide it.
There was a low groan from the other side of the phone. "Casey, it's six in the morning. Why the hell are you calling me?"
"I just wanted to check you were in your body," Casey explained, starting to feel a little foolish.
"It's six in the morning. There's a chance I misheard you," Dan said. Casey could hear rustling covers, meaning Dan was sitting up. "Did you just ask me if I was *in* my *body*?"
"Um... yeah," Casey admitted, wincing. When Danny said it like that, it sounded pretty... nutty.
There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. "I know you said you had provolone at home. Did you eat a provolone sandwich before bed?"
Casey glanced over at the nightstand, and the plate sitting there. Covered in breadcrumbs. And a little bit of cheese. "Yeah."
"I know you love that stuff, man, but it gives you the weirdest dreams ever." Danny yawned sleepily. "You've got to stop eating it before bedtime."
Casey looked at the clock, and calculated how many hours ago Dan would have gone to bed. "Sorry, Danny."
"Don't worry about it," Dan said, and yawned again. "I'm going back to sleep. I'll see you in the office. *Much* later, Casey."
"Sure," Casey said, and then hung up, feeling a little guilty. He also felt wide awake, so he decided he might as well get up.
He fished his old jeans out of the back of his closet. After a bit of careful searching, he found the bold blue shirt, too. He had plenty of time for a shower, so he probably had time to figure out how dream-Danny had made his hair look so good.
Casey grinned smugly as he stepped into the shower. Danny wouldn't know what hit him.
The End
===
apathocles and ahab99, I'm looking at you. *g*)===
The first thing Casey noticed was the height. He woke up short.
Okay, that wasn't the first thing he noticed. It wasn't something he noticed at all. But if Dan asked him, the first thing he noticed was the height.
***
The first thing he really noticed was the sparse, but dark, hair on his arms. Blinking the shower water out of his eyes, Casey took a good look at his arms. They were good arms, but he was fairly sure they weren't quite that tanned last night. And his hair definitely wasn't that dark.
Glancing down, he noticed there wasn't quite as much hair on his chest as usual. And his legs seemed too tanned as well.
Casey got out of the shower, and reached for a towel, wondering how drunk he'd gotten last night. It was Dan's bathroom, and he didn't actually remember coming over, so he must have been pretty wasted.
If they'd ended up mucking around with self-tanning lotions, Casey must have been *really* wasted.
The other alternative was that this was Dan's idea of a practical joke. Casey shrugged, thinking that both were equally plausible. Dan's practical jokes had been ridiculous, and far more embarrassing, than this in the past.
He wandered over to the sink, and grabbed the spare toothbrush that Dan kept for him. He struggled to get the cap open, and then looked up. He almost gave himself a heart-attack when he saw Dan staring back at him.
He spun around to face Dan, but he was alone in the bathroom. When he turned, slowly, back to the mirror, he noticed something. There was only one reflection. It was highly unlikely that he'd lost his reflection overnight...
When he blinked, Dan's eyes blinked back at him. Casey wasn't sure whether he should scream or flee, or possibly do both, but he was saved by Dan's phone ringing.
He dashed out of the bathroom, lunging across Dan's bed to pick up the receiver.
"Casey?" The voice was familiar. It was a voice Casey was used to hearing on his own machine. It was the voice that said, 'please leave your message after the tone, and I'll call you back as soon as I can.'
His own voice... the voice he was talking with, was little more than a squeak. "Dan?!"
"Casey, you are never going to believe this." Dan sounded shell-shocked. Casey totally understood the feeling.
"Oh, I think I will." Casey sighed. He'd just known that April Fools Day was going to bad. He just hadn't expected it to be unbelievable as well. "I really think I will."
***
When the front door opened, Casey was surprised to see himself look... Well, first of all, he was pretty surprised to see himself. He'd always thought he was, you know, taller than that. And he'd always thought Dana was just teasing him about the blockhead thing.
Once he got over the shape of his head, he looked at the overall picture, and was surprised to see himself look so Danny-like. Danny had dressed in the jeans he'd meant to throw out last summer. (After Casey had somehow washed them and shrunk them to an almost uncomfortable size.) Danny was wearing them as if it was... decent to leave so little to the imagination.
Danny was also wearing a white t-shirt with a royal blue shirt hanging open over the top. It was a shirt that Casey had liked in the store, but it always seemed a little too bold to actually wear. His hair was sticking up messily. (Dan would probably call it a just-fucked look.) It kind of worked.
Danny blinked at him. Well, Casey's body blinked at him, and Casey was going to have to think of it as Danny, or he was going to give himself a migraine. "Flannel? That's got to be the only flannel shirt I own. How the hell did you find it?"
Casey shrugged, but didn't offer to take the large shirt off. "I like flannel."
"Well, at least pull those sleeves up. They're ridiculously long."
Casey shrugged and rolled the sleeves over. "So what do we do?"
Dan shrugged, and Casey watched his own face form into a frown. It was like watching yourself on camera, except... stranger. "I don't know."
"You're not imagining this?" Casey asked with a vague hope.
Dan made an expression that was a half-frown and half-sneer. "No."
"And you're not in any pain?"
Dan buried his head in his hands. "You're not going to tell me about some embarrassing personal condition, are you?"
Casey snorted. "No."
"Good."
"So."
"So."
"I guess we go to work," Casey offered.
Dan shrugged. "Guess so." They stood up, but Dan walked over to the bathroom.
Casey followed. "What?"
"Checking your hair," Dan replied, staring critically in the mirror. "Seriously, Casey, how the hell do you manage this?"
Casey blinked. "I wash it. It dries. Alison styles it."
"Well, that explains your hair in the mornings," Dan said, still staring at their skewed reflections.
Danny's-face-in-the-mirror scowled. "I don't have bad hair."
"Not today," Danny replied with a grin, lightly pushing at a section of hair. "But you have no idea how much effort I put into making it look this good."
"It does look good, Danny."
Danny grinned, a wide smile of square white teeth that was sort of disconcerting. "I know."
***
Oddly enough, it really wasn't that hard to get through the day. They just made a simple announcement at noon rundown.
"I have changed my name," Danny-in-Casey's-body announced before the rundown started. "I am no longer Casey McCall, I am now Dan Rydell."
Dana watched Dan closely. "You remember the no Aprils Fool Day pranks, Casey."
"Dan," Dan corrected. "It's not an Aprils Fool Day thing, Dana. It's an argument between him," Dan pointed at Casey-in-Danny's-body, "And me."
Natalie stared at him. "So now there's two Dan's?"
Casey knew his cue. "No. I'm not Dan anymore. I'm going to be Casey."
"Okay," Dana said slowly, looking from one to the other. "But we can still use yesterday's names on the show's graphics, right?"
"Sure," Danny replied.
"So, he's Danny, and he's Casey," Dana said, pointing at each one of them. "We don't care why they're doing this, but they're the talent, so let's indulge them. Everyone okay with that?"
There was a general murmur of shrugs and 'whatever's, and then the rundown went as smoothly as it always did. Well, it was no worse that it normally was.
***
"Casey?" Dan asked sometime after the eight o'clock rundown.
"Yeah?" Casey replied, trying to finish his sentence.
"Have you noticed Kim's shoes?"
"Silver and pink, with the tiny bows? I think they're Monolo Blahniks." Casey stopped typing, and thought about what he'd just said. "Huh."
Danny sighed. "You noticed."
"Yeah," Casey said slowly. "I'm pretty sure I didn't know what a Monolo Blahnik *was* yesterday."
"Yeah," Dan muttered and turned back to the laptop. "I didn't notice them."
"Huh."
***
Apart from Dan's misery at not noticing Kim's shoes, they got through the entire day without any real problems. On-air it was a little harder, but they made sure they were careful about writing each other's names on the script. Normally they didn't worry about it in the teasers or the throws, but tonight, they needed it written in front of them.
Natalie even took the extra step of underlining and bolding each name.
They faltered a little, but mostly it was fine.
After the show, Jeremy wandered over to them. "Are you guys going to be doing this tomorrow?"
Casey sighed. "Hopefully not."
"But there is a possibility," Dan said mournfully.
Jeremy shook his head and went back to the control room to help Natalie with the floor report.
***
They headed back to Dan's apartment with Danny driving, because as Danny explained, Dan's car was a level of sacred that not even supernatural body-switching could interfere with. In other words, just because Casey was driving Dan's body, didn't mean he had a chance in hell of driving Dan's car.
The trip was silent, with Danny frowning petulantly, and neither spoke until they got inside.
"Why the long face?" Casey asked, and then grimaced at the wording.
Dan glared at him. "We could be stuck like this."
"So?"
Dan stared at him like he was insane (and Casey hadn't known that half-raising one eyebrow looked so effective). "Stuck. Like this."
"You know, I really don't think I have a bad life," Casey pointed out, somewhat offended. "Or a bad body."
"I didn't say it was a bad body, Casey," Dan said with a cheeky grin that made Casey flush slighty. "It's just... I'm sure I'd appreciate it more if I wasn't inside it."
That made Casey swallow and color even more.
"Wow. I didn't know I could still blush." Dan grinned, and lightly ran fingertips over Casey's cheek. "It's kind of cute."
"Okay, Dan, this is getting weird on a variety of levels," Casey said practically, but Dan didn't pull his hand back. Instead, he wrapped it around Casey's neck.
"You mean because we're best friends and co-workers, and this could screw up both our friendship and our careers?" Dan asked lightly, stepping closer. "Or is it the fact that I thought you were straight, but you're obviously not *that* straight?"
Dan was standing close enough that Casey could feel the body-heat radiating from his skin. "Um..."
"Because I'm thinking that's not enough weirdness to stop me from kissing you," Dan whispered against his lips.
Casey blinked, trying to gather his thoughts. "I meant that I'm thinking about kissing my own mouth."
"Close your eyes," Dan said, and Casey barely had time to obey before Dan's lips were on his; warm and soft, and kissing him in a slow, thorough way that was all Danny.
Then Dan pulled back and rested his forehead against Casey's.
"Huh." It was the only thing Casey could think to say. Casey blinked his eyes open. And watched his own face split into the smuggest smile he'd ever seen. It was incredibly disconcerting.
"It'd probably be too weird to do anything else...?" Dan suggested cheekily.
"Yeah, it really would."
"Pity," Dan said and licked his lips in a way that made Casey reconsider his weirdness-sensitivity.
Then he remembered it was technically *his* mouth he was staring at. "Far too weird."
Dan nodded and didn't push any further. "Any ideas for tonight?"
"I guess we both go to sleep in the right beds, and hope for the best." Casey shrugged.
Dan shrugged back. "Can't hurt."
***
The first thing Casey noticed when he woke up was that he was tall.
Okay, that was a total lie. The first thing he noticed was his arms, which were paler and covered in thicker, sandy blond hairs. He had a quick look down at his chest, and the furry hairs covering it, and then dashed for the bathroom mirror.
He'd never been so happy to see his own face in his bathroom mirror.
Laughing in sheer relief, he picked up his phone and dialed Danny's number. It rang for a few long seconds, and then was picked up with a groan. "Danny?"
"Mphmgh?"
"Danny?" There was a slight note of panic to his voice, but he tried to hide it.
There was a low groan from the other side of the phone. "Casey, it's six in the morning. Why the hell are you calling me?"
"I just wanted to check you were in your body," Casey explained, starting to feel a little foolish.
"It's six in the morning. There's a chance I misheard you," Dan said. Casey could hear rustling covers, meaning Dan was sitting up. "Did you just ask me if I was *in* my *body*?"
"Um... yeah," Casey admitted, wincing. When Danny said it like that, it sounded pretty... nutty.
There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. "I know you said you had provolone at home. Did you eat a provolone sandwich before bed?"
Casey glanced over at the nightstand, and the plate sitting there. Covered in breadcrumbs. And a little bit of cheese. "Yeah."
"I know you love that stuff, man, but it gives you the weirdest dreams ever." Danny yawned sleepily. "You've got to stop eating it before bedtime."
Casey looked at the clock, and calculated how many hours ago Dan would have gone to bed. "Sorry, Danny."
"Don't worry about it," Dan said, and yawned again. "I'm going back to sleep. I'll see you in the office. *Much* later, Casey."
"Sure," Casey said, and then hung up, feeling a little guilty. He also felt wide awake, so he decided he might as well get up.
He fished his old jeans out of the back of his closet. After a bit of careful searching, he found the bold blue shirt, too. He had plenty of time for a shower, so he probably had time to figure out how dream-Danny had made his hair look so good.
Casey grinned smugly as he stepped into the shower. Danny wouldn't know what hit him.
The End
===
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 10:59 am (UTC)OK, you had me laughing right from the start!
And I'm having great fun picturing Danny's face when he sees Casey as styled by dream-him!!
no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 03:54 pm (UTC)Go me! *does happy writer dance*
And I'm having great fun picturing Danny's face when he sees Casey as styled by dream-him!!
Hee! In flannel. Hair sticking in whatever direction it dried. Probably wearing a nice pair of slacks. With a practical belt. You just know Danny would be thinking that his rep would never recover... *g*
no subject
Date: 2004-04-28 10:32 pm (UTC)You know, I only just realised I misread your comment. I thought you were imagining Danny's reaction to how Casey would dress Danny's body. I only just got that you meant real-Danny's reaction to Casey dressing as if he was Danny-in-Casey's-body. Oops. (I'm a dork!)
But, in reply to your actual comment, I think a lot of leering would be involved, when he thought that Casey wasn't looking. *g*
no subject
Date: 2004-04-28 10:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-28 10:43 pm (UTC)There's Casey, and dream-Casey, and Casey-in-danny's-body. There's Danny, and dream-Danny, and Danny-in-casey's-body. *blinks* It's enough to get
meanyone confused.no subject
Date: 2004-04-28 10:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-28 11:11 pm (UTC)