AU story: What if Casey and Derek really were blood-related, and Lizzie, Edwin, and Marti are the father's children

A/N italics are someone's thoughts. Also….warning, there will be comedy intermissions that have NOTHING to do with the story that you may or may not find funny. Ignore them if you have to.

Blood Deep

I. Introduction

Lizzie Venturi sighed. Why had her father have to go marry a woman who had two siblings who practically hated each other? No, not practically. They did hate each. There was no doubt about it.

Lizzie was lying on her bed trying to read a book, but she kept getting interrupted by Casey and Derek screaming at each other. It got really annoying sometimes.

"Would you two just stop fighting, for God's sake??!?!?!" Lizzie screamed, furious to the point of no return.

"We're brother and sister. We're supposed to fight!" Casey screamed up towards her sister.

"Who said?!?!" Lizzie screamed.

"I don't know!" Casey screamed.

Lizzie sighed again and stared down at her book. It was pointless. All she saw were blurs of black and white. She kept going back to the beginning of the paragraph and rereading every word but nothing made sense because of the noise. Lizzie slammed her book shut and went downstairs to get a glass of lemonade.

II.

Casey paced back and forth in her room. Derek is so disgusting! How can he not give a crap about school? How can he not care about his grades? And why does he think the whole world revolves around him?!??! Casey remembered that time when Derek was drinking milk out of the container and then Edwin came up and yelled at him to leave some for the cereal and Derek just spit the milk in his mouth back in the container!!! Did he not care at all how others felt?! And their fight today, it was so stupid. Derek had brought Sam over and tried to humiliate Casey and she ended up falling into the garbage can and then Derek pushed it all the way down the driveway! WHY was he so mean to her?

Sam had left soon after that (and went into a portal into another world and became Samwise Gamgee and accompanied Frodo to destroy the ring…..lol just kidding). As if being covered in banana peels and crushed up tissues and dirty newspaper wasn't enough, Derek tried to blame the garbage can being knocked over on her!! And then They were screaming back and forth and Casey felt like she was losing control and that she was on the verge of a rampage. This was so unfair!! It hadn't always been like this….when they were little kids, they had gotten along. They hadn't been perfect little angels; they fought, but they had their good moments too. Why did Derek have to act like he was superior to her when he was actually one year younger than her? Why was he so egotistical? Her mom said that she had screamed in excitement when her brother was born but today Casey could hardly believe that could have been true; who would wish such a pig into this world?

A better question was, why was he such a pig? What did he see in video games and hockey and fighting?

Casey sighed and forced herself to stop thinking about Derek. It made her freak out. He never gave her peace. Whenever she wanted to read he was blasting his stereo and when she sang he told her she didn't have a voice and sometimes he talked to her in this voice that meant he was superior than her and could boss her around and that humiliated her because it should be the other way around.

'Stop!' she told herself out loud. 'At least let yourself have peace when he's finally quiet.'

But he's not quiet, he's downstairs playing videogames with Edwin, locked in the TV. room.

Casey sat down at her desk and flipped through the pages of her dictionary. She knew it was weird but it was a habit of hers and she just couldn't stop. She liked big words.

And so what if that made her a nerd? Or a loser or a freak? She didn't care. Because she knew she wasn't a loser. She was pretty no matter what other people said about her behind her back. She had dark hair and she wouldn't trade it for blonde in a second!

Straight A's made her who she was. She hated Calculus but she got through it and now it's over and she doesn't have to take math ever again.

There was a huge crash downstairs.

"Derek!" someone screamed.

It was their father.

Casey wondered what happened but then she shrugged. She didn't care. It was about time her 'annoying little brother' got in trouble for something he did. He was sixteen, for God's sake! And he still acted like he was seven years old making noises in the car annoying everyone half to death. Only in a different way.

Intermission/parody-thingy: Sam was tired of being Derek's best friend. Derek was immoral and he always wanted to have power over his family. What was so great about power? Sam was drunk after a party and he walked into a wall and when he woke up he was way shorter. But his name was still Sam. Well, kind of. For some reason he was "wise." But how does being drunk make you wise?

Sam bumped into some other short person with dark bushy hair and when they collided that person….well, hobbit…..was sent into the world where Casey and everyone else was and somehow bumped into Derek and Derek stole the ring and he didn't know what it was because he was completely ignorant and ignored it's seductive whispers and he gave it to Casey as an engagement ring even though they're brother and sister and it wasn't the kind of ring a boy gave to a girl because there wasn't a diamond or anything in it and then Casey put it on her finger and then she heard this evil scream and then she took it off and threw it on the ground and stomped on it and then she saw this weird short dude running around screaming, "NO! NO! Where is it?!?! How could I lose it?!?! The world is doomed!!!"

Then there was a girl named Terra and Terra talked to Casey and saw the ring and Terra said, "Hey, what's that?"

"Oh, it's just the engagement ring my brother gave me," Casey said.

"Okay," Terra said and she turned into stone and then Beast Boy appeared out of nowhere and he screamed, "No!!!! Terra, my love, come back!!!!! Come back!!!" And he wouldn't stop wailing so Casey punched him and he was completely knocked out and so how could he really be a superhero if he could be knocked out so easily?

Then Casey saw the short dude and he found the ring and picked it up and Casey said, "No, that's the engagement ring my brother gave me."

"That's just wrong," Frodo said. "Besides, that's the one ring. I need to destroy it."

"Whatever. I hate Derek anyways," Casey said.)

(Back to the story now!!!)

Casey shut the dictionary when Lizzie walked into the room they shared. At least Casey had a sister that cared about her. It didn't really matter that they were step-sisters; they were the best of friends and definitely the best of sisters.

"What's wrong?" Lizzie asked.

Casey looked into her sister's wide, innocent blue eyes and sighed. "Is it that obvious that I'm upset?"

"Yes," Lizzie said. There was a pause; silence invaded the air for a moment and Casey spun around the world on an enigma. Lizzie was right. Her hair was tangled in a mess. She had no make-up on. Her voice was hoarse from screaming. And she was alone in her room reading a dictionary.

Lizzie hesitated, and then asked, "Why are you always so angry at Derek?"

"He got me to fall into a trash can in front of Sam and then he pushed the trash can down the driveway and then blamed me for the trash spilling…." Casey started to say. She paused, and sighed. "He hates me, Lizzie. And he is so down-right annoying!"

"So is Edwin," Lizzie ventured.

"Not in the same way," Casey said, staring at the wall.

"Okay, fine, I guess you're right, but you don't have to let it control your life," Lizzie conceded.

"I know," Casey said. "I know, I know, I know."

There was a knock on the door. "Dinner's ready," someone said. It was Derek.

"Tell them I'm not hungry," Casey said.

"Me too," Lizzie said.

'Fine, have it your way," Derek said and left the vicinity.

Why, why, WHY couldn't Derek have went to live with Casey's real father?!?!?! Why did she still have to be in the same house with him?! She couldn't take it.

She turned on her stereo and turned on her music, loud. She started dancing, and jumping, getting her energy out, getting her anger out, and singing the lyrics because whether she had a voice or not (right now her throat was sore from screaming but most of the time she did (have a voice), thanks very much) singing the lyrics of songs about other peoples' lives made her forget about hers.

Lizzie joined in. Soon they were both dancing and singing "Stand Up And Be Strong" by Soul Asylum.

Suddenly she smiled. At least some things in her life were finally going right. Her mother remarried and now she had a sister. Well, two sisters, but Marti was only six right now. Compared to most people, she had a pretty good life. Sure, her parents were divorced and remarried and she had an annoying, selfish, lazy, disgusting, popular, procrastinating brother. But things could be a lot worse.

She had a sister, and it didn't matter that they weren't blood-sisters because some things don't need to be blood deep. They're deeper.

To be continued….