Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I don't own anything, nor will I ever.

"So what do I wear tonight, Em?" Casey asked while holding up a top to her chest and balancing the phone up to her ear.

"Who cares! Just wear that short, denim skirt that shows off your legs and a sweater because it's a football game. Definitely go with the skirt though. You need your hunky quarterback boyfriend to be able to see your legs from the field." Casey sighed as she weighed her options. Did she really want him to be ogling her the whole night while she froze her butt off? Especially at a football game that she didn't even understand.

"Err.. I'd prefer not to. I took the liberty of checking the weather report earlier and it's supposed to be about 40 degrees tonight after 8pm…" Casey trailed off as Derek entered her room without knocking, as usual.

"Of course the super keener checked the weather report. It's fall Spacey. Wear something fit for fall weather." He rolled his eyes at her as he lay back against her pillows. He watched as Casey seemed to be listening some more to what Emily was saying and held more tops up to her chin. Though she seemed dead set against the jean skirt, he had to admit, it looked really good on her and the fact that he was quick to admit it made him uncomfortable. But hey, they had been doing a lot more than just looking at each other lately and that was more than okay. Content, he watched her say something else he wasn't really listening to and then hang up the phone.

"I'm going to freeze, but okay, I'll sacrifice my health for his hormones." After some more fashion questions and girl talk, Casey and Emily established a meeting time and parted ways.

When she hung up the phone, she turned around with her hands on her hips and a no-nonsense look on her face. "What do you want, Derek?"

He held up his hands in surrender. "Nothing! Can't I just come in to see you? See what's new with my favorite step-sister?"

"Listen Derek, I don't have any money and I definitely don't have time for what I think you are in the mood to do, especially since I don't need my guilty conscience bugging me..what are you doing?" she asked as he got up off the bed and stood in front of her.

"You talk so much." He said smirking and raising his hands to rest on his shoulders.

"No, don't even think about it. Derek! You are you! And I am… well, I have Max and this is completely immoral of us! Now leave. I need to get dressed." She peeled his hands from her shoulders and shooed his reluctant self out of the door. The only thing she heard outside of the door was a playful "need help?" She groaned.

Two hours later Casey was shivering and really regretting her choice in clothing. She knew she should have worn jeans and thick, thick socks with boots but Max was dating a girl, not a mountain man. And their team was losing so Casey was trying really hard to look cute and put her best, frozen self forward and cheer a lot while smiling. Even Emily was surprised at her overwhelming amount of chipperness.

"What's with you? You're kind of scaring me with this new found love of high school football games. Did Derek give you something to drink before the game? Something that might have tasted strange to you at the time?"

"Emily! Derek did not give me a spiked drink. I'm merely trying to show support for my boyfriend, okay? Now come with me for some hot chocolate and people watching." She really wanted to see if any new interesting couples were to be spotted by the drink line. Besides, it's not like she could handle watching anymore football. Even when she tried to get Max's attention he gave her a half-hearted wave and then immediately went back to planning plays with his team. He wouldn't notice if she was watching anyway so she might as well go get something warm to drink.

"Ooooh. I wonder if we'll see Derek. I haven't updated anything about his status in my book lately and his dating status needs to be re-evaluated. He's been suspiciously low key lately. Must mean he's been up to something." With another tug, Casey pulled Emily the rest of the way down the bleachers and towards the concession stand. She really hoped that Emily couldn't see her blushing face.

She had been doing all sorts of un-Casey like things the whole night. At this point, it was starting to irritate him, a lot. Not only was she wearing that distracting little skirt that she was obviously freezing in, but she had been extremely enthusiastic about football the whole night. Every time she stood up to cheer he wanted to march over and remind her that she hated football and barely understood what was going on. At least she understood hockey and wasn't faking it when she cheered. She was faking it right? He couldn't even go over and tell her to stop acting like all the other cheerleaders, because in the car, she had specifically told him to stay away from her the entire game and that afterwards she was doing something with Max. He still didn't understand why she had to get so snooty with him. All he had done, after being nice and offering to give her and Emily a ride to the game, was tell her that she shouldn't go around forcing the world to look at that much of her revealed skin. He had earned a punch in the arm while he was driving for that one but it was partly true. Her skirt was entirely too short to be wearing around football players.

"Man, I had forgotten how much they suck!" Sam chuckled to himself beside Derek. "At least we know we'll win tomorrow night at our game. It's their last game and they didn't even score one touchdown!" Sam laughed again like this was the funniest thing in the world. Derek managed a smirk as he thought about how upset Max would be that they lost their last football game of the season. The smirk quickly disappeared as he realized that Casey would be the one who be comforting him later and that he now knew how "comforting" Casey could be.

He watched her and Emily laugh about something and then wave at Max who was resting on the sidelines. Max raised his hand in a greeting but went back to discussing plays with his teammates and Casey looked less than satisfied. Suddenly Casey and Emily were gone from where they had previously been sitting doing god knows what.

Either way, he was going to make sure she didn't embarrass herself. It was Casey which means she was bound to do something really stupid and damaging to her already fragile reputation. Derek comforted himself with the thought that him looking out for her had everything to do with their little agreement. He was helping her out now so this counted too, right?

"Derek? You okay man? You're glaring at the grass really hard…" Sam shook his shoulder. Sam squinted to see what Derek was really glaring at. Figures, it's Max. Wonder what he did wrong this time?

"Hm? Yeah, I'm cool. I'm just thinking about our game tomorrow, going over plays in my head."

"Damn, did you see that tackle? Max is going to be so sore tonight." Sam nudged Derek jokingly in the ribs "I bet he's going to really need Casey to make him feel better, right man?" he said jokingly.

Derek was not amused. "Yeah, sure. I'm crazy thirsty. Wanna go get something to drink?"

Before Sam could even answer, Derek was dragging him down the bleachers into the crowds.

"So then Sheldon and I stayed up late watching movies and there was this one where the vampires…" Casey wasn't really listening to what Emily was saying. She loved Emily to death, but sometimes it was just soothing to know that she was just there talking and that she didn't have to actually listen. She also suspected that sometimes Emily knew this. Hot chocolate or Tea? Casey wondered as they waited in line and Emily babbled about some sort of scary movie she had seen on her last date with Sheldon.

She wondered why she and Max never did anything normal like that. You know like the cute scenes from movies where the guy and the girl watched a scary movie just to make fun of it or just so that they had an excuse to sit close to each other. Instead if they watched a scary movie, Max usually found that as a weird excuse for background noise and just wanted to make out. Whatever, they were dating. That's what all couples did, right?

"Oh Casey, there's Derek!" Emily pointed as they turned and saw Derek and Sam loitering towards the end of the line. When Derek's gaze landed on her, she narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms, practically growling when he tugged on Sam's arm and brought him up to where she and Emily were standing in line.

"How's my favorite step-sister this lovely evening?" Derek asked as he gave her a shoulder bump in greeting.

"Don't even think about cutting all of those people in line Derek. And no, I will not loan you money." Casey said turning her head defiantly away from Derek and pretending like he wasn't there at all.

"Ma'am, can I take your order?" Crap, she hadn't decided yet because she had been daydreaming and the Derek had shown up and disrupted her train of thought.

"She'll have a hot chocolate with whipped cream. Emily, do you want something?" Derek said as he suddenly stepped up to both Casey and Emily in line and slightly pushed Casey behind him so that he could pay. Once Casey could process that Derek was actually doing something resembling nice for once in his life, she regained her senses.

"What are you doing here?" She asked as he handed her the steaming drink. Both Emily and Sam exchanged pleasantries in the background and looked on their exchange amusedly.

"What do you think they're about to fight about?" Sam asked Emily conversationally.

"Hmm, my money's on the fact that Derek has been too nice lately and Casey will pick a fight just to fight. Then Derek will fight back because it's Casey and well, that's what they do." She said while stealing one of his fries and scanning the crowds. She wasn't very interested in Derek and Casey anymore. She was just wondering when everyone else was going to get smarter and realize that Casey and Max were awful for each other and that Casey and Derek were all but completely absorbed with each other. For some reason, it hadn't really dawned on her until a couple of weeks ago when Casey had all of the sudden decided that she was a bad kisser and that Max was pressuring her too much. Sure Max was pushing her to do stuff, but that was sort of normal considering he was her boyfriend and a very hormonal, teenage boy. This bothered Casey yet it never bothered Casey in the same way when Derek pushed her on almost every other emotional level. In fact, she seemed to feed off of it in a way.

When Emily realized this, it was then that she started to notice all of the different sparks between them that she hadn't paid attention to before. Maybe Sam was starting to notice it too. Derek and Casey had some major unresolved tension issues to be worked out. She decided to tune back into their conversation.

"Remind me again why you decided to come over here and ruin my evening?" Casey asked huffily.

"Ruin your evening? I drove you and Emily here, bought you a freaking hot chocolate and only asked if you were cold and you.."

"De-rek! You did not simply ask if I was cold! You snidely asked if it was 'cold being a slut this time of year.'"

"Well it's not my fault that your skirt is actually shorter than the cheerleader's skirts, and that's an accomplishment Spacey."

"Oh and I'm sure you would know. From close inspection of their skirts right?"

"Once a skirt chasing cad, always a skirt chasing cad." He said while smirking.

Emily decided that now would probably be a good time to step in and end the argument. She didn't understand where the argument was stemming from or why but she could tell that Casey was about to pour the hot chocolate down Derek's shirt in a few seconds. "Get Derek away from her" she whispered to Sam before grabbing Casey and heading in the opposite direction.

She felt like she was dealing with a spitting cat as Casey complained about Derek's "audacity" and "rudeness" the entire walk back to the bleachers. The only thing that finally shut her up was when Max finally scored a touchdown, the sound of screaming all around them droned out the sound of her complaining and temporarily distracted her from the name "Derek."

"Good job babe! You finally scored one in the end!" Casey forced enthusiasm. If she had been honest with herself earlier in the evening, she would have just gone home with Emily and gone straight to bed. She was cold, she was tired, and she had a headache from all of the evening's events. But she had promised Max that they would hang out after the game and celebrate the last game with his team.

"Hey babe. You look outrageously good tonight. A bunch of us are thinking about going to Frankie's. Are you down?" He looked at her expectantly. If he was looking at her that way, then why was he even bothering to ask?

"Sure, why not?" Was the only reply she could think of as she really just wished he would take her somewhere warm. Anywhere, even Frankie's would do at this point.

"Okay, well in that case, just let me go take care of something, okay?" Max said leaving Casey nodding and waiting as she watched people steadily file out of the stadium. A few people waved to her that she recognized from classes as well as people that she knew were friends with Derek. Speaking of Derek, where was he? Normally he made one more appearance to bug her before an evening could officially be over and it seemed as if he was nowhere to be found. Looking at her watch, Casey saw that 15 minutes had already passed.

"Where is he?" she asked, mumbling to herself. Not being very patient, she decided to go look for him and see if she could hurry along her quest for warmth. Recognizing some of his football friends from afar, she saw a few of them standing underneath of the bleachers off to the side of the stadium. Once she saw Max's familiar head of dark hair, she felt hopeful again that maybe soon she could be warm. Then she saw the light flicker and a little spark as the boys all seemed to be crowding around something. Oh HELL no.

She was about to do something really stupid. He could feel it. She was pretty easy to read and judging from the way that she just tensed and balled her little hands into fists like that, she was about to go full on Crusader Casey on their asses. Part of him really wanted to sit back, relax, and enjoy the humorous show, but the other part knew better. If they were doing what he thought- scratch that, KNEW they were doing, all of those guys, including Max were not in their right minds. And having an angry girl scold them was not going to go over well with them. Not to mention, it was mortifying for both of them. After all, he still had to be associated with her. When he saw her start to stride over to them in that determined way of hers, he decided to step in.

"Max!" Casey yelled as she stepped underneath a metal bar and into the bleacher area. "This is what you've been doing while I've been waiting for you, freezing?" she asked him while he left the pot still smoking in his hand. All of his stoned friends let out giggling "ooohhhhhssss" and "you're in troubleeeee!"

"Huh?" Was the only response she got from him before he shook his head, realized it was Casey and then tried to pull her into a tight hug. "Let's go out to dinner now. I'm really hungry okay?" He said while still hugging her and making no attempt to move anywhere. Casey squirmed as Max held on tightly to her and mumbled into her hair. She knew that he was still holding onto the Pot and not only was she terrified that he would accidentally light her hair on fire, but she really didn't want to go home reeking of pot. And to think, all of this just because her idiot boyfriend felt like getting stoned, and then giving her a big, bear hug.

"Okay Max, time to let go!" Casey tried using her best kindergartner teacher voice hoping that he would understand her better then.

"Casey?" She heard a voice ask from behind her in disbelief. She groaned, she knew that voice. And he was never, ever going to let her live this relationship detail down.

"I thought that you were going to scold him in your prissy princess voice and I find you hugging him. What kind of keener are you?" he grumbled as he climbed down underneath the bleachers to where everyone was standing. A few people managed greetings to Derek but for the most part, everyone else was too stoned to notice.

"You owe me." Was all that he said as he walked over to Max, took the pot from his hand and stamped it out beneath his foot and away from Casey's hair. Max, who was too high to notice really only managed a "what gives?" before slumping down backwards onto a bench when Derek pushed past him. Derek then gave a sarcastic wave to the rest of the stoned group and dragged a very speechless Casey out from underneath the bleachers.

"You would get into trouble wouldn't you?" He asked once they were finally inside the warm car. Casey sighed appreciatively at the heat before sending a frown Derek's way.

"I was fine, Derek. I was in the middle of convincing him to let me go when you barged in and practically stole me."

"So you're a piece of property now? Isn't that contradicting what you are always preaching to me? About how women are not pieces of meat or property to be traded, yada, yada, yada? And for someone so smart, you are pretty stupid. When you marched over to break up the 'drug den' did you ever think about what would have happened if the police had caught you with them? Especially on school property?"

Suddenly Casey felt very stupid. And it was the kind of stupid that she didn't like to feel because it was the stupid that only Derek could make her feel. As they continued to drive home in silence with only Derek's crappy rock music on in the background, Casey realized that Derek had been making her feel stupid a lot lately.

"Well I didn't get caught. So I have you to thank for that, I guess. But I still would have been fine even if you hadn't shown up Venturi."

"Whatever you say Princess."

A.N: Okay, sorry it took me so long to update. I've been writing this chapter a little bit at a time every night because I have been so busy working, interning and finishing school since I'm about to graduate! I'm dead tired all of the time so I've been trying to set aside time so that I have "me" time to write but some days that just doesn't happen :D Anyway, review please!