He awakes to the sound of a faint buzzing invading his head. As he comes to, his surroundings slowly coming into focus, he recognizes the faint outline of shelves, various tools hung alongside the walls. It's too dark to make out what kind, but the buzzing persists.

His tongue is heavy with the taste of bile and alcohol, forcing his lips into a contortion of distaste. Flashes of images flitter in his mind, images of skimpily-clad girls and hollering boys, enmeshed in the strange freedom only teenage rebellion affords.

He sees himself grab drink after drink, encouraged by his free-spirited peers. He watches as his legs stumble past a tangle of bushes, the faint thrumming of music in the background. A shed door opens, his body propels forward, crashing hard into the floor below, the smell of wood and dust and mildew surrounding him.

Where am I? He wonders briefly, and then the image of Casey with her neat color-coded boxes remind him.

His shed. Just a few feet away was the entrance to the large Victorian-style house that the McDonald-Venturi clan found themselves claiming.

They called it home; Derek did not. Home was the place where Marti took her first steps and Edwin learned how to ride a bike.

Vaguely, he is aware that Lizzie and Nora made home, home to him too, remembering the father-daughter dance Lizzie and George had shared, the way Nora had taken to mothering him even when he regarded her with the moodiness of a fifteen-year-old who didn't want things changing.

Casey, too. From all their fights to the way she found some way to push her way into his life, the way she found herself bailing him out of trouble and the way he managed to get her into trouble because what teenager didn't.

The thoughts were pushed away by a clanging in his skull, pain shooting through his body as he rose to his feet. Stumbling over something he didn't bother to inspect, he makes his way out of the shed and finds the sunrise peeking at him through the door.

Helluva party, he thought, pushing past the heaviness in his feet and the tangle of the grass beneath them. The door seems much farther than before, but he manages without stopping to dry-heave.

Managing to enter the house without making too much noise, finding the large sitting-room before him empty, no sounds coming from the kitchen to his left. Removing his shoes before making his way up the large, winding staircase, Derek thought he might get away with his sneaking out.

And then the sound of a loud, shrill crying interrupted the silence. Fuck, he thought at the top of the stairs, knowing he had about ten seconds to find some way to get out of sight, and his room was too far away.

So he scrambled into the nearest doorway, ignoring the whimsical letters spelling C-a-s-e-y, letting the dark shroud him when he closed the door.

The crying continued until he heard Nora make her way into the room to attend to her infant son, the ultimate symbolization of family, making Casey and him not so much step siblings anymore, linked together forever by the blood of their brother, and he grimaced.

A form rose from the bed beside him, squinting at him. Hands fished around for the lamp beside her, the light pushing the shadows away, revealing his haggard appearance.

Casey's eyes widened, and then settled into a stare of disapproval, her lips turning down as she muttered, "You went to that party, didn't you? Even though George said—"

"Case," he said wearily, "Please save the lecture for later, and just...let me wait here, okay?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You're the one who broke the rules," she snapped, huffing, "you should get in trouble."

Of course she did, he thought, because Casey was little miss perfect wasn't she? Embracing their (the word gets stuck in his head, makes him ill) little brother with pride, showing Marti how to hold him, dutifully picking up everything Nora taught her so she could babysit and Derek isn't sure how she can do it, how she can look at him without realizing the implications.

But then again, she never really did look at him anymore, or fight with him, or give into that electric pull that always seemed to ignite when he pissed her off.

So he started finding ways to force her eyes to meet his, to force her to stay in his presence, keep her from running from the thing that seemed to be between them.

"George meant what he said, Derek," she reminded him, eyes boring into his, revealing the airiness of her tone with an edge of (concernangerbitternessbetrayal), "Do you want to leave that much?"

He shut his eyes, aware of the headache still throbbing, the fatigue running through his legs and arms and back and neck and eyes, burning. Slumping onto the foot of her bed, the light dancing on the edges of his lips and his eyelashes, he feels her stare and isn't sure what it means but he doesn't care.

Of course he doesn't. He doesn't want to leave her. Is that what she means?

He feels the question rise up in his throat, his heart beating faster now, his head turning to look at her, and she's still just looking at him, abandoning all opportunities to shriek and bitch and insult which is so not Casey and he just doesn't know how to respond to that.

Her attention was all he wanted, and he finally succeeded after stumbling in smelling like god-knows-what and it's a bitter, bitter victory because he's spent (what feels like ages and ages but it's really only been the longest three months of his life a summer he can barely remember he's sure it's been a long time) carving out this persona of devil-may-care, sarcastic, too-cocky-for-his-own-good, selfish Derek.

"Well, I live to annoy you," he says finally, pasting on a smirk, "I couldn't do that if I was at boarding school."

The tone he says it in is all wrong, it's not rough and sarcastic and accompanied with an insulting (pet name) nickname, it's soft and broken and he knows, he knows she sees it, and somehow she's closer, her face near his, his hand tangled in her hair.

The panic is rising now because fuck what is he doing—

And Casey, by all accounts should be shoving him away, glaring at him, uttering words of disgust, eyes glittering like ice with every syllable but she doesn't.

She reads his face, ignoring the faint smell of cigarettes and musk that could only be attributed to spending all night out amongst other bodies (girls) and yet he still returned to her and she finally understands why.

His lips part like he's about to say something and she doesn't let him, putting her free hand against the nape of her neck, fingers curling into his mussed hair like the way his own are tangled in hers and she pulls him closer, aware that the kiss is bitter and tastes like sleep and alcohol and cigarettes—

—and he doesn't care, letting out a strangled little whimper, and she isn't sure what that means until he runs one hand up roughly beneath the thin tank top he's wearing; she parts from him briefly to tug at his jacket, and he discards it on the floor, her nimble hands depositing his shirt alongside it—

This is dangerous, so, so dangerous, they're well aware, with Nora one room away but stopping doesn't seem like an option because there is no going back now.

It isn't the first time she's kissed him either but neither of them mention that.

She's maneuvered herself from under the sheets now, bare legs locking around his waist, the fabric of his jeans a fucking painful barrier with her against him like this and she rocks forward, pushing him onto his back, moving her lips down lower and lower, nipping at his neck, scattering kisses down his chest and part of him is afraid she'll pull back from him before she goes too far, some sense of reality clashing with the heaviness and needwant encircling them, but she just pulls his jeans and boxers down roughly and he has to bite into a clenched fist to muffle the sound that pushes past his lips—

She hears him say her name, a long, strained whisper, broken into two syllables, Ca-sey and she thinks he needs to say that more often so she keeps doing whatever it is with her tongue that he appears to like, pausing just to hear him say Ca-sey again and his hand is tangled in hers, squeezing so tightly it should hurt but it doesn't because she's too lost, too busy avoiding the fact that her mouth is making him do that and shit this is her step brother and it's the last day of summer before school starts what will tomorrow mean what—

What the hell is she doing here?

But Casey can't finish that train of thought because that strangled whimper leaves his mouth again and his hand relaxes and his breathing hard, his stomach dipping, rising, dipping, rising, and for a moment she wonders if he's the one freaking out now but no, he pulls her up, forward, against him.

The heat of their skin almost unbearable in the heat (and she can't remember who took off her shirt or when but it doesn't really matter because he feels too good) Derek kisses her again, hard, before rolling her over and she realizes he's mimicking her moves now, watching the way she arches when he nips at her shoulder so he does it again, harder, tongue swiping to soothe the dull burn, and it's all he does for a few moments until she lets out, Der-ek and that makes him feel…something he can't quite name but it feels hot and frantic.

He moves his lips lower, his hands discarding her underwear quickly before returning again to make her writhe and he kisses her to keep her quiet.

And when he finally puts his tongue and his mouth where she wants it, he finds he has to try a few different things before she says his name like that again and when she does he finds himself certain he won't stop until she relaxes beneath him, breathing hard

When she does her whisper transforms into a brief, low, stifled cry, and he looks up to watch her eyes slowly come back into focus, her thoughts edging their way back into real-life-this-is-wrong-topsy-turvy-land, and he tries to stop them by kissing her again, one hand entwined in his firmly, tries to tell her what he can't put into words.

Though it doesn't quite work, the fear uncoiling in her stomach, she kisses him again, softly, squeezing his hand for good measure, aware of the goosebumps on her skin and she isn't sure if it's because she's cold or scared or both.

So he parts from her, nudging the blankets back, managing to tuck her in with an awkward turn of his shoulders, and he slips beneath them, letting her tangle her legs with his, letting his fingers fit between hers again.

The heaviness eventually ebbs away as sound permeates the quiet, the rest of the (their) family thumping down the stairs to breakfast and Nora and George and Robbie.

Casey considers rising to dress and go downstairs when he falls asleep, but Derek curls around her tighter, as though he's afraid to let her go, so she stays, because real-land-this-is-wrong-bad-wrong is not at all appealing anyway.

And eventually, she lets go, drifting off, dreaming of nothing.

The next time she wakes to the sound of screaming and sirens and she turns to see her bed empty.

Her heart rattles against her chest as she's ripping the blankets off of her to rush to the window.

She sees George curled down to his knees, sees strangers in her yard and she knows, somehow, that it's Derek, that something is very very wrong—

and then she sees him beside his father.

It's something Derek had never seen before.

George is screaming and screaming and he won't stop, having fallen to his knees, that haunting, horrid wail escaping his throat, the tears staining his face and agony twisting his eyes up into something terrifying.

He tries to soothe him awkwardly, having hastily dressed in his boxers and his shirt (he can't remember when or why or how). George doesn't seem to be aware, he doesn't seem to pay attention at all but the why slices into Derek like ice because he sees what his father is staring at.

He sees a curled up, ugly form in the shed, something that had slipped into rigor many hours before and it just can't be him it can't be him it can't be him

And then he sees men in uniforms picking him up and carting him away and he tries to push them back, push them away but they don't register it at all, just package him up neatly with stone-cold faces.

Derek tries to say,

No, no, no it's not me I'm still here I'm still here

but he can't.

-x-x-x-

A/N: So if you've seen any of my other vids you'll know I'm a huge fan of American Horror Story, which is what gave me this idea.

If you liked this please review and thanks for reading!

-Remi