His Reason - Life With Derek, PG-13

Title: His Reason
Disclaimer: I own neither the characters nor the song.
A/N: Written for the Derek/Casey community on LiveJournal, which only ever had one fanfiction contest. The challenge was to incorporate the song “Accidentally in Love” by the Counting Crows. This won second place. However, first place was a fanvid, so I say I still won.
Date Completed: 8/17/06

She hadn’t wanted to go to prom, but it was too late to change her mind after all the money had been spent. George and Nora were strung out enough for cash as it was: trying to save up for a bigger house but desperately wanting to provide their children with the same luxuries that they would have enjoyed before the Venturi-McDonald merge. They had dropped hundreds, easily, to afford Casey and Derek a chance to attend prom: the shining moment in the lackluster sheen of high school, or so all the teen movies had implied. After all the sacrifices that George and Nora had made, Casey wasn’t about to break their hearts by proclaiming that she could no longer bear to attend the dance. The money had been spent and there was no turning back.

Emily, being the loyal and dependable one, had been hyping up the dance every second of every day for the past week in a vain attempt to elicit even the smallest amount of excitement in Casey. Nothing worked. She was inconsolable. Still, Emily’s useless optimism at school was far better than the treatment Casey received at home, where Derek had mocked her relentlessly. “Well, princess, there goes your chances of becoming prom queen. Sam could still be king, though. Because, you know, he’s got a date to prom. Remember? Jackie—the girl he dumped you for?” He’d grin wickedly then and make a run for it, expecting her to lunge after him. Maybe if he had stayed long enough and taken a better look at her to see the tears brimming in her eyes, he would have stopped being so cruel. Then again, it was Derek. That might have encouraged him even more.

What drove Casey crazy was that she couldn’t even pin the blame on Sam. She could hate him for breaking up with her so close to prom, but she couldn’t hate him for breaking up with her. For weeks now, maybe months, she had known it was coming to an end. Graduation was approaching, everyone was stressed, and the looming presence of the legendary high school dance only made it worse. She kept thinking that if they could just make it to prom, things would get better. They couldn’t make it to prom. Sam was the one who ended it, and when he did, Casey had been neither surprised nor brokenhearted. She actually felt a little relieved. There would be no more forced smiles or routine hand-holding or feigned affection. It wasn’t until she discovered that Sam had asked someone else to prom just two days after their breakup that she felt her body go numb and her heart turn to ice. “It’ll be fun,” Emily had insisted. “Just ignore him. You’ll have us. And what are you going to do, sulk all night?”

But that was exactly what Casey was doing as she sat sullenly at the table in her lilac satin dress. Just one more hour and she’d be out of here. She remembered how much she had loved this dress when she saw it in the display window of the tiny boutique on Main Street. “It’s beautiful,” Casey had breathed. Nora paid the $140 without a single question or complaint. Casey had taken the tags off as soon as she brought it home and twirled in front of her full-length mirror, imagining how she’d look on Sam’s arm. She had failed to envision herself wearing the dress in her current position: slumped down in her chair, arms folded and staring despondently into space.

“Hey, sis,” came a taunting voice. Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see him leaning over her with his trademark sadistic grin. “So is this a private party, or can I join in?”

“Derek, leave me alone,” Casey mumbled, still refusing to look in his direction and terrified of what hurtful words he might say if he saw her bloodshot eyes.

He didn’t budge, and instead took a seat beside her at the empty table. She turned the other way. “You know, there’s no harm in going stag to prom. I did too. Of course, I could have had a date to prom, but I just like to keep my options open.” He laughed. “You, on the other hand—”

Before he could finish his sentence, Casey shoved her chair backwards with so much force that she nearly knocked it over. She walked quickly and purposefully across the crowded dance floor to Emily. “I’m going outside,” Casey shouted over the music.

“What?”

“I need some air.” Emily continued to stare at her with the same puzzled expression, but Casey turned on her heel and headed briskly for the exit.

“Hey!” a guard called after her. “Once you go out, you can’t come back in!” Not caring, Casey flew by and pushed the heavy door to the outside world. The cool night air hit her face and shoulders almost painfully and the door snapped shut behind her, causing the music to become muffled and barely audible. Finally free, Casey took a few small steps forward and then let herself fall to the stairs of the hotel entrance. She pulled her knees up to her chest and squeezed tight, closing her eyes and wishing the world would explode if that was the only way to end this horrific night.

Suddenly she heard the door open behind her, a small burst of loud music and then a bang as it slammed shut; the music abruptly returned to its hushed distorted form. She expected to hear footsteps, but there were none, and whoever came outside must have been staring directly at her. After a moment’s silence, Casey said, “Emily, you didn’t have to follow me out here. I don’t want to ruin your night too.”

There was a pause, and then a male voice responded, “I’m not Emily. And you’re not ruining my night, although I think maybe I ruined yours.” Derek took a few steps forward and sat down beside her.

Casey’s mouth dropped and she turned and stared at him, this time unafraid to look him directly in the eye. “You just couldn’t let it go, right? Had to get the last word in?” She began to cry then, and he watched her with an unreadable expression on his face. “Well, you win. You always do, right?”

Wordlessly, he reached into his breast pocket and handed her a handkerchief. She almost laughed then; it was so absurd. Only on this night would Derek ever carry a handkerchief, and he was handing it to her. She snatched it from him and tossed it over the railing. It floated down to the cold asphalt of the hotel parking lot. “I think that kind of defeats the purpose,” he said.

“Go away.”

“No.”

“No?”

“I wanted to make things right.”

She actually did laugh then, in a short, angry burst. “Sure you did.” She looked down at her hands and shook her head. “Did it occur to you that maybe you’re the last person I’d like to see right now?”

“I know I am. But I didn’t mean to be.”

“You did mean it. Do I need to spell it out for you?” It was a rhetorical question, which he didn’t realize, and he opened his mouth to respond. Casey cut him off. “You never liked the fact that Sam and I were dating. Sometimes I wonder if I stayed with him as long as I did just to piss you off because I knew how much you hated us together and how much you hated me for stealing your best friend away. But, you win. It ended and now I’m alone at prom and you’re ecstatic. I admit defeat. So if you came out here to gloat some more, to rub it in my face—which I’m sure you did—then just get on with it. But don’t sit there pretending to care.”

He sighed, and didn’t say anything for a while. She was sure he was delaying the agony just to torture her. It was working. Then he said, “Do you hate me?”

She thought about it. “Sometimes.”

“I didn’t come out here to gloat.”

“Fine,” she replied, completely unconvinced.

“I didn’t like that you were dating Sam,” he admitted. This elicited another short and humorless laugh from Casey. “But not for those reasons.”

“You just wanted to see me miserable.”

“I wanted…” he drifted off, and there was a long silence. They both stared out into the vast parking lot. Surely the dance was almost over now. People would come bursting through the doors, toppling them over. They’d go home—separately, of course—and she’d lock herself in her bedroom and cry some more until she fell asleep with her head against the tear-drenched pillow. “I don’t know how to act around you sometimes, Casey.”

“Oh? Do you want to know how you do act?”

“I act like an asshole,” he admitted.

“That’s an understatement.”

“Just listen to me.” There was an unfamiliar urgency in his voice now, and she listened. “I didn’t try to drive you and Sam apart. Yes, it pissed me off from the beginning, and there is a reason why I felt and acted the way I did, but it’s not what you think. I’m not like you. My thoughts and my actions don’t always go together. I don’t understand it myself most of the time.” He had been talking rapidly and stopped to catch his breath. “Do you believe me?”

She hesitated. “I’m not sure I can.”

“Try,” he pleaded.

She sighed. “I’ll try.”

There was another long and uncomfortable silence. Casey wondered if he was ever going to leave and let her return to her miserable solitude. Derek stared at his hands. The moment seemed to stretch out into eternity. “Want to dance?” he asked suddenly.

“Are you kidding me?”

“We can still hear the music,” he said.

“It sounds more like static than music.”

“Come on.” He pulled her to her feet, and Casey was too emotionally drained to resist. She realized then that if she concentrated hard enough, she could actually hear the muted melody and words of the song inside.

Come on, come on
Move a little closer
Come on, come on
I want to hear you whisper
Come on, come on
Settle down inside my love

It wasn’t a slow song, but they slow-danced anyway. Casey was too exhausted to do anything else. Had this been Sam, she might have leaned against his chest, but it was Derek, so she kept her distance. Casey closed her eyes and listened to the song’s lyrics.

Come on, come on
Jump a little higher
Come on, come on
If you feel a little lighter
Come on, come on
We were once
Upon a time in love
We’re accidentally in love

Yes, she thought, it was an accident. It was an accident to stay with Sam as long as she did, and another accident to agree to go to prom with him, holding on to the faint hope that they could make it that long. It was an accident to spend the entire evening sulking when she could have tried to have fun. And this—was this an accident too? The song ended, and Casey looked up at Derek, the weirdness of the moment they had just shared suddenly causing her to feel lightheaded and disoriented. He loosened his grip and she backed away slowly.

I’m in love, I’m in love
I’m in love, I’m in love
I’m in love, I’m in love
Accidentally

“Weird?” He laughed.

“A little.” She looked up at his face and smiled weakly. “You know what? I think that’s the first time I felt like you actually didn’t hate me.”

He returned the smile, and then something in his face, or perhaps his eyes, changed. Casey noticed it right away, and felt her heart rate accelerate drastically, as if she already knew what was about to happen before it did. And then he kissed her.

The whole time he was thinking this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong but his thoughts and his actions didn’t go together, and she knew it, too. He pulled her against him with a certain roughness, a determination, and kissed her hard. Casey’s thoughts flew a million different places at once and somehow she found herself kissing him back. Then, suddenly—too soon—he pulled away and stepped backwards, tripping over his own feet.

“Oh my god.” He turned around and brought his hands to his face. “Oh my god.”

Casey stood there speechless, and before she could say anything, he took off. She sank slowly down to the steps and watched his body shrink to nothing as he ran across the parking lot and into the darkness. She felt confused and ashamed and strangely exhilarated. Now she knew the reason.

As predicted, she came home long after he did, and went straight to her bedroom. Casey had to wonder if anything else would be predictable ever again. She ended up not sleeping that night at all, choosing instead to stay awake and listen to one song over and over.

Come on, come on
Spin a little tighter
Come on, come on
And the world’s a little brighter
Come on, come on
Just get yourself inside her
Love… I’m in love

And it hurt too much to keep crying, so she smiled instead.