Not really sure how this one turned out, but hopefully not too bad. Let me know any suggestions for what happens next 'cause I'm a teeny bit stuck. :)
Disclaimer: Nope, Derek is all Daphne's. Selfish so-and-so.
Derek leaned back in his ridiculously large office chair and stared at his bedroom door. He was still a little in shock, truth be told. He'd meant to tell her he had feelings for her, not that he was in love with her. And she was meant to call him a jerk or a cad or any of the other choice insults she loved to yell at him, but then she was meant to give in and agree to go out. They'd argue over who was paying and where they went and whether to tell their parents, but it'd all work out in the end.
But instead he'd blurted out those words (and isn't it funny how having said 'love', 'feelings' seemed suddenly so much easier to say), and she hadn't even given him a fiery rejection. Hadn't believed him. Thought he would say something like that as a joke. As if he would fight his tongue's refusal to accept that he had a heart just to mess her around.
What was he even meant to do now? She'd neither rejected or accepted him, so he couldn't put it out of his head. But if the mere fact of those words passing his lips hadn't been enough to convince her how was he going to prove... He cut off that thought trail. He wasn't going to be her stupid Ivanhoe. She'd already had one of those and look where it had led. He did think the prick should have at least fought to keep her if he actually wanted her, but in fairness he hadn't known anything about Casey's identity crisis, and she had decided to just spring it on him that she needed some space right after a big game. Talk about a day ruiner.
Maybe consistency would do it? Maybe if everyone knew someone else would convince her? But then, what if no one else believed him either?
He groaned. Why did this have to happen to him? What he ever do to deserve to fall for Casey McDonlald of all people? He'd have almost preferred to be gay, or fall for Emily... He gave a brief shudder at the thought of his overenthusiastic stalker. Nice girl and all, but he could really do with someone who wasn't so obsessive. He laughed at himself for that thought because who on earth would say Casey wasn't just as obsessive, if not more, than Emily? There was a reason the two were friends after all.
Not long into his musings, he was called down to dinner. At the table. With the family. That just happened to include Casey. If he wasn't Derek he would have just stayed right where he was, but unfortunately his stomach still had way more say than his heart and brain combined. He was down and sat at the table before his annoyingly hot step-sister had even left her room.
"So, how'd it go at work today?" His step-mother asked while his fork was halfway to his mouth (no way was he waiting for miss prissy pants to come downstairs before he could eat).
He rammed in the laden fork and mumbled something indistinct that may have had the word 'cool' in it and may have had the work 'not' in it. Nora would never be able to tell.
She looked a little torn between disgust and curiosity and Derek began to get a bad feeling about where this was going. "Today was one of Sally's shifts, right?" She asked, probably trying for nonchalance.
And just like that, like she was freakin' waiting for it, Casey was at the table. "Yeah, although I don't think asking him about it will get you anywhere." She answered for him.
He glowered at her and stuffed his face again before he'd even finished with the previous mouthful. Just to make a point.
Nora looked askance at her daughter.
"Someone doesn't like facing up to his real feelings," Casey started, and he could have laughed at that, he really could, if he wasn't too busy trying to burn a hole in her face with his eyes. "He'd rather mess around a girl he might really care for than just try and be serious for once."
"I told you, I don't feel that way about Sally!" He felt very proud of himself for not even flinching at the 'f' word.
"Oh yeah. 'Cause not feeling something for Sally is what's had you moping around so much that even George noticed!" She shot back, before looking guiltily at her step-father. "No offence George."
"None taken." George muttered undecidedly.
"I already told you what that was about," He started, not intending to tell anyone else, but feeling the need to point out that he wasn't the one in denial about his feelings.
She snorted. "Like I'm gonna buy that line of bull."
He clenched his jaw and stabbed viciously at the food on his plate. "And you wonder why I don't confide in you more often." He said in a mockingly sweet tone, with just enough bite to it.
"Okay, what's going on here?" George asked.
Casey glared at Derek, daring him to tell them. "Ask your son."
The whole table turned to look at him and he took a breath. That many pairs of eyes should not be watching him while he made an idiot out of himself. "If you're so sure it isn't true then it doesn't really matter, does it?" He told her.
"And if it doesn't really matter then there's no harm in telling the family, is there?" She spat back defiantly. When he didn't answer she turned her gaze on their family at large. "Derek's new favourite past time is apparently telling people he loves them."
Five pairs of confused eyes turned on her.
She shrank back a little. "Okay, so it sounds stupid when said like that, but it's true! I asked him why he was upset if it wasn't to do with Sally, and he said it was because he loved me!"
"Way to go keeping it quiet, Case." He mumbled threateningly.
"I wasn't aware it was a secret."
"Kinda implied." He stabbed his food again.
"Derek loves Casey?" Marti chirped excitedly.
"No, Marti, Derek said that to make fun of me so I wouldn't keep asking him about Sally." Casey replied patronizingly.
Derek scowled. "No, Derek said that because he thought Casey might leave him alone if she knew why he was... Acting weird." Lies. He had hoped she would reciprocate... A little anyway, he wasn't sure he could handle her full on in love; her crushes were bad enough.
"Maybe Casey would have if Derek was telling the truth!" Casey's tone was biting and caused him to wonder why she was quite so upset.
"All right guys, enough." Nora cut in before voices could be raised or Derek's plate got smashed by his increasingly vicious attempts at mutilating his food. "Derek, why would you say something like that to Casey?"
Derek was too annoyed at another person not believing him to answer and instead sat in stony silence.
Nora sighed wearily and turned to her daughter. "Casey, sweetie, you know Derek doesn't talk about feelings, if you didn't want him to tease you then maybe you shouldn't have forced the issue."
"But Mom-" Casey started to whine in her that's-so-not-fair voice.
"Casey," Nora warned, and her daughter thankfully shut up. She turned back to her step-son. "I know you don't like it when she pries into your business, but she was only trying to help. Maybe you should apologize."
"What?!" He all but yelled indignantly, "What for?"
"For lying and being a jerk, jackass!" Casey answered for her mother.
"Casey!" Nora admonished.
"What makes you so damned sure I'm lying?!" This time he did shout; he'd had enough of all this and there was no way he was apologizing for saying how he felt.
"Oh, come on! Derek Venturi in love with his keener, klutzilla step-sister? I know you have a low opinion of me, but I'm not that gullible!" She replied, like it was obvious and he was being purposely dense.
That was the final straw. He slid back his chair with a loud scrape and stormed from the room, getting halfway before he turned back to grab his plate; he wasn't about to leave perfectly good food behind.
He stomped up the stairs with as much force as he could muster and pushed the door shut behind him with a slam that made the surrounding floor and wall vibrate.
School the next day was awful. Dozens of girls surrounding him with sympathy over his break up (how did they even know about that?!) and he couldn't take any of them up on their offers of 'comfort' because a certain step-sister was hanging around in revenge, with her girly 'he's going to need some time to move on' comments that effectively told his potential dates to get lost.
Eventually it got too much, and if only to send Casey away in a stuttering rage, he replied to a pretty blonde's question of what went wrong, with, "Sally found out I was in love with someone else, and after that there wasn't much to be said.
The girls eyes went wide and round. "Who were you in love with?"
He sighed dramatically, feeling Casey's death glare on him. "Casey McDonald. But she doesn't feel the same way; she just made fun of me for it and got mad at me for telling her." He could practically feel the hole being burned into the side of his head, and he had to suppress a bitter smile.
"She got mad at you?!" The girl asked incredulously, a look of extreme sympathy on her face.
He shrugged dejectedly, something which took rather less acting than he liked. "I guess she thinks she's too good for me or something."
By the following day, the rumour that Derek Venturi was in love with his step-sister, who was decidedly being a bitch about it, had spread through the entire school. He wasn't sure whether this was a good thing or not. On the one hand, it meant it would be more likely that she'd believe him at last, and there was the fact that nearly the whole female student body was all over him in sympathy (not that they weren't already all over him, but before they expected something out of it; now that he was in love with someone else they were all eager to be the shoulder he cried on, making them easier than ever before); but on the other hand it meant that Casey hadn't talked to him for twenty-three hours and counting, and the male faculty were being more assholey than usual being that they thought it was another ploy to get laid (which, why on earth didn't he think of this one before he fell in love with his step-sister?). And then there were the haters.
He got approached by no less than seven people throughout the day who promptly told him that he was a disgusting, incestuous freak. His eloquent response was to flip them the bird and walk away. Unfortunately, the last two were male. He had no problems hitting people of the male gender.
He was suspended.
His dad was less than enthusiastic about this.
"What were you thinking?" George asked, in that tone that only came out when Derek had well and truly messed up. "This could have got you expelled! You might still be kicked off the hockey team! Did you even think about that?"
Derek shifted uncomfortably. In truth he hadn't thought about that. He really hoped he wouldn't be kicked off the team. However he still couldn't quite bring himself to regret his actions.
"Look, I know this whole business with Sally has been difficult-" His father started on a slightly less angry note.
"Will people stop assuming that this is anything to do with Sally! She broke up with me, I didn't care, she tried to make up, I said no! End of story!" He blurted. He would be glad to never hear the name Sally again after all of this.
"Then what is it to do with, Derek?" His dad dragged a hand over his eyes and dropped his shoulders in a universal gesture of I'm-too-old-for-this.
"I thought the principal told you?" Derek asked bitterly.
George met his son's eyes for a moment. "He said it was something to do with Casey."
Derek nodded, not particularly wanting to go into detail.
A huge sigh from the senior Venturi. "Derek, this is serious. When it was just to wind Casey up it wasn't so bad; it wasn't good, but it wasn't any real cause for concern. But if you're getting into fights about it, then don't you think it's about time you drop it?"
"I can't help the way I feel, Dad!" Yeah, so much easier to say that word these days. "And they were jerks, they had it coming."
"After all of this, after years of fights and pranks and schemes, you really expect us to believe that?" George conveniently skipped over the part about them being jerks who had it coming.
"Why the hell not? Truman's more of an ass than I am and everyone seems convinced he likes her." The second sentence came out as more of a mumble.
"Because, Derek, only twelve year olds treat girls they like, like that. I've seen how good you are with the ladies, and there's just no way." His dad explained patiently.
"And how exactly would you suggest I 'romance' Casey?" Derek said dryly. "After how I've treated her these past couple of years, how would you say I should turn it around?"
George fumbled for a moment before deciding not to attempt to answer that. "If you really felt that way about her then you wouldn't have treated her that way in the first place." He said instead.
"That's because I didn't at first!" Derek protested. He had found her hot, but that's not the same thing, especially when she was such a keener.
"So you're telling me you slowly fell in love with her personality? Come one Derek, that's not you."
Derek had to admit, his dad had a point. But hey, falling in love at all wasn't him, so it was kind of a moot point. "I'm done talking about this." He stood up to leave the room.
"Derek! You will sit down and talk to me until I tell you, you can go!" George said sternly.
He sighed and sat down, wondering how long he was grounded for this time.