A/N: This chapter involved some mental rehashing (on my part) of the various romantic relationships our main characters have undertaken during the course of the show. I only really remember the Kendra/Max era, which (maybe) overlapped (?) so that's what I'm running with here. I figure if you're still reading Dasey fics at this point (keep fighting the good fight!) you probably don't care all that much about consuming a strictly purist appreciation of the series' canon, but I'm just providing a warning for the "NO, that was season 2!" commenters before they hit the review section. I already invented a fake porch that can only be accessed through Derek's room for the purposes of this story, so I hope that's not the sort of thing that bothers y'all :) Anyhow, enjoy the installment! It's a direct product of my mandatory social distancing period and I am NOT complaining.

One more thing, if you're interested: Derek would definitely sit in his room and fuel his Casey pining sessions by listening to "Can't Change Me" by Chris Cornell (rest in peace) on loop. Do with that what you will.

Derek's least favorite thing about living and going to school with Casey, other than her Casey-ness, was being made to endure the reality of other guys' attraction to her. It was an overwhelming reality, and it became especially unwelcome whenever she started dating someone. Derek chose to see Casey's dating habits strictly as, at a baseline, bringing the poor saps who drooled over her during class into their family home. This choice was quite convenient, as it allowed him to justify his hostile territorialism and avoid any introspection that involved questions of jealousy and personal desire. Commendable work, really.

The unaddressed tension and underlying attraction between Derek and Casey, however, dictated that any relationship either of them entered immediately become a love triangle. In the case that both were dating at the same time, which wasn't exactly rare, the geometric graph of pining grew to entangle at least four parties at a time. It went about as follows: Max liked Casey, who liked Max but couldn't shake the strange feelings she had come to associate with her step-brother, nemesis, and housemate. Kendra liked Derek, who was (admittedly) quite attracted to Kendra, but also dreamed about his step-sister almost nightly, and pointedly avoided the bathroom whenever she took a shower. Doomed from the start, on all accounts.

Derek, on relationship cruise control, was used to cycling regularly through make-out partners and even the occasional girlfriend. None of his flings had ever made him question his sanity as much as his relationship with Kendra, and (regrettably) not for the supposed Kendra-related reasons. Because he really did like Kendra, even after all of the manipulation and games were taken into account. She was fun and cute, and she didn't like Casey (bonus). Sure, she loved drama, but she was easy, a nice reprieve from a very difficult girl he was intimately acquainted with. But then she started saying things like this:

"You need to stop worrying so much about Casey."

Derek had been ranting about the moral degeneracy of their school's football team and its members. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy a little depravity himself, but such firm allegiance to the quintessential American sport? Blasphemous, of course, and weak.

"What are you talking about?"

"She's a big girl, Derek. Frankly, it's kind of weird how much you—"

Not wanting to hear what was at the end of that accusation, Derek interjected, "Who said anything about the Space Case? I was talking about Max. You know I don't like football jocks."

"It's the way you were talking about Max. Like he's dangerous, like he's gonna bruise your precious step-sister."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Precious? I've called Casey a lot of things, but precious? Are we even having the same conversation right now?" Derek sighed internally. It was gonna take a lot of effort to throw her off the Casey scent trail. He'd been sloppy; he didn't think she actually cared what he was talking about.

"Okay fine, let's dial it back. I just don't understand like… why do you care who she's dating?" Kendra uncrossed her legs, sitting up straight. This was Derek's cue that they were entering Serious Talk territory.

"It's not the who, it's the what. He's a turf-eater. Pretty soon he'll be in my house meeting the parents and I'll be forced to break bread with him." He gave a shrug and reclined, hoping to make a casual show of nonchalance.

"If that's the concern, why were you talking about his track record with girls? As if you're one to talk, first of all. Right? I mean, I'm just putting that out there. It just seems to me like this has more to do with Casey than the whole football/hockey rivalry."

"She's kinda the adjacent party in all this, is she not? Not just adjacent, she is the direct cause."

"Okay, Derek. Sure," Kendra sighed and crossed her legs again.

"Sure?"

"I'm just saying, from my end of things, I'm getting tired of hearing about Casey all the time. It's like… becoming a problem." She had pulled her phone from the pocket of her purse before she finished speaking, thumbs flying over the keypad.

Things with Kendra didn't last long after that conversation, but things with Max… did. He was Casey's first serious boyfriend, and as consequence, the whole residence was privy to the emotional highs and lows of their relationship. Casey would be all bouncy and blushy at breakfast only to mope downstairs for dinner the same day. Being herself, she wasn't exactly discrete about how she was feeling — if Max made Casey feel jealous, or giddy, or angry, the whole family was made to feel it, too. Everyone seemed to be okay with this, if minutely annoyed. Derek, on the other hand, felt like he was being cruelly forced to experience female puberty. Seeing this as little more than a violation of his personal dignity, he decided to retaliate:

"Diary, I'm crestfallen," Derek orated, slowly descending the stair into a full living room, save George and Nora, who were out on a date. Four heads swiveled around from the sofa to ascertain the meaning of his disturbance.

"Max is gorgeous, and I truly believe he has the potential to be my life's great love, but I've been having these moments of doubt..." Derek clutched his chest, falling dramatically against the wall. It was about here that Casey realized what was happening, spotting the fuzzy periwinkle journal that he held open like a manuscript, as if he were rehearsing his lines.

"What," Casey hissed, rising slowly from her seat, "do you think you're doing?"

"Something's missing between us, some failure between our hearts," Derek continued, ignoring her protest outright and stepping slowly down the stairs, "I do love him. His gaze holds me..." Had his voice just broken or did he imagine it? He cleared his throat.

"Give that. To me." Casey bit out, taking deliberate steps toward him, her movements sharp, her body charged like a spring. Derek couldn't even look at her. He was...angry? Yes, definitely angry, but there was some other feeling wreaking havoc in his heart. Something that made his throat tighten and his cheeks red, something that made the backs of his hands itch.

"But I noticed something after we shared a kiss in the hallway yesterday," Derek sneered, suddenly and unpredictably vindictive. She had already felt all this, she'd written it down. Why did he want her to feel it again? He continued, "He looks at every other girl the exact. Same. Way."

He didn't resist as she charged him and snatched her diary back, didn't flinch at the small sound of her crying or the falls of her feet against the stairs as she ran to her room and slammed the door.

"Dude." Edwin was the first to speak up, "Not cool." Derek stood still where she left him, sort of surprised by the whole situation. He somehow couldn't find it in himself to regret his actions, to want to take it all back. Relief wasn't the right word for it, but there was some dark release in reading those words out loud. Not because Casey needed to be reminded, but because he needed her to know that he knew.

"What? We have to sit and listen to her gush over the dinner table all the time, why the sudden need for privacy?" Derek retorted, feeling as if he was playing a part. Sometimes he hated being this indignant.

"You need to apologize to her. Like, now. You realize that, right?" Lizzie piped up, mostly looking peeved about his interruption of the movie they'd all been watching. Marti just shrugged at him. Yeah...he knew they were right. He needed to at least talk to her, but turning around and taking the steps to her room felt physically impossible.

But he managed.

"Knock knock," Derek opened the door to Casey's room, hovering at her borders. There was something in that, in tiptoeing around her, in knowing that he was unwelcome. It was tempting, a bubble he wanted to break.

"Go. Away." Her voice came to him wet from tears and muffled by her pillow. Okay, ouch. Her body was nestled in a valley of pillows and blankets, the curve of her hip rising above the crests and folds of fabric. He felt like an intruder and liked it. He sort of wanted to wrap her up in his arms and force her to forgive him, which was a surprising desire, but not an unwelcome fantasy. Simultaneously, he wanted to pull her out of bed by her ankle and incite a pillow war. He did neither.

"Oh poetess, won't you allow a humble patron such as myself to sit at thy bedside and beg thy forgiveness?" Derek watched her shift beneath her bedding, positioning himself at the edge of her bed and preparing to react to any sudden movements. A pillow sailing for his head, perhaps, or a leg flying toward his stomach.

"You're a wretch, and I hate you," her voice was still muffled, but she peeked over her pillow at his offending form, watching him cautiously descend onto her mattress.

"Aye, the blow stricken by thy sharp tongue is well deserved—"

"If you came to apologize, just get it over with," she cut him off, propping herself up on her elbows to deliver a proper glare. Instead of recoiling, he leaned in, reaching for her closest hand and trying to dismiss the optimal display of cleavage she'd just achieved in rising up on her forearms. Tricky, tricky.

"Prithee madam, abide my speech, for I—"

"Okay, get out of my room," Casey rose quickly to her knees, fumbling over her own pillows and pushing feebly at his shoulders, igniting with new rage as a grin of amusement broke across his face.

"Humblest of apologies for my offensive manner, m'lady, I am but vermin beneath thy foot…" Derek continued, allowing himself to be pushed off the bed and towards the door. In truth, he liked being handled by her.

"Wait, wait," Derek slowed her, watching her face and trying to catch himself in the brightness of her eyes. She was holding him by the shoulders, pushing him back.

"Well?" She asked, finally daring to look up at him. He had wanted her to do that so badly, to just look at him. But was she seeing what he was feeling? Was he allowing her to get that close? Her words ran through his head, as they would for weeks to come, "His gaze holds me." He wanted Casey to feel held by him, and not just held but grasped to and by, ensnared and ensnaring. Every time they met eyes it felt like an embrace to him.

Searching for the right words to say, wishing there were fewer barriers between them, he could only manage this: "Really Case, I… I know I shouldn't have done that." He clung to the frame of her door, hoping she'd allow him to float there in her bubble just a little bit longer.

But she released him, turning her back to him and breaking the hold.

"Whatever," Casey sighed, not looking at him, "You should stick to a script in the future, by the way. Your improvised middle english is abhorrent. Close the door, will you?"

His true apology (and her true forgiveness) didn't come until later, a few months after Max and Casey called it quits. Casey's Dad was supposed to visit, but he had just phoned in to cancel. She knew, rationally, that it wasn't her fault, but she always wondered if things would have been different if she was better in some way. More relaxed, maybe, more like him. But how could a father expect his daughter to follow an example he'd never really been around to set?

No reasoning would make sense, but it was still hard to stop overthinking. She curled up on the couch and turned the TV on to serve as a distraction, kicking a new pair of purple heels off and pulling a blanket over her lap. The front door opened.

"Casey? I thought Dennis was taking you out tonight," Derek called from the entryway, hanging his jacket and running his fingers through his hair to shake the snow out before stepping over to the blanket bundle mutant on the couch.

"Oh…" he said in a more hushed tone. She looked up at him from her refuge, her blue eyes rimmed with running mascara and eyeliner. So, Casey's eyes were pretty when she cried. That was...very inconvenient, he had to admit, but he had been slowly coming to accept it.

"Sorry if you made plans," she whispered, her broken voice somewhat muffled by the blanket. She remembered that he'd made a joke earlier about having the house to himself for the night, "I can go up to my room."

Derek stood silently in front of her for a moment, his arms crossing over his chest. He had indeed made "plans." "Plans" were about to arrive in twenty minutes, in the shape of a new girl he had been seeing and a rented horror movie.

"No, I don't think that'll do…" he feigned casual perplexion, stroking his stubbled chin (which he was very proud of, by the way.)

"What?" Casey perked up a little. She was always overly curious, she just couldn't resist his games. He smiled, unable to hide his strange affection for her.

"Well, from what I understand, you were promised a visit to Kaladi's tonight, and I'm pretty sure they don't have a pop-up cafe in your room," He grinned, holding out his hand for her to take. Casey laughed despite her wet cheeks and stuffy nose, allowing Derek to pull her out of her cocoon. He expected to be weakened by her eyes and her laugh; he'd grown used to their debilitating power, though he was far from immune. What he hadn't expected was the natural, complete feeling of her hand in his. Hm, how simple. There's that last jigsaw piece he'd been looking for, now who kicked it under the table?