a/n I AM sorry. Really. Real Life is too damn interfering. I wish I had a pause button. I love you all for the wonderful reviews :) Hopefully, I can complete in a few more chapters. It's like a rattling ghost in my life which doesn't leave me in peace! I hope you like this though :D
Also, much thanks to everyone who PM'd me and prodded me. See, it always works, I have an overactive guilt complex!
Disclaimer: Disclaimed. Any M&B that might have found its way in here is also not mine.
"Is everything okay?"
"Oh, yeah, everything's fine. Should make a full recovery."
"…And will you make a full recovery?"
She can't face the manager in the morning. It's just…weird. Like, she's the same but she really isn't. Like it shows on her face or something. In bright neon letters. And it's with a start of irritation that she realizes that she doesn't even need to look at Derek to see where he's standing. Her body's playing that old childish game of hot and cold with the increasing/decreasing distance between their bodies.
(Maybe she's always been a closet nymphomaniac and just never realized it. Because there is obviously no other reason she'd be reacting like this. Since she is in no way attracted to...him, so the sanest conclusion is that her body is responding to stimulus of his being...male, instead of who he is. Because who he is is practically synonymous to unattractive and annoying and sexual, which isn't the same thing as sexy at all. And it's not like she's not even thinking this because yesterday never happened today).
And he has absolutely no right to be so unaffected and swing the car keys like that. The soft clinking is irritating, even more than the fact that he can still walk as if he owns the world.
"Stop jangling the keys," she snaps as he comes into view.
"Anything else?" He asks, mock curtsying, "Am I breathing too loudly and taking up too much of your air? Does my girlfriend want me to stop? Anything for you, Case."
(She's already pretty much stopped breathing, so it's only fair that he does too).
"I have no idea what your imaginary fantasy woman wants," she says sweetly, (why wasn't he giving up on this?) "but if you don't stop..."
He steps closer and crosses his arms, (and since when has he been taller than her?) his eyes gleaming with an insolence that makes it difficult for her to look into them directly because she's not strong enough, not for that "Then what?"
"Then," she looks past him at the tree in the distance, (it's very interesting, the leaves are...are...a very...different shade of green. Like flecks in his...no...and they're all shaped like those candy drops that he'd secretly been stealing from Edwin's Halloween stash each year because he couldn't bear to admit that he actually liked them and--the leaves are interesting just because. No particular reason. Not everything has a reason. It's the way the world functions), "...then when we've to go home in a bus or something, I'll tell mom and George that you totaled our car."
"My car, you mean. We haven't even begun the dating rituals yet and you're already claiming ownership of my things?"
She opens her mouth, but he's already placed a finger on it, pre-empting her move and yes, she hates him. A lot. And maybe loves him a little, but that's just an emotional reaction at having been... physically close to someone (he'd touched her, oh…god) It has nothing to do with actual, real love. She knows about these things, because she's read about them. It's just a messed-up emotional response that she can't help because of some chemical imbalance. (And that's all there is to it).
"Also," he snorts, breaking her inner monologue (thank god), "do you have temporary memory loss or..."
"Amnesia," she cuts in shoving his disturbing finger away (because she's still herself and one confusing night of utter insanity isn't going to change that. At. All).
He continues like he hasn't heard, "...something, because let me remind you, Casey, it was you who told me about the "other" car which turned out to be a figment of your imagination and..."
She cuts in again (it's way easier than looking at him talking and not remembering how those notatallsoft lips had felt when...when...), "They'll never believe you over me."
She looks up at him defiantly and for a moment they're just staring at each other (and she doesn't remember with startling clarity what he looks like when he's bending over her and...), and then suddenly his face twists into a half-smirk, which is so surprising that it draws her attention to his lips inadvertently (and no, just...no).
"You're learning," he says approvingly, as if he's actually proud of the fact that she's starting to be as sneaky as...as...well, him.
"The only problem of course," he continues, "being that The Prince is perfectly fine and your story loses credibility unless you mention that we...," he pauses for a miniscule fragment of time and she notices that pause with something akin to surprise because she'd been holding her breath during it, "...we spent the night in a motel."
She can't look at him either now, or go into that night and mattress burns and too-soft hair or question the backward tilt of the universe.
"What," and she's outraged, "There's nothing wrong with the car? We spent the night in...in that place when we could've just gone home. This was all your doing wasn't it Derek? You lied so we'd...we'd have to go to that motel. And you fucking planned it, didn't you? What did you think, that now Sally's left you, just like every single fucking girl in your life, and you'll have to wait a bit to find another one in college so you'll do the easiest thing because I'm always right there and what's easier than making a fool of your stupid, naive stepsister and..."
"Casey..."
Through the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach and the non-stop word-vomit, she can see him flinch, and maybe if he had the necessary organs for feeling anything then that look in his eyes could almost be classified as something else. But he doesn't, and it isn't.
"No, Derek," and maybe it's just...she slept with him last night and he kissed her and told her to keep her eyes open and he's in her head and he's not leaving and her mom's in the hospital and her books didn't tell her how this pseudo love was supposed to go away and she's not going to cry in front of him and... she just can't stop now, "you listen to me. Did it suddenly strike you that we'll always be close together because we're family so we could have a nice fling on the sidelines of feel-good-family moments? And after Sally you decided to come to me to mend your broken pride, make you feel like a fucking super-hero again? You know what, Derek? You were right; I did the exact same to you. You were just as much a willing body instead of...you to me. So thank you so much for the night, it was a great experience. Thank you so goddamn much, Derek, I just…"
"…had the car towed away," he interrupts, flatly, his voice devoid of any recognizable emotion, "In the morning. While you had your little three hour cry-fest in the bathroom."
He gets in, without another word, his hands on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead.
She gets in too, with this stranger whom she's known so many years of her life. He looks ahead, she looks out the window.
They don't talk the entire way. (He still doesn't get out of her head).
Being back home is like a… misstep. She feels too old, especially when Marti's looks at Lizzie for assistance and Edwin tells Derek to "make his own sandwich".
(Before looking at him, emitting a high-pitched yelp and scurrying to make it. But still).
George takes one look at them on the doorstep and proceeds to tell them exactly how irresponsible it was for them to come without informing anyone since they could have been kidnapped on the way and nobody would have know where they were, and with Nora in the hospital, he wouldn't even have been to let anyone know because…
He talks for sometime, till Derek reminds him that Nora's in the hospital and he doesn't need to. At which point he abruptly changes course and tells him not to kill Edwin and her to let Marti know that even if the child is a boy, she can still dress him up and doesn't need to dump him in the sea.
"Don't ask," he says tiredly looking at their inquiring faces.
Right on cue Marti comes in and tells them that if the new baby is a boy she shall throw him into the sea, declaring, "I want a sister", just as a loud crash sounds from the kitchen with a following "Ed-win".
They go to meet Nora and she'd always thought that all that stupid stuff about pregnant women glowing was all a myth and then she looks at her mother and she's actually glowing and there's this unfamiliar ache in the pit of her stomach because she's so beautiful, she just never knew it, till it was so obvious like it is now.
(It's weird because it's too normal. The world hasn't stopped turning just because she can't stop looking at the back of his head and unconsciously clenching her hands. It's weird because they're all so much the same and nothing's really changed when everything has).
"He can be amusing."
"Yes," she said, "he can also be unprincipled. And a jerk. And a cad. The closest I've ever come to pleasure in his company is when we mutually ignore each other."
"I'm sure that's not the closest you've come to pleasure in his company. Considering recent…er…developments. "
There's silence as she tries to find a suitable retort and fails.
"He may have changed," Lyra essays at last, her voice sounding too far away, as if she belongs to another world entirely.
She tries to settle a little more comfortably against the tiling of the closed shower, holding the phone like a lifeline, "Changed?" she snorts, "Derek? Well he may have shed a few skins; snakes usually do, I believe. But they get glossier ones in their place."
Lyra is silent for a minute, "Was that an innuendo about how good his skin is to touch?"
"Lyra!"
"So what you're saying is that you wish you hadn't slept with him?"
(She'll have to explain to Lyra that their bathroom doesn't get good enough connectivity and phone-cuts are the norm rather than the exception).
There's a late night call from George...
…hey look, the world finally tilted a little more on its axis.
(But as she stares at her little brother, and their families- family- crowd around with expressions that she can't find words for, she thinks there's nothing quite in the world she'd have given this up for).
"I always said I wanted a brother," says Marti sleepily, snuggling closer to Derek.
Edwin turns his snort into a long drawn out coughing attack at a glare from his brother, leading Lizzie to ask him if he needed anything for his throat.
"…Like maybe a knife or a piece of rope or something."
"God, Lizzie. Let go, okay, it was a joke. How was I supposed to know that Chris would take it seriously? And anyway, I totally did you a favor. Now he wants to see this tattoo of…er…Dora the Explorer. Maybe you'll finally get to first base."
They both turn to look at their older siblings, a little guiltily.
"I don't want to know," she says tiredly, "just sleep, okay."
They go upstairs, arguing all the way. It's a little familiar. And very different.
"Go on," he says gesturing with one hand, leaning against the door, "nothing I haven't seen before."
She stops dancing abruptly, and is intensely aware of her hair matted to her face, the sweat dripping down her body, soaking her shirt. It's the only way she's ever known of dealing and he knows that too, so now he'll know that…
Her eyes fall on his hands. And she immediately looks at his face as he drops the hockey bag on the side, his other hand holding his skates.
(And yeah, she knows too).
"Play with me," he says, "basketball."
She snorts, "Why, so you can prove your 'manly prowess'? No, thanks, Derek."
"I'm not good at it," he says, "It's neither you nor me."
"You played with Sam all the time," she interrupts, like saying someone else's name will make this normal. But they were never very normal, anyway.
"I always lost," he says abruptly, "Sam was a damn good player."
She steals a glance at him then, because he never admits to losing. Ever.
(Of course she agrees. She still wants that one chance to hit him hard).
And later, when they're on the court and her entire world has been reduced to adrenalin and his eyes, she thinks she wouldn't do too much of it because it's too easy to get used to passing close enough and crashing hard into him, because at least then she knows that it hurts them both. And their game mostly only has losers. He's way better than her and she knows he probably lied about losing (he never plays a game where he can lose) but she can still slam harder and who's really playing anyway?
Her senses are almost painfully heightened, where nip of the wind feels like and ice shard and each sound is impossibly loud. He steals the ball from her and shoots and as she bends, her shirt falls lower and he misses and actually she's not even sure what they're playing any longer, except that it passes away time and she gets to touch him occasionally and she's really, really pathetic.
They play till they're both drenched with sweat and even when it starts to drizzle a little, she doesn't give a lecture on the possibility of death by pneumonia the next day. She feels her shirt sticking to her and a stab of satisfaction every time he loses concentration, but then his is sticking to him and she's staring just as much, so she's not exactly sure what the moral here is. Just that the thud of the basketball and the slippery court beneath her feet feels good. And that Derek's always been good-looking and she's always registered it because she is his stepsister but she's just an ordinary girl. And even though he's deliberately playing his best and not letting her win out of a sense of chivalry that most guys would have, she doesn't mind, because it's Derek and that's the kind of guy he is. And it's not like she hasn't always known that. It's just that when she's running and avoiding him, only to have him expertly steal the ball away, she doesn't even remember what exactly she had been dancing for in the first place.
"Breathe," he says, as she falls onto the grass, on the sides, in sheer exhaustion, and she jumps at the pressure of his fingers on her shoulder.
For one crazy instant her resolve is firm to never breathe again, simply because that is what he's told her to do, but then she pulls in air with a gasp, frustrated that her body has betrayed her will so quickly. She draws in a ragged breath and he's breathing too and they're not in synchrony at all. That's always been the focal point about them. They're like two planets, exerting a pull but never really coming too close because they're spinning in different orbits. She stares up at the sky, and even this cold night is almost too hot to bear, and he as he lies beside her, they're miles apart. Just close enough to touch.
(She doesn't touch and he doesn't move. But her body aches from all the exertion and that feels better than being perfectly alright has felt in a long while).