Entitled: In the Fine Print
Fandom: Life With Derek
Length: 2800 words
Disclaimer: I do not own Life With Derek and etc.
Notes: Right, so I was working on Double Meanings, and then THIS just hit me and I. I just couldn’t resist. I am weak to such things. It is also partly because I saw that episode where Derek has to write that corny love song for Sally, and he gets stage fright and does the “Please,” in that super vulnerable voice and Casey does the exasperate, “Oh, Derek!” and then I had to go to the emergency room on account of me choking on my spaghetti. I uh, basically rewound and watched those three seconds on repeat like, twenty times. They were a glorious three seconds, alright?

“You’re kidding.”

“Not really,” Derek stretched out on the couch. It was actually much more comfortable than his chair, actually, and Casey made a face when he tried to put his feet in her lap. She swatted them back down to the floor. He shrugged, “I mean, anyone who’s bringing down the drinking age has got my vote.”

“Derek!” she seemed to be swelling with fury, “You’re an adult now! Act like one!”

He looked at her through her eyelashes, “Uh, are you really allowed to be giving me lip in this position?”

That sounded vaguely sexual. He toyed with the idea. Casey’s nose wrinkled with disgust, though he was sure it was more directed at him and his “complete lack of responsibility not to mention sheer, concentrated stupidity, stupid-head” than any innuendo he might have inadvertently made.

“Well, someone has to tell you how stupid you are,” she glared. How charming.

“Casey, Casey, Casey,” he patted her head. It was probably a bad move. She may or may not have attempted to bit him, “So politically active. Just wait a little while, and you and all the other kiddies will be able to vote with the rest of us adults.”

“You aren’t an adult,” she snarled. Her cheeks were flushed and her hair was tousled and she kept on jabbing him in the chest. She really needed to stop that. It was going to damage his flawless skin, a thing the ladies very much appreciated. Not that Casey knew anything thing about pleasing the ladies, although, his interest in lesbian sex was suddenly—

“This is such a joke,” she poked him again. “You. An adult. Deciding my future. Hah.”

“You know, you’re right. I should take your future into consideration. What was the name of that guy who wants to make all women nuns?” He tried imagining Casey in a nun’s outfit. Weird. Unless maybe he hacked it off to mid thigh and stuck in a corset and, oh, she’d have to have her hair out and get it messy, yeah, and—

This wasn’t very appropriate.

“You wouldn’t,” Casey said sort of tremulously. He smiled at her very sweetly. She scrambled to the edge of the couch and glowered at him fearfully, “Derek.”

“No, really, Case,” he had very good intentions at heart, “I’m really just looking out for your best interests. Wouldn’t want your, what was it, your virtue tarnished, or something equally horrible.”

Casey opened her mouth. She shut it. She quite obviously cast about for a cutting retort and managed to come up with, “MOM!”

How cute. This time he patted her knee. Except that he sort of missed and ended up getting her thigh instead. He blamed her for all the shrieking. Ruptured eardrums threw of one’s sense of balance, and all that.

“Derek,” George and Nora both looked at him pointedly during dinner. “You really shouldn’t tease Casey like that.”

“I don’t tease her,” he said immediately. Little bits of Unidentifiable Mystery Meat X went flying and landed in Casey’s food. She looked torn between a seizure and all-out homicide. He swallowed and said, very solemnly, “I’m an adult. I engage her in serious and meaningful conversations to further the child’s intellectual capacity—”

“Don’t quote me,” Casey hissed. Her eyes were very dark. She placed both her palms on the table and leaned across a little murderously, “I wrote that line in my diary last week!”

“It was very good,” he assured her, “I quite liked it. Almost as much as the vivid recount of your wet dream about—”

“Shouldn’t he be moving out?” Casey asked loudly. What a fetching shade of red. “He’s eighteen. And an adult. Shouldn’t he be like, gone now? I think you should move out,” she turned back to Derek, locking gazes, “Like, now.”

“Derek can’t move out!” Edwin cried immediately, “He owes me like a thousand dollars! If he moves out, I’ll never get my money back!”

“Oh yeah, about that,” Derek caught an arm around Edwin’s obnoxiously broad shoulders and reeled him in, “I have a date tonight. Fork it over.”

“Get a job,” Edwin whined. Derek tightened his grip. Nora looked at George pointedly. George stared back uncomprehendingly before remembering that it was sort of his parental job to at least make some reasonable attempt at keeping order.

“Derek,” he prompted, needling, and Casey was just looking so smug, that he couldn’t give in.

“Oh, sorry.” He peeled off a one and handed it back to his younger brother, “Here’s a tip.”

“This is exploiting!” Marti wailed. Derek sent Casey a look. He really didn’t need her to be teaching those nasty words to his baby sister.

“Damn it, now I can’t beat Edwin up for his lunch money,” Lizzie snarled into her potatoes. Nora looked shocked.

“Lizzie!”

Lizzie took an ill-timed bite, “Sorry, sorry, I meant darn it.”

Nora actually buried her face in her hands.

“Unbelievable,” Casey hissed into her water glass, and downed it like it was hard liquor. He really ought to take her to some parties. He stood up, off to meet imaginary girls.

“Well, it’s been grand,” he paused to stretch a little. Casey didn’t look up, so he pulled on one of her pigtails, “Shall I bring you home a lollipop, little girl?”

“I hope you forget to use a condom,” Casey said scathingly.

That was enough to earn her a night in her room. Derek beamed.

“Seriously, though,” George leaned his head out the front door just as he was getting in the car, “You are an adult now, Derek. Can you go a little easier on her?”

“Oh, Dad,” he shook his head, “Such false accusations. Really, I’m hurt.”

Tuesday morning came. Casey cornered him at breakfast, her eyes a little red, and he wasn’t so hungry anymore. “What’s wrong with you? Have you been crying?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she growled, pulled out a stool and slumped beside him on the island, face buried in her arms. Their elbows bumped. Her hair was sticking up in tufts, “I was worried you really might vote for that creep with the nun fetish.”

He was suddenly starving. When Nora wasn’t looking, he took Casey’s eggs. She didn’t even like eggs, anyways. “You don’t have to worry about that.” He waited for some gratitude. It came pleasantly, with parted lips and glittery, almost worshipful eyes. He ended up missing his mouth and forking himself in the nose.

“Really?” she said hopefully, “So you’re voting for Carter? The only reasonable one?”

His toast kind of sucked. He dumped it on Casey’s plate. She’d downed four pieces, he figured she could manage another two. “Carter? Whatever, I’m going for Grant. He’s got a thing for nurses. Better find your mini-skirts, kid.”

He didn’t like her much in pants, anyways. He thought about Casey in a nurse’s outfit, and he’d be lying in bed, and she’d be all, is there some way I might assist you, sir? and she’d look at him all worshipfully like she had a few minutes ago and he’d—

“Off to vote,” he said brightly, gripped her arm tightly for a moment, felt flannel and heat and made fun of her monkey pajamas, and ran off to the car. He drove even faster than usual, because he suddenly didn’t much feel like being at home.

He voted for Carter. Just because. There was a woman in the stall to his left and a man in the one to his right, and they kept on calling things out to one another like, how’s it going for you, god, I miss you already, and, I can’t believe people break up over political differences, I’d still love you even if you voted for Grant, and God, that’s distracting, so really, his fingers just slipped.

He bummed out at the empty house for a couple of hours, watching television, messing with his guitar and playing games on his computer. When it was two thirty he got up and drove to school and lounged in the parking lot for ten minutes until Casey came out and got in the car, smelling a bit like oranges. He rolled down the windows.

“How was it?” she’d forgotten that she hated him, and actually, god, she looked excited. His lips quirked, and he looked away to screw with the air conditioning.

“Boring as hell. It’s like a date with a prostitute; you get in, you do it, you get out of there.”

Casey actually squealed, this comment appalled her so, “Derek! It’s democracy in action!”

Democracy in Action. Oh, wow.

“Yeah, well, I’d have gotten more action from the prostitute.”

She looked mortified. Doubtless she’ll refuse to speak to him for the rest of the car ride home. He seized the opportunity and turned on the radio, to a song he could half-stand and she loved, and at some point she started singing. She didn’t even try to hide it, much less be quiet. People at the intersections all craned their necks and look into his car, baffled, and it was all he could do to roll his eyes and shrug. Like he’d be the one to ever understand her.

She ended up not lasting half the ride, and finally broke, “So, who did you vote for?”

He raised an eyebrow at her, “What do you care? It’s a little late to whine at me.”

“I just.” She started to say something and then stopped. “Nothing.”

“What is it?” Not that he cared, just, you know, whatever made her awkward was usually a good thing. “Come on,” he wheedled, actually digs her in the side with an elbow, “Tell me.”

It kind of freaked him out, that move. He hadn’t nudged her nearly hard enough. He resolved to do it better next time.

She touched her lower lip with one finger, and sort of glanced out the window, “I thought you weren’t supposed to be harassing minors.”

“People have been telling me not to harass you for years.” He pulled into a stop light and almost forgot to break. Jesus. Jesus, focus.

“I just.” She took a deep breath, “I just guess I wanted to know what you thought. About that. I mean, I—yeah. That’s it.” She looked intently at her shoes, so he did too, and frankly, they weren’t all that interesting, so he studied her jaw line instead, until he remembered that wasn’t very interesting either.

He ran over what she’d said in his head, and couldn’t figure out where, exactly, the big deal was. It left him sort of frustrated, and he snuck her a sideways look, and is about to say Grant, until he saw her getting into that stupid look again, that one like she expected things of him, like she sort of hoped she could believe in him, and found himself, for once, telling the truth.

“I voted for Carter.”

“You did?” she repeated, looking awfully surprised, and waiting for the punch line. He pulled up his shoulders, up over his ears, and concentrated on driving between the lines.

“So, you,” she pulled on his sleeve, to hell with driving and safety regulations and all that, “You were listening to what I said? About the economy and funding schools and putting more money into the arts—”

This honesty thing wasn’t going to last. “Are you kidding me? Since when have I ever listened to you?”

She huffed up at that, and started yelling at him until his chest loosened a bit and he felt better, (this was Casey, this was just Casey) and they pulled into the driveway.

At which point he looked over and interrupted her and said, “So, hey, I was thinking we should—”

And Casey reached over and locked her arms around him and it took him a full fifteen seconds to realize she wasn’t pulling a wrestling move on him, but actually trying for something like a hug. His brain abruptly shut down. “Hey. Hey, you. What is this? What’re you doing? Have I not mentioned the no-hug policy to you? Because I have one. Seriously, stop it, someone might see—”

“Shut up,” Casey said into his neck, and her voice sounded all awful and emotional and he should not have to be dealing with this. He held very, very still. She sniffled. He wondered if the oranges thing was from her shampoo or her lotion, and had to mentally smack himself away from smelling her hair. “Thank you,” she said after a moment, and pulled back, flicking away tears. He studied her with horror.

“What the hell is your problem?”

She opened her mouth to say something, and he thought suddenly of her face at breakfast, and swallowed. Her chin tilted to the side. “You aren’t much of an adult, are you?” she said, kind of frustrated sounding, whatever the hell that was supposed to be about, and crap, he was the one getting frustrated because she didn’t make any sense. Or maybe she did, but in meanings he wasn’t looking for.

“More than you are,” he countered, which wasn’t exactly his best comeback, and got the hell out of the car.

At dinner, he told his parents, (Nora cooked his food and did his laundry, he figured the least he could do was drop her the mother title) that he’d voted for Carter. Casey looked up, eyeing him steadily, and he didn’t look her way. George and Nora obviously thought they’d made some sort of a break through. Edwin and Lizzie obviously thought the two of them had gotten into a superglue war and sealed the other’s lips shut.

He dropped his dishes in the sink and clambered up the stairs, not really surprised to hear Casey rinsing off her, (and probably his) plate off in the sink behind him.

She came in later and stood over his bed with her arms crossed. She cleared her throat. “Look. I admit that you are sometimes not as much of an ass as you pretend to be. So I was just—”

He wasn’t breathing.

“I was wondering if you’d maybe like to be friends.”

He actually laughed at her. “Because I don’t want to be friends,” he stressed, and grinned when she glared and stormed out of the room. What a kid.

In the morning, he yanked on her hair until she stopped talking to her latest charity case of a boyfriend, and wandered after him into the kitchen so he wouldn’t burn breakfast. He made a lot of toast.