Story: the sun also rises
Summary: Every Sunday, when Casey has her advanced pottery class at the Y, Derek smokes cigarettes out by the river and thinks, which turns out to be far more dangerous an occupation than he had originally presumed.
Notes: Set pre-"Truman's Last Chance," based on the assumption commonly known as the Truman "Once a Cheater, Always Untrustworthy" French Hypothesis of Writing. Normally I'm all for trying to give Truman a soul and all, but this is just one-dimensional emo teenager all over the place, so why bother?
Also—blatantly inspired by the icon that literally deliquesces my kneecaps, that of Mike Seater playing Owen in WhateverWhatever Crime Drama, in which he has a cigarette balanced on his lower lip. That icon could impregnate unsuspecting teenagers.
Sunday morning starts as most Sunday mornings do (namely, peanut butter in Marti's hair, jelly on Casey's Calculus notes, and twenty dollars missing from Edwin's wallet). George bellows, Nora brings out the dish soap, and Edwin gives a pathetic half-sigh and wanders off to bother Lizzie about studying for Geometry together.
When Derek sneaks back into the house at seven, looking like sex on a stick with a popped collar, no one is in any position to punish him, which is why his plan has worked so marvelously (he privately notes that he and Dimi Davis are going to need to have a discussion about what is or is not acceptable behavior around Derek's little sister, but that can be postponed until the kid is least suspecting). Casey is the only one who realizes that he was out all night, but as she is going red in the face slamming her fist against his locked bedroom door he thinks he can be excused for laughing his ass off and blowing his cover of secrecy.
Casey tries to turn him in, but Nora is too distracted to know what Casey is screaming about. There is much glaring involved, but Casey eventually decides on sneakier methods of retribution (he's already preemptively taken his shampoo out of the bathroom; really, she needs to get more creative than the Nair bottle under the sink) and vanishes off upstairs as he makes faces at Marti to distract her from Nora wringing the peanut butter from her hair.
She reappears at six, her hair wrapped up into a messy bun, wearing something that might've once been a t-shirt and now looks like Andy Warhol threw up in a spastic fit all over it. Derek is in the midst of enjoying his pre-dinner bowl of cereal, but she blinds him with the glare from the overhead lights reflected off of her watch and has the bowl out from under his nose and in the sink before he has time to do anything other than blink.
"You're driving me," she reminds him, and offers him his jacket.
"Space Case," he sighs, but then she wags a finger under his nose and exaggeratedly looks off into the distance.
"You know," she says, cocking her hip, "I wonder who gave Dimi Davis twenty dollars to stick peanut butter into Lizzie's hair and was idiotic enough to trust him not to screw up."
Derek's eyebrows lower. "I wonder," he says.
"That would be someone awfully bad at planning, wouldn't it?" she asks him, waving the jacket back and forth like he's a bull and she's a matador. "So awful they wouldn't even make sure all the witnesses are gone before they sneak back into the house—"
"Where are we going?" interrupts Derek, standing up and snatching his jacket from her grasp (he doesn't trust her not to drop it into the puddle of spilled cranberry juice just for the heck of it).
"Where we go every Sunday, Derek," she says. "You're going to drive me to my advanced pottery class, and then go be a juvenile delinquent for two hours. And then you're going to pick me up."
"Hmph," says Derek, which roughly translates to That's what you think, except Casey the Matador has been fluent in Derek for the past couple months, and when her hand grips his biceps he almost swears he can hear Ride of the Valkyries crescendo in the background. Her nails provide the perfect leverage for her to raise herself to her toes, which puts her mouth level with his ear.
"If you leave me at the Y," she continues in a distractingly pleasant tone, "not only will I tell George and Nora about the chaos you staged this morning and the rendezvous last night, but hints might also be dropped about a certain non-sanctioned after-school activity."
For once, she is holding all the cards. (The matador's sword flashes and plunges.)
"Fine," he growls, plucking the car keys out of her light grip. "Are you coming, Lamesy McPainsalot?"
(The bull falls.)
Once Casey is at the Y and up to her elbows in clay and other artsy materials, Derek takes the Prince west on Highland until he deadends into the river. He's so used to the hiss of the Zippo by now that it barely makes a difference in the rippling silence by the water. He perches himself on the hood of the Prince and takes a long, slow drag, and he thinks.
It's not really thinking, per se, more just Derek outlining numerous things that he feels need to be touched upon—for example, he isn't quite sure if Libby of Last Night is in his Lit class, which could turn out to be pretty awkward, seeing as how Libby of Last Night's boyfriend is also in said Lit class—and turning them over in his mind before moving on.
He touches on Casey, briefly, mostly because he needs to eventually decide how to get back at her for the whole blackmail thing, but there's something really wrong with thinking about Casey while the ash of his cigarette stains his lower lip, so he moves on to revenge (Dimi Davis) and sex (Libby of Last Night had a friend named Tanya who could potentially be of Tonight).
He's bored out of his skull within the first hour, which is the only excuse he really has for why his thoughts cycle back to Casey and her recent Truman drama, except obviously he wasn't paying attention when she was ranting about her psychotically annoying, chronic asshole companion/boyfriend, so he definitely doesn't have an opinion on Truman blowing her off on their date on Thursday.
(It was Thursday, she really shouldn't be hung up on it still. She should just dump him if he makes her this miserable. Not that Derek doesn't enjoy when she's miserable, except it's already been established in previous productions that Derek is the only one allowed to make her miserable.)
In the sort of epic luck that makes a hat trick during a scrimmage ironic, Derek is too busy thinking about Casey and how to manipulate her shampoo to get her to a) stop with the blackmailing, and b) forget about her Trollman psychosis to remember to pick her up on time. He knows he's already late, so he takes his time stubbing out the last bit of the cigarette, clambering off of the hood of the Prince, and starting the car.
Casey is standing in front of the Y, speckled with clay, and she has her I Am Not Amused face on, which never fails to make Derek vaguely thankful to a benevolent god. "What's your damage?" she demands and she throws herself into the car, and he can't keep himself from half-keeling over at the phrase coming from the lips of perfect-keener Casey.
"What?" she repeats. "What?"
He doesn't tell her, just starts the car and shakes a little with the final dregs of laughter, and tortures her by turning the radio station to something loud and screechy. She purposely puts her fingers in her ears and hums, staring at him as though this is going to influence him at all, and he taps his fingers against the steering wheel as they pull away from the Y.
"You smell like smoke," she accuses him halfway home, after they've scuffled over the radio and settled for silence.
"Imagine that," he says, smirking faintly at Marissa (Melinda?) as she and her long legs cross the intersection in front of them. She winks at him, smiles at Casey, and continues on her way. He kind of approves of the extra sway in her walk, which is why Casey has to hit him to remind him that the light has changed.
"You smoke?" Casey shrieks. "What about lung cancer? What about emphysema? What about second-hand smoke? What about fire hazards?"
"Chill, Space Case," he says, not rolling his eyes but almost there. "It's not like I'm lighting up around Marti or anything."
"Cancer," thunders Casey. "Do you have any idea how much your life span can be cut by smoking? I thought you were supposed to be an athlete! Reducing your lung capacity can only hurt you in the long run, you know—"
The worst part about Sundays is that inevitably he has to cut off her rant (the weekly subject changes, but inevitably it's just Saint Casey attempting to convert him to a life of Sin-less Keening) and that he usually does it with something slightly bitter (Like you care) to make up for the tang on the back of his tongue from the cigarette paper.
"I would have to do your chores if you died," sniffs Casey, except she already does so that really wouldn't change much of anything. "And Marti would cry. Horribly. There would be snot everywhere." Derek turns onto their street as Casey nonchalantly picks at a bit of clay on the hem of her smock-y shirt-y thing. "And I'd have to clean it up."
Derek is imagining the line of sobbing blondes at his funeral, all in black and wearing those cute little hats that have the veil-things that make them look like extras from a 20's mobster film when he feels Casey's hand groping through the pockets of his jacket. "What are you doing?" he half-yelps, and Casey's tongue is sticking out between her front two teeth as she triumphantly pulls her hand from his jacket (he can't help but feel a little violated), holding aloft his Zippo and the crumpled pack of cigarettes.
"No more," says Casey firmly, and to prove her point she rolls down the window and tosses both out, the Zippo catching the last dregs of sunlight and faintly glowing as it makes an arc from the interior of the Prince to Mrs. Madison's front yard.
"What is wrong with you?" Derek demands, slamming on the brakes. They are about two steps from their house, and Lizzie and Marti are playing soccer while Edwin pretends to either be a goalie or a wooden post.
"Those are bad for you!" Casey yells, getting right into his face so he can see that she's been crying because there's still a bit of darkness smudged at the outer corner of her eyes. "Are you mentally deranged? Weren't you paying attention in Health?"
No, he had not, because Megan Mueller had sat right in front of him, and she always flicked her hair all over the place to catch his attention.
"You don't have a right to throw my stuff out of the window!" he yells back at her, close enough that he sees that she is still crying, just enough that there is a film of tears along the rim of her bottom lid, reflecting and refracting the blue from her eyes.
"That's rich coming from you," she hisses. "I'm sorry for being worried about my brother, you freak."
"I am not your brother," he replies, only it isn't automatic it's deliberate and filled with so much venom that even Casey gets stopped for a moment by the loathing in his voice—but then she's back on track and on with the show.
"Yes, you are," she says. "And it is ridiculous that you keep on trying to prove that we aren't related. For god's sake, you're my brother, I'm allowed to at least worry that your imminent death might affect my life, and you know what? Fine! Fine! Go fuck with yourself! God knows I won't cry at your funeral."
"I think I will, thanks," he says. "Like I needed your permission to live my life."
"God, I really hate you," she says, tugging at the handle of the car. "I really, really think I do." She finally manages to fling it open and struggles out onto the sidewalk, Lizzie and Marti and Edwin watching them with wide eyes as Perfect Casey repeats her earlier sentiments and slams the door to the Prince shut. She is crying again, and it hurts him in a line along his chest but for once he isn't willing to make allowances for her stupid leaky faucet tendencies.
"The feeling is mutual, Princess!" he yells through the closed door, but she trips on a crack in the sidewalk and doesn't hear as she pushes past Lizzie so she can run flat-out for the door.
Sunday morning begins as Sunday mornings haven't ever really begun before; namely, Derek is feeding Marti, Lizzie, and Edwin breakfast while Nora and George are catching some much-needed extra sleep and Casey is the one not to be found.
She comes in at quarter to eight, slinking through the back door as though she has never attempted espionage before (her boots are in her hands, good touch, but most of that silence is negated by the giant crash that her walking into the open washing machine door causes). Derek, Lizzie, Edwin, and Marti watch her with varying degrees of impassivity as she collects herself off the floor and stumbles into the kitchen.
"Hey, guys," she says lamely, and she's attempting to brush this entire thing off as one of those things, except her eyeliner creates an arc from her lashes to the tips of her eyebrows and the avian look was obviously unintentional, probably caused by the same thing that left her nose red. "Emily and I got back so late last night I just . . . crashed at her place." For further elaboration, she hooks a thumb over her left shoulder and manages to drop her shoes and purse (again).
Lizzie (disbelieving) nods, Edwin (still comatose) returns to his cereal, and Marti (unconcerned) begins to complain about the state of her toast. Derek (caught somewhere between pissed off and she's just my stepsister) moves to make Marti another piece of toast.
"Coffee?" he asks.
"I—" begins Casey, obviously already prepped for battle. ". . . yeah," she finishes, blinking and the smile on her face is the weird one that lifts the left side of her mouth into a little curlicue (she must think this is the end of this).
"Okay," says Derek, adding another slice of bread to the toaster (it's not).
After he drops Casey at the Y, Derek drives to the river without even realizing it, hands wrapped around the steering wheel and his eyebrows caught so low over his eyes that it physically hurts to shift them back to normal once he sees his reflection in the mirror.
To something that may be infinite disgust or possibly just plain annoyance, he discovers that Trollman, sitting and brooding in a distinctly Hollywood fashion (Derek may not know who Byron is, but he has seen a Johnny Depp film recently), has commandeered his usual parking space.
Normally, Derek would probably let it go (debatable, he doesn't really like Trollman on principle), but there's a large part of him that is cranked up about Casey being gone all night, and (if possible) an even larger part that is cranked up about Casey coming home crying about whatever she was out all night doing.
He curls his fingers twice around air, wishing that he had thought to buy another pack of cigarettes during the week, and then gets up out of the car to meander his way to Truman and his disgustingly preppy sports car/hybrid creature (Derek is distrustful of anything that burns that much gasoline and doesn't have the horsepower to account for it; blame Lizzie and Car and Driver).
"Derek," says Truman, rolling down a window. "Imagine seeing you here."
"French," says Derek in a faux-pleasant tone. "If you're done playing bad-ass, we need to talk."
Truman doesn't pretend that the blonde is a a) sister, b) cousin, c) good friend, or d) someone who randomly showed up in his car at that very moment. Were there any chance of Trollman finding his way back into Derek's good graces, that probably would have helped him (only a very little bit).
"How can I help you?" asks Truman in a tone that might have been personable before it sat in a dank corner and molded for a couple hundred centuries.
"You do realize I should kick your ass for this, right?" says Derek, leaning against the hood of Trollman's car (insult to anything with an engine and four wheels).
"If you were going to go caveman on me, you would have already," replies Truman. He offers Derek a cigarette, which he accepts. This is rapidly turning into a rather mature affair; as Derek flicks his replacement Zippo and catches the flame on the edge of the borrowed cigarette, he waves a bit of a fond farewell to the Good Old Days of grabbing guys he didn't like by the collar and slamming them into lockers and settles down to business.
"When Casey finds out, she is going to flip," Derek tells the dust that is beginning to coat his shoes. "There will be tears. There will be sobbing. There will be threatened castration and acts of vengeance and I will have to buy her ice cream."
"I feel for you," says Trollman, who has obviously overestimated Derek's cool-factor, because a second later Derek is reaching across and pulling open the door to his car. Truman catches himself, but now Derek is casually resting his elbow on the door and there isn't a lot between his fist and Trollman's face (maturity is all good and well, but what's Derek's is Derek's and he can be a possessive bastard sometimes).
"You better," agrees Derek. "So much so that you're going to clean up your act before Casey realizes that you're a grade-A asshole."
Trollman's eyebrows disappear into his forehead. "I thought you'd want to get rid of me."
Derek tries to blow a smoke ring; he realizes halfway through that he's failing at it, and that failing at anything right now will probably undermine his general message of Do My Will Or Else, and accordingly stops trying. "When Casey is fighting with you, she isn't bothering me."
(He doesn't want to sound too altruistic, and to be honest this isn't really all that altruistic anyway. Sobbing Casey means Pathetically Concerned Derek in any language, and while math isn't Derek's best subject—actually, it is, but that doesn't mean much—he knows the way the numbers crunch.)
"How very brotherly of you," says Truman. His nasally voice is starting to grate on Derek's ears, as is the smirk (for a very brief, very tortured moment Derek wonders if Casey really did it, if she went all the way with Trollman and his weirdly perfect hair and his car that should be a dead extra in a Romero flick, and that's why the little prick is smirking as though he's been allowed entrance to secrets that Derek only gets to imagine/dream).
"That's the way I roll," Derek says, the words ashy and old and bitter as he says (chokes on) them, dropping the cigarette and slamming the door shut. He catches Truman in the nose, which was the entire point of the exercise, and he pretends not to hear the very satisfying crunch as he stubs out the cigarette with his toe and returns to the Prince.
Casey is tapping her toe outside of the Y when he pulls up.
"You are unbelievable," she hisses as she throws her bag into the backseat and clambers in. "Seriously, Derek, all you have to do is pick me up at eight. How difficult is that to process?"
"Too difficult," he says, peeling away from the curb. "How did your little art cult go, sister dear?"
"I'm not your sister," she says automatically, tossing her hair back so bits catch at his face. "That's the kind of hell I'd only wish on my worst enemies." (His silence smothers a flailing dance of triumph and calmly accepts her olive branch.) "And it was fine," she sniffs. "Dandy. How did your delinquency go?"
"Fine," he replies (he smirks at bit at his reflection in the mirror). "Dandy."