AN. If it's easier to read than you only have bsloths to thanks.
Okay so I'm not too sure about this chapter either. It just came to me and I wrote it. Not much planning here, so it could suck... (I hope not).
DISCLAIMER: I don't own LWD.
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It isn't like he remembers any of it…He doesn't…Each touch… Each caress. Each tiny little word uttered by her is not etched into his memory…He doesn't recall her "De-rek"….He doesn't remember anything…Not his staying and definitely not her leaving…
And that is the hardest part to play…
Because the fact is that he can still smell the citrus shampoo on the pillow, the mattress is still a little curved in from her weight, his neck still feels the heat from her fingers, her book is still lying on his table…He laughs (it comes out a little bitterly and the prompters start shaking their heads in disapproval) because there is more (so much more) and he knows he can never forget…
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(A few hours earlier)
"You're hugging me?" she says as soon as his arms curve around her and he doesn't know whether to smile at the 'family moment' or push her away.
He tightens his arms in response.
"I'm tired Derek…Very tired…" she says from somewhere against his chest…And he hasn't realized that they had been in that position (he's kneeling, she's sitting on his bed and they're wrapped around each other) for quite a few minutes now…
He's tired too but isn't sure if she means it in the same way…So instead he asks if she would like to go to sleep.
"Here?" she asks. ("De-rek you can't crash in here!")
"If you want."
(He remembers him quitting his job at Smelly Nelly's and he didn't know that he had it in him enough to care (so much)).
It hasn't even struck him until he has already (gently…Because he isn't sure if his shattered soul can bear to hurt her…It's truly mystifying.) pushed Casey down on the bed. (And she doesn't protest. Yet). )"You do keep complaining about Linda and her nightly activities keeping you awake, so why don't you…Just sleep here and I'll…I'll take the couch." (Except that it's a dorm room and he doesn't have a couch; damn the prop department.)
She looks up at him and silently rolls to her side leaving enough space for him on the other end and yeah he can take a hint…
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His cell phone has been buzzing the entire night and he hasn't bothered to pick it up even once. They're calls and ultimately angry voice messages from Megan and he knows that she has left for Australia without him. Her final text message confirms his doubts: 'GO TO HELL.'
He looks at Casey, fast asleep, her face buried in his shoulder and her arm lightly draped across his chest. The irony of course is that even though he may wake up with a cricked neck and a sore shoulder the next morning, she wouldn't know a thing because her moving closer to him had been instinctive and he worries whether he's being taken for an old teddy or… Jake…Yes, Megan. This is hell…
He's left staring at her, because how did this happen? What is she doing here? Why is he not pushing her away? Why is he letting himself get roped into whatever screwed up act she is performing? The sane thing obviously would be to push her off, hell! Because she is cramping his style and stiffening his muscles and it's his bed… And he isn't sure if it's the staring (he's still doing it?) that wills her to open her eyes or the fact that he's been absentmindedly rubbing his thumb along her jaw.
She looks at him for a long, hard moment as if trying to remember how she had gotten into his bed wrapped in his arms…Quietly, she removes her arm from his chest but without thinking (without wanting to think) Derek closes his hand around her wrist, stopping her. "Don't," he whispers, making her look up at him quizzically and shake her head, trying to clear it. "Derek," she warns except that she's whispering and her eyes are staring at him in dilemma (I'm confused too Case. Is this right? Will this ever be right?). He leans forward and closes her eyes with his lips, blocking out the confusion, lingering there for what feels like an eternity.
"De-rek." She whispers again (and it sounds like submission), he moves his lips over her forehead, her cheeks, her chin (He still isn't kissing her. He never could. It's like tasting her, trying to remember each bone structure of her face, which is plain silly because he never could forget it) and finally to the corner of her mouth.
"Casey?" he says this time, and it comes out as a question, permission.
She answers by repeating his movement with her fingertips. They roam around his face and his neck, resulting in him sighing deeply against her mouth. He lets go of her wrist to unclasp her hair and tangle a hand intensely through it…
And next? He isn't sure what to do next, which is strange because he holds a professional degree in kissing, and yet this is Casey and he never thought this was possible with her. (Who are you kidding Venturi? You've spent the last two years of your life just trying miserably to explain to the world why the two of you were together and yet not together.)
He's effectively aware of two things though, one: if he moves his face even a quarter of an inch he would meet her lips, and two: that his throat is choke full (and it tastes a bit like fear and a bit like hope). He sighs her name again and finally turns his face to kiss her… (And it tastes a bit like coming home.)
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They say that time is a very selfish thing; it stores the most crucial details for itself.
But isn't Derek Venturi an exception to every rule?
He remembers each and every expression of her panicked face to the most minute, aggravating detail, of how her eyes open wide and realization dawns on her face. The pure horror in which she pushes him away, dragging herself up to sit at the very edge of the bed.
"Casey? What's wrong?"
"I…You …We were…" Why does she have to look so scared? Why is she even sitting like that, her knees drawn up to her chest…?
"This is wrong," she finally blurts out.
Wrong? WRONG? He had barely kissed her. A rage so alien boils up in Derek that he's unable to even recognize the emotion. "Christ Casey. Stop acting so virginal about it. We both know that you're much more experienced than that."
He regrets it as soon as he says it. (And that sound you here? That's the scattering of whatever was left in him)
Casey stares at him for a while (and no please please no…she can't be crying) before blinking away tears (and somehow…for some unknown reason it makes him feel worse…because knowing that she can fix it …can be strong about this…and he can't, can't, can't….it makes him feel empty) and shifting her eyes on the floor (she won't even look at you Venturi)… His gaze falls on the pattern on the wall opposite him (he will not …just will not look at her either) and he lets his interest remain there...And the room is suddenly…Silent…Cold…Tensed…Dead…
It must have been seconds, minutes, hours, eternity (he can't seem to measure time anymore) before she finally breaks the silence
"I didn't want to sleep with him," she whispers softly and he wants to ask her to be louder (maybe not), "I hadn't planned it."
But she's had her whole life patterned since she was four…
He steals a glance at her, but she's still looking at the floor so he fixes his gaze back to the wall…Frankly, he can't look at her discussing how spontaneous and natural her love for Jake had been and not feel sick…
"We had gone out to celebrate our one month anniversary; I had been impressed that he had actually remembered it." He can hear the slight smile in her voice and groans a bit, because with Sam there had been a hockey match to screw things up but this aristocratic-snob did not even play hockey.
"I guess I wasn't thinking right and ended up drinking too much." Great! So what exactly is it about Jake that makes you let go of yourself? The fact that he cracks a joke nobody understands and then calls it British humor? Arse.
"It didn't have anything to do with Jake though; not particularly anyway," she continues, streaming right into his thought process. "The thought that I was with a guy, any guy, for a month and still didn't feel anything close to love…" He looks at her in surprise even though her eyes don't shift.
"I'm not the type, you know?" she asks rhetorically. He knows.
"So…That was it. I was drunk. Perhaps so was he. We went back to his place and…And I don't even remember anything else…" She finally looks up at him.
And what is that supposed to mean? You didn't want it, but you still had sex with him…How was that possible…Until…Until…Oh God….
"Did he …Did he take advantage of you Casey?" (And he wants to rip the guy's head off with his bare hands.)
Casey smiles slightly at his euphemism, "he didn't force me, if that's what you want to know." She briefly closes her eyes, and looks at him straight, (and he doesn't know whether that smile on her face is in sympathy (oh please no….no pity…not from her…not now…not ever) or empathy (maybe, just maybe she feels it too)), "I woke up quiet willingly in his arms the next morning."
Just as she had now, with her head buried in his shoulder, her arm draped around his chest. And he wants to slap her across her face...(Or run away)....
A part of him still can't believe that they are having this conversation anyway…
Which in retrospect, they aren't anymore because silence has engulfed the room once more.
Her cell phone breaks it this time…
"Hi, mom….Yes…Yes I'll be there for Christmas….Fine, I'll speak to him…" she pauses and looks at Derek, an unreadable expression clouding her eyes, again.
"Hello Violet…of course darling…Yes your brother will be coming too…He's right here….sure,"
She hands him the phone, "our sister wants to speak to you." And it feels like somebody has kicked him in the gut.
He talks to Violet, promising her that he would be bringing Santa along. And for few minutes he feels…Relaxed…Till he finishes the conversation and finds Casey already up from the bed, her hair settled back into its clasp, her hand held out for her phone…
He silently hands it to her and watches as she opens the door to leave, "Casey?" he calls out. (Please stay!) But why? Why? Why? Why ask her to stay? What was that he wanted from her anyway? That she would even more cruelly break his spirit (and his heart) with his body's own desires?
She turns around and her voice chills him to the core, "that's my sister you spoke to. The sister whose brother you are." She pauses, letting the words sink in, "Please do the math Derek."
And she leaves
(Here's a fun fact for all you nerdish fans who like to collect trivia about your favorite stars. Derek Venturi stayed back on Casey McDonald's request, but at the end of it all she's the one who leaves him.)
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AN: So? Please review?