DISCLAIMER: Derek and Casey don't belong to me. Life With Derek doesn't belong to me. Queen's doesn't belong to me. I got, nothin', really.
A/N: Based on personal experience...and the fact that I think as they get older, I think Casey and Derek start to surprise each other in a good way. As always, thanks to sheyesplease for the second set of eyes.
It's a typical Tuesday night that has Derek due over at Casey's dorm for tutoring and take-out. Tutoring for Casey, that is...the take-out's for both of them, but on Casey's dime as payment to Derek who is helping her through their Intermediate Micro-Ec course. Casey may be double majoring in Economics, but Derek has always been the more mathematically inclined of the two of them, and while he's still obnoxious about the fact, at least he's grown a sense of decency to not be outrageous in his demands in his return for his help. Losing food credits and her hard earned cash to feeding Derek's still growing, monster-sized appetite is something she'll happily do to keep her grades up.
Casey's reviewing a document on her laptop when the door opens to reveal her step-brother, slightly damp from him post-hockey-practice shower and a bag of their favourite Chinese take-out in his hand. Casey can smell her Ma-Po Tofu and Derek's spicy order from her spot on the small futon and her mouth begins to water while her stomach growls. She skipped lunch in favour of working on a paper. She feels like Pavlov's dogs as she immediately rises to wash her hands and pull out dishes and napkins and silverware-neither she nor Derek are really any good with chopsticks. By the time she's got things out, Derek has already taken her spot on the futon, and forgone table niceties in favour of simply eating, no...devouring the contents of one of his boxes (Szechuan beef by the looks of it), staring avidly at her computer screen.
For a second, horror strikes her, because Casey knows she left the document open, but her stomach has made a more pressing case for attention and to be honest, she's kinda tired at hiding it from everyone. Uni has mellowed her out, as Derek often pointed, and really? She's sort of looking forward to sharing this with him, if only for the amusement factor.
"Case, are you writing...tv porn?" Derek's concerted tone reaches her ears as she digs in to her tofu and broccoli. She smiles at both the wonderful flavours that burst on her tongue and the very wary expression on Derek's face as his eyes jump from the screen in front of him to his step-sister.
"No," she assures him, once she swallows her first mouthful (God, this stuff is delicious!). "I'm editing it."
Derek looks dazed. "Editing..." he repeats hesitantly, as if she's just announced that she's going to shave her head and join a cult.
Sighing, Casey turns to her mini fridge and pulls out a couple of bottles of water and joins him on the futon. "Editing fanfiction," she clarifies, placing one bottle in front of him.
He still has that bamboozled look on his face and Casey's starting to enjoy it. It isn't often she can get to surprise him like this. "I do it for money, Der..." she assures him. Because, no way is she reading this kind of deplorable rubbish for fun. In fact, this particular piece kind of hurts her English-major soul to read. It's terrible on all accounts, which is why she's having to edit it, heavily.
"Waitaminute, waitaminute!" he cries, setting his meal down and turning to look at her fully as she continues to enjoy her own dinner. "You edit porn stories..." he begins, waving a finger back and forth between her and the laptop.
"I edit stories based on well-known, well-loved, pre-established characters, in different situations: for a monetary price," Casey clarifies. She's practiced that particular response enough times in the mirror that she's able to say to him with a straight face, but she won't admit how long that actually took.
"Which includes porn..." Derek adds, looking slightly nauseated at this point.
If he throws anything up, she's not letting him have whatever else he ordered tonight. She's tight on money this week, and even if she manages to get this particular pieces she's been working on, done before Wednesday night, she's keeping his order for her own leftovers.
"Sometimes," she agrees.
"What the hell do you even know about sex?" he demands. Casey fights to roll her eyes at that ridiculous statement, before he continues. "No, don't answer that!"
"It's just editing work, Der...and it pays," she tells him. "Besides, it's a good use of my English-major skills."
"You use your English skills on this?" He gestures to the screen, a look of mild disgust on his face.
To be fair though, 'thrusting', 'quivering' 'oaken staff', and 'sopping snatch' should never, ever, EVER be in any sort of published works, let alone in one sentence.
"Not everything is a good thing to edit, but this is really not my typical clientele," she soothes. "Besides, I'd rather not subject anyone to this kind of thing, if at all possible. It's an affront to the printed word."
"It's weird..." Derek agrees. He shifts his gaze back to her. "You don't write this crap, do you?"
She huffs out a laugh with a shake of her head. "No. I don't have time and I really have a better handle on writing than this author does...seriously 'silken core'?" She feels justified in his wince.
"Why put yourself though editing it, though?" he asks a little seriously.
They do this now: having halfway decent, normal conversations, sometimes. Casey likes it because she knows that the only other people who he's managed to do that with are Edwin, Lizzy and Marti-and maybe George. Derek has always has a mask in place unless it's someone he knows he can't really bs against, and as annoying as he can be, she loves that they've gotten a little closer, just talking and him letting her in.
So it's honest truth she gives him. "For the money, Der." She shrugs one shoulder and gives him a half smile. "Feeding you isn't cheap, and it really DOES give me a chance to hone my skills for my English major. Who knows? Maybe one day I'll be an editor of a publishing house and I'll have to read over some really crazy things, that I don't personally like, but I've got to put that aside and do my best to help the other people who reach out to me." She lifts the other shoulder. "Might as well get used to it."
She lets him process that while she eats and after a few moments of silence, Derek starts to relax, reaching for his own meal again.
"So how much money are we talking here?"
She offers him another shrug. "Eight dollars a chapter, usually. If it's longer or I have to heavily edit, then I'll charge ten."
"And people really pay you for that?" He doesn't say it unkindly, Casey's aware that he's still befuddled about the whole thing.
She nods. "Yep." Pride is evident in her voice, which comes from the knowledge that she knows she's that good. Not just anyone can make money doing what she does, and she knows a large amount of her ability to be successful in this endeavor relies on her keener qualities in explicit research and obsession to get every tiny detail just right.
Derek's scrolling through the fic, now, taking note of all her notations and highlights. He stops at a blue section she's marked. "What's with this one?"
She leans closer to double check the section he's referring to. "I wasn't sure about the wording there," she admits. "Technically, that's a good response to the other character's previous statement, but..."
"...that's not the way this guy would say it," Derek finishes. He puts his beef down and starts typing away.
"Hey!" Casey starts.
"Calm down, Spacey. I'm just making adjustments." Because no way in the world does Derek Venturi say the word 'helping' in relation to her. When he leans back, he shifts the laptop over to her so she can see what he wrote in red. Surprisingly, his comments are more in line with the character's speech pattern. At her impressed look he smirks as he reaches for his food again. "I watch the show, too."
Fair enough. Quickly saving the new changes to the document, she closes the laptop and they pull out their notes the Econ class for their study session.
Two weeks later, Casey shoots him an email with an attached document and a single line in the body of the email. Guess who wants another edit? When her phone rings, she answers to the sound of Derek's hysterical laughter.
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