a/n- Had to re-write the entire damn thing. Ugh. I'm so annoyed. Serves me right for editing chapters without saving them.
disclaimer: It's a disclaimer.
(She's not sure what they call this relationship).
"I can't believe you actually chose to keep this…this thing instead of letting George buy you a new car."
He takes his eyes off the road to look at her, then rolls them and looks back, as she acts out in excruciating detail what can happen if he doesn't. "The Prince is a classic. Me and this car have some great memories together."
"This car and I", she corrects automatically (Her brain is on auto-pilot. She's so glad it's just Derek; she doesn't need to think with him. Instinct takes over).
He looks vaguely outraged, "You've been taking the Prince out without asking me?"
It was her turn for the eye-roll, "Never mind. What 'great memories' are these anyway?"
He raises his eyebrows suggestively and she feels her face heat up (College is a joke, she obviously belongs in kindergarten).
The silence stretches on and it's almost…comfortable.
(Then she remembers the guy who'd been her entire life for the past six months, the one who she'd gone to her prom with, who'd told her he was scared of the intensity of his feelings towards her, had just broken up with her).
Derek pulls over, by the roadside. "Breathe", he says shortly.
And she wants to hit him because she'd breathe but when shards of your heart are cutting into your windpipe, it's kind of hard. (She can almost hear his 'always the drama queen' in her mind and it makes her even angrier).
"I want to go back", she snaps.
He rubs the back of his head tiredly, "Didn't we already get past this?"
"Well maybe I decided I don't want to spend my time with a guy who thinks tears are a waste of his time."
"And yet I came here with you, even though you're a regular, fully-functional water fountain", he answers; the sarcasm cutting through her sharply.
She makes a movement as if to get out of the car. He pulls her back almost reflexively, hard. Till her head is on his shoulder, his arm suddenly around her waist. "Why do you do this?"
(He's so close he's whispering now, and it makes her want to scream. Stay the hell away. But she can't because he's a good brother helping his sister out in heartbreak, so really she has no reason to).
"Stay away." She says is anyway. Because (did she mention she's insane?)
His jaw sets in a stubborn line but he doesn't let her go. (I'll never do what you tell me to).
"Do…what?" She asks finally, reluctantly (he's…in an incredibly strange, Derek-kind-of-way…trying to act evolved here. So she shouldn't completely ruin the unexpected development).
"Break." He doesn't look at her.
"What?"
"God, Casey. Every time you break-up with someone, it's the same. You look like someone took a hammer and smashed you."
(Does he really think he's being compassionate or something?)
"Do you think you're being…compassionate?"
He sighs softly, "they aren't worth it, you dimwit. None of them are. And Truman wasn't ever worth it."
(She doesn't think about it often. But just once she'd like to know why he'd tried to set her up again with Truman, even while he was so convinced he was totally wrong for her. Not that she's thought about it. At all).
"Oh, excuse me", she says sarcastically, "I'm so sorry I'm wasting your precious time with dramatics here. I'll just run down to the local market and buy super-glue for my heart. That ought to do the job. And this from the guy who'd planned on running away with his girlfriend. Leaving school and moving in with Sally."
She's pressed into him so she can feel the tightening of his body (and quite suddenly it's even harder to breathe. Question: Do people die from pieces of their broken hearts cutting into their respiratory organs?) "That was different."
"Different", she scoffs, "how so?"
"I l...iked Sally."
(Just because her brain is on auto-pilot does not mean it's stopped processing pauses).
"I l...iked Truman too."
He laughs derisively and she's one small step away from murder (step, like that step she'd been away from being his sister and now wasn't..."annoying brother" "Step-brother." "Same difference.")
"Puh-leez. You just liked being the rebel for once."
(She hates the way he can read her; like a freaking children's book...)
"You probably had it all playing out in your mind. A mask. A babe-raideresque outfit. Black, tight leather."
(...and play her like a freaking violin while he's at it).
His grip tightens on the steering wheel, and her body-temperature rises to 'search for third-degree burns' level).
"Stop it", she whispers (and where is this blood for all her non-stop blushing coming from anyway? Do broken hearts continue to pump blood? Or does it imply that, contrary to all evidence, her heart isn't...broken?)
"Stop what?"
"Stop imagining me...in black...leather."
He swerves the car back on the road and grins irreverently.
She's still speechless.
"An...Ice-cream parlor. You brought me to an ice-cream parlor?"
"Isn't this what girls do? Drowns their sorrows in a triple chocolate fudge chunk or whatever. That's what happens in every movie."
(She doesn't know what she'd expected. Maybe a nightclub, or dinner somewhere loud. Somewhere he could lose her easily. Somewhere that proved he was only doing it for Sally's sake. It was much easier that way).
"You watch too many movies, Venturi."
"Hey, I don't watch movies. Movies are the background to all the real action."
He's grinning up at her and she's not sure why but she thinks he's just upped his charm quotient. Moron.
She looks up at the sound of the door opening and the couple walking in makes something in her chest catch painfully. She doesn't know why. They don't even look that much in love.
(Although the difference between then and now is that she can totally see through an act. No matter how experienced the players are).
They've already started arguing and she really, really doesn't want to see this. Not now.
Her stupid step-brother (apart from being stupidly sort-of...caring occasionally) is also stupidly psychic.
"If you start crying right now I'm going to call up Nora and tell her."
(She'll have to rethink the caring part a bit. He's just annoying. A stupid, annoying boy who turns on the charm like a damn faucet).
"I'm not...crying", she manages (and this is his cue to leave, because guess what...she totally is).
"You're beautiful."
(They say your heart doesn't actually stop till you're dead. She'll probably win the Nobel Prize for disproving it).
He leans over the table (and there should be a clause in their joint 'McDonald-Venturi Rulebook' telling him how close to get because he gets too damn close) and brushes her hair back (and this is so totally not happening).
"Really?" And hates her voice for sounding so small.
(Maybe he catches it. Maybe he doesn't. Maybe it's all in her messed up head and she really needs to find another Paul soon).
"No", he says exasperatedly.
(And it hits her like a physical blow; of course he doesn't mean it. Because when he calls her beautiful she's supposed to sit and wait for the punch line. Four months ago she'd have known that).
"When was the last time you looked in the mirror?"
He drags her along, and she doesn't protest, till they're both standing in front of the full-length mirror.
"You look like an extra on the 'Night of the Living Dead', your eyes..."
He's still speaking (and it's...him...so this is his incredibly weird way of showing...concern or something) but she's tuned him out. Because.
(Because she's struck by their image. The mirror doesn't show two siblings standing and fighting. It shows a guy with his hand slung over a girl's shoulder. His body pressed into hers. His face so close to her ear that it looks like he's whispering words that are making her blush a little. His reddish-brown hair falling against her neck. Liar).
Her eyes are suddenly caught by the girl across the room. The guy she'd come with has left, and she's sitting all alone. She's looking at them, and the expression almost makes Casey hurt, because she's seen that look before (mostly in the mirror). A bittersweet mixture of despair and craving. (And yesithurtsohgod).
Derek is still whispering, listing all the things that are wrong with her, but she's only concentrating on his cool breath on her warm skin, the feel of his hand on her, the soft almost seductive tone of his voice (and she wants to shut her eyes and play pretend like she used to when she was six).
She catches her gaze, and holds it. They're staring at each other and for some inexplicable reason the other girl flashes her a bright smile and mouths "he's hot", giving her a thumbs up. And suddenly it doesn't feel like her heart was broken at all. So she smiles back in instant camaraderie and she knows, she knows this...this looks like something...it's not.
(But sometimes --just sometimes-- it doesn't matter).
"Umm...wow." Derek looks taken aback by her sudden lift in mood, "If I'd known I'm this good, I'd have been using these insults on a lot more girls."
She looks at the (stupidlying) mirror once again...and smiles.
a/n - Derek's voice-- think the time in Summer School Blues when he's telling her she's in way over her head. The guy gives seduction a new name. :)