Captain Oblivious: A Rasey Dasey

Disclaimer: Unless Life with Derek is one of those presents sitting in my Christmas stocking, I'm afraid that I don't own it. :-(

"You pig!" she yelled, standing up and dumping her popcorn over Ralph's head.

Everyone in the movie theater had turned away from the screen to stare at her.

"What did you do that for?" said Ralph, his brows furrowing in confusion as he picked up a piece of popcorn off his lap and ate it.

"I'm leaving!" she said angrily.

"Casey, wait!" said Ralph, standing up.

"What?" she said turning around and crossing her arms.

"Does this mean that I have your Coke?" he asked.

"Idiot!" she yelled as she headed for the door.

"Is that a yes?" Ralph called after her.

Standing in the entrance to the theater, Derek Venturi laughed as he realized that he need not have gone down to the movie theater after all. Then, as he saw her eyes widen as she caught sight of him, he realized that he really shouldn't have come. How was he going to explain this one?

Earlier that night . . .

Derek Venturi was sitting in his favorite chair flipping through the channels. It was a Saturday and he could have easily found a date, but for some reason he hadn't felt like it. Maybe he should have though, he thought to himself. This evening was shaping up to be pretty lame. Casey had been holed up in her room all night working on an essay for English class . . . Not that that had anything to do with anything.

Oh well, he thought, taking a bite of his submarine sandwich and settling on a show about crazy animals.

That's when she finally came down. He was surprised to see that she had changed out of the pajamas she had been wearing earlier that night and was now wearing a mini-skirt and a tight sweater. She looked . . . good.

"When Animals Attack?" she asked contemptuously.

"No," he said looking at her as if she were stupid. "When Good Pets Go Bad."

"Like that's so different," she said rolling her eyes. "What a waste of time."

"Hey, at least I'm not all dressed up with nowhere to go," he said smirking at her.

"Actually," she said smirking back and turning to put on her coat, "I'm not either."

"You're going out?" he said, sitting up in his recliner and looking surprised.

"Uh huh," she said turning to him.

"But it's already 10:30 at night!" he said incredulously.

"Yeah, well, my curfew is not until 1 am on Saturdays," she said.

"Where are you going anyways?" he asked, standing up and following her as she looked around for her house keys.

"I'm going to go see that new Will Ferrell movie at 10:45," she said, finding what she was looking for. "It's the last show of the night."

"Will Ferrell?" he asked, surprised again. "Aren't his movies a little too, well, funny for you, Case?"

"Hey," she said, "I like to laugh as much as the next person . . . And sure his movies can sometimes be a little stupid but it's an endearing type of stupid."

Derek rolled his eyes and then grinned.

"Well," he said, grabbing his leather jacket. "I guess I better go with you. Going to a movie by yourself would be just too pathetic, even for you." He put his hand on her shoulder and threw her an extremely patronizing look.

"Actually," she said, casually shoving him backwards so that he fell onto the recliner, "there's no need for that. I'm not going by myself."

"What?" he said, standing up again and looking slightly alarmed. "Who are you going with at this time of night?"

She and Noel had broken up a couple months ago and he didn't think that she had been seeing anybody . . .

"Ralph," she said.

"WHAT?!" he said completely shocked. "My Ralph?!"

"Not that you own him Derek, but yes. He IMed me to see if I wanted to go check it out with him."

"And you said yes!" he said incredulously. "I mean, I know Emily has been out of town for the last couple weeks but are you really so bored that you would go to the movies with Ralph?!"

"Ralph is a nice guy," she shrugged.

"And I suppose that you find him to be an endearing type of stupid as well?" he asked.

"Look Derek, I don't know what the big deal is. Maybe you should just chill and go back to watching TV. Looks like you're missing the gripping tale of an innocent Schnauzer's slow descent into disobedience," she said motioning toward the TV and rolling her eyes.

He just stared at her dumbfounded. He could not believe that she was going out with Ralph.

He heard a heard several beeps from outside. Ralph was always the gentleman.

"That's him," said Casey, grabbing her purse. "Catch you later."

And she was gone. On a date. With Ralph.

Twenty minute later . . .

"Edwin!" he said, turning on his brother's light and shaking him. "Are you awake?"

"No," Edwin said groggily.

"Well, wake up!"

"Where's the fire? It's 10:50 and I promised Lizzie that I go with her to karate early tomorrow morning."

"It's Casey," Derek said, starting to pace back and fourth.

"What about her?" asked a tired Edwin, plopping back down on his pillow.

"She's on a date."

"So?" said Edwin sighing.

"With Ralph."

"And?" said Edwin.

"Well, it's like the girl has no standards. It's like she'll date anyone! . . . Well, almost anyone."

"Derek, Ralph is your friend," Edwin pointed out.

"Exactly!" said Derek. "It's like she's going through my friends like a list."

"Hey, if you're so jealous than why don't you just go after her and stop the date," said Edwin who appeared to be halfway asleep again.

"WHAT?!" said Derek loudly, sounding both shocked and angry. It brought Edwin back from the verge of sleep and made him realize his mistake. He never should have been so direct about the issue.

"Um," he said backpedaling, "what I mean is if you're so jealous that she's spending with your friends instead of you spending time with your friends and, um, you feel like she's invading your social circle than maybe you should, um, do something about it."

"Oh," said Derek, visibly relaxing. "But I can't just show up at the movies can I?"

"Either that," said Edwin, closing his eyes again, "or learn to deal with the possibility that Ralph may be Casey's new boyfriend."

That's when he decided to go to the movie theater to stop the date. He didn't know exactly what he was going to say but he knew he had to stop it. If only he had known that there would be no need . . .

"Derek?" said Casey incredulously, walking out of the movie theater. "What are you doing here?"

"Um, seeing a movie, Space Case," he said knocking gently on her head.

"Yeah, that would make sense but the one that I was seeing was the last thing showing here tonight," she said smirking at him and looking slightly pleased as his expression briefly faltered.

"For the general public," he said recovering quickly, "but I happen to be meeting the girl who runs the projector." He motioned toward the door leading to the projectionist's booth. They didn't call him the Lord of the Lies for nothing.

"Oh," she said, her face falling slightly.

Then it happened. The projectionist's booth opened and out walked a short, fat, bald, middle-aged man in a movie theater uniform.

"Is that your hot date?" Casey asked smirking at him. "What are you really doing here, Derek?"

"Okay, fine," Derek said, sighing. ". . . I was worried about Ralph. I mean, who knew what sort of horrible things could happen to him on a date with you."

"It was not a date!" she said angrily. "Why does everyone seem to think that?!"

She grabbed his car keys out of his hands and started heading toward the exit.

"Um, Case, you went to the movies with the guy at 10:45 at night. What do you expect people to think?" he asked following behind her.

"Like I would actually go on a date with Ralph!" she said turning around to face him again. "Can't a guy and a girl just spend time together as friends?"

"You thought that Ralph wanted to be your new gal-pal?" he laughed.

"Well, we were in a band together!" she said. "I thought he just wanted to hang out!"

"Man, you really are dense!" he laughed again, snatching the car keys back from her and heading out toward the car. "Let's go home." He unlocked the car and Casey got in the passenger's side.

"So what finally tipped you off that it was a date, professor?" Derek asked, as he started up the engine and pulled onto the road.

Casey mumbled something incoherent.

"What was that?" Derek said, smirking. "I didn't catch what you said."

"He put his arm around me and told me he couldn't wait to get his tongue in my mouth," Casey admitted looking out the window as Derek laughed.

"Classic, Ralph," he said.

"Really, how was I supposed to know it was date?!" Casey pouted.

"Let's think about this," said Derek, looking highly amused. "For starters, he picked you up. And did he pay for your movie ticket?"

"Well, yes but—"

"There you go," said Derek, "a guy doesn't just pay for a girl's ticket unless he likes her. You should really apologize to Ralph for letting him do that and then dumping popcorn on him."

"Oh, come on," said Casey, "you paid for my movie ticket when we to the movies together last Saturday."

"Yeah, well . . ." said Derek softly, trailing off and looking straight ahead at the road.

"Derek, why did you come to the movies tonight?" Casey asked, her voice quiet yet serious.

"It's not important," he said, his gaze not wavering as he spoke to her.

"Okay," she said.

The drove in uncomfortable silence, neither one of them saying anything for what seemed like hours but was probably closer to a minute or so.

"Derek?" Casey said softly, finally breaking the silence.

"Yeah?" he replied.

"I wouldn't have dumped popcorn on you," she said slowly.

"What?" he asked.

"If it had been you at the movies . . . I wouldn't have dumped popcorn on you."

Although he did not look away from the road, a smirk slowly spread across his face. He turned down a dark unfamiliar side street and parked the car.

"Derek," Casey asked, looking puzzled, "what are you doing?"

"Well, I guess it's a new riddle for you," he said turning toward her and looking amused. "When a guy and a girl are driving and he parks in a secluded spot or maybe even 'runs out of gas' what could he possible be doing?"

Her eyes widened and a look of comprehension crossed her face but before she had a chance to say anything his lips crashed into her own.

"Is that clear enough for you, Captain Oblivious?" he asked smirking.

"Just shut and kiss me, Venturi" Casey said, smiling and pulling him back toward her again.

This was turning into an interesting Saturday after all.