A/N: The rating on this story is quite conservative, just to let you know. Mostly, I tacked on the M because I tend to use a fair amount of language, and technically, that gets a higher rating. Also, this story is intended to be satire, so expect everything from here on out to be quite tongue-in-cheek. Thanks for reading!
Summary: Nora said their summer trip to the country was going to be an adventure. She didn't mean it quite so literally, but when have Casey and Derek ever been any good at doing what they're told?
Rating: T for content, but M for language, so I'm hedging my bets
Disclaimer: I own nothing you see here. Big shock, I know.
What We Did On Our Summer Vacation
by: Hayseed
Chapter Three: Was a Weird, Smelly Guy
Casey spent a long time living in a dream world filled with hazy colors and gentle voices. The voices mostly sounded like Derek, which was why she was pretty sure she was dreaming.
The first time she really woke up, there was a hand under her head and a cloth scrubbing uncomfortably at her face. "You said she'd get better," she heard Derek say, almost in her ear.
"If you had administered the cure immediately, she would not be in this condition," another voice said irritably.
"Oh, sure, blame me," he retorted, continuing to wash her face.
Wait... wash her face?
"Because it's common knowledge that when a freaking fairy bites you, you've got to make out with the nearest warm body," he said sarcastically. "Has anyone ever told you that you're a crazy old man?"
That conjured up a fuzzy recollection of his face hovering over hers in a horrible caricature of a kiss. Her eyes flew open. "Wha...?" she croaked. Damn but her throat was dry.
He dropped the cloth and yanked his hand out from under her so quickly that her head slammed back against the headboard.
"De-rek," she said, voice still rasping.
"You're awake," he replied unnecessarily. "Wh... are you okay?"
"Water?" she asked hopefully.
The other voice answered her, sounding much closer this time. "Sit up, child."
It was a struggle, but she managed it, propping herself up and ignoring how much her shoulders protested at the movement. "How long?" she asked, accepting the cup of water pushed into her hands.
"You have slept since your arrival more than four days ago," the man said. He was probably the oldest person she'd ever seen in her entire life, judging by the lines on his face, but he moved like a much younger man. "The idiot boy and I have had much to discuss."
"Not really," Derek told her, glowering at him from across the bed. "Mostly he just insults me for letting you get hurt, which was totally your own fault by the way."
She sipped at her water. "Sounds fun."
The man cleared his throat.
With a glare, Derek shook his head. "Oh, excuse me," he said loudly. "I meant that he insults me for not instantly knowing how to fix you and taking immediate action. I keep telling him we're from a fairy-free zone, but then he starts asking just when I sustained a head injury." Leaning down, he smirked. "I think he thinks I'm a dangerous influence on you, Case," he whispered.
Laughing was painful. "But we are," she told the man once she'd regained her breath.
"What?" he asked, raising an eyebrow and taking the empty cup out of her hands.
"Not from around here," she elaborated. "And we're trying to find our way back home."
He looked back and forth between the two of them a couple of times. "Just where did you children come from?"
Scowling, Derek snatched up the damp cloth and went back to wiping off her forehead. "Sure, when I try to tell you about television and the space shuttle, you think I'm stupid. But all Casey has to do is wake up from her coma and say cryptic stuff about looking for home, and you're all love and kisses."
One word stood out to her. "Coma?" she asked quietly. "Really? And, Derek, I'm not two. I don't need you to wash my face."
"Well, I'm not a doctor, but five days is a hell of a long time to take a nap," he said, something like concern in his eyes. Which she was probably just imagining, but anyway. "And between you and me, Casey, you smell kind of bad. Almost week without a bath, remember? Besides, you've been running a fever, and the old dude said it would be bad for fairy sweat to dry on your skin or something. You slept through the rest of your sponge bath, though."
"De-rek!" she wheezed, feeling the heat of a blush.
He grinned. "Relax, Case. I kept it PG-13. Although I have to say, orange? Not really what I'd've picked out for you, but I guess it's your choice."
"As soon as I can stand up without falling over," she said, "I'm going to kill you."
"While your antics are quite amusing," the man interjected, interrupting their glaring contest, "you still have not answered my question."
"What question?" Derek asked, not taking his eyes off her.
He sounded exasperated. "Where are you from?"
"There was a door," Casey said, remembering Marti's secret garden as if from a dream. Derek's frown deepened and she stuck her tongue out at him.
The man erupted in a splutter of coughs, causing both of them to finally turn. "A... door?" he echoed, wide-eyed. "You two come from behind the door? Tell me, is everyone over there as foolish as you?"
"Pretty much," Derek said with a shrug.
She almost picked another argument with him over that little comment -- almost. But she was more interested in what the old man knew about the door, so she kept quiet.
"How did you open it?" the man asked, obviously incredulous.
"Are you going to call me stupid again if I tell you?" he shot back.
Lips curling over his teeth in a sneer, the man sighed. "Only if you deserve it."
He rolled his eyes. "Fine. Okay, so when my kid sister was outside playing, she found a garden behind a weird door. So Casey and I went to make sure she wasn't, like, playing in toxic waste or something. And we got in a fight, like always, and knocked each other into the door. It opened, we fell in and wound up here. In hell. "
Tilting her head downward, Casey permitted herself a smile. While technically correct, his explanation was so utterly... Derek that it was almost refreshing. In the middle of all this strangeness, at least he was still himself.
"You don't know how you opened the doorway?"
"No clue, daddy-o," he said, nodding in agreement.
Abruptly, the man hurled the cup at Derek's head -- Derek, of course, ducked it. Damn him. "It requires meditation and skill to open the door. It takes years to accomplish such a feat! And you expect me to believe that you and this... girl-child opened it by falling against it? Either you two are the most powerful mages in the whole of existence, or you're the most idiotic children I've ever met."
"Hey, welcome to the party, Casey," Derek said with a grin, "now you're stupid too!"
She was torn between righteous fury and abject despondence. In the end, she went with the fury mostly because she thought it would be more productive. "You don't know anything about us," she said sharply. "You don't know anything about our world. It's not our fault that the door works differently on our side. So stop insulting us and start telling us how to get home!" She was horrified to realize that she felt a suspicious tingling in her eyes. Damn it, she wasn't going to cry. Wasn't, wasn't, wasn't.
Expression softening slightly -- but only slightly -- the man leaned over her bed. Casey realized then that he smelled awful. "I don't know how to send you home," he said. "Opening the door is beyond my ability. I'm just a keeper."
"But you said people know how to open it, right?" Derek asked. "Let's just find one of them."
"The door has not been opened for many generations," he told them. "I doubt many people even know of its existence."
"So we're..." Casey began, trailing off in horror.
"No," Derek said, giving his head a violent shake. "No, we're not stuck, Casey. There's always a way out. Derek Venturi does not get stuck on the wrong side of bizarre doors!"
She was crying now. Openly and loudly. "Well," she said with a little hiccup. "There's a first time for everything."
"Aw..." he moaned. "Don't cry, Case."
"Indeed." If possible, the old man looked more uncomfortable with her tears than even Derek. "I'm not completely without resource. After all, I am the keeper."
"So, what, like old books of lore or something?" Derek asked sarcastically.
She couldn't help it; she giggled. It only intensified when he tipped her a wink. Was it actually possible he was trying to cheer her up?
Well, if he was, he was doing a pretty crappy job. From where she sat, their situation still basically sucked. But points for effort, maybe.
"Or something," he said. "I will let you know when I find something of interest to you. For now, I leave your friend in your charge."
He grinned at her. "You hear that, Casey? I'm in charge until the weird old dude figures out how to get us back through the magic door."
"Oh, God," she said, laying a hand dramatically over her chest. "We're doomed."
Not even an hour later, she was so ready to get out of bed that she wanted to scream.
And Derek was absolutely no help whatsoever. Some time in the last five days, his view of her had apparently shifted from 'mortal enemy' to 'helpless infant.' Right after the old man left, he'd tried to spoon-feed her something gross from a bowl. He even made little airplane noises.
Much to her secret satisfaction, the spoon wound up on the other side of the room, and the bowl of what later turned out to be something approaching soup would have been poured out over his head except that she was so damn hungry. And honestly, who needed a spoon to eat soup, anyway? She could sip it just as well.
If her wrists ached from the effort to hold the bowl as she drank, she wasn't about to mention it.
"So..." he drawled.
"What happened?" she asked, putting the bowl to the side. "It sounded like that guy knew something about that thing that bit me."
Derek snorted. "Oh, my God, he wouldn't shut up about it for, like, the whole time you were out. And he absolutely refused to believe I didn't know anything about it."
"Are you just going to leave me in the dark or what?"
"Well, you asked for it," he said with a showy sigh. "Apparently, Casey, fairies are poisonous. Did you know that?"
Her lips twitched. "I'd guessed."
"And if someone gets fairy-bitten and they don't treat it, did you know that they fall into an enchanted sleep? 'Cause I thought you were basically worm food as soon as you passed out, but he kept telling me you were asleep and I was a moron."
"Enchanted sleep?" she echoed, eyes widening.
"Yeah, see, this isn't just your run-of-the-mill Fairyland, Case. Welcome to magical Fairyland. My personal theory is that as soon as you're well enough, that old guy is going to try to shove us in the oven and bake us," he said sarcastically.
Something in the back of her mind twitched. "Wait... how did you wake me up out of an enchanted sleep, Derek?" she asked slowly. "Because I remember reading a lot of fairy tales as a kid, and the only thing that comes to mind is..."
"Yep," he said, grinning. "You got your first taste of the D-man. Too bad you were too busy puking all over me to enjoy it."
She leaned back in bed with a shudder. "Better you than that disgusting old man, I guess," she said. "Hang on, I threw up?"
"And passed out again. Normal 'sick person' sleep, though. You missed him laughing at me for ten minutes and then sending me down to the river to wash my shirt. Do you even know how much of a pain in the ass it is to wash a shirt in a river? It finally dried out, like, yesterday. And then we had to wait for the rest of the bad-fairy stuff to cycle out of your system. You were really sick, Case." He stared at his hands in his lap, and she took that to mean he'd been worried enough that he didn't want her to see his reaction.
"It's just so strange..." she said thoughtfully. "None of this makes any sense."
"Seriously," he said in agreement. "I mean, what is that guy's problem? I'm awesome. How can he not see that?"
Wrinkling her nose, she just gave him a look. "I was actually talking about the fact that we seem to have fallen into a magical world with fairies and self-locking doors. And we don't know how to get home. Mom and George must be going out of their minds -- we've been gone for almost a week."
"I hope Marti got home okay." His voice was soft and hesitant, dropping the façade of calm for the moment. "I hope the door opening was just a one-time deal."
She sucked in her breath through her teeth. "Gosh, I didn't even think about that."
"It was all I could think about while you were out," Derek confessed. "I mean, it was bad enough being stranded here with you, and then you were... not here, and I just kept imagining her wandering through the forest forever. And she'd catch a fairy because she's nine and stupid, and it would bite her, and there wouldn't be anyone to..."
After a long moment, she made an honest effort to give him a comforting smile. "But when Marti opened it, she just found a garden, remember? She opened it, went inside, and came back out without getting locked in. Maybe it just went weird because we were there."
"Huh."
"Which, of course, begs the question of why," she said in a thoughtful voice. Now that she'd started thinking along those lines, her mind was spinning circles around itself. "I mean, why us?"
"So what you're asking is: who have we pissed off and how," he said matter-of-factly with a wide smirk.
She frowned. "Derek, I'm serious."
"So'm I, Casey. Have you looked around this place? If the magic door wanted to send us here for some reason, the only thing I can come up with is that we've done something really bad to deserve it."
She couldn't be sure whether he was still teasing or not -- he wasn't smiling any more, but it was possible that his eyes were twinkling at her. She didn't have a lot of experience with twinkling eyes, though; it was equally possible that the light from the window was just hitting his face at a weird angle.
Either way, she didn't have much in the way of a response. "I guess it doesn't really matter," she eventually said. "But for whatever reason we're here, if I don't get out bed soon, I'm going to..." Nothing sufficiently horrible was coming to mind.
"Sit in the bed some more?" he asked with a smirk.
"Shut up, Derek," she replied automatically.
And with that, the moment passed and they were just Casey and Derek again. The surreal nature of their situation faded as they lapsed into their familiar sniping. Although, if she allowed herself to think about it, she wasn't entirely sure that was a good thing.
Two hours later, she'd finally talked Derek into helping her try to walk.
She was pretty sure he hadn't kept her in bed because of his concern over her well-being, though. It was far more likely he'd just been trying to avoid doing anything. If she was bedridden, then all he had to do was sit nearby and be witty, but if she was going to get up, he'd have to actually expend effort to assist.
Whatever his reasons were, it took way longer than she would have suspected to wear him down. It took threatening to deliberately wet the bed to get his attention.
And she had absolutely no idea how Derek and the crazy old man had taken care of... that while she was unconscious, but she also had absolutely no intention of asking.
At the moment, though, she was way too concerned with not falling flat on her face to worry much about it. Derek was no help whatsoever, of course. He had a desultory arm around her waist and could theoretically catch her if she stumbled, but he wasn't helping to hold her up at all. And damn it, her legs were tired already and she'd only walked about ten feet.
"Where the hell is his bathroom, anyway?" she grumbled, trying not to let him know how out of breath she was.
He wouldn't meet her eyes. "Um, Casey, see... the thing is..."
"Oh, no," she said, pieces falling into place. "You're not telling me..."
Finally, his grip tightened around her and she leaned into him as much as she dared. "Yeah," he told her. "Outhouse."
On the one hand, the exercise was probably good for her. She hadn't been out of the bed for more than four days, and she was so weak she felt like she was going to collapse at any second. On the other hand...
An outhouse? Ew. In fact, that deserved a whole freaking ocean of 'ew.' Especially if it smelled anything like the old man himself.
She wasn't going to think about it. There was nothing she could do about it, and it wasn't like she was just going to... not go.
As she and Derek shuffled outside, though, a little building loomed ominously. "Is that it?" she asked breathlessly.
"It's not as bad as it could be, Casey," he said, still not looking directly at her. "When I said something about it a couple of days ago, he said he just dug a new hole a few weeks back, so at least..."
"Please don't finish that sentence," she said in a flat voice.
At the door of the outhouse, he finally looked at her, expression distinctly uncomfortable. "So, uh, you don't need any..." he stammered with a deep blush.
Oh.
"No," she said quickly. "I think I can manage."
It actually didn't smell as bad as she'd thought it would. Possibly, it had something to do with the fact that the building wasn't airtight. She took the opportunity to lean against the wall and attempt to catch her breath. And she was able to stand up on her own once she was done, so that counted for something, right?
Derek was still beside the door when she opened it, his face neutral. "Do you want to go back in?" he asked.
"It's really pretty out here," she said. "And you don't have to baby-sit me, you know. I can take care of myself."
"Yeah, let's see if you can make it twenty-four hours in this place without poisoning yourself and then we'll talk," he retorted, but there was little sting in it, so she ignored him.
Carefully, she picked her way down the gentle slope to the river, Derek's hand at her elbow the entire time. With a sigh of happiness, she sat on the bank and dabbled her feet in the water. It was icy cold, but somehow it didn't matter. It was just good to be out of the bed. He settled beside her and began systematically shredding the grass at his feet.
After a few moments spent in this fashion, she gave him a sideways look. "Thanks, I guess," she said quietly.
"For what?" he asked, blinking.
"For lots of stuff," she said, feeling increasingly awkward. "I mean, you brought me here, you saved my life, and apparently, you've been taking care of me ever since. It's like you spend your entire existence trying to make me mad at you, but when I really need you, there you are."
"Well..." he said, sounding equally uncomfortable with her words. "What would I tell Nora if I just let you die over here? I've got to look out for myself, you know."
"Yeah, well, I appreciate it," she told him, nudging him slightly with her shoulder. "And I won't bring it up ever again. Not even that you had to wake me up... that way."
"Thank you," he said with deep conviction.
With a laugh, she leaned down and playfully flicked river water at him. "Mostly, I just can't believe we've gone this long without killing each other."
He rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. "I don't think anyone would believe it if we told them. But face it, Case, you're literally the only person in the whole world that I know. Getting along is kind of necessary right now."
"We are sort of stuck with each other, aren't we?" She stretched out on the riverbank and unsuccessfully tried to stifle a yawn. "I guess that's all right, though. I'd rather be stranded here with you than, say, Marti. Or even Lizzie. They'd both be helpless."
"Yeah, this isn't really what I'd call a kid-friendly place. And you're not doing so hot either," he said, twisting his head around to look down at her. "Are you okay? Because we can go back in if we need to."
"I'm fine, you worrywart," she replied with a frown.
"Mostly I ask because I'm not carrying you back inside if you fall asleep out here."
Plucking a clover stalk, she attempted to throw it at him. "De-rek!"
He grinned. "Hey, I just calls 'em as I sees 'em."
Three more days. Three more horrible days of Derek fussing over her without actually being helpful in any way. Well... he did fix the occasional meal. And he wouldn't let her brave the outhouse alone even though she'd been walking fine since that first day. Mostly, though, he just sat around and complained about how bored he was.
Fortunately she was saved from having to smother him in his sleep to get him to shut up when the old man came tearing into her bedroom one afternoon, waving a book and shouting something incomprehensible.
Derek looked up from the handful of homemade playing cards he was holding and scowled. She'd had the idea to make the cards that morning in an effort to find something to keep Derek occupied. "Speak English, dude," he said, dropping a card onto the discard pile labeled 'Two of Clubs' in his crabby handwriting.
"De-rek," she said, ignoring the old man's ravings. "Why would you freeze the deck now? It's only got, like, two cards in it."
Apparently unconcerned, he just rolled his eyes. "I don't remember a rule about explaining your every strategic move in this particular version of canasta. Suck it up and draw, Case."
"Will you two fools stop playing this child's game and listen?" the man shouted.
"It's not a kids' game," Derek told him, sounding wounded. "Casey learned this game from her grandma. It's for old people -- you'd like it, probably."
Lips curling over his teeth in a snarl, the old man made a swipe for Derek's head. As Derek ducked, he knocked the stack of cards off the bed and Casey swore under her breath. Little sheets of paper went flying everywhere.
"Do you have any idea how long it's going to take to find all those?" he asked with a glare. "I don't even know how many there are!"
"A hundred and eight," Casey said before she could stop herself. "Counting the jokers."
Derek opened his mouth to respond -- probably something horrible -- but the old man actually leaned over and covered it with a filthy hand. "Remind me to say a prayer of thanks to every god I've ever heard of once you two are finally out of my house," he told her.
It clicked. "You mean..." she began slowly.
"That's right," the man said. "I've found another door." With a noise of disgust, he released Derek's mouth and wiped his palm on his shirt. "I find it hard to believe that any young woman, even one as senseless as your friend here, would ever seek you as a companion," he told him spitefully.
"Yeah, well, I find it hard to believe you've ever washed that hand. As soon as I taste something worse, I'll let you know what it is," he retorted, making a big show of wiping his tongue off with the collar of his shirt. "And just so you know, Casey and I aren't companions."
While she was tempted to make protesting noises about the fact that Derek had said the word 'companions' like it was an incurable disease, she couldn't bring herself to disagree with his assessment. "That's right," she admitted grudgingly. "We're just stuck with each other."
The man regarded them with a skeptical eyebrow. "It doesn't matter," he said. "But to find your way home, you must seek the Island of Fire."
"What?" Derek asked in a disbelieving voice. "Like where all the gay guys go for vacation?"
Leaning over, she thumped him in the back of the head. "Derek, you really are an idiot, you know?"
"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Case," he said, sneering.
"The Island of Fire is mentioned in several books," the old man said, interrupting their glaring match. "And after much consultation, I am positive that it is another gateway to your world. One that can possibly be opened."
Casey smiled. "Great. So how do we open it?"
"There was not adequate documentation," he replied with a sigh. "Although it was very clearly stated that the Island of Fire is a doorway based on emotional response rather than on intense magical study."
"So, like, what?" Derek asked. "We just wish to go home?"
The man rolled his eyes. "I highly doubt it, young man. But the key is something you will have to find on your journey."
Those were excellent words to hear. Mostly because they meant that she and Derek were going to get out of this place. Before she even had time to think about it, Casey realized she was on her feet and rummaging in the nearby wardrobe in an effort to find the clothes she'd arrived in.
"How do we get there?" she heard Derek ask.
"I don't know."
"Well, jeez, aren't you just a well of useful information," Derek retorted sarcastically. "I'm sure glad we ran into you."
For what was probably approaching the thousandth time, the old man sighed and scowled at him. "You should be. If nothing else, you should be grateful for the simple fact that the keeper of the door is one of very few non-mages that can understand your speech."
"What do you mean?" Casey asked curiously, twisting her head around to stare at him.
"Think about it, girl!" the man snapped. "You two come from a different world. Did you really believe we've been speaking the same language?"
"I kind of wondered about that," Derek said. "I mean, you don't have an accent or anything."
Walking over to the wardrobe, the man roughly shoved her out of the way. "What it means is that you two must take care not to speak to anyone if you can avoid it. Your language marks you as outsiders, and we do not live in times that are... kind to strangers." Something in the back of the wardrobe made a loud clanging noise.
"You said you don't know where the Island of Fire is," Derek said. "So do you have any idea of where we should look, or are you just going to throw us out with a smile and a wave?"
Viciously, the man yanked a large sack out of the wardrobe and dumped it unceremoniously on the ground. "Go west," he said. "There is a mage in the town not too far from here. He may know more about the Island." Before either of them could come up with a response, he buried his head in the cabinet again.
Casey exchanged a look with Derek. "So, what do you think?" she asked quietly.
He shrugged. "What choice do we have? I mean, I doubt you want to stay here either."
Involuntarily, she shuddered.
"I didn't think so," he said with a smirk.
Another bag -- not quite so big but apparently quite heavy -- flew out of the wardrobe and landed on the floor with an audible rattle. "You'll need these," the man said, pointing at the sacks. "The larger one for the girl, I think." He gave them speculative looks. "At least, to begin with."
"What--?" she began.
Flapping his hand, he cut her off. "I'm not about to send you off empty-handed, child. You'd be dead before sundown."
"So we're leaving now?" she asked.
"If you would be so kind," he said with a nod. "My generosity can only stretch so far. Besides, it will take several days to reach the town on foot, and you do not have time to spare, I don't think." He handed her another bundle that turned out to be her clothes.
"We go west," she said. "And we don't talk to anyone if we can help it. And we're looking for the Island of Fire."
"I wish you luck in your travels," the man said, watching Derek pick up the sacks. He fumbled with the smaller, heavier one and dropped it on his foot, swearing loudly. "You're going to need it."