And The Winner Is...
by The BucketWoman
Disclaimer: Lots of stuff I don't own. Life with Derek. Deliverance. Law and Order. Little Shop of Horrors or Wilhelm.
A/N: I had a little bit of formatting fun here. The action and dialogue in Edwin's movie appear in bold print, so that you can tell the difference between what people are saying on screen and what people are saying while they watch it.
Chapter Thirty-Eight.
Part One: Edwin.
Edwin made the supreme, life-ending mistake of saying, in Lizzie's presence, that he hoped to get his submission sent out by the end of the week. She was going to hold him to it. Looking his video over for the eleventy-billionth time, he wanted nothing more than to wimp out. To hit a few buttons and "accidentally" erase it from his hard drive. True, he had several backups, but those could be taken care of as well. Somehow. If he had to take up skeet shooting, he'd do away with them.
But Lizzie was too smart not to know what he was thinking. She was watching him. And she carried a flash drive with his video-in-progress on it. She knew that he could never bring himself to stomp her ten gigabyte flash drive.
Still, there had to be a way out of this. He could decide that, instead of posting the Derek movie (which still didn't have a freakin' title as if things could be any worse) maybe he could send out The Marti Chronicles, which he'd also been working on all summer. Marti would be perfectly happy with the spotlight.
"Nice try Edwin," Lizzie said, when he'd been stupid enough to run the idea by her. "No pussing out."
And now that Derek and Casey were done with that play, there was little to stop Derek from working on his own movie. He obsessed over it the same way Edwin obsessed over his. Casey tried to distract Derek whenever she could, God bless her. And she was a really good distraction but that didn't stop Derek from starting to ask Edwin questions about what he was working on.
"Um," Edwin said. "Just stuff. Ya know, nothing really..."
"And yet you're guarding it like it's the long lost extended cut of Deliverance or something," Derek said. "If it's 'nothing really' then why don'tcha let me see it?"
"What," Edwin said. "Like you're interested or something?"
"Of course I am," Derek said. "Why wouldn't I be interested? I'm your brother."
Edwin raised an eyebrow.
"And I need to stop looking at mine before I go crazy," Derek admitted.
"It's not ready yet," Edwin said, wrinkling his nose.
"Are you, like, trying to build suspense?" Derek asked. "Like, the more you say I can't see it, the more I want to? Because it's totally working."
That was most definitely not what Edwin was trying to do. Now that he'd painted himself into a corner, Derek grinned at him, like it was only a matter of time before he wore Edwin's resistance down. The boy was used to getting what he wanted, after all.
"Come on, Ed," Derek said.
"Nope," Edwin said.
"But I'm bored," Derek said.
"Read a book," Edwin said.
Derek gasped. Then he laughed when Edwin shot him a dirty look.
"Good one," Derek said. "'Read a book,' he says."
The firm, but fair approach wasn't going to work. He could try looking his brother in the eye and telling
him no, but Derek would only laugh and pat him on the head, tell him how cute he was. He could try getting angry, but the reaction would be much the same. Maybe if Edwin's face got red enough, Derek would try to hold back his laughter, but that was about it.
So there was only one thing left to do. He took a couple of shallow breaths.
"Derek, seriously," Edwin said, pretending to hyperventilate. "This is not a good time to ask me to show you this (gasp) because it's just really (gasp) not ready, and right now I just feel like" He made his voice crack here "it's just a big, steaming (gasp) pile of crap and I'm just (gasp) under so much pressure—"
"What is the matter with you?" Derek asked. If he didn't buy this, he'd have to squeeze out a tear, and that just wasn't as easy as Casey and Lizzie (and especially Marti) sometimes made it look.
He pinched the bridge of his nose to make it look like he was holding back tears that didn't technically exist.
"Okay, Derek," Edwin said, in a flat, defeated tone. "Know what? You wanna see it so bad? Fine. Pull it up, watch it. I don't care. I'm just gonna go get some ice cream." He turned his back and walked out of his own room, leaving Derek standing there.
"Ed!" Derek said. Edwin kept walking, listening for his brother's footsteps.
Derek beat him to the stairway on the second floor. He got in front of him and walked backwards down the stairs.
"Ed, what the hell?" he said. "If you don't wanna show me the thing, you don't have to."
Ha! Edwin thought.
"You didn't have to fake a panic attack," Derek said. "I just kinda wanna know why you don't trust me."
"What?" Edwin said.
"I know you showed your movie to everyone else," Derek said.
"No I didn't," Edwin bluffed.
"Casey told me," Derek said.
"Why would she tell you that? I never showed it to Casey," Edwin lied. Casey wouldn't have told him. If anything, Casey was hoping for a big reveal. She wanted Derek to be surprised. She wanted hugging, maybe some tears. Edwin let her continue to think that way, however delusional it was. She'd originally said that he should just send it out first, tell Derek later, but they both knew that that wouldn't work.
He stared Derek down. Derek gave him the eyebrow. He gave Derek the eyebrow right back until Derek cracked a smile, like he thought he was winning, or something.
"Fine," Edwin said. "Go 'head and watch it."
"I'm glad we could come to an agreement," Derek said. "Coming?"
"Nope," Edwin said, pointing toward the kitchen. "Ice cream."
"Bring me some," Derek said.
"Hmph," Edwin said. He watched Derek head up to his room in the attic before he headed in the other direction.
In the kitchen, he scooped himself some ice cream and broke up some cookies to mix into it. He took his time with it, pretending to be calm and uninterested as Derek came down to join him.
Derek waited patiently for Edwin to look up before he spoke.
"You changed your password," Derek said.
"Yep," Edwin said.
Part Two: Casey.
"Did you really pull a Law and Order on Edwin?" Casey asked, barging into his room. Lizzie'd told her everything as soon as she got back from the library.
Derek looked up from his desk and tried to look ashamed of himself. "Maybe."
"Well, how'd that work out for you?" Casey asked.
"He bluffed me. ME! What is this world coming to?" Derek said.
"Of course he bluffed you," Casey said. "You're losing your touch, dumbass. If you'd said that you'd somehow gotten the info out of Lizzie, maybe he would've believed it, but since he didn't show me his video, he had no reason to spill his guts, did he?"
"Come on, Case," Derek said. "Are you seriously telling me he didn't show the video to you and swear you to secrecy or something?"
"Why would he have shown it to me?" Casey asked. If he hadn't just hit the nail on the head, she would have found that to be either a ridiculously self-centered or ridiculously paranoid thing to say. Or both. This was Derek, after all. As cool as they all let him believe that he was, he could be just as neurotic as Casey; he just hid it better.
"But you tried to get him to let you see it?"
"Shyeah," Casey said. "Of course I did. He chased me off. Pulled the 'not till it's finished' neurotic artist thing. Same thing you got."
"Yeah. What the hell's that about?" Derek said.
"Why're you so interested in what he's up to anyway?" Casey asked.
"Why wouldn't I be?" Derek asked.
"You never cared what he did before," Casey said.
"Yeah, I did," Derek said. "Eventually."
Casey raised an eyebrow at him.
"Okay, so maybe I didn't care," Derek said. "But that was then. It was before he got so damn interesting."
"Before he became real competition, you mean," Casey said, her mouth curving into a smile despite her best efforts to prevent it.
"What's so funny?" he asked.
"Nothing," Casey lied.
"What?" Derek asked.
"You're afraid he might beat you," Casey sing-songed.
"Not afraid," Derek said. "He'll probably kick my ass. You'll remember that we've had this conversation before. When I saw the pictures he took? Of course he's gonna beat me."
"Sure," Casey said. "Easy for you to say. You can pretend that you're okay with the possibility of your little brother beating you all you want, because at least until now you didn't think about it too hard. The contest was still so far away. But that deadline's coming up and now it's driving you crazy, huh?"
"Duh," Derek said. "He needs to show me that movie. Like, now."
"He probably won't," Casey said.
Derek made a noise, part whine and part growl. This was something only he could pull off. Casey laughed.
"Glad this amuses you," Derek said.
"Good, 'cause it really does," Casey said.
"One day," Derek said waggling his index finger at her. "Something like this will happen to you and I will remember the way you're laughing at me right now."
"What else is new?" Casey said, grabbing the offending finger and pulling at the arm attached to it. She pulled him off the chair he was in and drew him closer.
"Trying to change the subject?" he asked.
"Do you care?" she asked.
"N-no," he said. "Not particularly."
"Thought not," Casey said. Then she put a couple of light kisses down his throat, giving him the shivers and pushing him onto the bed.
Part Three: Lizzie.
Lizzie felt like she should have seen this coming. It was a family trait. She'd seen George chew pencils to bits right before he had to give opening statements. With Derek, there was the puking. Now Edwin was pacing a hole in the rug. He couldn't keep his hands out of his hair, and it was sticking up all over the place. Every time he sat down, he bounced right back up like the chair was on fire.
"I have to show it to him," Edwin said.
"So show it to him," Lizzie said.
"But I can't show it to him!" Edwin said.
"So don't show it to him," Lizzie said. She had the weirdest sense of deja-vu.
"But if I don't—"
"Edwin," Lizzie said, putting a finger to his lips. "I say this out of love—keep that in mind—but if you don't sit down and shut up right now, I'm going to gag you with the first thing that my hand touches, and since your floor seems to actually be made up of sweatsocks and tightie whities, I'm thinking that you don't want that. Now do we understand each other?"
Edwin sat down.
"Now," Lizzie said. "How bout this—you listening?"
Edwin nodded.
"How bout we just show the video?" Lizzie said. "Have a little screening party, make popcorn?"
"Too many people," Edwin said.
"The seven of us is too many?" Lizzie asked. "But don't you want witnesses around in case he tries to kill you?"
"In some alternate universe that might've been funny, but in this one—" Edwin said.
"After dinner tonight," Lizzie said.
"Is that gonna be enough time?" Edwin said.
"Yes," Lizzie said. Because if the kid didn't do it now, she was gonna kill him, save Derek the trouble.
"Because I need to do one more thing," Edwin said.
"I'm listening," Lizzie said.
She watched Edwin pull out the camera and his tripod, so he could set it up on the floor in front of them. He turned it on and sat down in his computer chair.
"Hey," Edwin said to the camera. "I'm Edwin Venturi and I directed the short film you're about to see..."
Part Four: Derek.
Edwin got to wash the dishes as usual, but as soon as he was done, while Derek was still munching on the leftover garlic bread (shame to let it go to waste) Lizzie cocked her head at Casey and both of them disappeared. Since he had his nose in the garlic bread, he didn't think much of it.
Dad and Nora were watching TV with Marti and as usual, noticed nothing going on around them. Especially when Lizzie came up to Derek and said:
"You. Come with me."
Derek snorted, but she was already pulling him. "Where are we going?"
"Acapulco," Lizzie said. "Upstairs, where do you think?"
"Acapulco's upstairs?"
"Yeah," Lizzie said. "Just through the wormhole in the games closet."
"Well, that explains a lot," Derek said.
"Yeah, yeah. Less talking, more moving," Lizzie said.
They went up to Edwin's room to find Casey sitting on his bed, absently straightening the bow tie on his teddy bear.
"What are you doing to Mr. Fuzzy?" Edwin asked.
"Fixing his tie; it drives me nuts," Casey said. "And it can't be comfortable for him, either."
Edwin played along. "Well, I tried to talk him into a clip-on, but he just ain't having it."
"I thought you said the wormhole was in the games closet," Derek said. "Cause it really seems like we've stepped into another piece of the multi-verse here."
"Sientate aqui," Lizzie said pointing to a chair.
"Huh?" Derek asked.
"Sit," Lizzie said. "Good boy."
"If you pat me on the head, prepare to lose that hand," Derek said.
"Case, you should really take him for his walk later, 'cause someone's a little cranky," Lizzie said.
"Will do," Casey said.
"I see how it is," Derek said. "Pick on Derek night. Y'all have your fun. I will get you later."
"So what am I doing up here, besides taking all this abuse?" Derek asked. There was a silence, and it looked to Derek like everyone was looking at everyone else expectantly, like no one knew whose turn it would be to explain whatever the hell it was they had to explain. Derek tried to think fast. He wasn't addicted to anything, unless you counted chocolate milk, so it couldn't be an intervention.
But it really felt like an intervention.
Edwin licked his lips. "Um," he said. Derek swiveled to look at him.
"Okay," Edwin said. "This was Lizzie's idea."
"Hey!" Lizzie said.
"I didn't say it was a bad one," Edwin said. "Necessarily. It remains to be seen, actually."
"Spit it out, Ed," Derek said. The suspense was killing him already. What the hell were they up to?
"This is a screening party," Edwin said, both eyes squinched shut like he was ripping a bandaid off of his knee and he was preparing for the pain.
"Okay," Derek said, eyeing him. This doesn't seem suspicious at all, nooo sir, he thought.
"Oh for the love of God," Lizzie said. She went over to the computer and hit the spacebar to stop the screensaver. Then she tippy-tapped the password in, moving too fast for Derek to see what Ed's new password was. Finally, she clicked the mouse a couple of times and the moviemaking program opened. She did all of this in seconds. "Now was that so hard?" she asked as she crossed over to the bed and sat down with Casey.
Up on the screen, a title scrolled: The D and C Project, Or Why I Won't Live to See My Fifteenth Birthday by Edwin Venturi.
Derek shot him a look, but turned back to the screen real quick, not really wanting to miss anything.
Some Cinematography, Editing Help and General Coolness provided by the Lovely and Talented Lizzie McDonald.
"Aww," Casey said.
"Whipped," Derek coughed.
Edwin said nothing.
Then his face appeared on the screen.
"Hey, I'm Edwin Venturi and I directed the short film you're about to see..." Edwin said onscreen.
"I wanted to do this little explanation because, the way I figure it, I might not last the night. You see, this movie came about from the generosity of my most excellent older brother, Derek, who was recently given a new camera. He was kind enough to let me have the old one and I want to remind him of the warm and fuzzy feelings that came from such an act of kindness, and did I say generosity?"
"Yeah, you did, Edwin," Lizzie said, from offscreen.
"I did," Edwin said. "So, yeah, Derek got a new camera, so he wanted to go make a movie, and I figured that if he was gonna make a movie, then I should make one, too. But the question was: what should I make a movie about?
"I tried all kinds of stuff. Following our youngest sister, Marti, around while she did whatever it is she does..."
There was a brief couple of shots of Marti cartwheeling and then doing a dance of her own invention.
Derek and Casey laughed.
"But I figured I'd save that one for my first feature," Edwin said. "Then it hit me. I had the single best subject walking around giving me noogies the whole time."
The scene cut to a side view of Derek, in the living room, messing with his own camera, trying to set up a shot of Casey. She smiled down at him as he secured the thing to the tripod.
Crap, Derek thought, remembering that day.
Onscreen, a notepad stuck out of his back pocket; he took the thing out and wrote a note to pass to Casey. She read it and answered him. He grinned and scribbled something else for her.
There was a freeze frame.
"I should break in, here," Edwin said, onscreen. "As you probably figured out, Derek had a nice little case of laryngitis going. Showing footage from this particular week is part of the reason that I fear for my life."
"You really should fear for your life," Derek said. But he was smiling.
"But really." Edwin said onscreen, "Look at them."
The scene came up again. Casey pushed Derek's hair off his forehead, watching as it flopped back down, and she leaned in for a quick kiss. When she pulled back, he stared at her until she reminded him of what he was supposed to be doing. He shook his head, snapped out of it and turned the camera on. After a minute, Edwin himself came into the shot and let himself be talked into playing the piano. The scene cut just before he started playing.
"Trust me, you didn't wanna see that," Edwin cut in. "Anyway, Casey, who Derek was just kissing, was getting ready for an audition. She wanted to be Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors at the Community Center. How did the auditions go, you ask?"
He cut to Derek sitting in a folding chair at the community center, camera in hand, looking from the viewfinder to the stage, his eyes widening in horror. Here, Edwin added a sound effect. Derek believed it was called a Wilhelm scream.
Derek couldn't hold back his laughter. He half-wanted to pound Edwin for hoodwinking him so completely, but this was just too good.
"A Wilhelm?" Derek asked. "Where did you even find that?"
"Ah, but then there was Casey," Edwin said.
Then the scene showed Casey stretching, pulling her leg up to an impossible angle while another girl said "Ouch." Offscreen, a voice called Casey to the stage.
"Oh God," Casey said, as she scampered over.
Then the scene cut to Derek doing pretty much the same thing as he had before, looking from the viewfinder to the stage, but then he seemed to forget that the camera was in his hand. It was a miracle that he could hold the thing steady while being so transfixed on something else.
"Where the hell did you film this from?" Derek asked, turning to Edwin again.
"Let's just say that this camera has one hell of a zoom on it," Edwin said.
"Yeah," Derek said turning back. "No kidding."
"So," Edwin's voice cut in again. "Of course, Casey got the part and Derek got hired to film the whole shebang—"
Up came black and white stock footage of an audience giving a standing ovation.
"That is so cute," Casey said.
"—in addition to the movie he was making, mind you," Edwin said. "So I had to find a place to film stuff from. Unseen."
There was a shot of the creepiest most rickety old wardrobe. Lizzie appeared onscreen, opening the door of the thing and wrinkling her nose.
"Seriously?" she said. "This is disgusting. You sure this is worth it?"
Edwin's arm waved her in. Then he followed her, the screen going black until he found the little gap to fit the lens through.
"So we hid," Edwin said. "In a dusty, moldy, creaking old cabinet on some of the hottest days of the year. Worth it? Well..."
"A few days later this happened."
The scene showed Derek talking to Jack. Edwin helpfully supplied Jack Kiernan, Director and Really Cool Guy, on a subtitle to explain who he was. Jack asked him his opinion on where one of the actors should enter the scene.
"You're asking me?" Derek asked.
"Why not?" Jack asked.
Derek thought it over for a second. Then, he said. "Well, okay, since you asked..." Edwin sped up the scene as Derek talked, his hands going in every direction, his voice turning chipmunk-y to move things along. He cut to another scene, weeks later, in which Derek stood in the middle of a group of actors, acting like a real director, asking them questions while Jack grinned at him from the corner.
Edwin zoomed in on Casey beaming up at Derek as he talked to everyone. This turned into a quickie montage of different shots of Derek staring at Casey and Casey staring at Derek. Casey trailed her hand over Derek's shoulders and once or twice, through Derek's hair. Derek's eyes followed her as she walked offscreen. There was a quick shot of Derek grabbing Casey's hand as she walked by. They clasped hands quickly before letting go.
"Finally," Edwin said. "Jack told me about this." He held open the playbill and zoomed in on Derek's name and, next to it, the title of Assistant Director.
Casey squealed.
"The play itself?" Edwin asked. "Well..."
He cut to footage of the Hindenburg going down in flames.
Derek snorted.
"Just kidding," Edwin said.
He cut back to the shot of the old-timey audience giving the standing ovation.
Then there was a shot of Lizzie climbing out of the wardrobe, stretching and popping her neck. She pulled a ponytail holder off of her wrist and twisted it into her hair. She fanned herself.
"You sick of this yet?" Edwin said, offscreen.
"Yeah," Lizzie said.
"Wanna quit?" Edwin said.
"What," Lizzie said. "And give up show business?"
Derek turned around in time to see Lizzie smacking Edwin's arm. Casey, right behind Lizzie, was wiping her eyes.
"Ahem," Lizzie said, making a twirling gesture to make Derek turn around again.
"So this is my little Behind the Behind the Scenes at Little Shop of Horrors," Edwin said. "As Lizzie likes to call it." He reached offscreen and tugged at Lizzie's arm until she peeked onscreen and gave a little wave before she walked away again.
"I'm hoping that this doesn't end in a little freeze frame of my face with the dates of my birth and death on them, but I make no promises."
The credits rolled.
Derek said nothing even though it felt like every pair of eyes in the world was on him right then. Edwin kept peeking at him and then turning away and trying to play it cool. Derek pretended that he didn't notice.
"Well?" Casey said.
"Um," Derek said. "Ed? Why don't you come with me for a sec?"
"Why?" Edwin said.
"Wanna talk to you," Derek said. "In the kitchen."
"You're not taking me anywhere where you might have access to sharp objects, are you nuts?" Edwin said.
Derek laughed. "Now why would you feel so paranoid, Little Bro?"
"Because I'm smart?" Edwin replied.
"So are you ready to send this in yet?" Derek asked, changing the subject.
"More or less," Edwin said. "If you're okay with it."
"Why wouldn't I be okay with it?" Derek asked. "I mean you should probably mess with that one piece where you guys are climbing into the wardrobe for the first time, because it's a little too long and people might wonder what you were really up to in there with all that noise you were making."
"Eww," Casey said. "De-rek!"
"Ew is right," Derek said. "Otherwise, I'd say you were ready to send it in."
Edwin's face went completely blank. Lizzie nudged him with her foot.
"Wait," Edwin said. "What?"
Derek grinned. "I said, hurry up and send it in already. Does anyone ever listen to me? Jeez!" He got up from the chair, and walked out of the room before he could get hugged or something. He shook his head the whole way.
Casey caught up with him in his room.
"How you doing?" she asked.
"Okay," he said. "Why?"
"What is that look on your face?" Casey asked.
"I dunno," Derek said. "I guess it's not every day that I get owned by my little brother is all."
"Stop it," Casey said.
"Dude got me good," Derek said.
"It's not like that and you know it," Casey said.
"He's gonna win," Derek said. "I told you. He is so gonna win. And now, even though he's taken a lot of pressure off me, because I have no chance in hell of beating him, I have a whole buttload of work to do before I show him my movie, cause right now, it just ain't cutting it."