DISCLAIMER: IF YOU KNOW IT, I DON'T OWN IT!

A/N: Special thanks to shyesplease, for looking this over and giving me the courage to post this bit of fluff.

They can't remember what the fight was about, or who even started it this time, but it basically ends when in a fit of insanity (as he claims), he does the one thing guaranteed to shut her harping up.

Yeah, that's right: Derek Venturi kisses Keener Casey McDonald, his step sister.

She looks shocked when he releases her, their breaths the only noise in the room for one very long minute before they come together again, gently, exploring and learning until the spark between them actually catches and things go aflame. It doesn't occur to either of them until later (basically because she's writhing against him and then later, under him, in passion) that it's a good thing they're in Kingston, roughly 430 kilometres from where they're supposed to be part of the same blended family.

Here at Queen's they are two separate people who can come together (yeah, yeah, they get the pun) and simply be (and they come together a lot-puns included).

They don't date. Not really. They go out together. Sometimes he pays (*gasp!* without being nagged!), sometimes she does (feminism means equality right? He's totally down with the girl getting the bill. Go gender equality). She cooks for him (for *them*) in the kitchenette of his dorm's hall. She's a semester behind him from deferment when she spent her time doing Mr. Blue's show in New York, but despite that, they still have two classes together and she makes him study with her (and rewards him generously when he actually puts in the effort). Even though she's way over qualified as a professional dancer now, she still joins the dance team and he goes to other sports events once or twice, just to watch them perform (funny enough she never actually asked him to come. She got used to not knowing anyone in the audience in New York and she's been doing better about not seeming clingy). They eat lunch together only twice a week, due to scheduling, but they don't ignore each other in passing in the quad.

It works for them. He still pranks her from time to time (he pulls a Parent-Trap inspired one, leaving her dorm room covered in twine and honey-carefully avoiding her roommate's stuff), he won't say why, but he likes the snap of her eyes and the flush of her cheeks when she rails on him. Everyone knows who he is, not just because Venturi is on the hockey team, but also because "Der-ek!" can be heard all over the campus when she gets mad. (They become an in-school joke in the student paper in one of those "10 Ways You Know You Go to Queen's" lists.) He doesn't however, appear to hook-up with any other girl on campus. Not even at parties.

They are quite a pair. Even when they fight, it's common knowledge that Venturi's claim on McDonald is to be undisputed (largely in part to the Gaels enforcing this fact on any dude seen trying to chat up Casey in anything but a friendly manner) and Derek has turned down girls rather rudely if they don't get a hint (he's getting a reputation to be downright mean when he's moody). (He still kisses her to shut her up.)

They don't really talk about the way they spend most of their free time with each other, but learn where each scar came from (yes, she has a few as well) and debate body modifications (a navel piercing would look hot and he thought about getting a tattoo, but he doesn't even like needles). Wearing his shirts aren't a big deal anymore or maybe they are, because he likes seeing her in them and she catches herself sniffing and grinning when she's in them.

It's them. They slowly learn to adapt and to compromise, because fitting together feels so good.