A/N: Well, I told you the next chapter was going to be longer! And here it is. Only two chapters after this. Thanks again for all the lovely reviews! More are always appreciated! (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, hint, hint) Okay, you get it.

Disclaimer: Oh, yada yada YADA.

Wednesday

Derek was all alone when he woke up to the dulcet tones of his beeping alarm clock on Wednesday. Casey's side of the bed was empty and made, the pillow fluffed. Honestly. Who did that?

He was just closing his eyes for a little more rest—Casey always set the alarm clock insanely early; he was sure he had time—when he heard his door being opened.

"Knock much?" he mumbled. He knew right away it was Casey, because the two of them went into each other's rooms so much to yell and argue that they were the only ones in the house who never bothered to knock or to wait for an invite before entering.

"Derek, why aren't you up? You're going to be late for school if you don't come down and have breakfast now."

"You set the alarm clock early. I've got tons of time."

"No, 'early' was half an hour ago when it first went off. When that failed to wake you, I reset it with some extra time for you to sleep, since you never use any time in the mornings to work on a little thing I like to call personal hygiene."

"Huh?" Really, she should know better than to talk to him like that so early in the morning. Casey sighed.

"I let you sleep in so you need to get up now unless you want me to leave without you," she snapped at him, slamming the door on her way out.

"Grump," he said to the door. As he got up and got dressed, he couldn't help but feel a little grateful to her for letting him get some extra sleep. Not that he'd ever admit it.

"Hey," Emily greeted Casey as she sat down in English. "How was your night with Derek?" She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

"Ew. Not funny, Em," Casey said, rolling her eyes. "Disgusting, actually."

"Oh, whatever. You know the situation just begs to be made fun of," Emily said.

"He still refuses to sleep on the floor," Casey sighed. "I'm wondering if I should just do that myself—I can survive two nights on the couch, can't I?"

"Um, Casey? Hate to break it to you, but no, you can't. Remember when we were going to go camping last summer? But then you didn't want to go because you were afraid the ground was going to be too hard? And so then we were going to sleep in my backyard, but that just wouldn't work either, and then the porch, and then the floor, and then the couch—you finally fell asleep on my bed. You are a modern-day princess and the pea."

"Not you too," Casey buried her head in her arms. "Why does everybody call me a princess?"

"Hey, Princess!" Derek called across the room, obviously having heard her complaint. She lifted her head and glared at him, sitting on a desk surrounded by a crowd of friends, wannabes and blondes.

"What, Derek?" she asked, trying to inject as much venom as possible into her words.

"I call the right side of the bed tonight, okay?" he said loudly enough for the whole class to hear. She gaped at him. The classroom at once went silent, some people looking shocked, some amused, some confused, and some just plain scandalized. Derek winked at her, looking as though he was having the time of his life, and Emily was biting hard on her knuckles to keep from bursting into laughter. Then whispers and talking and giggling and gossiping broke out at once. Luckily for Derek, the teacher chose that moment to walk in the class, saving him from a potentially life-threatening situation at the hands of Casey.

"I am going to kill him, I am going to kill him, I am going to kill him," Casey chanted softly under her breath. Emily gave her a rather alarmed look.

"Instead of taking your obvious fury out in a violent way that will in no way solve your problems or cause anything but trouble, perhaps you should pay Paul a visit and get the help and guidance you obviously so desperately need," Emily quipped to Casey when the teacher turned to write something on the blackboard. But Casey gave her a death-glare too, so Emily seemed to hastily decide sibling feuds between Casey and Derek weren't her business, anyway.

The teacher finished with the lesson two minutes before the bell rang, so the students fell back to talking as the teacher graded papers. Judging from the stares and gossip that people didn't seem to care how loudly they spoke—was Derek serious? What does that mean? I thought they lived together, not slept together—Derek's comment was still the talk of the class, and when the bell rang, it'd be the talk of the whole school. People at this school were way too obsessed with the doings of Derek Venturi.

Casey packed her books into her bag and stood up, swinging the bag over her shoulder. She had a determined look on her face and she was staring right at Derek.

"Casey, no—" Emily said, grabbing Casey's arm before she could go anywhere. "Listen, I don't know from experience, but I'm pretty sure that if you go over there and punch Derek in the face it'll go on your permanent record."

Casey shook her off and strode over to Derek, once more holding court amongst his friends, perched on his desk.

"Derek, can I talk to you?" Casey practically growled. He gave her that annoying smirk of his—really, he did it so often, one day his face was going to freeze that way.

"Talk," he invited, leaning back nonchalantly.

"Okay," she said. She saw how it was going to be, and she intended to make the most of it. She put her finger in the middle of his chest like she had done Sunday, when he ended up tipping over. He looked down at it and raised an eyebrow. "One, you are so dead as soon as we get off school property." He chuckled, to show his friends and other curious onlookers how funny he found her threat to be. "And two, you are so not getting the right side of the bed tonight. Sorry."

The rest of her hand followed her index finger onto his chest and shoved. Like a domino, Derek lost his balance, went over and fell right off the desk. With a satisfied look and a flick of her hair, Casey walked from the room as the bell rang, leaving a bunch of gossip-loving students behind her, as well as one stepbrother who was on the ground, watching her leave with a look rather reminiscent of the look he wore the time she had ripped off her conservative clothing and starting singing during the Battle of the Bands.

"Paul!" Casey cried, throwing open the door to room 118 and dramatically throwing herself onto a chair. "I need to talk to you."

"Uh…sure, Casey. What's up?" Paul said, hurriedly taking the last few bites of his bagel and brushing crumbs off his hands.

"Well Derek poured maple syrup on my bed so now I can't sleep there anymore and I have to share with Derek who's supposed to be sleeping on the floor but he's not and he's really annoying me and he basically just told the whole class we're sharing a bed but he made it sound a lot different than it actually is and I kept it together kind of but now I'm absolutely falling apart and I don't know what to do!"

"What?" Paul leaned back in his chair, trying to sort through her rush of an explanation. "Start with the maple syrup. What happened?"

"Derek poured it all over my bed. And so now all the sheets and the mattress are at the cleaner's until the mattress gets done on Friday."

"Okay…so how does that lead to you having to share beds with Derek? Isn't there some other sleeping arrangement possible?"

"No," Casey sighed. "Unless I sleep on the floor. Or the couch."

"Well, why don't you do that?"

"Because I'd probably…I don't know…dislocate my spine!"

"Right…and your parents actually approve of you having to share Derek's bed?"

"Well, they think Derek's on the floor."

"And nothing you can say or do will convince him to get off the bed?"

"No," said Casey sullenly. "He says he can't sleep outside his room and the floor's to 'hard'." She made air quotes when she said "hard" and looked disdainful.

"But…isn't that why you're not sleeping on the floor? Because it's too 'hard'?" He mimed her air quotes.

"Yes! But he's a guy. It's his punishment. He's actually been camping. He shouldn't mind."

"Casey…" Paul paused to take a long sip of his coffee, contemplating her seriously over the rim of his mug. "Does he snore?"

"What?" Casey said, confused. "No!"

"Does he hog the sheets? Play loud rock music at midnight? Wet the bed?"

"No…"

"Then what's the big deal? It's only for two more nights, right?"

"But…no…I mean…it's Derek."

"Which may be keeping you from noticing that there's really not all that much wrong with the situation, besides the fact that he poured maple syrup on your bed and is disobeying your parents. He's your brother, after all."

"Step," Casey said weakly. "But…"

"Oh, there's the bell," Paul said cheerily, nursing the hot coffee in his hands. "Let me know how it goes, won't you?"

When Derek entered his room that night, it was Casey-free and the sleeping bag in the corner was missing. He smirked to himself. She was still resisting, but he knew her well enough to know she'd be back soon.

Derek sat on his bed to wait. He was only kept waiting six minutes.

"How do people stand that?" Casey was back, throwing the sleeping bag onto the floor as she slammed the door and mindlessly flopped onto the bed beside him.

"You tried the couch?" he asked. She nodded, leaning back onto his pillows and playing with a loose string on her pajama pants.

"And the floor of my room. I felt like I was lying on concrete."

"Princess," Derek coughed. She shoved him and he fell over, laughing.

"Oh, and as for that thing you pulled today, Venturi…," Casey started menacingly.

"What thing?" Derek said casually. He began to slowly inch away from her. His eyes darted nervously about. Which was closer, the door or the window?

She started to crawl across the bed toward him. He inched more rapidly.

"I can't believe you basically announced to the whole school we were having an incestuous, sexual relationship. You conceited, self-centered, egotistical—"

There was a sharp knock on the door.

"Derek? Casey?" came Nora's voice through the wood. "Can I come in?"

The two exchanged panicked looks. He leaped off the bed and scrambled into his sleeping bag, trying to look as though he had been there the whole time. Casey dove under the covers and attempted to look relaxed.

"Come in," Derek called, his voice cracking. Casey sent him a sharp look.

Nora entered the room, carrying a pile of clean laundry.

"I washed some of your clothes, Derek," she said. "Where do you want them?"

Derek waved a general hand. "On the floor somewhere, or something. You can just drop them."

"Why don't I put them on your dresser, okay?" Nora compromised. "And you can put them away later."

"Sure," Derek said, even though they both knew he wouldn't.

"Casey," Nora said, turning toward the bed. Casey sat up straight and tried her best to look innocent, even though technically she had done nothing wrong. "Are you comfortable? Do you need anything?"

"Nope!" Casey said. "I'm fine."

"Well, I'm just impressed you and Derek haven't killed each other yet," Nora said, glancing between her two eldest children. They smiled blandly up at her.

"Okay," she said, clearly at a loss as to what was going on and what she should say. "Only for two more nights," she reminded them as she picked her way across Derek's floor back to the hallway. "Goodnight!"

As soon as the door was safely closed behind her, Casey and Derek let out huge breaths.

"I thought she'd never leave," Casey said, despite the fact that her mother had been there all of ninety seconds.

"Yeah," Derek agreed, hoping Nora's visit had distracted Casey from remembering that she was currently supposed to be attempting homicide.

"You really need to clean up in here," Casey commented. She glanced around the room with a look of disgust on her face. "It's like a dump heap. How do you live like this?"

"Very well, thank you," Derek said, jumping back on his bed. "Don't even think about trying to clean it up."

Casey rolled her eyes. "Pig."

"I'm choosing to ignore that," Derek said, settling into the right side of the bed.

He flipped off the lights. For once she didn't protest.