Disclaimer: I don't own the show Life With Derek, or Eve 6. I also don't own the Fall Out Boy song: Of All the Gin Joints in All the World.

A/N: Just a couple things: (----------)—those represent time passing, whether it be a short or long period…I don't know if Canadians use Pine-Sol…all the chapter titles are lines from songs picked out by me and they relate back to the chapter in some way…and…I Tarantino-ed this chapter! So, read away! And don't forget to review, good, bad…feedback is splendid and helps.

--Beautiful Oblivion--

Chapter Three: turn off the lights and turn off the shyness

An Hour Later

There was an unexpected crashing sound, the sound of plastic and liquid hitting the floor and then an aggravated, high pitched scream. Then, the sound of two bodies smacking into each other and falling. That was followed by silence; a very short silence.

"DE-REK!"

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An Hour Before (same time as Last Chapter)

"Ugh, I can't believe the one inch of snow that was supposed to come down tonight has turned into a full out snow storm." Casey had her head in her lap as she said this. The two teenagers were once again in the living room.

"I actually don't mind the extra snow that much," said Derek. "Now I'll be able to go snowboarding with real snow next weekend. It's sure to stay until then, and possibly accumulate even more in a week." He rubbed his hands together excitedly. "There's nothing better than real powder."

Casey lifted her head and looked at her step-brother.

"Well, that's just wonderful for you, Derek. However, I fail to see the positive side of this snow, at least for tonight. I had specific plans, but now they're ruined." She made a sour looking face. "And now I'm forced to spend the rest of the evening with you."

"Wow, stop it with the compliments, Case. You're making me blush."

"You know I don't like it when you call me that," she said, looking directly at him. He looked offended.

"Well, I don't see why I'm not allowed to call you by your oh-so-cute little nickname," he replied, putting on a mock expression of sadness. "Everyone else calls you Case."

"Yeah, but you're not exactly everyone. Everyone else is allowed to call me by my nickname because unlike you, I actually like them and enjoy hearing them call me that. When you call me 'Case', I just want to…"

"Wow, the compliments just keep on coming, don't they!"

"Oh stop."

For some reason she was the one with the remote control. Derek leaned over the arm rest from in his chair and put his face extra close to Casey. She had the remote, and she had also opted to sit on the side of the coach closest to him.

"Sorry, Case, but I don't think I'm going to stop calling you that. I enjoy the look on your face when I do too much." Then he grabbed the remote from her hands.

"Hey!"

"I do believe you said that I would be able to have the control tonight. Actually, I think your exact words were 'all night, for all I care.' Isn't that right?"

"That was before, when Sam was still coming over!"

"Too bad."

"Come on, Derek. Can't we at least agree on something to watch together?"

"I doubt we'd ever be able to come to some sort agreement when it comes to television, or anything for that matter," he stated.

"Can't we at least try?"

"No." Casey huffed in annoyance and crossed her arms.

"Well, fine. I'll just go upstairs and read a book," she said, while standing up and walking to the stairs.

"Good plan," said Derek as he smirked and settled more into his chair. Casey just huffed again and stomped up the stairs.

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Casey walked into her room and shut the door softly to make up for her loud entrance. Once again, Derek had pushed her buttons and gotten her so mad that the only solution was to storm from the room and get away from him. Now, she stood in front of her bookcase and contemplated which book to read.

Sure, she had wanted to watch some good TV but she much preferred reading anyways, so it didn't really bother her. The thing that bothered her was Derek. Always Derek. He had been bothering her for over a year now. There were many ups and downs in their step-sibling relationship, more downs by far, but they had both turned sixteen and for some reason they still couldn't come to some sort of permanent truce. He still drove Casey crazy, and she still spent many sessions with Paul complaining about him.

"Whatever, it's not like there's anything good on TV on a Saturday night," she said out loud, as if the TV really was her problem.

"You know what, you're actually right."

Casey turned around, a small book in her hand.

"Back to bug me so soon?" she asked him. "Can you actually hurry up and say what you need to so that I can get started on my reading?" She held up her book and pointed to it like he was stupid.

"That depends…" he started, but didn't finish his sentence. Casey waited, but then just sighed.

"On what?" she baited. He just grinned devilishly.

"I was just thinking of some fun things we could do to pass the time…" Casey arched her eyebrow at him.

Where is he going with this? she asked herself.

"Um, what—what do you have in mind exactly?" she asked, a little nervous for his answer.

"Well, I was thinking that we could, you know…" he trailed off again, still grinning.

"What, Derek? Spit it out!"

"Cook! Let's cook something! Cookies!" Casey let herself laugh.

Jeez, why does he have to make everything sound so…dirty? She didn't want to admit to herself what she had really been thinking before he actually mentioned cooking.

"You want to bake cookies?" He nodded.

"Yeah, definitely. Let's go," he said, and then walked away leaving Casey still standing in her bedroom, clutching onto her copy of Pride and Prejudice.

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Yes! he thought, punching the air with his fist. I totally freaked her out. She so thought that I was suggesting that we, we…Derek stopped his thoughts before he started to daydream again. He just laughed to himself and walked down the stairs and into the kitchen.

He couldn't help it, he loved to get her all riled up, even at the expense of possibly embarrassing himself, or letting his little crush become more apparent to her.

Oh God, crush? No way, he thought. He shook his head. No, no, no, no, no, no, no!

Casey came into the kitchen just as he was having the argument with himself in his head.

"Okay, so let's do this. But first," she went to a cupboard, "let's make sure we have all the ingredients that we need."

"Sure thing." Derek proceeded to open random cabinets while Casey checked for eggs.

"Um, Casey?"

"Yeah, Derek?"

"What exactly should I be looking for?"

----------

"What do you plan to do with that?"

Derek gave her an innocent look. He was holding an extra large can of whipped cream.

"It's for the cookies," he answered simply.

"Derek, you know that cookies don't need whipped cream. We already went over the ingredients. And also, eww. Why would you want your cookies to have whipped cream? Over do it much?" Derek rolled his eyes at her.

"Casey, Casey, Casey. Obviously you don't know me, or guys in general. We men, we like food. Especially food mixed with other kinds of food. Sometimes the combinations are unconventional, but that's part of the mystery. Finding out a new taste, seeing what goes good with what."

"What goes well?" she corrected.

"Whatever! The point is, if I want whipped cream with my chocolate chip cookies, I will have whipped cream with my chocolate chip cookies." Casey lifted up her hands in surrender.

"Okay. Whatever you say. It's your prerogative."

"It is. Plus, that's the great thing about whipped cream! You can put it on anything!"

------------

"Okay, I don't know how that happened."

They were both still in the kitchen, the cookie dough hadn't even been started, and they were staring at the floor.

"You can never admit anything is your fault, Derek."

The whipped cream can, which was extra large due to its Family Value size, had rolled underneath the crook between the floor and the bottom cabinets. There was whipped cream all over the floor.

"Um, you dropped it," Casey said in a 'duh' tone.

"Um, no I did not. It must have rolled off of the counter."

"Yeah, well, you better clean it up, because I'm sure not going to."

"Oh come on Casey, you know that it's going to have to be mopped up. I know you won't let me just wipe it. And you know that I hate mopping. I almost never do it."

"Yeah, I know, but I'm still not doing it. It was your idea to have the whipped cream out and look how that turned out." She pointed to the floor.

Apparently when it fell, the cap had bounced off and the can had exploded. That's why there was white cream all over the floor.

"Here, I'll do one thing." She bent over, and picked up the can. It was dented. Casey threw it into the trash can.

"Oh come on, Casey. I'll even bring out the stuff for you. Why can't you just clean it up?"

"Are you serious? I'm not going to clean up your mess! Now stop talking to me." She turned around and headed to the other side of the counter where all the cookie stuff was. "I'm going to make our cookies now." She paused. "Hold on. Something didn't sound right about that sentence." She looked back at him. "If you don't clean that up, all of the cookies will be mine."

Derek's eyes narrowed.

"You wouldn't." She met his glance.

"I would."

"That's lame," he said. "The cookies were my idea. Plus, I know you're not going to eat a dozen cookies all by yourself."

"So what? If you don't clean that mess up, I won't let you help make them, and if you don't help make them, they're not yours." She started to unwrap the butter. "You'd have to beg me to change my mind," she added. He gave her his smirk and started to walk towards her.

"Really? Beg?" he asked. She put her hand out in front of her, forbidding him to come closer to her.

Why is he smirking like that at me?

"Oh no. Go back over there. You're not allowed on this side of the counter."

"Fine. I'll do it, but I'll have you know, I'm only doing it for the cookies."

"Mmm, hmm," she said as she started to work on putting everything together. He left the kitchen to go get the mop supplies. When he came back, she was mixing the eggs.

"You know, Derek, I didn't think you'd give in that easily," she mused as she added the eggs to the flour.

"Oh whatever. I know that resolved look on your face. I knew you wouldn't clean it up for me."

"That's not entirely true," she admitted, stirring some more. "If you had really not cleaned it up by the time mom and George were due to arrive home, I would have."

"Oh right, Casey the neat freak."

"Hey! I just like to keeps things in order."

"I know." He went over to the sink and started to fill it up with water. The sink just so happened to be right behind where Casey was standing.

As the bucket was filling with water, Derek searched under the sink for some soap. He found some, grabbed it and stood up.

"So, how much of this stuff should I use," he asked Casey. She turned around and looked at the plastic bottle of liquid dish soap.

"Why would you use that? Don't we have any Pine-Sol? I think that'd be much better to mop the floor with."

"Aww, come on. This is soap. What's wrong with soap?"

"Never mind. Do what you want."

"I will." He grabbed his bucket, walked to the other side of the island and put the bucket on the counter.

"Why are you leaving that there?"

"I'm not; I'm just putting it there for a second."

"Derek, you don't put the bucket you're going to mop with on the kitchen counter. It's just not right, or sanitary."

"I thought you were letting me do what I want?"

"Fine." She forced a smile.

Derek proceeded to squeeze the dish soap directly onto the floor. Casey's eyes widened as she watched him do this.

"Derek, what are you doing now?" she asked frantically, practically running over to his side.

"Casey, calm down, everything is fine, it's better if I just put it on the—" As he tried to rationalize what he was doing, he was motioning with his hands and somehow hit the bucket filled with water. He ended his sentence with an "Ow!"

There was an unexpected crashing sound, the sound of plastic and liquid hitting the floor and then a loud, high pitched scream. Then, the sound of two bodies smacking into each other and falling on the tiles. That was followed by silence; a very short silence.

"DE-REK!"

----------

"I honestly don't understand how we get into these situations," said Casey. They were both still sitting on the kitchen floor, backs up against the cabinets.

"You mean, 'sticky' situations?"

"Oh, ha-ha. You're so—"

"Punny?" Casey let out a small laugh despite herself. Derek laughed, too.

"Ugh, this is so gross."

"It's just whipped cream. And dish soap. And lots of water."

"I don't understand why you had to put the water on the counter, and then put the soap on the floor, and why, why oh why you needed whipped cream in the first place."

"I already explained myself."

"Not about the first two things."

"It was just an accident."

"Derek, we both slipped on your disgusting water/soap/whipped cream combo, or concoction, or whatever."

"Yeah, Marti would be proud."

"Sure, but we're sitting in it. She never used to roll around in her self-made products."

"We may have both slipped and hit eachother, but we certainly didn't roll around in it," he said, exaggerating the "roll around" part in such a way that made Casey blush slightly.

"You know what I mean."

"Uh, huh. Maybe we should get up."

"Yeah." He stood up first and then astonishingly offered his hand to her.

"You really think I'm going to trust you to help me up?" she asked, looking at his hand incredulously.

"Casey, just take my hand." She let out a defeated sigh and grabbed it. He pulled her up and then they were just standing in front of each other, both of them wearing clothes that were partially wet and sticky and soapy in certain places.

"You've got some stuff in your hair," he told her, reaching up letting his hand touch her hair, wiping the whipped cream.

"Um, thanks," she said quietly. "Although, I think you just rubbed it into my hair even more. But I guess that doesn't matter since I'm going to have to shower anyways." She knew that she was babbling, but for some reason, he was making her feel a little uncomfortable.

Maybe it's the weird smell of everything. It's making me feel lightheaded.

"Casey." She looked up at him hestitantly. He had a strange look on his face that he never had on when looking at her. She didn't know what it meant.

"What?" she asked shyly.

What is with his face? she thought.

What am I doing? he asked himself as he stepped forward, even closer to her.

Suddenly the lights shut off.

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A/N: Notice how Casey had the whole couch, but she still chooses to sit closest to Derek and his chair? Other things, too…sorry if this chapter was kinda boring, but how'd ya like the cut off? haha