If You Can

He's dancing by her again, skirting around her in a way only he can. He brushes near her, big-bad-wolf grin spread all the way up his face and she finds herself reaching out. With a jerk she lunges towards him, delicate hands bent on grabbing fistfuls of hair or of wiping his smirk away with one well-placed swing, but he backs away at the last second, leaving her with nothing but a fistful of AIR, as he causes her to stumble forward just as he breezes by her again - skillful hands barely grazing her skin.

She growls then. Low and suffering. An animalistic growl of frustration and anger and energy pent up into one gigantic ball of flames and hatred known as Casey herself. She stands alone, a raging pillar in the night. Waiting until the day he flits too close and she is finally able to catch him.

It's an obsession, she soon realizes. An unhealthy obsession with an unhealthy boy, who teases her unhealthily in their neat little home. An unhealthy obsession and she knows it, but she doesn't care. She's spent the past year desperately trying to put a stop to his dancing, to finally touch more than air. To reach out and find clothing or hair or...flesh.

That's what she needs most of all. Flesh. Human flesh. But not JUST human flesh. Derek flesh. The flesh of the beast, skin of an animal, touch of a wild creature in order to still the beating in her heart. A heart which has been pounding much too fast for a whole year. A heart that has been racing the clock, counting every day-hour-second spent in this hellhole of a house with him. Derek. The beast.

"Can't get me..." She can hear him taunting her even in her sleep. The teasing - 'you'll never win' smile is plastered to his face as he stares at her and soon she is violently leaping towards him even as he gets further away. He glides ever forward, moving at incredible speeds away from her and she finds herself hopelessly chasing him, longing in vain for a handful of flesh...of hair...of the nothing air that still smells just a bit like him.

"What's wrong?" Her mother keeps asking, but Casey can't answer, because Casey doesn't know. All she knows is that there's an obnoxiously loud beast named Derek pounding in the walls of her mind and skirting around her while she's left grasping air and her mother CANNOT know.

"Just...School..." She lies, as the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, letting her know that he's in the room. So close. Too close. All she has to do is whirl around and there he'd be. Derek. The beast. In the flesh. She closes her eyes and bites on her lip. KEEP CONTROL, CASEY. "I've been...tired." She finishes and she senses him taking his leave. A moment later and he's gone completely and she feels almost okay, but her heart is still racing and her hands are clenched together around fistfuls of air.

"Don't over do it. It's not good to obsess over anything to the point that it makes you sick." Her mother warns and Casey almost laughs.

She tries to time when she crosses to her room sometimes. Tries to make it so that she passes by his door (ALWAYS OPEN) at the exact moment that his shirt is almost over his head, his vision partially gone so that she can jump in and grab for that fistful of flesh when he's too busy getting his shirt off to sidestep her. Besides - then the jobs half done and then...

"NO." She mutters to herself as she stands next to his doorway, her heart pounding and her palms clenching. "No." That's not what this is about...is it?

She hears him shuffling about his bedroom. The beast moving within his territory. The dread creature known only as Derek lurks just out of sight - waiting for her to move closer so he can dance away. He moves away because he wants her to stay, wants her obsession to grow. And it's growing. Every day as he moves about. All the times when he comes close to being honest. Every lengthy glance. Every tempting, teasing thing he does. It makes the obsession grow stronger.

She feels a weakness in her knees then. She hears him grunt softly - a sign that he is struggling to get his overly large, beastly head out of his layers of clothing and her legs feel springy and ready and the younger kids are asleep and mom's in the basement with George and if she knows that if she leaps now he will never be able to get away.

She takes a breath as she steps into sight. Derek is staring at her through his head hole.

"What are you -?"

It's as simple as one, two, three, she thinks as she leaps forward - springing from the doorway to his body (half-clothed and therefore half-way done). And then its hands on his chest as she rakes her fingers along his back and his mouth smashed against hers and the obsession growing within her until she finds that she can't let go. It takes a moment for him to comprehend (criminal mastermind, maybe; emotional expert, not so much), but when he does he slowly slinks his arms around her waist and pulls her even closer to him. His eyes widen as she grinds herself against him, but then he decides that it's not really all that surprising.

She pulls back as she feels his mouth move upwards in a smirk. She catches his gaze (and oh! how good it feels to really have his gaze!) as he grins wickedly at her.

"Guess you finally caught me, huh?"

--

A/N: First LWD fic, possibly the last. Getting Derek in character can be awful. Because he's not a sap. He isn't going to just openly admit anything to Casey. He has a lovable tendency to bring himself back to square one with her. Their relationship (or lack thereof) is very fun. Because sometimes it's just downright MEAN.