Steven Moffatt ran his hands through his hair and Paul McGuigan knew the shouting was going to start any moment now.

"Where's Ben? Where's Martin? Where the hell is anybody?"

Mark Gatiss looked up at Steven from his seat on Ben's director chair, where he was updating his Twitter account and debating whether or not posting a picture of Ben's bum that he had taken after a drunken night of debating the asexuality of Sherlock Holmes had resulted in some spectacular Cumbermooning of the Millenium Center on the cab ride back to the hotel would be considered "trolling".

"I think Ben's in his trailer. I don't know where Freeman's got himself off to now."

Moffatt stalked off to Ben's trailer, then paused when he heard whimpering and panting coming from behind the door. All the rumours about Ben and Martin whipped through his mind, complemented by some disturbing visuals courtesy of Gatiss's insistence at oversharing, and he took a deep, not calming at all breath and opened the door.

"Ben, what's going on? Paul's gone spare waiting for you to show up."

Ben was sitting on the floor of his trailer, costumed for work and surrounded by puppies. Two field spaniels, all ears and feet, were tumbling around in his lap, four flat nosed French bulldogs were snuffling at his sides and he was in the process of spoon feeding milk to a shivering chihuahua while what looked like a mop but was in fact a baby shih-tzu was peeing on the tails of his Sherlock coat.

"Oh, Steven, sorry I'm late! But there was a thing! And another thing! And an overturned lorry, and a family on the dole, and a farmer! And then the ditch, and I couldn't just leave them there!"

Steven sighed with the patience of the guy who writes for a saint."Fifteen minutes to get sorted, Ben, then we really need you on set."

Ben did that nose crinkling thing he had perfected in lieue of a full smile. "Promise!" he agreed and then turned back to the puppies. "Aren't you all the cutest little crumpets ever!" he exclaimed.

Steven fled.

He was on his way back to the set when he heard Martin Freeman's distinctive squeaky laugh. He turned abruptly and saw his favorite "I've got one up on Peter Jackson now ha! I'll give him back when I'm good and ready, Hobbit man!" actor standing outside his own trailer and handing a bright red balloon to a boy that looked to be about four years old.

The kid wasn't Martin's, of that Steven was certain, but he didn't see anyone else around, so, with vague dread at what the Sun would make of the scene if he didn't nip it in the bud now roaming through his mind, he jogged over to them.

"Freeman! What the hell--"

The little boy startled at his yelling and the tears that had left drying tracks on his cherubic little face started up again.

Martin got down on one knee and patted the boy's shoulder.

"Now now, little man, none of that. That's just Moffatt, and he's not scary, just loud."

The boy gave him a questioning look and forgot to keep crying.

Martin wiped away the two tears that had escaped. "In fact, I bet your lovely new balloon would be enough to scare the pants off of him."

The boy turned impossibly huge blue eyes on Steven, then looked at his balloon, then looked at Martin and giggled, all childish adorableness.

Martin smiled at Steven and took the boy's hand.

"This is Oliver," he said, "and from what I've made out, he's lost his mum, who may or may not be Liz from craftservices. So I naturally had to give him a balloon and now we're off to the catering tent to get it all sorted. Be with you in a mo."

Oliver beamed at him and they walked off hand in hand.

Steven rolled his eyes and thought, 'typical day on this set', wondered if Paul had any paramecetol, and turned in the direction of the set. His phone beeped and he pulled it out of his pocket to see that there had been a Twitter update:

Mark Gatiss: @StevenMoffatt aren't they adorable? don't you just want to kiss them both? I do! with tongue xo

"Mad bastards, the lot of you!" he muttered, stalking back to the set.

TBC?