a/n Oh man, thank you SO much for all the support for this, 'kay? (I still find it crazy that people actually ask me to update this and mean it!) Your reviews sort of make my year and actually keep me writing. I saw the latest HP and I was kind of blinded by all the pretty (DRACO CRYING. GUH.) and wandered back to the HP fandom. Not to mention my computer time is severely limited so excuse me if I haven't replied to something (I'll get down to it soon!) As for 'Days Like These', I was thinking of a sequel of sorts but I'm not sure. But I'm still glad you liked it!
DISCLAIMER: Disclaimed. Also, Bollywood aficionados will be able to distinguish a very familiar scene (couldn't help myself, really!)
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(She sometimes thinks silence might just be the loudest sound in the world.)
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He's staring straight ahead, his fingers gripping the steering wheel. Hard. Till his knuckles turn white.
Not that she knows (or cares) because she isn't looking at him or anything. If he, with the mental capabilities of a four-year-old (a very late developing four-year-old), can play the 'ignoring' game then she practically wrote the rules for it.
She can't believe he agreed to this. Because doing crazy things is her forte (the stupidly, moronically crazy things are his) and mostly she lives to regret them. And travelling four and a half hours in the middle of the night to London to surprise her mom and George definitely screams 'call the the psychiatrist'. But maybe he wants to run away too (wait, not too, who else wants to run away?) from Sally. And Paul. And SallyandPaul. (There are stretches of time when she doesn't think about the bathroom incident at all. Like when she's...not awake. Dreams don't count, after all, that's beyond her control. Besides it's not like she has dreams anyway).
He rolls down his window and all the elements rush in to fill the gaps left in their (non) conversation. In a minute they're both completely soaked and she resists the urge to lean over him and shut the window.
(Okay, she doesn't).
She leans over him. His body immediately goes taut, and he presses the brakes hard, trying to get her to move away, without words. (Obviously it doesn't work. With the kind of karma she has, beginning to fear she must've been Hitler in her previous life).
It strikes her that her head is in his lap, as in...almost between his legs...as in...she's almost lying on him. On him. On Derek.
"If," he begins tightly, "it's not too much trouble, may I request you to get off me?"
(It's the downside of all those 'unjumble the given sentences' she's so fond of and living with Lyra. Otherwise there was absolutely no way she could have just thought...)
She raises her head abruptly and rips his hand off the wheel in getting back to her seat.
She switches on the radio and cranks it up. It's better than fighting a losing battle against the overpowering silence anyway.
Of course, he switches it off.
"De-rek", she says, turning it on again.
(It's stupid. Why is everything a game for him? Why can't he just let it go).
He catches her hand just as she tries to turn it on for the fifth time. And then her hand is entwined in his, harsh and unforgiving. Both of them unwilling to give-up and let go (and she regrets ever having chosen Psychology as her major). He accidentally (it has to be, just has to...) runs his thumb across the side of her hand and she pulls her hand back immediately as her skin breaks out in (stupid, revealing, traitorous) goosebumps. But not before he turns his head and smirks a little (not meeting her eyes, why the hell won't he meet her...)
"I'm cold," she says abruptly, by way of explanation (and anyway, that is the true reason. It's raining. Rain is cold. His window is down. So she's getting drenched. And therefore, she's cold. And her skin is reacting to the cold in the usual way. Everything follows from logic, which he doesn't have an ounce of, and therefore, whatever he might be thinking is null and void for the lack of a comprehensive argument for...why things are the way they are).
"I'm cold," she insists (again).
He glances at her, "There's another word for it, Princess. Frigid."
She glares daggers through the side of his head (because what the hell does he know about her anyway?)
"Lots of guys who'd differ with you on that." And strangely enough, she's whispering. A-prelude-to...something-in-a-movie kind of whispering.
His jaw tightens (and she doesn't register it, because she's not looking, remember).
"In fact," she says (and why the hell isn't her brain getting the SHUT UP memo she's been faxing since her mouth first decided to go solo?), "the words they use are more related to fire than ice. Like..."
He turns (finally) and looks at her (finally), and she edges a little to the other side in her seat at the dangerous glint in his eyes, "Do you want to go there, Casey? Because I swear..."
She interrupts (of course) because she is (was, used to be) the sane, sensible one and therefore she should practice to slow down the fast demise of her sanity and sensibility, "Keep your eyes on the road, Derek."
He laughs softly (sort of), refusing to take his eyes off her "Thought so."
She glared at him (or glares at the front windshield, because she can't look...he looks so...she just can't).
"Do you even know where you're driving to?" (See, when they weren't on a subject at all, she couldn't possibly have changed it).
"Of course." He sticks his lip out at being questioned on something that ran in the bloodstream of ever male (an inability to admit they're lost).
"Really," she asks, suspiciously, "Because we've been driving in Clarington since..." she checks her watch, "De-rek! We've been driving since three hours! We should've reached Toronto by now."
"So we'll reach it," he says sullenly, "It's just taking...time."
"Three hours? Derek we're supposed to reach London in an hour and half and we haven't even reached Toronto."
"If you would kindly shut up, and let me think..."
"Think," she says, beside herself, "Sure, I'll just stake our lives on your excuse for a brain. At least it's the fastest way to gain nirvana. Or reach heaven. Or maybe get lost till our bones are found by..."
He reaches out and takes her hand firmly in his. "Casey. Stop freaking out. It's okay."
She stills immediately and almost unconsciously traces patterns on his skin (tit for tat).
He looks at her and maybe it's the dark playing tricks on her eyes. Because his eyes seem (too) dark too.
"Casey...," he begins warningly (and she wants him to stop looking. At her. And saying her name. Like that. Because...hospital. And sibling. And hers. And his. And...she just wants him to stop.)
"De-rek. There's a car coming, and if you don't look ahead, you're going to..."
He swerves instinctively and she closes her eyes as she hears a sickeningly familiar (again? not again? how many fucking times was this going to happen) crunch of metal.
He stares for a moment down the empty road and then turns to her in disbelief.
"I was...kidding?" she offers.
They're sitting on top of the car and she's feeling like she's watching a rerun of a movie she first saw uncountable number of years ago.
"Maybe it's not that bad?" she begins fake-brightly and then winces as the sound of something falling reaches her. "Okay, it is that bad. But we still have...phones. We can call George up and tell him to pick us up!"
"Yeah," he says sarcastically, "Hey dad! You're with Nora in the hospital, right? How's she doin'? The kid pop out yet? So listen, there's just this little thing...we've totalled the car. And we have no idea where we are. ("I knew it!") And we were just wondering if you could come pick us up. Yeah, I know it's one in the morning, but if you start now and develop psychic-ness then you might find us two weeks from never."
"Psychic-ness isn't a word," she says and only by a show of extreme willpower manages to save herself from biting her tongue.
He glares at her and mutters something that sounds suspiciously like 'whatev, keener.'
"Look," she says, determined to make the best of the situation, "Think of it this way; it can't get any worse."
(Was it actually hailing?)
"Mom and George are going to kill us," she whines and she has an uncomfortable feeling that she's acting like one of those hysterical females she's always raised her nose at (but this situation warrantees it).
"Yeah, if you tell them. They didn't know we were coming, so we can pretend we started later."
"It's all your fault!" That's the crux of every situation-- blame Derek, "If you hadn't left the map behind, supremely confident in your own 'manly' abilities we wouldn't be here."
"Says the girl who made me crash the car. I can't believe Nora's never been called by the Social Security considering how many times she must've dropped you on your head."
"You're clinically insane if you think we're going to spend the night at…this…this…" she flails for words as the small (what was it again?) hotel came into view. "There is no way I'm sleeping…here. I bet they never wash the sheets and the bathroom has never heard of disinfectant. There is just no way I'll…" And she's shivering and her hair is plastered to her face and she probably looks like a dying rag-doll, but she's still Casey and she's not going to do every (any) thing he says.
"Good night, then." He says, sounding bored out of his skull, "Your dying of pneumonia would definitely help combat population explosion in the country. Know that you'll breathe your last for a noble cause."
Of course she follows.
The manager is starting to irk her. He keeps looking at her (or more specifically parts of her) and she resists the urge to cross her hands over her chest. Derek looks oblivious as usual, and for once she'd like him to be sensitive and save her from being noticeably undressed by a guy who looks old enough to be her father, but of course Derek (being Derek) would never even realize…
"Your shirt is transparent," he whispers pulling her closer to himself, so she's half hidden behind him, her chest hard against his side, and she loses her train of thought (in fact it derails so spectacularly, she's surprised there hasn't been an accident yet). And for a long, agonizing moment she's aware of the fact that she's wet and her body reacts a certain embarrassing way to the cold which must be obvious to him through his own shirt and for a moment she contemplates pulling away (but then it'll be obvious and he'll…realize). Defiantly, she stays in position.
The manager is now looking at both of them with unwavering curiosity, "May I help you?"
"Yeah," he says, his tone clipped and harsh, "We need a room."
She accidentally (and no court of law can prove otherwise) elbows him in the side in annoyance. "Two rooms," she says, and it detracts from her stance that she has to stand on the tip of her toes to reach his ear (sometimes she really hates him), "We need two rooms, you moron."
He looks down at her like she's an infuriating fly that he can't crush and she elbows him (accidentally) in the ribs again. "How come you didn't tell me about the lottery you won?" He drawls out and her heart sinks somewhere down to her toes, because this hadn't been planned or anything and logically it's be stupid to rent two rooms for the night and it wasn't like he'd never slept in her room before, but… (but there'd always been someone… Lyra, Sally, anyone, this was…) whatever.
"Fine," she says, giving in with bad grace and crossing her arms, which she realizes a second later is a really bad idea because only helps push her…assets against his back and he immediately stiffens.
"One room for the night," says Derek sharply and she flinches at the ice in his tone, even though it's not directed at her.
The manager (who's starting to remind her of the guy in Psycho…oh god…no, she wouldn't go there) grins at them, "How would you like to pay, sir? By the day … or on per hour basis?"
She feels him go rigid again.
"Listen," he says, "Just answer what you're being asked. How much for a day."
She steps out from behind him (after all what he knows about Economics can be contested by a three-year-old on a sugar high), "Don't be stupid, Derek. Why would we need the room for the entire day? We just need it for a few hours obviously."
"Casey," he says grimly, "You don't understand what he's imply…"
"Oh, shut up," she manages exasperatedly, "Let me handle this."
"Fine", he almost-shouts in frustration, moving away.
The manager looks at her with renewed interest (and she can almost swear he's just said 'feisty' but she's obviously hearing things), "We'll take the room on a per hour basis."
"How many hours," the manager chances a glance at Derek, who's leaning against the wall, hands crossed over his chest. And in a one-eighty degree turn of events; looking like he's trying not to smile. An eye-brow raised as he stares at her.
She turns to Derek, uncertainly, "Four…do you think?" The smirk widens on his face as he shrugs his shoulders in an incomprehensible gesture. "Maybe…six…or seven. Seven should be enough don't you think?" But he seems to have lost the little bit of sanity that has, till now, saved him from a straight-jacket and white walls of a lunatic asylum and is bent over double, laughing.
The guy at the counter stares at Derek, slack-jawed, "Six or seven. How can you manage for that long?"
Derek stands up again, "Practice." He says, flashing the half-smile she's heard described as 'devastating' (but mostly reminds her of…of…something… something not at all sexy. Like…dead rats…or something).
She can swear that the counter-guy is looking at Derek in almost… (is it reverence) and she turns around to ask him but he just raises an eyebrow in a 'how should I know' gesture. She's uncomfortable aware of some point that she's missed and it makes her mad (because there should be nothing he should be able to understand better than her). "When you're done here, bro, kindly call room-service and ask them to change the sheets."
The smirk drops right off his face and she feels a twinge of satisfaction (no, really, she does, except it's masked by another indefinable emotion and anyway, she's almost right this time, because in another day or a few hours there'll be no ambiguity in "…annoying brother." "Step-brother." "Same difference.")
She can feel his eyes hard on her back as she moves up, and all of a sudden she's even more conscious of the fact that she's soaking and ("Your shirt is transparent") which is just ridiculous, because he's…Derek. She doesn't even need to establish a relationship beyond that focal point, because just his being Derek should be enough to make her not think these (supidcrazy) things.
The sound of silence is loud in her ears till it's broken by…
"Bro?" asks the manager weakly.
The manager thinks they're one kinky pair *wink* I think the story is veering off the extreme angsty direction for which I'm very glad! But next chapter--- Total Dasey Alert.