When they ask him how it started, he can't answer them. It's not that he doesn't know, it's just that there's too much. It makes him sorry because it deserves an explanation, but there aren't any words he can think of. None at all.

So he says, it's kind of like that poem that Robert Frost wrote – the one where he wants to walk through the dark forest with all the gloomy-ass trees unto the edge of doom. Or something. Because Robert Frost was fully content with never turning back, completely sure of who and what he was inside his world in those dark, dark woods, and that the direction he was headed was the right way to go. At least for one poem.

Or like that Iris song. Because all at once, he had wanted to give up forever, and he just-

He stops.

Okay.

It's-

Okay. Alright.

He takes a deep breath…

And tries to explain.

"No one ever tells you that forever feels like home."

Derek looked at her for the first time – really looked at her – the first day of their senior year.

It was the strangest experience he'd ever had, except for one time when his dad tricked him into eating worms like noodles and he threw up fordays, and this made him even sicker than that because he didn't understand. Worms were easy. He studied them in first grade science and he knew they had segmented bodies and that they had no eyes and everything – he got it, even though he failed first grade and that class – and he understood how they worked. He got the logistics. The principles.

Insert a Casey-esque joke about how 'he' and 'logistics' and 'understood' should never go in the same sentence. He knows her so well it's disgusting. Case in point – the joke would be terrible. She is a lot of things, and funny is not one of them.

But anyways.

He was walking to meet Sam and saw him with Casey a ways down the hallway, and for a moment he froze and underwent a fucking weird epiphany thing – seriously, after all that had happened in the past, this was the least of what he expected – and he saw the way her hair caught on star-shaped earrings, he saw the way her long dancer's legs took light steps down the tile, and he saw how straight and even her teeth were when she smiled at Sam. He was practically waxing poetic in his head at the sight of her. He was muttering nonsensical nothings under his breath. If he were right in the head, he might have slapped himself.

He saw every bit of her all over again, including the sloping of her backside and the utterly irresistible curve of her chest and abdomen. His whole brain shut down for a moment – because she was beautiful. Exasperating and OCD and a keener, but perfect and content in everything she did, even in fretting and worrying.

The rest of the day he felt as if he were drowning. And this was the worst part: he didn't know what to call it. He had no words to describe what had happened. If there was one thing Derek Venturi hated, it was being rendered speechless.

Well – okay, maybe he was being somewhat dramatic. He had words, sure – he threw around lust and sex drive and attraction and briefly mulled over the idea of being romantically inclined towards her, but in the end nothing covered what he was looking at. He felt like he could have slept on a dozen dictionaries and thesauruses stacked up so high with their thick, dry pages that his neck broke in his sleep and he still wouldn't absorb the full definition. Even though Casey said that textbook-under-the-pillow osmosis didn't work, he was determined to prove her wrong – at least that little part of them hadn't changed. Or maybe not even them. Maybe just him.

The scent of her perfume drifted over to him whenever she walked by and he was dizzy. The stars around his head and behind his eyes became a perpetual annoyance, and he debated waiting until 11:11 to make a wish – but wait, wasn't that two different superstitions? –Although he wasn't sure if he was okay with pushing his crappy deal onto lady luck. Bad karma and all that.

Casey got into the prince at the end of the day to go home and he was silent. The skin of her leg was far too inviting to him, sitting exposed from a plaid skirt. It was disconcerting to him that she was so suddenly attractive. And not even just hot, he wanted to like…hold her hand and shit. Ugh.

She acted normal, and he pretended that he was normal through his struggle not to look at her, but she managed to squeeze in a few insults if only to prod him into talking before they pulled into the driveway. He figured that in the long run, it was better that he hadn't said anything at all.

He was sitting in his recliner watching a hockey game when Casey came and sat on the couch, strangely quiet. His heart sped up – imperceptibly to her, aggravating and almost painful to him – and he rolled his eyes out of reflex. It made him feel a little bit better. She was silent for almost five minutes, pretending to be interested in the game. When two of the players got into a fight she shuddered and looked at him.

"How can you stand to watch that?" she asked.

"Watch people fight?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know. It's a nice break to watch other people fight instead of doing it with you all the time," he retorted. She hadn't even done anything wrong and he was already pushing her buttons. It was a typical and exhausted routine – he worshipped it.

Casey huffed and crossed her arms. He spared her a glance and winced. Her hair was straight and it fell down to her lower back. He had never noticed how pretty it was before.

His wince became a cringe.

"What are you frowning at, Derek? Or is the television finally melting your brain? Not that you had much to start with…" she scoffed. He turned back to the game and swallowed thickly. His mouth was like a desert, suddenly.

"Shutup, Spacey," he finally managed. Why was he so damn thirsty…? It had been all of two minutes and she had already reduced him to a quivering mass of…pathetic, hormone-ruled teenager. He was going to kill her.

He got up without saying a word and went into the kitchen. She trailed after him.

"Okay, can I help you with something? You interrupted and ruined my game, and now you're going to ruin my time in here too? What the hell is wrong with you?"

She didn't even flinch.

"Nothing is wrong with me, Derek. And for your information, I don't need your help with anything. I was just…hanging out," she finished lamely.

"Bullshit."

She stared at him. "Excuse me?"

"You always want something."

"I do not!"

"God, you are so aggravating." Lies lies lies

"Thanks a lot, Derek. It's not like you're all that fun to be around."

"Then why are you here! What could you possibly want from me, if I'm no fun?"

"I – why were you all weird in the car today?" she spluttered. "It was weird, okay? I hate when you're all tense and quiet like that."

He stood up straighter. He had gotten a carton of juice out of the fridge and it now sat on the counter, completely forgotten.

"I was not 'all weird', Casey."

She rose an eyebrow.

"For your information," his voice rose in a cheap imitation of hers, "I got into an argument with Sam. About some stuff." Lies lies lies

"Oh really? Because I talked to Sam earlier and he said he had no idea what was up with you."

Damn. She had gotten to Sam first.

He looked at her. If he could have, he would have burnt holes into her face. "Why were you poking around in my business?"

"Because I was worried! What it so bad that you're lying about it?"

"It's not like it's a rare freaking occurrence for me to lie to you, Case," he sneered. She was pushing him too far. He was going to snap and smack her or something. Or something.

"It's a rare freaking occurrence for you to let something bother you that much, so please do me a favor and just tell me?" she sighed. He blew a piece of hair out of his eye and looked at her. Really looked at her, for what seemed like the hundredth time that day.

"Just…it's nothing. Drop it."

"But Derek-"

"Casey, goddammit, drop it and leave me alone!"

He stormed out of the room, leaving her somewhat strangled. And he was still thirsty. Nobody ever won between the two of them.

Needless to say, the next week or so was a little tense. She was walking on eggshells. But not carefully. Oh, no, that would be too much to ask of her. She didn't get her way, so she had to make everything as difficult as possible for him. She was loud as hell. Deafening. She would walk past him with her nose held high and her eyes drifting in his direction – to see if she was making him feel bad or guilty or some shit, no doubt – and she would 'hmph!' and frown and it pissed him off. A lot. She was so obnoxious sometimes he wanted to grab her by her hair and –

Slap her. Or something. Or something.

So just to be obnoxious right back, he waited until she was in the shower and he darted in while she was humming songs from 'The Sound of Music' and took all of her clothes, and all of the towels, and he darted right back out with a snicker and he put them all where they should go. Linens closet, laundry basket and everything. She had no evidence. Ha!

He heard a frustrated yell come from the bathroom 15 minutes later and he laughed out loud. "Music to my ears…" he muttered. He went back to flipping through a magazine.

His door was thrown open and it hit the wall with a resounding 'thud' that shook the floor. He looked up casually to see Casey standing huddled and shivering in a mat that had previously been on the bathroom floor.

He smirked at her. "Goodness, you have no idea what disgusting, revolting, grimy, nasty bathroom germs could be on that, Casey!"

She looked at the mat with a horrified look before turning back to him, seething. "If you think that this is the appropriate way to respond to me asking you 'what's wrong' then you are sadly mistaken," she said through her teeth.

"Oh, because those stupid looks you have been giving me all day were totally the right response. My bad, Case, you were right. Not."

"Derek, sometimes I just want to – ugh!"

She stormed out of the room.

"You too, dear sister!"

And that is where things got tricky. That is where the fun began.

She flew back into the doorframe and he stood in challenge.

"I am not your sister!"

"Yeah, you're right. Marti is my sister. You're just a pain in the ass," he amended. She glared.

Her and Marti in the same category…ew. Marti was his little baby sister – he loved her to death. Casey was…

Well, whatever.

"You know, I always wanted a brother. To bad I got some demented Satan spawn instead!" She reached forward to punch his shoulder with her fist and he caught her deftly.

"Careful now, wouldn't want your little rug to fall off."

He wanted it to. If he could find a way to make it fall off, he'd feel so much better. The prospect of relief flooded his mind and made him sigh a little.

Her face screwed up in a grimace of disgust. He grinned cheekily at her, and without thinking, she shoved forward and they both toppled to the floor. She reached up with her other hand to hit him in the face – and he caught that wrist, too. Her body was pressed to him, and the rug was in place only because of the lack of space between them. It had nowhere to go. She struggled to get away from him, and he smiled.

"You want me to let go? Okay, here," he said easily. He shrugged and crossed his arms. She flew backwards and the rug flew the opposite way. She instantly curled up and tried to cover as much of her body as possible. But it wasn't fast enough for Derek to miss everything.

He smirked at her as her face stained a pretty pink.

"Pervert," she accused.

"You let it happen."

He stood and stared down at her. "What now, Casey?"

She examined him, chewed over her options for a moment, bit her lip a little – he shivered at that – and looked up at him, staring down at her. She stood slowly, deliberately, and when she had reached her full height she moved towards him.

"Is that what you wanted?"

He kept his eyes on hers, but the peripherals were making him crazy.

"Me, naked?"

She was close enough that he felt her body heat envelope him. It was viciously uncomfortable, but he also twitched with the need to reach out and run his finger down her arm, to her fingertips, and trace the lines in her palm. Trace the veins back up her arm and through her chest, through her entire body…he wanted to etch a map into her skin, to tell people he had been there, and she was his. He shook his head to clear the thoughts.

"You should have just said so," her words and her face were meant to be like venom. The iciness of her voice hit him like bricks. But her body gave away what she was really thinking.

She shook and he reached out a hand to wrap around her waist, the other reaching down to rest on her hip. His fingers smoothed back and forth in an effort to sooth her, and he rubbed her hipbone until she was rocking unconsciously towards him.

And he said very, very quietly: "I didn't know what I wanted. How was I supposed to tell you?"

She studied him carefully. After a small fluttering of her eyelashes he moved his hands to her lower back and pressed her to him. She let her head fall on his shoulder. He ached for her. And he was suddenly exhausted.

When he let her go, she reached down and picked up a t-shirt off the floor and pulled it over her head. It covered everything.

She left without a word.

So, he tells them, the next step is the easiest to predict. Because she's Casey and thinks that anything out of the norm and unexpected is completely wrong, she pretended it never happened. And because he's Derek, he floundered for air, drowning in her wake as she sped away, and he waited and waited for her to come back even though she was light years away.

They raise their eyebrows at this – Derek, floundering for air?

But, he assures them, that is what it was really like. And since they wanted the full story, the full story was what they were going to get.

Two Saturdays later, he was at a party somebody from the hockey team threw and she showed up with Kendra. She was wearing a bandana shirt and a little black skirt that made him sorry. He had no doubt that Kendra was the one responsible for her smoky eyes and loose confidence. He sipped at his beer and hung with Sam and the others, and she spent nearly an hour in the throng of people gyrating and dancing to the too heavy music with too much bass. He never particularly liked his music to have too much bass. And honestly, he only came to parties to get shit-faced and meet girls. He didn't have that much fun.

He looked away from her for a moment when he heard Sam's voice.

"Hey D," he started.

"Yeah?"

"You okay? You seem kind of distracted."

"Distracted?" Derek frowned.

"Well, maybe not distracted. Maybe more like preoccupied. I don't know, man, what's up?"

Derek sighed and pulled him away from the crowd a little bit.

"Dude, if I tell you can you not, like, flip a shit on me?"

"Just tell me. You're honestly kinda freaking me out."

"It's Casey," he confessed.

Sam blinked and stared at him, giving him a weird look.

"What about her?"

"She's just…"

"Her being a problem is nothing new," Sam mused.

"Dude, I know, it's different. Just listen for a sec. I'm starting to have…these weird thoughts. I'm turning into one of those douchey guys from the books she reads."

His mind flits briefly to Ivanhoe and he shudders.

Sams eyes widened. "You don't mean to tell me…"

"Yeah, man. I do."

"You like her?"

"Don't say it like that, Sam! I don't even know if it deserves to be called 'like'! It doesn't deserve a name!"

"What? Why not?"

"I don't know! I'm just freaking out! I don't know what to do with her!"

"Okay, just calm down. Tell me how this all started…"

Sam spun the cup of beer in his hands, watching the froth tip back and forth. He mulled over what Derek had told him and took a breath to speak, and –

Said nothing. He sighed.

"See? I told you. There's no words for it," Derek said. He was almost to the point of tearing his hair out. He had lost sight of Casey some time ago, and the urge to see her was making him crazy. He hated this.

Sam just stared into the cup.

"…Sam? Buddy?"

He looked up. "I never got to see her naked. What the hell, man? How unfair is that?"

Derek paused and chuckled a little. Sensitive, sweet Sam, craving Casey's naked body just like the rest of them. "Well, to be fair, dude, I live with her. I see her come out of the shower all the time. Usually she's just…a little more covered up."

"You brought that whole thing on yourself," Sam frowned.

"You say it like it's a bad thing."

"Well, it didn't help you any, did it? You're worse off now than you were before. Tell me if the weird shit between you two now was worth seeing her naked," he demanded.

Derek considered that for a moment before throwing his hands up in the air.

"Okay! It wasn't worth it. But I wouldn't take back holding her like that for…oh god, see? This sappy shit is coming back, Sammy, you need to hit me or something. Punch me, just do it, lay one right on – "

Sam grabbed his shoulders and shook him. "D, calm the hell down! It sounds to me like you need to find her and talk to her, okay? Just…find out where you stand. And what she's thinking. Okay? And for god's sake don't give her any of that poetic shit until you know you aren't going to make an idiot of yourself."

Derek nodded. "Okay. Okay. I'll go find her."

"'Atta boy," Sam smiled. He clapped him on the shoulder.

"I'm off. See you man. And thank you."

Sam nodded as Derek turned and eyed the crowd for Casey. She was nowhere to be found. His head swam with discomfort at the idea of her being upstairs with somebody, or downstairs with the kids smoking and doing god knows what else. He figured that he should find Kendra and ask her.

He saw her blonde hair through a thick crowd of brunettes and he moved towards her.

"Kendra!" He called out. She looked up, eyes alighting with happiness when they fell on him. He almost took a step back – he didn't need any of her drunken ramblings tonight, dating her had been strange enough – but then remembered his mission and put a hand on her shoulder. "Hey," he said.

"Derry! How are you?" She was drunk, he could tell, and she was excited and bouncing and the beer in her cup was spilling over onto her hands. He looked at the guys she had been talking to earlier and hoped nothing had been put in there. Annoying as she was, Kendra was his friend. He took the cup from her hand and poured it into a plant, discarding the empty container. She pouted, but said nothing.

"Good. Listen, have you seen Casey?"

She rolled her eyes. "Still always lookin' for Case, are you?" She smiled. "I think I saw her go upstairs with a guy, like, five minutes ago. You could probably catch her, although I don't think I would go up there if I were you – she seemed to be having a good time," Kendra laughed. Derek looked towards the stairs with a grimace.

"Just like you are, huh? Stay safe, Kendra, okay?" Derek left her standing alone and ran to the stairs, taking them two at a time. He heard a muffled 'Bye, Derry!' chasing his back, but he let it go.

He was practically livid. He didn't want her with another guy in some strange person's bedroom, had he taught her nothing? His previous fears about Kendra came back full force, and he hoped to hell that she hadn't been given anything, that she was at least smart enough to pour her own drink instead of having somebody hand one to her –

He opened door after door, each scene an instant replay of the last, until he found her. He sighed, relieved at first.

And then the full reality of the situation hit him in the face like the punch Sam never gave him – how many times did he have to ask before he got what he wanted, already? Sheesh – and he clenched his fists.

He takes a little break here and gets some water. This is one of the hardest parts of the story to tell. He doesn't want them to know.

They look worried, but who wouldn't be? It's the perfect setup for the worst setup in the world. He sits back down and begins again.

He saw Casey lying on the bed, head lolling and eyes drifting open and closed, and a guy he had never seen before hovering over her, hands drifting to places that Derek knew Casey would not have approved of, if she wasn't completely fucked.

"Get your hands off of her," he growled. The guy looked up and frowned.

"Who the hell are you? Why don't you escort yourself out so I don't have to get up and do it myself."

He turned back to Casey, efficiently ignoring Derek, and only succeeding in making him that much more angry.

"I said get off of her, man." He went to the bed and grabbed the guy by his shirt. "Or are you fucking deaf?"

"What are you doing?" he seethed. "Don't touch me."

"What the hell did you give her?" He demanded. He pulled the guy to his face and glared. "It would be in your best interest to tell me," he added.

The guy glowered. "X, man. She said she wanted to party…I gave her what she wanted." He pulled Derek's hands off his shoulders and shot a disgusted look at Casey before moving to leave.

"She's a slut anyway. She's not worth a damn thing."

Derek shook and lunged for him. He punched him solidly in the face and threw him out the door. "She is not a slut. And she is worth more than you will ever be."

He slammed the door and locked it. He knew better than to get into a full-blown fight – it was hockey season. He turned to the bed with shaking hands and ran one through his hair.

"Casey, casey, casey," he murmured, panicking. He went to the bed and pulled her hair off her face. She opened her eyes lazily and looked at him.

"You're not Dan," she accused sleepily. He shook his head. He would chew her out like some shit later. Right now, he needed to take her home. He took her hand and pulled her up into his arms and examined her. He briefly debated taking her to the hospital instead, but he figured that the legal trouble they would be in for alcohol and drugs outweighed the chances that she would be okay. He would take her home. He fished his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed Sam.

When he answered, Derek sighed.

"Sammy, I need your help again."

He gets lectured here about the hospital. In fact, he gets grounded for a month for lying about what had happened at the party, for letting it happen, and for not taking her to the doctor. Casey gets two weeks and he almost yells about the unfairness of it all – and by it all, he means everything – but he isn't going to lose his cool until at least the climax. Just wait.

He managed to sneak Casey into the house without them getting noticed. He brought her to her room and set her down on the bed, and he was going to help her change clothes – he had seen her naked once, underwear couldn't possibly count – when she called his name.

"Derek," she mumbled. He brought a t-shirt and a pair of pajama shorts and sat down next to her.

"Yeah?"

"What happened," she moaned and turned over to face him. She put a hand on her head and eyed the clothes with a small 'thank you'.

"A guy, who I'm guessing was named Dan, gave you ecstasy. And I found you and brought us home." Her eyes widened and she sat up, reaching to him for support. He put a hand on her back and pulled her horrified, shaking body upwards.

"I – ecstasy? – how – Derek, I was – "

"I found you and stopped him before he could do anything, that's one thing you don't have to worry about." He couldn't help the pride that tinged his words, but she didn't seem to notice.

"I feel so – violated – and – "

"Casey, it's going to be alright, okay? Just breathe."

She started to cry. He flinched away involuntarily, but somehow managed to wipe away the tears. He didn't say a word and she rocked back and forth until the crying ebbed into shaky breaths.

"You should get some rest," he told her. She nodded and lay down.

"Don't leave until I'm asleep."

Her voice was commanding and regretful, and it made him bring a hand up to the back of his head in an act of discomfort. He looked down at her, wounded and vulnerable, and there was no way he could have said no.

"Okay," he resigned. He watched her eyes close and her breathing hitch until, minutes later, it evened out. He gently ran his knuckles down the length of her arm before turning off the light and leaving for his own room.

At this point, he says, school was becoming a questionable responsibility. Like, you know those times when there are things going on that you feel are too big to be overshadowed by academics? Where you only have to get through the school day just so you can go home, or go deal with whatever is happening? School is the last thing on your mind. That's what it was like. Other things were shut down in the face of whatever was happening with Casey.

They understand, sort of – they were young once, he knows. But it's hard to explain. He has plenty of words now; he just can't seem to get them out correctly.

Insert a Casey-esque joke about how it's because his brain can't function correctly, if he ever had one at all, ha!

Now where has he heard that before…?

The joke, the punch line, the kicker – you'll think it's hilarious, trust him – they don't understand that last part at all.

And that is the absolute best part.

Disclaimer: Music belongs to Stone Sour. Copyrighted materials not mine.