On the bright side cabs were willing to pick up a drunk who could pay at any time of day. On the down side, he wasn't sure even the traffic could keep him awake. He had the time, and walking kept him vertical. It wasn't far so he purposefully overshot, his own little uneventful odyssey through Hell's Kitchen.

"Derek?" Not where she ought to be, off her mark while he was off his.

"Hello."

"Are you okay?" He swayed closer when she put her hand on his arm, pulled a little and sniffed.

"Did you just sniff me?" A little incredulous.

She sighed, "come on," and towed him towards her front door. He followed, docile. It was always so easy to follow her. Until she let him go. He figured she'd push him down on the stoop, the railing was quite familiar and her hesitation indicated she was, really, until the midday crowd kept looking over.

She pushed him down on her couch instead, then disappeared, reappeared with water, aspirin, barefoot.

"What's wrong?"

It sounded less like interest than formality, but he answered anyway. "No one picked up Hit List. Doesn't matter why, it's dead in the water."

He could almost hear the roll of her eyes. "It means that much to you? There will be other shows, Derek."

It was hard to want something new when you weren't done with what you had. "I tried to call you, last night." Unfairly accusing. "You didn't pick up."

"I was tired." And she looked it, carefully masked by paints and fabrics and glossy finishing touches.

"An' I went home with Karen." He didn't know why he had to throw that at her, she'd never want to hear it and he never would have told her.

With precise, fluid steps, Ivy crossed the room and slapped him.

"I deserved that." It was even helpful, some of the fuzz gone from his brain.

She didn't even look angry, as she arranged herself in a chair. Just tired. "I guess... Thank you for telling me. And congratulations."

His eyebrows knit themselves. "For what?"

"She's who you've always wanted, isn't she? Not just Marilyn." The worn rasp in her voice was a double-edged whisper. "I know you'd already have been together if she hadn't turned you down- a couple days before you came to see me? Less?"

Truth was rough. "Earlier that day, I think-" It was easier to think when she wasn't moving, a little too fast for him track until she stopped, propping open her front door.

"I have a show tonight. It's time for you to go."

"Look." Even as he obediently pushed himself up, "I want to explain-"

"-I don't want an explanation. I don't want to know."

Just outside the arc of worn rug he leaned against the wall, not quite going, not quite close enough.

"Whatever it is, whatever it was that makes you keep coming back every time I try to..." She bit her lip and shut her eyes and he wanted to gather her up in his arms until she changed her mind and shut the door and smiled and laughed.

"Karen isn't you."

"Because she turned you down. At least twice, that I know about." He supposed she might have turned him down before, if he'd asked.

"And how many times have you-" Just the once, he had to admit. Once, on her stoop, when he'd been- "- have you broken up with me?"

"You cheated on me," she hissed.

"That one time. And I- Every week you made it quite plain that you would be perfectly fine without me. You never called. And you don't want to be seen in public with me." Those things were all true, he was surprised to discover this fact. They would probably hurt if he probed.

"You always wanted Karen more."

"For Marilyn."

"You tried to sleep with her before me. Only she said no."

It took a moment to sort that one out. "I never asked her to. But you always knew who I was. You can't blame me for it now." Especially now, with his 'conquests' up in arms.

Ivy deflated. "I know. I don't."

He reached for her cheek, halfway away when she shrugged him off.

"It's fine, Derek. But I don't want to be some safe fallback just because I happen to like you. I don't want to be that woman."

"You aren't." He tipped his head back against the wall, all angles, hard and cold.

"Then what am I?" And it sounded like the last question, the one that meant all avenues are exhausted and the audience is silent, one shared indrawn breath for a line that... he couldn't say.

Not because he couldn't say it, not because he didn't think it was true, but because Ivy wasn't that simple, they weren't that simple, and it wouldn't work. Oh, maybe for a while. Until she kicked him out again, and he was left wondering, again, where it all went wrong.

"Derek?" She shut the door, softly, crossed her arms instead.

"You're my Verdon." And that was scarier than the other thing. He crossed his arms too, trying to hold in the upset, prepare for the fight.

There wasn't one. Just Ivy, standing still arms crossed looking at him, he guessed, like her mother remembered. Waiting without particular hope or expectation for an explanation that wouldn't leave her with a little less faith.

"You are," he studied the ceiling and made mental check marks, "or were, possibly my only friend and certainly my best one." Territory they'd already covered, not too hard at all. "I might have seen Karen in my head but," he interrupted himself to forestall her objection but she didn't make a peep, "I can't control who I see in a part and I've never been able to do real work with her. Not on Bombshell, you saw what happened when I tried." He snuck a look, her eyes were shiny.

The next bit in monotone. He still couldn't explain it. Entirely. Not even to himself, whether it was the show or the girl, which came first... "Yes Hit List was better, all over, but the only times I managed to make anything of it where when I ignored Karen and pretended I was watching the show with you. And no, Karen was not happy with the result." Another glance down, a twitch of smile in return for the hoped-for one from her.

"And," the one he thought he'd been saying all along but if she didn't know or didn't care they couldn't pretend he hadn't said it.

Friends? Check. Partners/muse? Check. Family?

"You're the only one I want to be there when I go home. I want to see you. Talk to you. Every day," in case that wasn't obvious. "I don't want to walk around like a bloody idiot calling you wondering why you're mad at me." It was an odd image in his head, familiar and unfamiliar and safe, but in a more dangerous way. "I want you to tell me, and then send me to the couch until you forgive me. Or the other way round, if you prefer." A progression, symbolic and real. Stoop to couch. Outside to in. Denied to withheld.

"Sleep it off, Derek." But she put her hand on his arm, not the door, pushed him towards the bed.

Quiet movement marked her progress around her apartment as he stripped just far enough to bury himself under her covers. Familiar sounds, the rustle of a dress, rush of a tap, click of heels and ding of a glass at the table by his head. He opened one eye: Ivy Lynn, changed and ready to leave.

"You'll be back later?"

And she looked tired and distracted and the mattress dipped under her hand but when she kissed him on the cheek it felt like a smile.

"Where else do I have to go?"

The last thing he wanted to say, but couldn't. Not because he couldn't but because it wasn't true. There were places he could be, spaces that were his. Even if it didn't feel that way.

Family. Check.

At least, something closer. In the end Fosse and Verdon weren't the best model anyway.

A/N: Indeed there is a Hannibal reference in there.

-but damnit if that tummy snuggling scene didn't make me understand derek-

-He is - i think he's trying in these minimalistic ways that don't make him feel vulnerable-

-like he's hoping to get where he wants to be without actually having to risk anything-

-so he's actually going to have to put his cards on the table at some point-

-so Karen becomes proxy for the Ivy role. And it's almost the same. Only it's not.-

-marieelise/marieYOTZ