Title: home is where the hamper is
Summary: "De-rek! Marti told me she'll love me even when I'm surrounded by twelve cats and empty bottles. Can you stop laughing already?!" DerekCasey
Author's Note: So, I still love this fandom and this couple, so. Ending isn't my fav but - what can you do? Hope y'all enjoy!
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Without the stepsister-from-hell in his personal space, Derek starts waking up early for the first time in his life. At first, he'd open his eyes at seven o'clock, bleary eyed, before he'd fold back into slumber. But after a while, he gave in, throwing his legs over the bed to get coffee. Eventually, it evolved into a disease that had him regularly studying at seven thirty with a cup of coffee in hand. Studying. Early morning. Derek. Which of these don't belong?
So of course, he gets bored. And then, he's got to admit, he kind of starts to miss…
He starts going for runs in the morning and meets sporty girls with blonde, red, brown, black, braided, short, long ponytails. They all smile the same kind of way (bright smiles only runner's high can create) and talk about the same kind of things (marathons, yoga mats, business classes, guilty pleasure foods, documentaries) and sleep with him the same kind of way (racing to the finish line but in reverse — who can get there last). Derek kind of gets tired of what's swiftly becoming the same old, tries to find a girl who runs through the quad in the early morning who differs from the strange stereotype, but can't seem to. Even worse is the fact that he starts recording observations in his old high school notebooks like he's Emily Davis or Head Case(y).
And then, he physically bumps into the latter. She's holding heels in her left hand and has her eyes closed. When their bodies collide, they launch open. She falls to the ground, opens her mouth to apologize and maybe request poise lessons (or Advil or something), but then sees who it is. And then, she blushes at him. Blushes. Casey. Derek. Which of these — (Wait, I thought you said there weren't multiple answers to these questions.)
"Morning!" Casey squeaks, pulling her dress down her legs.
"Wow," Derek smirks, "I'm surprised your obvious hangover didn't interfere in your power of observation. What will Nora say when she finds out her first daughter is drinking to ease the pain of being such a Space Case."
"I'm not an alcoholic or anything!" Casey insists. "I'm trying to enjoy the college experience oka— hey! It's the morning."
Derek raises his eyebrow (which is totally unfair to Casey because he looks really cool doing it and she's still on the ground), "As you've stated."
"You're awake," she says, slowly.
Derek tilts his head at her, then enunciates clearly, "Count my fingers — I think you may have a concussion or something."
"It's nine o'clock on a Saturday morning and Derek Venturi is awake."
"Thanks for the exposition, Case, but I think you should probably leave that up to the professionals."
Casey stares at him for ten seconds too long. Derek starts to feel a little itchy underneath her Casey probe.
"Well, look at that. I guess college really does change people."
Derek's almost a little hurt by the excitement in her tone. Just because he's started waking up early doesn't mean he's suddenly Casey McDonald approved. He'll never be whipped into one of those keener boys she could actually date. Although, waking up relatively early was Item Number Seven on Casey's spreadsheet of The Perfect Boyfriend. (Which he's never thought about for more than two seconds — and if only for ammunition to mock every guy who's met her ridiculous standards.) And then, he remembers she's on the ground with her heels in her hands and wondered if her (lame) boyfriend criteria was still the same. (— Not like he cared, but… Quote, unquote: I guess college really does change people.)
"Where did you even come from?" he asks.
Her eyes get wide and she starts smiling (and it's not like Derek thinks it's pretty or anything but can she stop with that), "You totally could've just set up a "Casey is from outer space" joke and you didn't! You really are growing up!"
She finally gets up from the ground, teetering a little, and starts fucking beaming. Derek wants to kick her back to the ground a little bit.
Derek sniffs, "I thought you might be a little too fragile right now to handle a great insult."
But that doesn't help, because her grin is still ear to ear. "See! That was almost normal human behavior! I have to tell everybody about this. Seriously, everybody."
"Stop talking in exclamation points," Derek grumbles, walking off. "It's too early."
"It's too early for the old Derek to be awake!" Casey shouts at his back.
When Derek gets back to his dorm room, he falls asleep and misses his afternoon Film Through The Ages lecture. When he wakes up, he curses to himself. He actually likes that class and the babes in it are, well, babes and not Spacey (capital letter strongly suggested).
But he's well rested for the first time in a long time and he wonders, briefly, only for a microsecond, why that is.
So, for four months, he's totally blessed with a Klutzilla-free life. And then, bam! One interaction in the quad, and suddenly, she's everywhere. Admittedly, he deserved her first appearance after he called home to recommend a time and location for the family's intervention on Casey's drinking problem — ("De-rek! Nora's telling me I don't have any reason to be ashamed and George gave me the number of a rehab his friend went to. Marti told me she'll love me even when I'm surrounded by twelve cats and empty bottles. Can you stop laughing already?!") — but the other times are way, way not deserved, nor wanted, nor pleasant.
First, she started showing up to his hockey games in full color-coordinated outfits and would scream Go D! even when the other team would score. Then, she started leaving him intricate study schedules that were also color-coordinated and smelled like vanilla. Then came the messages on his whiteboard that teetered between 'inspirational,' desperate, and psychotic. ("Derek, I've gotta hand it to you," his suite mate said, shaking his head as he used his sleeve to erase yet another Buddhist quote with call me!'s written in bold letters. "You attract some really, really freaky chicks. Does she really have a squinty eye and buckteeth?")
Finally, her tirade resulted in him waking up to her, in his room, with his hamper in her arms.
"Jesus, D," she says, huffing, "Procrastinate on your laundry much?"
Derek covers his face with his arm, muttering darkly, "If I open my eyes in five minutes and see you, I will personally call security and have whoever allowed you into my room arrested."
He opens his eyes at the two minute mark. She's not there. But when he's shuffling out of his room into the main area of his suite, arms already reaching for his favorite cereal bowl, she's there, pulling plastic wrap off an egg sandwich.
"Two eggs, bacon, cheese," she says, holding up the sandwich. "You're welcome."
His mouth waters and lets her off the hook this one time — even when she takes out a tofu breakfast burrito, even when brings his laundry back upstairs and his clothes smell like roses and peach, even when she introduces herself to his suite mate after he asked her not to.
("You don't seem like you spent seven years underground," his suite mate says to Casey, slowly. Then to Derek, "Dude, she seems totally normal. But, I mean, I guess I haven't seen the," he whispers, "flipper feet."
Casey throws a spoon at Derek and refuses to take her shoes off to prove a false accusation.)
Even though she does all these things that really annoy him, Derek can't help but kind of enjoy her presence that day. And because he didn't condition her (a major failure on his part), she starts coming semi-regularly. At first, she does things he likes, like watching gory movies and drinking beer that she promptly spits out ("So much for the alcoholic thing," Casey says, gulping water down.), which he has to admit, is kind of decent. But then, she starts bringing her knitting projects and textbooks and leaving bottles of her lotion in his room. She starts asking him if he'd go to arty movies with her or less popular sorority dinner parties. She tells everyone at home that they've basically put aside their differences and become friends. ("Are you dying?" George whispers into the phone. "Is she blackmailing you? I can give you money." Derek asks for a hundred bucks and buys some decent whiskey and squirrels away the rest. Casey disapproves until he makes her a good drink and buys her new yarn to make him a sweater he never wears. — Okay, twice.)
One day, he finally asks her, "Why are you here?"
"We made plans for tonight," she says after she finishes painting her toenails purple. "Duh."
She starts painting his big toenail because he's staring into space. When he finally looks at her, all she says is, "Hey, I think purple's your color."
The thing is this: This isn't just hanging out. Derek knows what hanging out is. Derek is a fan of hanging out. He misses hanging out with hot girls instead of having his room invaded by the Monster That Is Casey. This is what Casey would consider a step towards dating. Possibly, this could be what Casey would define as dating. And Derek is not going to date Casey — because that way leads to no sex and no privacy and pretty much everything that's happening right now but with a label stamped on his forehead stating MY DIGNITY HAS BEEN STRIPPED FROM ME.
But the thing is also this: He only really gets a good night sleep when she's around. And she buys him breakfast he likes. And she smells really good. And she's actually kind of funny when she's drunk. And she actually refers to the recommended movie list his Film Through The Ages professor handed everyone on the first day of his lecture when they're choosing which movie to watch on Wednesday nights. And he likes that they have a designated movie night. He likes when she falls asleep on his pillow and has an extra toothbrush in her purse at all times. He likes how comfortable she is in his space. He likes how she attempts to go running with him in the morning sometimes and gives up in the first three minutes to go get coffees for them both. He likes that she does his laundry even after she taught him how to do it himself.
One Wednesday, while they're watching The Graduate, Casey slips her hand in his. Derek doesn't notice until the final scene, when both characters are on the bus and scared shitless because the future is ahead of them and they don't know what the fuck they just got themselves into. And he looks at her and catches her rolling her eyes, eyes still glued to the screen.
"Don't read too much into it," she says. After three minutes of silence, she adds, "Or do, whatever."
"That's not your word," he smirks. "It's mine."
She turns to him and quirks her eyebrow, "Have you seen your room lately, Derek? I have half my room in here, I'm pretty sure I'm allowed to —"
He kisses her, because, duh.
And then, after a few minutes (okay, twenty, but come on, her hands are all over the place, he's allowed to be a little slower than usual —) he comes up for air and starts freaking out a little.
"Just because I wake up early in the morning and let you bring your crap in here doesn't mean I'm going to be a Ken doll boyfriend," he says seriously. "Stop trying to take off my shirt, I'm trying to talk to you here!"
"Hey Derek," Casey says happily, removing her mouth from his neck. "Shut up."
"I should've been the one to say that," he pouts as she takes her own shirt off.
She drags her eyes away from the lewd cartoon on his shirt to look at him, "Yeah, well, sorry I'm clearly cooler than you."
He opens his mouth to refute her statement (because what planet have they crash landed on?), but then her mouth is against his again and she's pressing her leg between his and he's realizing that they've been on a bed several times now and should make the most of it —
"Stop thinking," Casey murmurs in his ear, "Just be with me, okay?"
At the end of that sentence is that's all I wanted all this time, but it takes a while for Derek to get it — not until she's panting underneath him, digging her fingernails into his skin, and looking at him.
"Oh," he says.
She rolls her eyes for the fiftieth time, but smiles wide enough for him to realize -
"De-rek," she whispers softly, eyes lowering, hooking her legs around his hips.
Then, he finally stops thinking...
They've always made exceptions for each other anyway.