And The Winner Is...
By TheBucketWoman
Disclaimer: I'm pretty sure I'd make more money if I had the rights to Life With Derek. My lack of funds makes it clear that I do not own said rights.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Part One: Edwin
Both Lizzie and Edwin had gotten the third degree that night, and at the first opportunity, they compared notes in the games closet.
"You spilled your guts, didn't you?" Lizzie asked.
"Do you have any faith in me?" Edwin asked. Lizzie's eyebrow quirked up.
"Was that a rhetorical question?"she asked. There was a pause.
"Okay, okay," Edwin said. "Maybe I told Dad a little. He has this power over me. He went all My Cousin Vinny, and I can't think straight enough to lie when he does that!"
"So," Lizzie said. "What'd you tell him?"
"Not that much," Edwin said. "But he knew about us already." He pointed back and forth between them for emphasis.
"That was inevitable," Lizzie said.
"You are wearing my shirt," Edwin said.
"You wore Casey's sweatshirt once," Lizzie said.
"All the same, I think our days in this closet are numbered," Edwin said. "That's kinda sad."
"Why?" Lizzie asked. "It's not like we can really move around enough in here to do anything much without having boxes rain down on our heads. And that would just alert everyone to what we were up to."
"But I doubt that the 'rents know that," Edwin said.
"You still haven't told me what you told your Dad," Lizzie said.
"I really didn't say too much," Edwin said. "He just seemed to read things into everything I did say. He knows I was pissed at Derek, just not why. But, being Dad, he'll figure it out."
"Drives you nuts, doesn't it?" Lizzie said.
"Soo nuts," Edwin agreed.
"It's your own fault, though," Lizzie said. "If you could learn to be cool, none of this type of thing would happen. But you're too easy to read, just like Derek."
Edwin snorted. "I am nothing like Derek."
"You keep telling yourself that, Edwin," Lizzie said. "Are you gonna start brooding again now that I said that?"
She really did read his mind sometimes.
"No," he said unconvincingly. She smiled. She was about ten seconds away from laughing.
"Okay, so that 'just like Derek' thing bugs me," he said. "Everything I do, he did first, and probably better. If I could come up with something that he doesn't do, then I'll be okay, but—"
"You do way better than him at school," Lizzie said.
"Not anymore," Edwin said. "Someone had to go and tell him that he's smart."
"Piano?"
"He lost interest in it."
"What does that mean?" Lizzie asked. "You stuck to it, so you're better at it. Plus you do voices and stuff. And you write stories. Do you really want me to stand here and stroke your ego all night?"
"Yes," Edwin said.
Lizzie rolled her eyes. She walked right into that one.
"Good night, Edwin,"she said. "I will expect a little less in the way of drama tomorrow."
"And," she continued, after pecking him on the cheek. "We have to shoot some footage to make up for what we missed tonight."
"Yes, dear," he said, pulling her back for a proper kiss.
"What is this on-the-cheek stuff?" he said. She shrugged.
"They're gonna be home soon, you know," she said. "Are you cooled off yet?"
"Yeah," he said. "Hope he is. Wish me luck."
"Luck." She left the closet for her room. He pulled the chain to shut off the light. Then he spent a good twenty minutes pacing, running through the different apologetic things he could say, discarding all of them and heading to Derek's room to wait for him.
He stood in the middle of his brother's room suddenly completely uncomfortable in there. He didn't feel allowed to touch anything. He probably wasn't allowed to touch anything, but that never stopped him before.
When Derek came home, he walked right past his open door to Edwin's stairs. When Edwin heard Derek creaking down the attic stairs, he stepped out into the hall.
"There you are," Derek whispered.
"Why are you whispering?" Edwin asked.
"Smarti's in bed, and probably Lizzie," Derek whispered.
"Have you ever known Marti to wake up that easily?" Edwin asked. "If she's asleep. She could be reading with a flashlight. And Lizzie just now went to her room, so she's not asleep."
"Okay, makes sense," Derek said. He led Edwin back into his room.
"So I should have done this earlier," Derek began. "I was just all convinced that I was doing the right thing for once, and as unpleasant as it was, I had to do it, and I shouldn't have and you were right to be mad, and—"
"I'm sorry," Edwin said interrupting Derek's monologue.
"I know, I know that's what comes next," Derek said. "No need to prompt me. I'm sorry, Edwin. Okay? I said it."
"Derek," Edwin said, trying to pull him back to Earth. "I'm sorry. Is what I meant. I wasn't feeding you lines. "
"Oh," Derek said. "Okay. Me too, though."
"Should not have asked you...what I asked you," Edwin said.
"I probably would have asked you the same thing if I were you," Derek said. "Did that make sense?"
"I think," Edwin said.
"So in light of that," Derek said. "I want you to know that I will be honest with you. So you can ask me anything."
"That's okay," Edwin said.
"You don't wanna know anything?"
"No," Edwin said.
"Okay," Derek said.
"So is this a family moment?" Edwin said.
"No," Derek said.
Edwin held his arms out until Derek allowed a one-armed hug.
Part Two: Casey
"How'd it go?" Casey said when Derek appeared in the kitchen.
"I am so hungry," Derek said, sticking his head into the fridge.
"That well?" Casey asked.
"Yep," Derek said. He raised his head out of the depths to smile at her. He closed the refrigerator door.
"Thought you were hungry," Casey said.
Derek laughed. "I am," he said, coming over to the island she was leaning on. He put his arms around her and went for her neck.
"Dork," Casey said lifting his t-shirt to press her soda can against his side.
"Ohhh," he said. "You? Will. Pay." He began to chase her around the kitchen. She let him catch her after about a minute.
He went for every tickle spot he knew and she had to clap a hand over her mouth so that she didn't wake the neighborhood.
"Give up?" he asked. She shook her head. He went for the spot under her arm and she squealed through her clamped shut lips. They tumbled to the floor as quietly as they could but Casey was sure that the police would be called. They froze for a second and waited for an angry George or Mom to come into the kitchen to investigate. When no one came, Derek started laughing again. It was contagious. But then he started to tickle again.
"Okay, okay!" she wheezed.
"Thought so," he said. "And you call me whipped."
She trailed her fingernails up the back of his neck and into his hair. His eyes rolled back as he leaned his head into her hand. All that was missing was a purr.
"Yes," Casey said. " I do. 'Cause you're whipped."
He said something muffled into her collarbone.
"Wuzzat?" Casey said. Derek nuzzled himself into her hair and repeated himself. "Use vowels."
"I said 'you are, too,'" Derek said, when he came up for air and saw her puzzled expression.
"Maybe a little," she said.
Part Three: Derek
The next day.
"I got nothing" Derek said. He was sitting at his computer trying to edit footage.
"Wait," Casey said. She was sitting next to him and looking over his shoulder. Backseat editing, Derek called it. "What about that shot of Chris?"
Derek had captured Chris, with his huge blue eyes and all those teeth, grabbing Casey and spinning her. She was squealing. Looked perfect for the cutting room floor.
"It's out of focus," he said.
"No it isn't," she said.
"Weird angle," Derek said. "And it's all jumpy."
Casey had to admit that it was a bad angle, so she let that one go. Derek stopped on a shot of Sheldon stage-slapping Casey and trying his damnedest to look menacing and only pulling off a myopic squint before both of them broke into giggles. Casey hit him with a rolled up script. Jack told them to do it again, and there's Sheldon, yelling at her and this time the fake slap looked less like he was clapping his hands in front of her face (which was, more or less, what he was doing) and more like a slap.
"You have to put that in," Casey said.
"This is true," he said. He kept that one.
"Sheldon doesn't have a script," Derek observed.
"Yeah," Casey said. "He's got it down already. Way to make the rest of us look bad."
"But last night was the second day of rehearsal," Derek said.
"Yep," Casey said. "I know. Thank God everyone else had scripts."
He found another keeper. Emily, Debra, and Brianna dancing through "Skid Row (Downtown)." The three of them were for the most part, working out their own choreography. Casey could be heard making suggestions off camera because she just couldn't stop herself.
"Don't put that in," Casey said. "Sounds like I'm harping."
He pretended to take it out. Then he ran into more shots of Chris that Casey wouldn't let him take out. He guessed that he couldn't have a doc on the making of Little Shop of Horrors without a Seymour, so he had to leave a couple shots in. If only the kid weren't so damn photogenic. And tall.
The kid put Derek into a bad mood. Not that he was jealous, because he didn't do jealousy, but Chris was a showoff. Shirts with sleeves were apparently too fancy for him; he preferred wifebeaters. And Chris had this annoying habit of lifting up the hem of said wifebeater to wipe the sweat off of his face, exposing abs that Derek would never have. Not that he did jealousy, mind you; he was just sick of the indecent exposure, the exhibitionism of it all.
If Derek did jealousy, it would Chris's big, perfectly in tune voice that came through perfectly on video that would set him off. But he didn't do jealousy.
Because if he did jealousy, the knowledge that Chris and Casey had an upcoming kissing scene to rehearse would send him right over the edge.