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Glimpses of ideas pass through her mind at speeds she can’t even follow, fully formed and over before she can even catch the beginning of them. It’s like words and feelings wrapping around and around themselves, messy and tangled and pulsating in equal measures and she can’t grab onto any of them. There’s nothing to focus on. Nothing to reason with. Nothing to latch on to and hitch a ride out of her own head on.
“Name five things you can see.” Derek says to her - knelt between her legs as Casey sits on his couch. She’s not at home. She doesn’t think that matters, though.
She rocks forward instinctively, her nails digging into his forearms in a way that would make it impossible to move without drawing his own blood.
Part of her wants to feel it under her fingernails.
There’s space between them, which seems deliberate and she kind of hates it. She wants to bury her face in his shoulder and let him block the rest of the world away - but she can also feel her skin crawl at the idea of actually making any further contact with him right now.
It’s conflicting.
It’s confusing.
She also can’t quite remember how she got here.
“My hands.” Casey replies eventually, after a minute or so of Derek just waiting, patiently. Checking her over with his eyes. She resists the urge to scratch down his arms, like her brain is still insisting. Instead, she rotates her wrists ever so slightly, and finally, finally looks up a bit. Looks at him.
“Your hair,” she continues, when they make eye contact, “It needs a cut.” She reaches up now, without thinking, to push a section back behind his ear. It immediately flops back in front of his face again.
Derek smiles at that, ever so slightly. He doesn’t say anything though, just waits for her to continue her list.
One of her hands still has a death grip on him, but the other she uses to gesture to the wall behind him. Well, more specifically, the shelf nailed to it.
“That… that picture.”
“Which picture?” He asks, even though he knows.
She looks at him again - unsure of when exactly she had looked away. Even though that’s kind of the point of the exercise. There’s a gentle urging in his eyes, not mocking.
It helps.
“The one of you and Sam, at the beach last winter. You almost look blue.”
He smiles at her. She realises it’s in response to her own smile, at the memory of that day.
“The picture frame is still terrible,” Casey finds herself continuing, unprompted for the first time since she got here.
Derek laughs - not the bright, delighted chuckle she’d wanted. Not the one that meets his eyes. But it’s still genuine, even around his concern. “That’s kind of the point.” He reminds her, “It’s the worst photo frame in existence. Sam will get it back on his birthday, all wrapped up with a bow and everything.”
A silence settles. Not… not entirely at peace but calm, and almost gentle.
“That’s three, Case,” Derek prompts. He readjusts himself slightly on the balls of his feet, careful not to move too much from the spot he’s in still.
Casey sighs, the sound coming from somewhere deep within her soul.
He stays silent as she cricks her neck to the side, her eyes slowly moving around the room to pinpoint something. Anything. The what isn’t the point, and she knows it, but it still feels like a test to her brain. Something she could get wrong.
When she finally answers, she gives two in quick succession, “The dust on the lampshade. The beer stain on the curtain.”
Derek doesn’t rise to the bait, just squeezes her arm slightly in acknowledgement before moving on.
“Four things you can feel. Physically.”
“Your arm.” Casey instinctively squeezes now. Not in the way she’d wanted to earlier, but her nails are still on the harsh end of sharp - jagged where she’s spent hours catching them against her teeth over the last few weeks. She feels the flinch in the muscles under her palm.
He shows nothing on his face.
“Your socks.”
Derek looks down at her feet then and finds that she is, indeed, wearing a pair of his socks. He has no idea where she got them. No idea when she got them. He finds himself uncaring about it though. He knows he’s not supposed to react to her observations - knows that’s not how this is supposed to work - but he also knows Casey, knows that she’s trying to egg a response out of him.
His compromise, to himself, is to raise an eyebrow as he brings his head back up to meet her eyes.
She seems satisfied enough at this response.
Her free hand strokes across the couch seat next to her, “The upholstery.” It’s rough through years of use for different groups of students.
“Your beard.” She says, before her hand even reaches his face.
She can feel his blush beneath her palm too, though she won’t say that part out loud.
“It’s hardly a beard,” Derek points out, “It’s just a week of being too lazy to shave.”
Casey hums a little, her thumb rubbing in a matching rhythm, absentmindedly stroking his cheek.
She can’t remember what she was supposed to be thinking about. Not anymore.
“Three things you can hear.” Derek prompts now, softly into the more gentle air that seems to permeate around them.
His breath, keeping perfect times with hers.
Casey can’t bring herself to say it.
“The clock.” She says, instead - and, suddenly, it’s all she can hear.
Tick. Tick.
Tick.
She can feel the edges of her brain start to throb again. Errant thoughts knocking for entry.
Her breath hitches. Derek’s stays strong.
Tick.
Tick.
He must hear it though. In her throat, in the air.
It prompts him to reach up, his hand wrapping around her wrist to move her hand away from his face. She has no idea what he’s doing and she hates to lose the point of contact. She can feel the tears starting to well in the back of her eyes.
Tick.
Tick. Tick.
Derek brings her hand down to his own chest - flattens it against his ribcage, right above his heart. He takes a deep breath, keeping his eyes locked with hers as he does.
Then he takes another one.
And another.
Casey’s breathing matches his again. The tears flow anyway.
“Two things you can smell.”
They hadn’t finished with the sounds, but that doesn’t seem to matter.
She replies instantly, “Cheap beer.”
He grins again, broader this time. Still not right up to his eyes, but getting closer.
I did that, Casey thinks.
She makes a big show of breathing in through her nose, but coughs at the force of it because, “Tyler smoking weed upstairs.”
Derek nods - a little yeah, what can you do shrug with it, “Sorry about that.” He apologises, even though truly she’s here enough to be used to it. Also, like, they’ve smoked together before. Maybe he’s just sorry for the timing? Maybe she should go and ask Ty for a hit…
“Last one, Case.” Derek’s voice breaks through to her, yet again, “One thing you can taste.”
She pauses. “… Blood?”
“What!?” It’s the fastest he’s moved all evening, suddenly standing upright between her legs. She immediately tilts her head to look up at him, even as his hands move to her face - his thumb tugging her lower lip down as if he’s trying to get a look.
“I bit my lip. Earlier. When I slipped down the stairs.” Casey explains, hoping to placate him.
Instead, he looks downright distraught, “You fell down the stairs?!”
“That can’t be the most surprising thing you’ve heard this evening.”
It’s Derek’s turn to sigh now, deep in his bones. It’s the most emotion Casey’s seen from him since she turned up on his doorstep. Which in itself if not surprising; he has this ability to keep a level head when she needs him to. The fact he’s acting like this now means he must think she’s back to (nearly) normal.
Either that or he’s just that freaked out by the situation.
She’s not sure who moves first, but his arms wrap around her head as she rests it against his stomach. Face hidden from the world and able to breathe him in. He still uses the same laundry detergent they use back home and she finds it so, so comforting. Her arms find their way around his middle.
“Do you think I’m pretty?” Casey asks, suddenly, into the silence. He can feel the vibration through his abdomen.
It feels like a trick. Derek feels his palms go sweaty. The blood rushes to his face. It’s like his whole body is on fire.
He doesn’t answer.
“Do you think I’m sexy?” She asks, next.
Derek cannot step away fast enough.
“Case, how do you even want me to answer that?” He pleads - right back at distraught but this time with a different edge to it than when he thought she’d seriously injured herself.
“With the truth.”
“Always.” He immediately breathes out.
“Even like this?”
“Especially like this.”
She raises an eyebrow - not quite the practised shape he’s used to, but pretty damn close. He immediately rushes to clarify.
“I mean, like, trusting me. Us being honest with each other. Not like… post-panic attack vulnerable, Jesus fucking Christ.”
Casey nods, satisfied with his answer. She doesn’t offer anything else.
Derek can’t let that energy stay in the air. Not tonight.
“Why are you asking?”
She shrugs a little, looking away from him again. That beer stain on the curtain is really interesting, actually. Casey doesn’t remember ever seeing it before tonight, and the angle of it suggests a story.
“Casey.” Derek’s… not letting this go.
Casey sighs, defeated, “This show I’m in. Everyone has to believe it. And like yeah it’s acting, but acting is for emotions. Not for how much every man you’ve ever come across wants to fuck you.”
He makes a strangled noise from where he’s still stood, several feet away from her, “What?”
She looks at him, a shrug in her shoulders, “I need to, like, believe I’m the hottest person on that stage to make it convincing. And I’m just… not. The opening line of my solo number is literally I think we can all agree I'm a ten amongst these threes. Like anybody will believe it.”
Derek, apparently, has lost all ability to speak. Whereas before he was purposefully silent, drawing Casey out of her own head, now he knows he needs to say something and he just… can’t.
“You’re, like, fucking with me, right?” He practically squeaks out, ignoring every instinct in his brain that’s spent any time at all reading up on anxiety disorders and panic attacks so he can be the best person within 100 miles to help Casey whenever she needs it. “You’ve got to be fucking with me.”
She stares at him in confusion, not replying at all.
“Casey, I’ve been semi-hard almost every time we’ve even looked at each other since we were sixteen years old.”
Casey’s eyes go impossibly wide at the confession. She’s not surprised at the content of it - she can’t be. It’s not like she’s not felt it for herself either, when they’ve been too close at parties or during arguments or even that one time on this very couch whilst watching Ferris Bueller's Day Out (and she’s not touching that one with a barge pole, nope). The thing is, it's always been this unspoken thing between them. Not to be acknowledged or discussed.
Until now, apparently.
“Der-ek! I didn’t need to know that!” She lies.
“Really?” He asks, because now it’s out there, frankly: why the fuck not, “Because from where I’m standing right now you’re freaking out over the idea of tricking an audience into thinking you’re desirable to someone who has definitely wanked over you many, many times.”
The silence in the air now is… tense, to say the least. They’re both staring at each other like they can’t actually believe Derek has spoken out loud, rather than just in his head.
Tick.
“Too much?” He asks, after several minutes of prolonged eye contact.
Tick. Tick.
“A little.”
Tick.
“Want me to take it back?” It’s a genuine question, she can tell.
“No.”
Casey launches herself at him then. It’s so quick he hasn’t even noticed she’s moving before her hands are on his face and her tongue is down his throat. It’s also messy, all teeth and no finesse and Derek can taste the blood from the cut she’d told him about earlier - the force of their movements have opened the wound, and he keeps lapping his tongue against it as if that might soothe it closed.
It’s over as quickly as it started. They’re both standing, several feet apart somehow and no idea how they got there. Breathing heavily, eyes locked. Casey’s hands are clutching at her own head, hair bunched in her fists, and Derek has a hand pressed against his stomach as if he’s trying to keep himself in place.
“I-” Casey starts at the same time as Derek opens his mouth.
“We-”
They stop, sharply. A laugh in the air, because of course they’re trying to speak at the same time. It’s so very typically them.
It’s enough to break the tension, too. Derek breathing out a deeper chuckle and Casey closing her eyes as she leans her head back - as if to look at the sky.
He’s already watching her when she opens her eyes to look at him again. Blatantly staring.
“After my show.” She says, simply, edging herself towards the door to leave.
“I’ll be there,” he nods, “Probably trying to hide a boner during it.” Because, apparently, he’s being truthfully honest in regards to that kind of thing now.
Casey lets her head fall back at that - makes a sound that’s like a mixture of laughter and arousal. She goes to let herself out, pausing only to get in the last word, as always.
“We can sort that out afterwards.”
It’s a promise.
Derek smiles, and it finally meets his eyes.