Inspired by what I believe is my SEVENTH re-watching of the season 4 episode entitled 'Ralph and Casey?!'
The events of this mini-fic take place at some point between when Derek tells Ralph to 'go for it' with Casey and when Casey comes downstairs, wearing what would appear to be DEREK'S CLOTHING and looking hard-core disheveled, on a mission to send Ralphie-dearest running for the hills.
Meanwhile.
EreshkigalGirl, I LOVE YOU, YOU MAKE MY LIFE COMPLETE.
Also, lots of reviewing and catching up to do STILL, and I have no timeframe for when these things will happen, but they WILL, by knee-socks, they *will.* (This includes USteps porn.)
READ ON, BROTHAS.
"Okay, so here's the deal." Derek begins, ignoring her squeak of surprise when he smashes through her bedroom door (as per usual, without permission). "We're gonna need you to be as repulsive as possible." He appraises her thoughtfully. "Shouldn't be that hard," he declares matter-of-factly, nodding faintly, chin in hand. Casey scowls venomously and socks him in the arm while he's busy mentally undressing her.
And, um.
You know.
Redressing her.
In his clothes.
But only because, uh. They're all smelly and unclean and repulsive-like. Which is what they're going for.
Obviously.
After he explains his Brilliant Plan to discourage Ralphie's affections, she grudgingly agrees that the idea's not half-bad, "even if it is hackneyed and lacking in imagination," a (totally bogus) claim he's sure she only makes to provoke him.
The wry smile she tilts toward him when she flounces past only cements this notion.
She'll regret it later, he vows, when he fastens all her furniture to the ceiling –except maybe her bed, which he's planning to install on the roof.
There's something distinctively unnerving about watching Casey routing around in his closet; not unpleasant, necessarily, just…you know, sort of…surreal. Not something he ever expected to witness firsthand, and certainly not an activity he could ever have anticipated he'd be participating in.
Obviously, this isn't the first time she's been forced (by circumstances he'd engineered –intentionally or otherwise) to navigate the treacherous innards of his closet, but he's never been here for the Culling Process.
It's a little harrowing.
He makes it to Potential Repulsive-Appropriate Candidate Outfit Twelve before something in his mind finally snaps from the strain. (And not just because the rumpled shirt she's laying flat against her chest is the one he'd worn that wondrous evening he'd received his first hand job, either, although he's willing to concede that's probably a contributing factor.)
"Just pick something already, will ya? Anything'll do. It's Ralph, Case. You're thinking about this too much." She purses her lips at him and runs her fingers meditatively along the seam, and his stomach flops when her thumb and forefinger pinch against an old, fading stain.
"You would not believe how often people tell me that." At long last, she appears to decide against this particular article, absently popping it onto a hanger before she returns to combing through the steaming wreckage of his wardrobe.
"Oh, I think I might." She throws a hanger at him which misses him by at least two provinces. He'd laugh at her atrocious aim if they weren't presently on a Mission. And maybe also if she'd stop pressing and folding his clothes when she's done with them. That's really beginning to freak him out.
He watches, rapt and disturbed, as Casey carefully selects, rejects, and then gradually returns to order the chaos of Derek Venturi's closet, a task he's relatively certain hasn't been attempted for at least as long as his dad's been nagging him to do it. So, like, fifteen years?
"Casey," he inadvertently clears his throat on the latter half of her name, and she shifts him this weird, considering look that makes him feel anxious and edgy. Her eyes follow him to his bed, where he bends to retrieve a blue shirt and a pair of athletic pants lying in a crumpled mess on his comforter, and he pretends he isn't painfully aware of her scrutiny when he tosses the bundle at her head. "This'll do."
"Didn't you wear these…last night?" She would know, he reflects briefly; they'd spent a good long while tussling in the hallway at some unspeakable hour of the morning for…actually, he can't remember what they'd been fighting about now, but it'd probably been important.
Maybe.
Unless it hadn't been.
…which is the more likely scenario.
"That's why they're perfect. You'll smell--" like me, he almost says, but thinks better of it, "--like you haven't showered for a couple days." Her face scrunches in distaste.
"Oh, that is gross, Derek. You haven't bathed in a couple of days?"
"Water conservation is a serious matter, Case. Or haven't you been listening to Lizzie at dinner? Honestly, what kind of sister are you if you can't even support your baby sib's environmental enterprises?" She gapes at him stupidly for a satisfactorily long moment, reminding him why he bothers to occasionally remember such things in the first place. "Just put it on, Case. Ralphie's downstairs, pining away for you…" She looks like she wants to argue this point, but instead she relents.
"Ugh, fine. Out while I change, you Neanderthal. Out, out." She makes shooing motions with her hands, and he returns the favor of holding his tongue, which in his estimation is Monumentally Gracious, being that this is his room and there is no precedent for him being so rudely expelled from it. By anyone. Ever.
There's also no precedent for (mostly) naked Caseys in his room, which he very carefully Doesn't Think About as he steps into the hallway.
When she finally invites him back in (by way of ripping open his door, casting a frantic glance left, right, left again, and grabbing him by his shirt collar and jerking him inside, slamming the door behind them), she crosses her arms and scowls at him.
"Well?" He considers.
"The look's a start. Not too different from the way you usually look: disgusting, but it's a start. Now you just have to work on being repulsive."
"Well, you're definitely the perfect coach for that."
"Thank you," he grins, proud. She rolls her eyes.
Following another quiet stretch of assessment, he approaches her and, deliberately withholding any sort of cautionary notification, places his hands on either side of Casey's face, fingers sliding back, into her hair, and it isn't until he (accidentally) hesitates that it dawns on her that she should be fighting this, and she snaps back with an outraged, 'De-REK!'
Undaunted, he orders her to hold still, reassures her that this's all for Ralphie's benefit, invites her amiably to please shut the hell up and let The Master work, even squeezes in a self-ingratiating,
"Lord of the Lies, remember? I know what I'm doing. Trust me." To which she responds with a perfunctory (though no less heartfelt),
"Never." He smirks, amused.
"Just the same." And then he's back in her personal space, fingers tangled into her Very Soft hair, mussing and disheveling with what he can only describe as a sort of malignant euphoria. It's a heady feeling, curiously invigorating; he likes that she's letting him personally spoil the diligent perfection of her appearance.
When he's finished tousling, he drags his fingers through the carnage, raking over her scalp and down, over her shoulder blades, finally pulling his hands away only very slowly, and a brief Look passes between them.
To break it, he grabs her hips and steers her abruptly toward his bed. Then he commands her to lie down and roll around on it for a minute or two. She stares at him, agape.
"Excuse me?"
"Chillz, step-sib, this's all part of the plan. It'll give you that lovely budgeraggly look."
"You mean 'bedraggled?'"
"Whatever the kids are calling it these days. Now get to scruffing, McDonald."
She shoots him a dubious look before she finally moves to comply –albeit begrudgingly, 'ew-ew-ew'-ing all the way onto his mattress, looking positively revolted when she finally settles back onto his comforter, stiff as a board. He smiles fondly down at her.
"This," she squirms, "is so…disgusting."
"You're the only girl who thinks so." Casey ignores him.
"I don't…I don't think I can do this." Exasperated, he rolls his eyes and plunks down onto the bed beside her.
"Do ya' wanna get Ralphie to back off, or not?" She glares at him.
"I wouldn't need to get Ralphie to back off if you hadn't encouraged him to 'go for it.' I don't see why you can't just take care of this since it's technically all your fault anyway."
"Casey, I'm not the one who bewitched poor, helpless, gullible Ralph. That was you, remember?" He considers her disdainfully. "Though how you did that, I'll never know."
"I'll have you know I am perfectly likeable."
"Yeah. You keep telling yourself that." Then, "Now, are we doing this, or what?" She glances at him in sudden alarm, perched as he is beside her on the mattress.
"Doing…doing what?" She wonders, tentative, unsure. When he pushes her back at the collar, she freezes. "Derek…" She gulps, breath shallowing. "I…I…"
"Relax, Case." He says soothingly, and she…she does. (He has magic powers!) He realizes his hand is still at her collar bone, that his fingers are stroking absently back and forth at the base of her throat. Horrified, he pulls his hand away and leaps to his feet, directing her to move already, they don't have all day, hop to, so on and so forth. He even offers to leave the room again, let her go over her Battle Plan in (relative) privacy while she's unkempt-ing.
A couple minutes later, she emerges from his bedroom, looking mussed, smelling like him, wearing his clothes.
When she asks him if he thinks she's ready, for a solid minute he's unable to respond at all.
Then, as if sent from on high, Ed and Liz pop out of their Command Center (the games' closet), and Derek curtly informs her that she looks truly horrifying, like something out of a nightmare, and Casey huffs at him as she spins on her heel and stomps downstairs to repulse Ralph.
There just isn't enough chocolate cake in this world.