Title: The Benefits To Confession

Rating: T

Pairing: Dasey.

Summary: It's supposed to be good for the soul. Dasey. One-shot.

Disclaimer: I don't own a thing.

A/N: Okay, so this is the first fic I have with actual…action, so to speak. Oh, and in case it's not clear, the parts in italics are flashbacks.

"Dude," Sam finally asks at last, "what the hell is going on?"

The funny thing is, Derek's been expecting the question for the last week. He's been acting like a space cadet, he knows that, and what's worse, his hockey skills have apparently gone the way of the dodo bird, thanks to his complete and total inability to focus on anything besides—

Right. Not thinking about that. Not thinking about that ever, because it was a mistake, such a huge mistake that Derek's still waiting for the sky to fall down on him.

It hasn't yet, but that doesn't mean it won't.

"Earth to Derek," Ralph says, waving a hand in front of his face. Derek slaps it out of the way impatiently.

"Guys, I'm fine. Drop it."

Sam and Ralph share a look, then move to block his path. "Dude," Ralph says, sounding a lot more determined than Derek's ever heard him sound before. "You're telling us what's going on."

And maybe the strangest part of this? He actually wants to tell them.

Lizzie's been in the hospital for two days, and the strain's starting to show.

The doctors are all telling them to be patient, to wait, but that's impossible, because this is a member of Derek's family, because Nora's skin is turning gray, because Edwin is walking around like he's in a fog, because his father looks five years older, and because Marti just keeps walking around with wide, scared eyes, asking everyone what's going on.

And because Casey—but Derek doesn't let himself think about Casey. Or how small Lizzie looks in that hospital bed, how her eyes have stayed resolutely closed, how she hasn't given them anything, not a twitch, not a tremor, to indicate that she's still in there, still here with them despite everything.

"Okay," Ralph says. "So...that's what this is about then?"

It's later in the day, and the three of them are holed up in Ralph's room. It had to be Ralph's room—Sam's got sisters that can eavesdrop, and of course Derek's house is off-limits, for obvious reasons.

Derek waves a hand. "Don't interrupt." If they keep interrupting, sooner or later his sanity's going to kick in and he'll realize how stupid it is to admit any of this out loud, even if it's just to his best friends. "And yeah, kind of. Except not really."

Despite his occasional complaints about his wacky blended family, Derek's always secretly sort of liked the chaos that is the Venturi-McDonald clan.

That happy functional chaos is a thing of the past now.

Now it's silent meals and the TV always being on mute with the closed-captioning on, because the blare of sound is too much for a group of people that have gotten used to tiptoeing and speaking in whispers.

Derek spends most of his time in his room with his headphones on, the volume turned up high enough to make his head ache, trying to block out that awful, awful silence of a once-happy home. He avoids Edwin, and Casey—the only person he can't avoid is Marti, because even he doesn't have the heart to do that.

It could be worse, Derek tries to remind himself. Lizzie's not dead, the doctors are still hopeful, and his dad's keeping an eye on Edwin, while Nora's doing the same for Casey.

And then one day, everything cracks wide open.

"Seriously, D—what happened?" Sam asks, and now he's almost starting to sound worried.

For a minute, the only thing Derek can do is stare at him. He shouldn't tell, he knows that—the reasons for not talking haven't become any less solid simply because he's suddenly got this bizarre urge to start singing like a canary.

Just because you want to tell doesn't mean you should. But Derek is so sick of hiding, so sick of pretending, and it's already been proven that his judgment and decision-making skills are absolute crap, so really, at this point, how much more damage can he do?

And so Derek opens his mouth, and he tells them.

It starts with a broken plate.

Another silent dinner and Casey's washing the dishes, while he's drying. Under normal circumstances, Derek would have slipped out of drying duty altogether, or at the very least relished the chance to brush up against Casey so often.

But given the circumstances, he can't really do either. So he wipes down the dishes carefully, and tries not to notice how tired Casey looks, or how little she eats these days, or the dark circles under her eyes—

He's been trying not to notice, but that doesn't mean he's been successful at it.

Derek's so focused on trying to ignore Casey that he actually jumps when a plate slips out of her hand and shatters on the floor.

The silence that follows is just so loud—Derek hadn't known until now that silence could be loud, but this is—and Casey's staring at the shards and he's staring at Casey, and then she...wavers, somehow, sways slightly on her feet and then she's pushing past him and rushing out the front door, and he's watching her leave in dismay.

Nora stares after her daughter, her eyes wide, and starts to get up, but Derek says, abrupt, "I've got it, don't worry."

He follows Casey out the door, snagging his leather jacket off the coat rack as he does.

Sam and Ralph are watching him carefully, and when Derek stops talking abruptly, because he may not want to stop, but he's not sure he can continue either—they're both silent for a long moment, then Ralph elbows Sam and says, "See, I told you this had something to do with Casey."

A part of Derek wants to laugh, because really--doesn't it all come back to Casey in the end?

He stays back a few paces, not wanting to scare her off. She doesn't look back once, doesn't say anything, just keeps walking around their neighborhood like she's completely alone and doesn't have her stepbrother trailing her like some sort of stalker.

But the thing is, now that he's following her, keeping his eyes on her back and noticing how the light from the streetlamps shines on her hair—Derek can't help but really focus on Casey. He can't help but remember how pale she's been looking lately, how she spends all her time at the hospital with Lizzie, how Nora always has to coax her to finish her meals.

Derek hasn't let himself think about this stuff, because if he lets himself think about it, he won't be able to stop, stop thinking, stop worrying about this girl that's managed to infiltrate every corner of his life.

And then if he keeps thinking about that, then at some point he'll have to acknowledge a certain fact he's been denying to himself for a long, long time.

Lost in his thoughts, he almost misses the sharp turn that Casey makes, and that's when Derek realizes that Casey isn't simply wandering around in random circles—she's headed to the park.

Looking at Sam and Ralph's faces, and Derek knows they're starting to put two and two together, and what's worse—they're coming up with four.

But he can't stop, that's the problem.

That's always been the problem.

She's been sitting on the swing for five minutes before he finally gets up the nerve to approach her. "What's going on, Casey?"

She's looking down at the gravel. "Nothing's wrong, you can go home." Her voice is dull and flat, nothing like the way she usually sounds, which stiffens his resolve.

"Please. Like I'm going to leave you here in the middle of whatever mental breakdown you're having."

"I'm not having a mental breakdown." Still flat, still emotionless. He wants to shake her, suddenly, just take her by the shoulders and yell at her for making him care so damn much.

"Why don't we try that again, but this time, you can pretend like you mean it. Maybe then I'll believe you."

She doesn't respond, and she still isn't looking at him. Derek looks at her for a moment longer, his lips tightening, then steps forward until he's standing right in front of her, staring down at her bowed head.

For a second, all he can hear is the soft chirping noises of crickets.

"You don't want to talk?" Derek asks. "That's got to be a first. And really, Casey, it's not like we don't have a plethora of subjects to talk about. Like how your sister and my stepsister is currently lying in the hospital like some kind of vegetable—"

The shove catches him unawares, and he stumbles back a few steps. Damn, but Casey's stronger than she looks.

She's right on his heels, launching herself out of her seat to punch him in the shoulders, the chest, his arms. He hisses and tries to dodge her fists, but the girl's got good aim.

"Shut up," she's crying out now, mouth twisted in pain, which is funny considering he's the one getting pummeled, "shut up and just leave, just go away, I can't—I can't—"

Casey's openly crying now and his insides are now twisted into a knot and he's probably the biggest jerk in the world.

So Derek does the only thing he can do, the only thing he can think to do, and wraps her up in a rough embrace. Surprisingly, she doesn't fight him, just crumples into his arms and buries her face in his neck.

Her tears are hot against his skin, and Derek's throat is tight. They stay like that for what feels like forever, Derek just breathing her in, the smell of her shampoo, how warm she feels, how the little gusts of air from her breath brushing against his skin are sending shivers down his spine.

Under any other circumstances, Ralph's eyes growing to the size of dinner plates would be kind of funny.

"Dude," Ralph says at last. "Dude, are you..." He trails off, and glances at Sam, who appears to be struck dumb, and then finally manages, "You're telling us that—"

"Just let me finish, okay?" Derek asks. God, this is exhausting.

Almost as exhausting as trying to lie to yourself for as long as he has.

He manages to lead them to a huge oak tree nearby, and sits down, leaning back against the trunk, holding on to Casey all the while.

Eventually she quiets down, and just leans against him, her head resting against his shoulder. "We should get back," Derek says quietly.

She doesn't respond, so Derek turns to look at her, and with a start realizes that their faces are really very close together.

This close up, he can see the tear tracks on her cheek, and the shine of lip gloss on her mouth.

"Casey," he says, and his voice cracks a little bit.

He honestly doesn't know who leans in first, but all of a sudden they're kissing, he's kissing his stepsister under an oak tree and it's the kiss he's been dreaming of for ages, except for how her lips taste like salt, and he can feel wetness on his cheeks.

It takes a few moments, but finally Sam utters a weak, "Holy crap."

"Yeah," Derek mutters.

"No really, Derek--holy crap," Sam says, starting to get worked up. "You and—you and Casey? Seriously? What the hell?"

Ralph's mouth is gaping open like a fish, at last he manages, "Dude. Dude."

"Yeah," Derek says, unable to look at either of them.

"How long have you—I mean, has this been going on for—"

"A while," Derek says shortly, "—and you don't really want to know how long."

"Uh, yeah, we do," Sam insists, and Derek raises an eyebrow, suddenly feeling irritated, which is ridiculous, he knows. He's the one who admitted to all this crap, who just admitted to making out with his own stepsister while she was going through a huge emotional crisis, so really, he can't blame the guys for wanting an explanation.

But still.

"Since pretty much the day she moved into my house," Derek says, his voice flat. "You happy now?"

Sam's eyes grow to the size of hockey pucks, and he splutters for a moment before managing, "You mean--even when Casey and I were going out, you were—and you never said anything?"

There's a long, long pause, which Ralph finally breaks. "Dude," he mutters, shaking his head.

There's not really much Derek can say to that.

He's lying on the ground with an exposed tree root digging into his back, and Casey's pressed up against him, her hands creeping up under his shirt and brushing against his stomach as she kisses him, and it feels like he's about to burn up.

Derek's hands are shaking as they reach up to cup her face, to pull her in even closer, because she tastes so good and feels so good and none of those fantasies he's been pretending not to have ever came close to the reality.

Her teeth tug at his lower lip, and shocked, he lets out a moan into her mouth. God.

This is insane. They're in public, they're in a park and this is Casey and not five minutes ago she was crying hysterically and when exactly did he fall down the rabbit hole into bizzaro-land, anyway?

When Casey tears her mouth away and leans back to sit up, her legs straddling his lap—and when that happened, he has no clue—Derek's torn between intense disappointment and a faint recognition that it is probably a good idea to slow things down, now.

"Casey, Case...maybe we should..."

"Talk?" she finishes, her eyes never leaving his face. "I don't want to."

"Right, but see—that's what's making me think we should," Derek manages, unable to tear his eyes away from her mouth. "Because...you always want to talk, it's like your favorite pastime and--what are you doing?"

Casey's wearing a button-down shirt that is now...halfway unbuttoned. Because she's unbuttoning it. Oh, God. Derek's frozen, just staring at her hands moving lower, and lower, revealing more and more skin...

"Trying to stop you from talking," Casey explains, in a low voice that would leave Derek breathless if he hadn't already lost his breath. "Is it working?"

A gentleman would stop this now. A gentleman would grab Casey by the hands, and tell her she didn't have to do this, and that she didn't want to do this, and that this was a mistake.

But Derek's never really been a gentleman, and he's been strong for a long time now, and he doesn't have the strength to pretend anymore that this isn't—that she isn't—exactly what he wants.

"Yeah," Derek says. "Yeah, it is."

Casey leans down, her mouth crushing his, and he closes his eyes and lets the rest of the world fall away.

"Derek, tell me you didn't," Sam says seriously, eyes wide. "Tell me you didn't."

Derek doesn't respond for the longest moment. When he finally speaks, it's a near-croak. "I really—I wasn't thinking, you know? I just didn't think."

So much skin. That's the first thing Derek can really process, how her skin feels under his hands, how she shivers as he trails his fingertips along her spine.

He just wants to drink her in, pull her in even closer—and there's no longer the taste of salt or fruity lip gloss, just her and him underneath this old oak tree.

But this isn't a dream or a fantasy, it's real, it's happening...and all for the wrong reasons.

Derek tears himself away, pulling back from her, and the sudden lack of contact makes him feel like he's almost missing a limb. She's looking down at him, breathless, her hair tousled from his fingers and framing her face, and it seems fitting almost, that she's never looked more beautiful.

"Casey," Derek says. "We can't—we need to stop, okay?"

She doesn't say anything in response, and that spurs Derek on, because even with his brain as scrambled as it is right now, he can still see how much of a disaster this is soon to become, and the last thing they need is a major misunderstanding on top of all that.

"Not because I don't want to—Casey, you have no idea how much I want this," Derek tells her, desperate, and right now it's almost easy, admitting to this, when he's already given up so much.

"But we can't—not like this, okay?"

Casey looks at him for one more second, her eyes as bright and as searching as headlights, and then she's scrambling off him, turning her back so that she can button up her shirt, running her hands through her hair in an attempt to tame it.

Derek just sits up, sprawled out on the grass, wondering how he could have possibly screwed things up so badly, and then the rapidly worsening silence is broken by the sound of his cell phone.

Sam and Ralph are just gaping at him, and then Ralph asks, "Okay, so what happened next?"

Derek gestures helplessly with his hands. "It was my dad. They'd just gotten word from the hospital that Lizzie had woken up. I told them they could pick us at the park, they did, we went to the hospital, touching family scene—and that was it."

He slumps back in his seat, exhausted. It's funny—everyone talks about how good it feels to finally confess and just let the truth out--but Derek doesn't feel good, he just feels tired.

Sam and Ralph share another look, and then Sam leans forward. "But you and Casey—you guys talked, right? You had to have talked about what happened."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Derek responds sarcastically.

"Dude!" Ralph says, throwing up his hands. "You need to talk to her."

"Considering that she's been avoiding me like I'm carrying the plague, that's not as easy as it sounds," Derek shoots back. "I'm almost kind of impressed, actually."

Sam doesn't look impressed, he looks exasperated. "D. You have to talk to her, that's the only way this is going to get fixed—"

"Yeah, and exactly what am I supposed to say?" Derek snaps back. " 'Hey, Casey, sorry about jumping you in public while you were having a meltdown over Lizzie being in a coma, but I've had a thing for you ever since our parents got married, so if you wanted to give it a shot that'd be great?' Guys, I screwed up. I screwed up big time, and there's no fixing this one. She probably hates my guts for taking advantage of her like that, and I can't even blame her for it."

"You don't know that, man," Ralph insists. "And you're not going to know how Casey feels about it until you finally talk to her."

"Trust me," Derek says flatly, "I know how she feels about it."

It's been a week, and the euphoria hasn't really worn off yet. Edwin hasn't stopped grinning once, Dad and Nora are on cloud nine, Marti can't stop bouncing around, and Derek's feeling pretty damn good himself. It's not every day you get a get-out-of-jail-free card, which is pretty much exactly what it feels like to have Lizzie conscious and home where she belongs, instead of lying catatonic in a hospital bed.

And it's good—good to finally have his family back, good to have things go back to normal.

Well. Not exactly normal. There's Casey, after all—Casey, whose appetite has finally returned, who smiles and sings around the house when no one's looking, who has girls' night with Marti and Lizzie and Nora, who's finally back to the way she should be.

Casey, who hasn't looked him in the eye once since That Night. Casey, who he can't get out of his mind now that he finally knows what it feels like to kiss her, touch her.

Casey, who he can't stop thinking about, even when he really should. Even when he's probably blown any miniscule chance he ever had, because the first move he made was when she was vulnerable and unable to think straight, and Derek's done some questionable things in his life, but this one leaves him feeling...well, scummy. Like he's crossed a line he didn't even know he had.

Because he should have stopped it. He may not remember who made the first move, but Derek knows he should have made the right move, the move that would have ended things immediately instead of letting them snowball. But he's wanted Casey for so long that stopping just—

And now things have turned into an even bigger disaster than before. Casey's not speaking to him, and he can't blame her for it, and he made a mistake that he can't stop thinking about.

It's all turned into a gigantic mess, and it's no one's fault but his own.

He leaves Ralph's house with nothing resolved, because really, there's nothing to resolve. He's screwed and there's nothing left to do but weather through it as well as he can.

He gets home eventually to find Marti, Lizzie, and Edwin on the couch. The stitches have been taken out of Lizzie's forehead, and the doctors say she won't even have a scar. She beams hello at him--the general good mood of the Venturi-McDonald household hasn't disappeared yet--and Derek manages a smile back.

He plods up the stairs, turns toward his room and opens the door—to find Casey waiting for him on the bed, her hands in her lap and a nervous expression on her face.

Derek doesn't actually jump, but it's a near thing. "Casey? What are you doing in here?" She's been treating him like a leper ever since, well, since, and finding her in his room, on his bed, is definitely a surprise. It's also mimicking the beginning of several fantasies he'll never admit to having.

She actually smiles. Tentatively, but it still counts. "I thought...maybe we could talk."

Derek's stomach drops to his feet, and if that's impossible, it sure feels like it does. "Okay," he says quietly, and shuts the door behind him. Chances are he's not going to want anyone eavesdropping on what is sure to be one of the most painful conversations of his life, second only to "Mommy and Daddy will always love each other, but...".

He turns back to face her, swallowing hard as he does. "Casey, look—"

"Derek, let me start, okay?" Casey says, holding up a hand. "First, I'm sorry."

He blinks. "Wait, what? You're sorry—for what?"

Casey blushes and looks down. "For...what happened that night in the park--"

"But why?" Derek asks in honest confusion. This is not how this was supposed to go. "I'm the one who..." He trails off, because she's the one who's looking at him like he's crazy, and if Derek doesn't get this out now, he never will.

So, with a great amount of difficulty, he admits, "That night...I knew you weren't thinking straight and--"

"And you were?" Casey immediately responds, sounding incredulous. "Derek, you think we didn't notice how when Lizzie was in the hospital, you were staying up half the night pacing in your room? Or how you grilled the doctors everytime we stepped foot inside the hospital? Face it, you were going just as crazy as the rest of us—you were just better at hiding it, that's all." She looks at him for a long moment, and then sighs ruefully. "Look...why don't we just agree that neither of us were at our best, and leave it at that?

Derek's silent. In all the ways he pictured this conversation going, he never once imagined that Casey would give him an out.

More importantly, he's never once imagined getting an out, and then not taking it.

Derek shakes his head. "I can't."

Casey's eyebrows shoot halfway up her forehead. "Okay," she says slowly. "Wasn't expecting that one--"

"Look, Casey—you don't know the whole story—"

Now she's almost looking amused. "I don't? Because I definitely do know that I was the one to make the first move. And the second move."

Derek swallows once more, and just says it quick, like ripping off a bandage. "You're not the one who's been wanting to do that for years."

He can't look at her, so he stares above her head at a spot on the wall. The silence lasts for what feels like forever, and then he hears a small, "...oh."

"Yeah," Derek manages. He tries to add something else, an apology, a weak joke, but his throat seizes up suddenly and he can't say another word.

He does manage to look at her, and what he sees...isn't exactly encouraging. True, Casey hasn't run away screaming, but her eyes are huge, wider than he's ever seen them, and she's staring at him with nothing but complete and utter shock.

"Seriously?" she manages at last. "You're not—you're not joking?"

"Yeah, because I joke all the time about having a thing for my stepsister," Derek shoots back. "No, I'm not joking. Believe me, I wish this was a joke." It is, actually—but the joke's on him this time.

Except...she's still not running, still not freaking out, or at least not nearly as badly as he'd expect. Casey is just sitting on his bed, watching him with wide eyes, and he can see the gears in her head spinning away.

"How long--"

"Long enough," Derek says, admits, and it's almost easy to say now for the second time. "You know, this is the part where you freak out," he adds, waving a hand at her. "So...freak out already."

Casey actually smiles at that. It's a small one, but it's aimed at him, and it makes something in Derek's chest clench hard, because this is not how it's supposed to go. "Sorry, not today. Today is a freakout-free day."

"Maybe for you," Derek mutters, and is rewarded with another smile. "Seriously, Casey—"

"Derek," Casey says, and her voice is strong and sure. "A couple weeks ago, I didn't even know if Lizzie would ever wake up—compared to that, this isn't so bad." And she's right, after all—nothing can compare to that, not even this mess. "We can handle this, okay?"

We.

"How?" Derek asks after a moment, because there's no way it can be this easy, with Casey not running away, not freaking out, not telling him what he's always expected to hear, which is some variation of the phrase not in a million years.

Casey frowns a little bit, shaking her head slightly. "I don't know, but we will." And it's so weird, because in that moment, Derek can almost believe her, and not just because he wants to so badly.

He can believe because it's a risky thing to bet against Casey when she's determined to accomplish something, and if she wants them to be okay—whatever that means—and if she isn't freaked out, then maybe—

And Casey's looking up at him with hope in her eyes, as if she wants this to work out as badly as he does.

"Yeah," Derek says at last. "Okay."

End.