Disclaimer: I don't own Life With Derek.

Chapter Fourteen

"Der-ek!" I pounded on his dorm room door.

The door was suddenly swung open, and I struggled to avoid dropping the cups I was carrying, splashing brown-mixed cream on my pink shirt. "What?" He stood glaring at me, his hair sticking up all over the place, and I resisted the urge to remove a bit of fluff from it.

"I've been knocking for ages! I was beginning to think you weren't there. Although the loud rumbling coming inside your room was a dead give away that you were just asleep." I shoved the drinks into his hands and tried to salvage my clothing.

"What happened to no fighting?" He smirked.

"Who's fighting? I was just stating fact." I jutted my chin up in defiance.

"So, what are you doing here?" He pulled his shoulders up as he asked the question, and his old, stretched T-shirt slipped down a little over one shoulder.

I licked my dry lips before answering. "I need your help."

"Help?" A fake expression of puzzlement spread across his face. "Derek not know meaning of 'help'."

I rolled my eyes. "Assist?"

He shrugged.

"Come on, Derek," I pleaded, "When do I ever ask you for help?"

He raised his eyebrows.

"Okay, a few times. But not often, and not usually anything big! Please?" I clasped my hands in front of me.

"Please what?" He turned his ear towards me and leaned forwards.

I sighed and slouched a little. "Please, Derek, you're amazing and perfect and only you can help me."

"Go on." He said, oh so graciously.

"It's my room-mate." I informed him.

"What about her?"

"She has a major crush on a member of your team. And no it isn't you, before you ask."

"And?"

"Well, they went out on a couple of dates but he hasn't called, and because he said he would I can't use the phone without her clawing it out my hands and hanging up so she can wait for the call." Sometimes I wondered if I would even date the girls I knew if I was a guy. They were great, but most seemed to go psycho when they liked a guy. Other times I wondered if I acted the same way.

"No, I meant what do you want me to do about it?" He spoke in a patronizing tone.

I fought back the annoyed retort bubbling up my throat. "I want you to get him to call so I can use the damn- I mean darn phone again, and go in my room without being assaulted by her whining."

"No can do."

"Why not?" Now I couldn't hold back the annoyance in my voice.

"Us guys gotta stick together. If she's that whiny there's no way I'm getting him to call. You want me to get him to dump her? 'Cause that I can do." He explained.

"No! Then I'd have to put up with her crying and..." I stopped, "I mean, she's not so bad. She's a really nice person, and he should give her a chance!"

"He already has, you said they went out a couple of times." He handed me one of the drinks after sniffing them to see which one was his.

"Yes, but..." My arguments ran out. I didn't know why I'd come to him for help; I'd known he wouldn't help and to be honest it was an inconvenience but not the end of the world. I hadn't even seen him since we got back to school.

"But what?"

I sighed. "Never mind. I'm sure it'll sort its self out eventually." I lifted my free hand in a half wave. "See you around."

"Wait," He called after me.

I turned, expecting some quip about the drink I'd spilled on myself, or something along those lines.

"You did get me a drink, and you asked appropriately You may have one request. Just not that one." He had put his drink down out of sight, and was gesturing at me to enter his room.

"Nothing else I want from you." I shrugged lightly and started walking away.

He rolled his eyes and walked after me, grabbing my arm and tugging me back until we stood in his room. He stood in front of me and folded his arms. "Why are you really here?"

"I told you; to get you to help me with my room-mate." I said impatiently. "But seeing as you refused... I'll be off now."

"Case, come on. There's no way you came here to get my help with your room-mate's love life. Your opinion of my romantic tactics isn't great."

I felt myself blushing with no idea why. "Well, I have no other reason to come here. Hey, wait! You just called me by my name! In an abbreviated form but all the same." I grinned.

I got a rare, genuine Derek smile in return. "Well, it has to be something important or you wouldn't have come. I wasn't about to make you run off in a huff without telling me."

"There's nothing, I just came about my room-mate." I replied stubbornly.

"In that case, out you go Spacey." He opened the door and shooed me out.

"Fine." I left with my head raised, something that worked against me when I didn't notice a discarded plastic bottle I was about to step on and slipped over backwards, spilling what was left of my drink over myself. I heard a laugh from behind me and then a door closing.

After that I went back to my room to get cleaned up and think about why I had gone in the first place, though I had considerably more success in the first endeavour than in the second.

No matter how I approached the it, the answer remained out of reach. I knew he wouldn't help me, I knew he would take the opportunity to provoke me, and I knew I wouldn't get anything out of going. But I still had. Why?

I knew what Cher would say, and I didn't want to hear it; but unfortunately I'd already arranged to see her that day and she dragged what had happened out of me, and with it my puzzlement.

"Aww," She cooed as I told her about him cutting through my supposed reason for being there, "You guys are so cute."

"We are not cute." I insisted. "We've just known each other a long time and to be honest it was a pretty thin excuse, anybody would have seen through it."

"So you admit you made up an excuse to see him?" She said gleefully.

"No!" I denied it but I couldn't help but admit to myself that I hadn't got any better explanation. Maybe I had just wanted to see him. But that didn't mean it was because of what Cher thought it was because of. "I was probably just homesick and..." I trailed off, not sure how to complete the sentence.

"And... Derek feels like home?" Her eyes glinted mischievously.

"No... Yes... Not in the way you mean." I replied in confusion. "I lived with him for years, so yes he does represent home a little. But so would any of my family."

"Okay, if you say so." She said in a singsong tone, before noticing my discomfort and shutting up.

"Anyway, how are you and Josh doing?" It was one of those pointless questions people only asked when they couldn't think of anything to talk about, especially if inserted half way through a meeting.

"We're great. Were buying an apartment next month and it is so beautiful." She enthused, and Derek was forgotten. By her anyway.

We talked for about an hour about her new apartment, how she was going to decorate, and whether or not to throw a house warming party. Obviously we were both pro party so that discussion didn't last long. Although our ideas for the party differed quite a bit.

She was all for a grown up version of one of Derek's parties; I suggested a dinner party. But whatever, it was her party. It wasn't until she mentioned that she might invite Derek that I grew truly alarmed.

"Believe me, Derek is the last person you want to invite to a party. If you do it'll get completely out of control. Only parties I've been to with Derek, we got locked in the bathroom and my boyfriend cheated on me with my cousin. That's the kind of party Derek attends." I tried to warn her.

"Locked in the bathroom?"

"Really? That's what you take from that!" I couldn't believe her; everything I said about Derek she twisted into her weird theory about us.

"I'm sorry, I'll try and shut up about it." She was silent for a moment, then: "Were you really locked in a bathroom together?"

I sighed wearily. "Yes."

"So, what happened?"

I gave her a withering look. "The same thing that happens any time I have to spend an extended period of time with Derek. We fought."

"Fought as in name calling, or fought as in wrestling?" Cher asked.

"Both. I thought you were going to drop this?"

"I was just curious." She defended herself with an innocent expression.

"Why do you insist on this... This ridiculous fantasy about Derek and me?" I said frustratedly.

"i'm just calling it as I see it." She replied in an annoyingly perky tone. It was then I realised Derek had a point about perkiness being annoying.

"See what?! He's my sarcastic, aggravating step-brother who sees me as his irritating, preppy, keener step-sister!" I wasn't sure why I was getting so frustrated with her. It's not like I haven't had people mistakenly think I liked someone before. Emily thought I liked Noel for a while and it didn't bother me half this much.

"Yeah, but you've got to admit, if you knew someone with the relationship you guys have you'd think something was going on as well." She wasn't a bit fazed by my outburst. "You get under each others' skins more than anyone else could, you're always there to save each others' butts, according to Emily you're way too invested in each others' love lives-"

I cut her off. "I get the point. But come on. Me and Derek? It would never work!" And I was getting the point. A fact that I found rather troubling. If I was honest, I'd started seeing the point a while ago, but I'd tuned it out and buried it under denial. The truth was nobody got me like Derek did; he was always the first (and sometimes the only) person to guess if I was upset or had a crush, or just had something on my mind. He was always there for me when I needed him, even when I didn't know it. He understood how much the little things mattered to me; if he didn't he would never be able to annoy me like he did. And as strange as it sounds, his advice to me was usually sound. Even if half of it was reverse psychology that I only recognised when I thought back on the conversation. But it was also true that it would never work.

"Why not? You guys would be so cute together!" She crooned.

"Don't let Derek catch you saying that." I laughed. "And it wouldn't work for so many reasons! One; we're way too different, we drive each other crazy even when we don't mean to. Two; he actually enjoys pissing me off. Three; he's not much of one for feelings whereas I am a typical hopeless romantic. Four; we're step-siblings! What would happen if we broke up or something? We'd be trapped seeing each other at family events and visits, which would be living hell if I still had feelings for him." I had been counting on my fingers and now I let my hands drop. "There's probably more, but I don't think they even matter when those problems still exist."

Cher giggled and I looked at her quizzically. "There are two things about that ridiculous speech that stand out. The first is that you swore, I mean seriously, I don't think I've heard you swear before. And the second is that you must have thought about it a lot to come up with all of that bull." She answered.

"I swear," I replied defensively, "Just not without a good reason."

She looked at me sceptically "You didn't deny you have feeling for him," Here I opened my mouth to tell her that was because she already knew I didn't feel that way, but she continued before I could. "So I'm going to make it easier for you. Opposites attract; being different is actually a good thing, if you were the same you'd have nothing to talk about and nothing new to bring to the relationship. He probably enjoys fighting with you 'cause not only does he get your undivided attention, but sometimes you even wrestle which at our age is practically dry humping. With the things he's done for you in the past I'd say that even if he isn't by words he's definitely romantic. And the whole family thing could be a problem, but not only are you assuming something would go wrong, but you're forgetting that you've been in a position where you hated each other and had to live together; I think you could manage a few visits and events."

I sat staring at her incredulously as she dismantled my reasons for thinking Derek and I wouldn't work. I disagreed on one or two of her points; namely the idea the Derek was romantic and that our wrestling was... That; but she made it sound like the cons I had were actually pros.

"Now, any more problems?"

I opened my mouth then closed it again before clearing my head enough to speak. "You're forgetting the fact that I don't want to have a relationship with Derek. I don't see him like that."

"Then how do you see him?" The question was simple but harder to answer than I'd have thought.

"I see him as... Derek." I answered uncertainly.

Cher smiled sympathetically and mercifully let the subject drop at last.

We spent another half hour talking about parties, past and future, before saying goodbye and heading back for some sleep.

The next day my room-mate's crush called. The coincidence didn't escape me.