Title: Stupid Cupid

Summary: It's the week before Valentine's Day and Casey's boyfriend Truman has just dumped her. Just when she thinks this Valentine's Day couldn't get worse, she gets an unwanted visit from the expert of love himself.

A/N: I don't own Life With Derek but some of this is a little A/U and I am trying to keep the characters as in character as I can. Reviews are always welcomed!

1.

Casey McDonald threw herself against her bed and buried her head under her pillows. Maybe she could suffocate underneath there? Was it possible? She quickly shook the thoughts from her head and regained her composure to the best of her ability. She dug herself out from underneath her barricade and threw the pillows across the room in heated anger. Stupid Truman! Was it so much to ask that she find a nice, decent guy to like her? A guy that wouldn't dump her a week before Valentine's Day? Just the thought of him made her blood brew. How could he? What kind of boyfriend dumps their girlfriend a week before the biggest day in relationship history? Who would do that?

"Edwin, for the last time, STAY OUT OF MY ROOM!"

Derek! He was exactly the type of guy that would dump someone before Valentine's Day. Didn't he already do that once? Something about being too cheap to buy a gift? Maybe that was why Truman had broken up with her. Suddenly, Casey wanted to punch both jerks in the nose. Were all guys this insufferable? Suddenly, Casey got the idea to vent. If she couldn't vent and complain to Truman, she had the next best thing living under the same roof. It was a piece of cake. Besides, blaming Derek always made her feel a thousand times better.

"DER-EK!" Casey screeched in her usual manner. She could practically see Derek curse as he rolled his eyes and made his way towards her room. A sense of excitement came over her. She was actually looking forward to starting a fight with him just so as to get her mind off of Truman. It was her usual defense mechanism: get in a fight with Derek and get the other annoyance off her mind. It worked perfectly every time so why not now?

"You rang, Princess?" Derek asked as he opened her door, using the nickname he knew she hated. Casey could feel the blood rush to her face and her heart pound against her chest cavity but she didn't care. This was something she needed to do. Derek was her verbal punching bag and she was his. It was their unspoken relationship and both subconsciously knew it.

"Derek, I hate you!" Casey shouted.

Derek's eyes widened with confusion. What had he done? He began to retrace his steps that day in his head: woke up, got shower, changed Casey's shampoo to honey, ate breakfast, spat in Edwin's milk, went to school…wait! The shampoo! Maybe that's what she was mad about. That had to be it; what else had he done to her that day?

"Look, it was just honey, alright?" Derek panicked as she picked up her hairbrush and prepared to hurl it at his head. Quickly, he began to backpedal, "You can use my shampoo tonight if you'd like or I can even run to the store and get you some but please – please – don't throw that thing at me again! I still have a mark from last time…"

"What did you do to my shampoo?" Casey shouted.

"Nothing," Derek tried to recover but it wasn't working, "Just…don't worry about it."

"Are all men so…so…unbearable?" Casey demanded, "I mean, you men think you can just get away with whatever you please and that us girls will let you have your way! You think that you can convince a girl that you've changed and you aren't the same as you first were, and maybe she can be convinced, if you're a good enough liar, but then you go and do something so…so…stupid and it just tears us apart! And the worst of it is that you don't even care!"

"This isn't about the honey in your shampoo, is it?" Derek asked.

"No," Casey sighed, already exhausted, "It isn't. But speaking of that…."

"Look, just tell me what happened today, alright? Did Truman do something…"

"Truman!" Casey scoffed as if the mere name was a bad taste in her mouth, "Truman! Of course Truman did something! Truman decided he didn't want to pay for a gift for Valentine's so he dumped me! There's a real gentleman right there for ya' Derek!"

"Case…"

"Oh don't you dare sound sympathetic!" Casey shouted, growing angrier, "You've done the same if I remember correctly!"

"But…"

"All men are the same, Derek. They are all big, fat, stupid, ignorant, fools who don't have a clue to go on much less a heart!"

"Look, I'll…I'll buy you some new shampoo…" Derek stammered as if that would solve all of Casey's troubles.

"New shampoo?" Casey's eyes widened in disbelief.

"Yeah. I mean, that might help...What do you say?"

Her response was throwing her hairbrush, right at his big, fat, stupid, ignorant, foolish head.