Work Text:
Thursday, August 13th, 2015: North Avenue South, Atlanta — Casey
Casey is sitting on the kitchen counter, quietly sipping a cup of coffee, when Ty walks into the kitchen. He heads straight for the coffee maker, then jumps.
“Shit, Casey! What are you doing?”
“So, how can I get David to grow a beard?” Casey asks.
“Casey, I’m pretty sure it’s not legal to ask me questions this early. I haven’t even had coffee. Now what?”
“Oh, I have your mug right here,” Casey says, handing Ty his mug. “I thought you’d probably be in here before Coop or Danny.”
“Uh, thanks,” Ty says, taking the mug. “But what? Beards?”
“Yes. Well, not beards plural. Just one beard. I need David to grow a beard.”
“Huh.” Ty sips his coffee. “And you can’t just ask him?”
“If I ask him, he’ll want to know why,” Casey explains.
“Why can’t you tell him why?” Ty shakes his head. “Maybe I’m just confused, ’cause this coffee’s not all been drunk yet.”
“Because it’s for his Dragon*Con costume.”
“Casey, I would’ve sworn Special K said he wasn’t going to go in costume to Dragon*Con.”
“See? Now you understand why I can’t tell him why!” Casey says.
Ty chuckles and shakes his head. “Only thing I can think of is if, like, the whole team stopped shaving or something.”
“I’m sure you’d look very nice with a beard,” Casey says. “You’d look, um. Distinguished!”
“Uh-huh. Well, I’ll find someone to be your front man and convince the rest of the team, but you have to do me a favor in return.”
“Hmm. Okay, what favor?”
“You can call Mercedes for me and explain why I’ll be sporting a beard for a bit.”
Casey consider it for a few seconds before nodding. “Acceptable terms.”
“Okay then.” Ty shrugs. “Guess you’ve got yourself a deal.”
Tuesday, September 1st, 2015: North Avenue South, Atlanta — Dave
“Ow, Marigold, no!”
Dave looks up from his problem set for the fifth time and shakes his head at Marigold, who thinks that Casey’s hair is fascinating and a great toy. “She likes it, Case.”
“I could take you to get it braided again!” Ty offers.
“I could take you to the river and push you into it!” Casey retorts. “No more braids!”
“Casey, you’ve been complaining about it a lot lately,” Dave says. “Why not just cut it off?”
“No!”
Dave puts his hands up. “Okay, just a thought.”
“I need it!” Casey says.
“You need it?” Dave repeats. “Uh, why, exactly? Other than as a toy for Marigold, I mean.”
“For reasons!” Casey answers. “Excellent reasons!”
“Is it a Samson thing? You’ll lose your ability to do physics?”
“I worked very hard to grow this hair,” Casey says. “I can’t cut it yet.”
“Does it have a timer on it?” Ty asks. “Is it going to make an awful noise, and then we have to get you to the barber?”
“Oh, a timer, that’s a good idea,” Casey says, just loud enough for Dave to hear. He absently runs his hand over Dave’s jaw as he opens his book again.
“Again, Case?” Dave asks. He’s not sure who started the idea that the entire team should stop shaving for at least the first half of the season.
“Hmm? Oh. Sorry,” Casey says, not sounding very sorry. “It’s new. I can’t help it.”
“Uh-huh.” Dave shakes his head. “So no braids, no haircut, and no timer?”
“Nope,” Casey agrees, continuing to pet Dave’s face.
“Hear that, Marigold?” Dave says, and Marigold flicks her tail as she looks at him. “Your toy isn’t going anywhere.”
“Not yet,” Casey says.
“Case?”
“Yes, David?”
“It’s a little hard to finish this up with your hand there…?”
“Oh, sorry,” Casey says again. “I forgot to stop. It’s just, well.”
“What?” Dave asks.
“I don’t think I could grow a beard even if I tried really hard and had a month to work on it,” Casey says. “I could probably grow a Hitler mustache, but why would I want to grow a Hitler mustache? Nobody wants to look like Hitler, and besides, it sort of grows in kind of orange.”
“Hitler didn’t have orange facial hair, though, Casey,” Ty says. “You could reclaim it. The Casey mustache.”
“No, I think I’m fine without one,” Casey says. “The only hair I’m good at growing is the kind I’m already growing.”
“That’s probably better,” Dave decides. “Otherwise we really would find Casey-hair everywhere.”
“You already say you find it everywhere,” Casey says.
Dave shrugs. “True.”
“But I need it for now,” Casey says again.
“Right.” Dave nods. “Because of the excellent reasons.”
Monday, September 7th, 2015: North Avenue South, Atlanta — Casey
“Case?” David calls. “What’s that noise?”
Casey turns off the hair clippers and calls back, “Nothing! I think it’s from next door!” Then he turns the clippers back on and continues working on the right side of his head. “You should wear that shirt I got you!”
“It’s long-sleeved and, like, 80-something outside,” David says dubiously.
“It’s lightweight!” Casey insists. He turns off the hair clippers again and changes out the guard to a slightly longer length. “Anyway,” he adds, turning the clippers back on, “it’s cold in those hotels, I bet.”
“Huh,” David says loudly.
“They have to keep it cold so the— the whatchacallits. The guys in the animal suits?”
“The furries. Let ’em sweat.”
“If they overheated and died, the convention might get sued, and then they might not be able to run it anymore, I think,” Casey says. “It’s a liability thing, I’m pretty sure.”
“Uh-huh. Meet you in the kitchen,” David says.
“Wear your brown boots!” Casey calls out, but David doesn’t answer this time. Casey shrugs and continues working on his hair. When he’s done, he tries to clean up the hair that’s all over the bathroom as best he can, though he realizes he’ll have to sweep the rest of it up later. He puts on his costume and then puts in the one contact lens, which no matter how many time he practiced putting in, still disconcerts him because of the whole eye-touching aspect.
Once the whole costume is assembled, Casey walks to the kitchen to find David. “Are you ready?” Casey asks.
“Uh.” David stares at Casey. “Um. I thought no costumes?”
“I never agreed to that,” Casey says. “You said no costume and I said okay. Okay doesn’t mean I agreed not to wear a costume. It just means I agreed that you didn’t want to.”
“That’s not usually what ‘okay’ means.”
“You don’t like my costume,” Casey says.
“No, I’m trying to figure out how you got the entire team in on it, actually,” David says.
“They call it a ‘long con’,” Casey says. “But really, do you like it or do you not like it?”
David snorts at the comment about ‘long con’, then nods. “It’s why you needed the hair.”
“Well, I needed part of it, anyway,” Casey agrees. “But just the middle and the one side.”
“Right. Well. I guess we’re definitely going,” David says, shaking his head and smiling wryly. “But not next year. Right?”
“Maybe next year,” Casey halfway concedes.
“I’ll be on the alert for costume trickery,” David jokes. “Also observing what you purchase on the internet.” He gestures towards Casey’s eye and then his shirt.
“I borrowed the shirt from Miles,” Casey says.
“Okay, I’ll keep an eye on what you borrow from people, too,” David amends. “Is there something Ty has that you’re likely to borrow?” He opens the door and takes Casey’s hand, leading them into the hall.
“Hmm. Well, there was that zombie high school movie, so I could go as a zombie football player or something,” Casey muses. “I hear you’re an expert on that, so you could probably help me do the makeup!”
David laughs. “Only on the ones that sing, Case. Only on the ones that sing and dance.”
Monday, September 7th, 2015: Peachtree Center, Atlanta — Dave
“Okay,” Casey says, gesturing with a french fry. “I concede that if we come back next year, we shouldn’t wear costumes.”
Dave nods around his burger. “Yep,” he says. “No costumes.”
Casey eats the french fry with a thoughtful look on his face. “I think his feet were four or five inches off the ground.”
“Taller than he’d ever been in his life,” Dave says with a snort. “I did give him a few seconds to stop, first.” He pauses. “Taller than he’d ever been, unless he ever had heels for a costume, I guess.”
“I’ve never heard a grown man make that high-pitched of a noise.”
“Somehow he strikes me as the type to need someone to make him make a nice high-pitched noise. I was just doing a public service.” Dave grins at Casey. “Right?”
“I’m thinking he probably won’t grab anybody at a con again,” Casey says. “Especially not people who say ‘let go’ and who have very large boyfriends who play football. Which, hmm. That’s maybe not that many people here.”
“Maybe not, but maybe he’ll at least look over his shoulder,” Dave says. “That’d be something.”
“If we come back next year, maybe I’ll dress as someone who carries a taser. And I’ll carry a taser.” Casey eats another french fry as he nods to himself. “And if someone grabs me… I’ll tase him. Maybe twice.”
Dave nods, grinning a little. “Sounds good. I know, Star Trek. We’ll say they’re our phasers.”
“I’ll set my taser to stun,” Casey agrees.
“I’m not buying anything else gold, though,” Dave says. “I’ll turn one of my Tech shirts inside out and slap an insignia on it.”
“Maybe we’ll just skip Dragon*Con next year. I don’t really need any anime or cat ears or autographs, anyway.”
“We can go to Ty’s Mama’s Labor Day picnic instead.”
“If we leave now, we could probably make it up there in time for dessert,” Casey suggests.
Dave nods thoughtfully. “I do like her pies. First we’ll go back and change, though.”
“But we look great!”
Dave laughs and shakes his head. “You can explain the shirt to Ty’s Mama.”
“Okay, fine!” Casey says. “We’ll change first.”
Tuesday, September 8th, 2015: North Avenue South, Atlanta — Casey
“Ready?” David asks, holding the clippers.
“I’ve been ready for a couple of months,” Casey admits. “I only kept it for the costume. Are you ready?”
“Hopefully it won’t be too uneven,” David says, making a slightly dubious face.
“It’ll be fine! Just make the two sides match. I can, I don’t know. Where do people go to get their hair fixed if it’s uneven?”
“There’s a Great Clips on campus.” David stops, mouth open like he was about to say something else, then he closes his mouth and shakes his head. “I’m sure you could go there if necessary.”
“You’ll do a good job. Don’t cut off the tip of my ear,” Casey says.
“If I cut any ear off, I’ll cut the whole thing, okay? So you can just tell people you’re George Weasley.”
“And then next year I’ll go as George Weasley with a taser. Sounds good.”
David seems to accept that as a perfectly legitimate costume option, because he just turns on the clippers and starts cutting Casey’s hair. Despite David’s concerns, the cut turns out mostly even, and though it’s shorter than Casey’s hair has been in a very long time, possibly even shorter than it’s ever been, it looks decent.
“Thanks,” Casey says. “What do you think? Do I need Great Clips?”
“Huh. I guess not,” David says, sounding a little surprised.
“Will I embarrass you in public?”
“Huh?” David looks confused. “No. Why would you do that?”
“I don’t know. Because it doesn’t look good? It’s pretty short.” Casey shrugs one shoulder. “So I don’t know if you like it or not.”
“Oh.” David blinks and shakes his head. “No, it looks good, Case.”
“As long as you like it,” Casey says. “Okay, so now I’ll help you get rid of the beard!”
“Wait, what?” David says. “No, the whole team’s doing it, remember?”
“But… but they’re only doing it because of me! So you can shave it off now.”
“Everyone agreed to not shave until at least after the Clemson game,” David explains. “If we win against Clemson, we’ll all shave after the game. If not, we wait until after the Georgia game.”
“But David!” Casey frowns. “It’s prickly.”
David shrugs. “The whole team’s doing it, Case.”
“It is prickly, and it prickles me, and it leaves prickle marks all over me!” Casey protests. “David, please?”
David laughs gently. “This is what you wanted, Casey. All of us growing beards.”
“But only so you’d have one for Dragon*Con!” Casey stomps his foot. “Now stop being bearded!”
“I guess you could try to talk the whole team into shaving after this week’s game or something,” David offers, “but I don’t think they’ll go for it.”
“Daaaaaaviiiiiid,” Casey complains, stomping his foot again. “You weren’t supposed to keep it.”
“I guess you didn’t explain that part to the guys on the team?”
“Ty was supposed to explain!”
David start to laugh. “I think Ty conned you, Case.”