And The Winner Is...
by TheBucketWoman
Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with LWD, The Thornbirds, Little Shop of Horrors or Friends.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Part One: Casey.
Friday
Time was starting to fly a little too fast for Casey's taste. Opening Night was really starting to loom, and she still didn't have "Suddenly Seymour" down. She felt like the weakest link. This was different from her usual opening-night freak out. It was starting earlier than ever. What was worse was that she still had another week to go.
Derek, of course could be counted on to do his utmost to take her mind off things. She had at least one hickey to prove it. During one such hoover-session she finally smacked him on top of the head.
"De-rek," she said. "As much as I appreciate your trying to get my mind off of my neuroses..."
"Don't give it another thought," he said. "I enjoy it."
"I was gonna say," she said. "I need to concentrate."
"Concentrate on making out," he said.
"I should be rehearsing," she said.
"It's three o'clock," he said. "Rehearsal's not till six-thirty."
"Yeah, but I need the extra help," she said.
"No you don't," he said, working his way toward her neck again.
"Derek, seriously!" she said.
"No more rehearsing until the actual rehearsal," Derek said. "Otherwise you'll start to sound like me, and we don't want that, now do we?"
"Derek."
"Okay, how bout this," he said. He got off the bed, opened the door, and yelled, "Ed!"
They heard floorboards creaking as Edwin came from his room to Casey's.
"You bellowed?" Edwin said.
"What would you say if Casey wanted to run through her song again?"
"Casey would wash my mouth out if I spoke freely," Edwin said.
"What's that tell you?" Derek said.
"That I'll go into the garage and close the door, so it won't bother you guys," Casey said. That was usually where Derek went to do the vocal exercises the therapist made him do. Even if she stood right outside, she could just barely hear what he was up to. Of course, she pretended not to hear any of it, not that she thought he had anything to be ashamed of. They were helping, too. He couldn't have yelled for Edwin the way he just had even the week before.
"Nope," Derek said. "You're gonna stay right here if I have to sit on you."
"Jeez, could you guys at least wait till I leave the room before you start with the kinky stuff?" Edwin asked.
"Ew," Casey said.
"Exactly," Edwin said.
"Derek, that totally wasn't funny!" Casey said.
"You're right," Derek said, suppressing a snort. "That was disgusting! We know Edwin would be completely traumatized by the image of any so-called 'kinky stuff,' wouldn't you Ed?" He went over to Casey's dresser. "Where'd you say you put the handcuffs, Case?"
"Ew, ew, ew," Edwin said. "Now that that's burned into my brain so completely, maybe I'll look into the priesthood."
"Got to go to church before any of that happens," Derek said.
"And Lizzie would be really unhappy with that," Casey said. "Unless you wanted to pull a Thornbirds."
"A what?" Derek said.
"The Thornbirds," Casey said. "It was a book. Priest has an affair with a woman over a bunch of years. Think it was a movie, too."
"Only you would read something like that," Derek said.
"It was Mom's," Casey said.
"I'm getting outta here before you guys gross me out any further," Edwin said.
"And we gotta go get Smarti," Derek said.
Marti herself proved to be a welcome distraction. She even dragged Edwin away from his computer to tell stories from the Continuing Adventures of Marti at Summer Camp.
"So then Dimi picked up the tennis racket, and Ricky served him the ball and Dimi hit the ball, and the ball hit Ricky in his..." Marti looked a little embarrassed as both Derek and Edwin winced in sympathy for Marti's tennis instructor.
"He had to walk around with an icepack for the rest of the day," Marti said. "But then after that we danced, and Dimi can't dance. You know we should get Emily to teach him 'cause it's really embarrassing. And then we had archery, but the target was wet and the suction cups wouldn't stick to it, but it was so funny cause they took out the velcro one and it's old and the velcro's dead. But then we had potato chips with lunch so that was cool...ooh and I heard a joke..."
Casey wondered if she should be writing all of this stuff down because Marti was a born storyteller and she'd never think to do it herself. Even though Marti was eight, and her stories had no sense of order to them, they still kinda enjoyed watching her tell them. The kid made being eight years old sound like the best thing in the world.
She even sang a song the counselors taught her group. It turned out to be the theme song to Friends. Casey guessed the counselors weren't too big on imagination. But Marti was crazy about the song. She sang it screechily off-key without caring that she was mixing up the words and having the time of her life. Marti thought it was funnier that way. She must've learned that one from Derek, who was fond of telling people that everyone in the family could at least carry a tune, except for him.
Marti passed the time pretty well, and then suddenly it was dinner time and soon it was time to leave for rehearsal, and Casey felt completely unprepared.
Part Two: Emily
Casey was being neurotic, but that was to be expected. Somehow seeing Casey freak had a calming effect on Emily herself. She was happy focusing on getting Sheldon through the one or two dance steps he needed to learn and using that as an excuse to molest him.
"I think we can run that one more time," Emily said, after he'd finally gotten it down. She pulled him close.
"Yes, Dear," he said.
"Should we leave the two of you alone for a bit?" Chris said, from right behind Emily. She jumped a little and Sheldon laughed.
"I wouldn't say no," Sheldon said.
"Yeah, I can tell," Chris said. "Before it becomes even more obvious, baby, y'all wanna cool it." Emily felt her face get hot, but that was nothing compared to Sheldon's. They sprang apart, and shortly after that Jack called everyone together.
He told them they were starting with "Feed Me (Git it)" with David and Chris, and the puppeteers. Em and Sheldon sat in the wings to watch. During the couple of run throughs of that song, Emily tried to picture Chris and Ralph together.
Earlier in the week, Derek had told them about his suspicions. It had caught Emily by surprise, and Emily was never caught by surprise. With all the research and observation she's done over the past couple years, she thought she had a pretty good handle on her classmates. She'd been the first to know about Stewey Stevenson, and one of the first (outside of their family) to know about Casey and Derek themselves. But Ralph had gotten right by her. She'd just thought he couldn't keep a girlfriend because he was clueless.
Guess, I can't win em all, she thought.
"So what's the plan?" she asked.
"No idea," Derek said. "I was hoping you'd have some ideas."
They'd held a strategy meeting at Smelly Nelly's after rehearsal that Tuesday. Sam was in on it. And Sam was the one who dropped the bomb of the night.
Derek had just told them that he thought Ralph was gay, and Emily could see him steeling himself against the gasps that he obviously thought were coming, when Sam said:
"Yeah, I know."
"You know?" Derek said.
"Yeah," Sam said, biting his lip. "He sorta..."
"Oh my gosh," Casey said. "He made a move on you didn't he?"
"No!" Sam said, wide-eyed. "No,no,no, he told me."
"He told you?" Derek said. "When?"
"I don't know, like, seven months ago, maybe," Sam said, eyes squinched shut.
"Well," Derek said. "I guess that's good to know."
"He swore me to secrecy," Sam said.
"Mmhmm," Derek said.
"Stop looking at me like that," Sam said. "He was really stressing out and needed to tell someone, and I was there that day."
"Where was I?" Derek said.
"I don't know," Sam said. "It might've been when you had the flu."
"That was a really long time ago," Derek said. "You couldn't have filled me in?"
"Dude, he told me not to," Sam said. "I should've played dumb now, but you had it figured out—and, you know, he was going to say something, then he just didn't."
"What stopped him?" Emily said.
"I dunno," Sam said.
"That's really sad," Casey said. "He was so scared. I was afraid of that."
"Did he not think we'd have his back?" Derek said. "I've known him almost as long as I've known you. Did he not trust me or something?"
"Derek," Emily said. "We're kind of getting off the subject here. We were talking about Ralph's feelings, not yours."
"What I was talking about, Emily," Derek said, shooting lasers at her. "Was whether I haven't been a good enough friend to him and because of that, something important got by me when I could have been there for him."
She had nothing to say to that.
"Do you think he's ready to come out, now though?" Sheldon asked. Everyone looked at him like they'd forgotten he was there. He ignored that. "I mean, if he's really that scared."
Sam threw up his hands. "I guess he'll have to sooner or later."
"But is he more scared, or more horny?" Derek asked. "That is the question." Sam laughed.
"What we should figure out is what it is that he's scared of," Sheldon said. "If he's afraid of his folks, then we can't do much about that. But if he's scared of the rest of us, well, then...he's a dumbass, 'cause none of us are what you'd call intimidating."
"Speak for yourself," Casey joked.
"But if he is scared of what everyone would think of him, then, we can at least show him that we're with him, yes?" Sheldon said.
"How do we do that?" Emily asked.
"He's coming on Saturday," Casey said. "No two ways about that. So we can either let nature take its course, or we have 'the talk' with Ralph."
"Ralph will run like hell if you say anything to him," Sam said.
"So we'll cross that one off the list," Sheldon said.
"Don't wanna ambush Chris completely, either," Casey said. "But then again, we don't wanna get his hopes up either in case Ralph chickens."
"Okay, well you can talk to Chris," Sheldon said.
"What?" Casey said. "No! What would I say? What does one say for something like that? I don't have nearly enough time to plan that conversation!"
"You don't have enough index cards, either," Derek said.
"This is serious!" Casey said.
"Not that serious," Derek said. "You have kind of a habit of beating around the bush, and the planning thing makes it worse. You're not going before Parliament, Case. Just relax." He started to massage her shoulders. "Reeeelaaax."
"You're trying to distract me," Casey said.
"Uh-huh," Derek said. "What's your point?"
The plan started to come together. Sam volunteered to keep an eye on Ralph since Ralph clearly trusted him. Casey was going to talk to Chris. By Friday, the suspense was killing Emily.
Emily pulled Casey aside during a break.
"Well?" Emily asked.
"Chris says he's in," Casey said. Then they both squealed and did a happy dance.
"He doesn't think anything will happen between them, though," Casey said. "But he said that he was willing to help talk to Ralph if we need him. I think he just doesn't want to get his hopes up with a closeted guy."
"Hope he's wrong," Emily said.
"Me too," Casey said. Then they resumed their happy dance.
"I just thought of something I should've asked before," Chris said, breaking in on them.
"What's that?" Casey said.
"What's this tragic waif look like?"
Casey and Emily looked at each other and laughed.
"Wait a sec," Casey said, pulling her phone out of her pocket. She scrolled through her menu and pulled out some pictures. "He's in the middle," she said, handing the phone to him.
"Hot damn," Chris said. "Kill me now."
Part Three: Sam
On Saturday morning, Sam waited outside of Ralph's building, trying his damnedest not to pull out his cell phone and nag Ralphie to hurry the hell up already. When Ralph finally got to the car, Sam heard Casey's voice in his head: Tell him to go change out of that T-shirt, the voice said. Shut up, he thought. We're painting sets not going to the friggin prom!
Plus, sending him back would delay them that much further and he really wanted to get this day over with. And he had to introduce Ralph to Brianna. She'd been out with Sam twice in the past week, and wasn't sick of him yet. That boded well.
When they got there, the first thing they heard was Derek and Casey arguing. They came closer and saw both of them surrounded by green felt, pipe cleaners, and construction paper.
"Case, come on," Derek said. "Will ya just take the scissors and cut out some damn leaves, this is not the damn Mona Lisa, just do it real quick and move on!"
"I can't help it," Casey said. "I'm a detail person."
"No one can see the little veins you're painting in from the audience," Derek said.
"I can see them," Casey said. Derek ran a hand through his hair, disrupting some bits of paper that had been stuck in it.
Then Casey, seeing Sam and Ralph got up suddenly, sending all manner of art supplies flying. She hopped over the cardboard box they'd been throwing the leaves into and grabbed both of them at once. Then, Sam noticed, Casey looked at Ralph's shirt with a touch of disappointment. He tried not to laugh.
"What's funny?" Casey said.
"Nothing," Sam said. "Thought of something I saw on TV last night. Conan O'Brien."
"Oh well," Casey said. Then she turned to Ralph. "That shirt's so big on you; why do you wear it?"
"'Cause it's old and I don't care if I get paint on it?" Ralph said. Derek snorted.
"Yeah, okay," Casey said. "Makes sense. Well okay, then let's go see what you'll be doing today, worker bee."
"Worker bee?" Ralph said.
"Sometimes it's best not to ask," Derek said.
"I keep forgetting that," Ralph said. As Casey dragged him off by one hand, he turned back to Sam in a "rescue me" sort of way.
"She's been more hyper than usual, today," Sam said.
"Don't I know it," Derek said. They watched Casey squirrel around, introducing Ralph to everyone, making sure she lingered on Chris. Then she sent the both of them off to finish one of the facades.
"Quit pacing," Derek said. "Go over there and finish painting the backdrop. It'll be easier to listen from back there."
"Good point," Sam said.
Part Four: Chris.
The reasonable part of Chris's brain had made him tell Casey that there was no way anything was going to happen with this kid, as cute as he was. Then he saw Ralph's smile and the more insistent horny part of his brain piped up.
This will not happen, Chris though while he directed an equal amount of wattage back at Ralph when they were introduced. See I can beam, too.
"Well," Casey said, breaking his train of thought. "I guess I have to leave you two kids alone. Gotta go supervise Derek before he glues himself to something."
"Again?" Ralph said. Then when Casey was out of earshot, he said. "He'll glue his hand to her ass."
"Are they always like that?" Chris said.
"No," Ralph said. "Sometimes, they're a little nuts."
Chris laughed. "That's good to know."
"Happy to help."
Ralph reached up to reattach a bit of the fake brick that was coming loose near the top of the insert and as he did, his shirt rode up a little exposing a plain, but oversized belt buckle, the top half-inch of his boxers, and just the tiniest hint of six pack. Are you trying to mess with me, God? Chris thought.
"Have you ever done something like this before?" Chris asked.
"Paint?" Ralph said. "Once or twice, yeah."
"Ever been in a play?"
"I played a tree in second grade," Ralph said. "Didn't wanna be, but everyone had to have a part, so I couldn't get out of it."
"What was Derek?"
"A dog, I think," Ralph said. "Sam got the stomach flu. We both tried to catch it from him, but it didn't work."
"So you're not really theater people," Chris said.
"Derek was in a play last year. He thought it would be good to chase girls, but then he ended up having to actually, like, do stuff and he wasn't happy. They wanted him to sing."
"He sang?" Chris said. "I wanna hear him sing!"
"No," Ralph said. "Trust me, you don't." He told Chris about their on-again, off-again band, and about it's revolving door lead singers.
"We have Sheldon for now," Ralph said. "But he can come to his senses at any time."
"Tell ya what," Chris said. "That one has the sexiest voice ever. Makes me hot." He said that, while Sheldon was walking by, and he couldn't resist adding, "And he has a cute ass, too."
Sheldon blushed. A little to the left of them, Emily yelled, "That ass belongs to me!"
"I love to mess with them," Chris said. "I keep saying, too bad that kid's a breeder."
"Can't win em all, I guess," Ralph said, one side of his mouth quirking up. Now he was getting nervous, Chris could tell.
"I know," Chris said. "What about you?"
"Sheldon's definitely not my type," Ralph said.
"Right back at you buddy," Sheldon called.
"Who is?"
"Hell if I know," Ralph said, after a pause.
Part Five: Sam.
"What do you think?" Emily whispered to Sam.
"I dunno," Sam said. "What do you think?"
"They locked eyes," Emily said. "Did you see that?"
"Maybe," Sam said. "But Ralph looks really really nervous." He took out his cell phone and texted Derek to go outside and call Chris's phone. Derek did as he was told and after a minute, they watched Chris excuse himself to take the call. Sam then drifted over to Ralph.
"How you doing?" he asked.
"'Kay," Ralph said, idly painting a beam.
"What do you think of Chris," Sam said, getting right to the point.
"Seems okay," Ralph said. "Why?"
The least Ralph could do was make this a little easier on him. The last time he tried to confront someone about something like this, it really didn't end well, so Sam was frustrated that he found himself doing this again.
"I mean," he began. "What do you think of him."
"What am I supposed to think of him?"
"Quit playing dumb," Sam said.
"Who's playing?" Ralph said.
"I was wondering if you might, possibly, like the guy a little."
Ralph's eyes got big, right on cue. "Dude!" he said. "What the hell? I thought you weren't going to bring that up again!"
"Because he might just like you," Sam said, as if Ralph hadn't spoken.
"Too bad for him," Ralph said.
"Why?" Sam asked. "Why not just go for it?"
Ralph shook his head. He put the paintbrush down and turned to look around him. Casey turned around just in time for him not to catch her. But something still seemed to click.
"That's not why I'm here, is it?" he said. Ralph had his blond moments but this wasn't one of them.
"What would you say if I said yes?" Sam said.
Ralph stopped himself a split second before he rested his forehead on the painted wall. He turned away and ran a hand through his hair. "So you told."
"They figured it out," Sam said. "What happened was, Casey and Emily wanted to hook that guy up with someone, and somehow everyone settled on you. They knew before they brought me into it."
"Uh-uh," Ralph said. He looked a little green. "Bullshit."
"Because they want you to be happy," Sam said. There was an abnormally long pause in which Ralph hyperventilated and sat down on the floor.
"Should I get you a paper bag?" Sam said. Ralph shook his head.
"Did you hear what I said, though?" Sam said. "We want you to be happy. You're not happy. You should be."
"This is not happening," Ralph said. Sam looked around suddenly desperate for a little help. Emily came over. She knelt down next to Ralph.
"Hey," she said. "What do you wanna do? Do you wanna take off? Let's go to the back for a sec. Derek told me it's pretty private. No one will bother us all there." She signaled to Casey, who promptly dropped her stuff and came over.
In the back room, Ralph looked around and said, "Is there anyone left out there?"
"A couple of people, but we won't be long, anyway," Casey said. She was texting as she said this, before Derek popped up, she said : "Just a heads up? Derek's gonna kick your ass for not telling him."
For some reason, that got half of a smile out of Ralph.
"Damn right," Derek said, when he came in. He smacked Ralph on the shoulder. "Seven months?"
"Not the time," Sam said.
"And if I did tell you?" Ralph said.
"I would've said okay, and then told you not to hog the fries or whatever," Derek said. "What the hell do you think I would have said?"
Ralph said nothing.
"Did you think I would've ditched you?" Derek said. "Because if I had, and believe me I would never do that, but if I had that'd just make me a shithead. There is no need in this world to look for anyone's approval on this, and you just wasted way too much time lying about it. If anyone knows about denying shit, it's me. It's not a good thing."
"Poetic as usual, Derek," Casey said, but she wiped her eyes when she said it.
"Bite me," Derek said.
"Later," Casey said.
"How bout now?" Derek said.
Emily nudged Sheldon to say something, since he suddenly seemed to be the only holdout.
"What?" he said. She nodded toward Ralph.
"Puh-leez, I'm not talking to him," Sheldon said. "He said I'm not his type."
Ralph laughed, and Sam breathed normally for the first time all day.
When they dispersed and Sam brought Ralph back out to where Chris was painting some fake molding, Chris turned to him very seriously and said, "So listen, you're what, sixteen?"
"Seventeen," Ralph said.
"I was nineteen when I came out. Last year. You take all the time you need. But you need to pick up a damn paintbrush now, okay?"