If I Was My Heart I'd Rather Be Restless
Title: If I Was My Heart I'd Rather Be Restless
Characters: Karen/Derek
Summary: But here he is, coffee cup in hand, watching her at least attempt to make it look like she's not only staring at her phone because she hopes Jimmy will message her.
Disclaimer: Don't own.
A/N: Super huge thanks to likebrightness for helping me along with this one.
It's ridiculous, if you ask him. She hasn't, but he doesn't care. It's actually a little pathetic, the way she's swooning over this bartender as though he's a fucking superstar. The kid's got talent, Derek will admit, but for Christ's sake, she's practically throwing herself at him and it's possibly the most juvenile thing Derek has ever seen her do. Which is saying something.
And fine, sure, there's a certain amount of jealousy that swells in his chest every time she does that stupid grin when she says the guy's name, but that's not entirely unexpected either. Not to him. And if she figured it out and acted shocked, well, that'd just annoy him too.
He wasn't kidding when he told her they need to focus on Bombshell now. Hit List is great - or it will be - but it's a long way from being where Bombshell is, and frankly, it'd be a waste of her energy to worry about it when she should be throwing everything into playing the part that's been hers for the better part of a year now. And they're going to Broadway. If that doesn't take precedence in her pretty little head, he may lose his mind.
"I just feel bad for him, you know?" she says to Ana as they take their seats for the read through. "He just works so hard and he feels like he has nothing to show for it."
Ana, who Derek actually quite likes because she's rational, and that can be a difficult quality to find in this world he works in, sort of half groans, like Karen's being an idiot. Which she is. Ana also sees that Derek is looking.
"He will. It's not your responsibility to make him a star."
Then Karen does that thing where she sort of smiles and looks down and it's so cute. "But I want to."
Derek rolls his eyes and doesn't care if Ana or anyone else sees.
… … …
He's tempted to throw her damn phone out the window. Really. He keeps thinking to himself, "The next time she looks at it…"
But here he is, coffee cup in hand, watching her at least attempt to make it look like she's not only staring at the screen because she hopes Jimmy will message her.
Then Tom, of all people, comes over and sits next to him at the head table in the rehearsal space.
Tom scoffs, or laughs, or some other noise Derek just generally doesn't appreciate. "Could you stare any harder?"
Derek glares, and seriously thinks of just walking out, but there's something about Tom that makes him feel like he always needs to be mature. Mostly likely because Tom is exactly the one who calls him out on being I'mmature. It's rich, really.
"She's distracted."
Tom just grins and opens his binder. "And you're distracted by her." Tom turns to Derek, pen in hand and that stupid grin on his face. "What's new, really?"
"Oh, piss off."
… … …
He can't take this. Well, he could. He could stay here and watch her eyes follow Jimmy around the room all night as he delivers drinks to the tables he's waiting on. Derek's almost stubborn enough to stay here and just let her look like a fool doing it.
Only when he considers it, he starts to believe it'll make him look like a fool, too. The poor sod at the bar with the gorgeous girl who's got her eye on someone else. He may be a lot of things, but pathetic isn't one of them.
"I should be heading out, then," he says, after just one drink. Why he even agreed to meet her here, he has no clue. Likely because she asked and he's too nice (to her) to say no and suggest somewhere else. Like his apartment.
(That's a strange thing to him, too. Before Jimmy was ever in the picture, Karen actually spent quite a bit of time at his place. She hasn't come over in ages. He shouldn't care, but he's finding more and more that he cares a lot about the things he tries to stop himself thinking about. Funny how that works.)
"What? Why?"
She's genuinely confused. It pisses him off, frankly.
They were supposed to come here to talk about this scene they'll be working on tomorrow, but they did that for about 15 minutes and he realized Jimmy had more of her attention than Derek's talk about her work did. Forgive him for just giving up.
Derek leans in, after setting enough cash on the bar to pay for his drink and hers, and she's looking straight ahead even as he speaks into her ear.
"If you wanted to see him, you should have had the nerve to just tell him that. Don't drag me into it."
He hears her swallow, even over the noise of the bar.
And fuck, he's already deeper into this than he ever wanted to be, isn't he?
She just sort of almost whispers his name, and gives him this look that could almost make him stay.
"Goodnight, darling."
She doesn't come after him, and he honestly can't figure out whether he expected her to or not.
… … …
All he wants is a cup of coffee, and you know they say things taste better when you don't have to make them yourself. There's a great café two blocks away, and that's where he's headed, when he walks out of his building and turns left on the sidewalk.
"Derek!"
Okay, it's not that he hasn't become accustomed to women shouting at him, it just seems odd at this hour.
And he knows the voice, so he doesn't bother turning to look.
Then Karen is standing in front of him looking incredibly angry, which he's trying not to care about. She's not saying anything, though, so it's difficult to be distracted.
"Right, well," he says, then cups her elbow carefully and pulls her along with him because people are trying to pass them on the sidewalk and unless she's going to explain herself, he thinks it's silly to stand there like that. "I'll buy you a tea."
"I don't want a tea, Derek." She's sassing him, pulling her arm away, and then crossing hers and glaring at him again. "Why did you say that to me last night?"
"You'll have to be more specific, darling." And yes, he's trying quite hard to seem disinterested. You'd think he'd be a goddamn expert at this point, because he feels like that's all he's done the entire time he's known her.
"About Jimmy. About me wanting…" She stops talking, but then, "What?"
"You came all the way over here to ask me why I dared to point out the obvious." It's clearly what she's done, it's the only reason she's here, and he's not going to pretend like it's not a little crazy. "Let me ask you, then. Why do you care?"
She rolls her eyes in this exaggerated way that sort of makes him smirk, which he's sure isn't helping his case, whatever his case is meant to be right now.
"You left me alone in a bar, Derek."
"Oh no," he chuckles, and this is the whole thing, isn't it? "I left you in a bar with Jimmy."
She swats at his stomach, which surprises him. It doesn't hurt, but he isn't expecting it, so he flinches. "Why is everything all about Jimmy, all of a sudden?"
Laughing is the wrong thing to do, but damned if he cares. And he's quite done with this, whatever this is that's happening right now, so he moves to walk around her, but she's grabbing his arm, then.
And if this is going to continue, they should at least get off the street where they have witnesses. He's a name and she will be, and neither of them need the gossip.
(As if walking into his building together is any better.)
She gives him the silent treatment in the elevator, and he couldn't care less. She's the one who came here with something to say. He's not going to start conversations.
(If he were going to do that, he'd be asking her why everything's all about Jimmy all of a sudden.)
She drops her bag on the counter in his kitchen and then walks through to the living room, like he's seen her do twenty times before, since she really became comfortable in his apartment. He remembers when that happened. They'd had lunch and walked through the park and he'd bought her an iced tea. She'd played with the straw too much to look like a grownup, and swatted his arm when he told her so. Then back to his place because apparently they weren't finished spending time together.
He doesn't remember everything, but he remembers a lot.
"You make it sound like me being interested in someone is somehow a sin," she says, arms in the air, then lets them fall by her sides again as she looks at him. He can't imagine a time when he stops thinking she looks gorgeous in that room with the city visible through the windows behind her. "You don't have to like Jimmy, but you could at least…"
"At least what?" he half-groans. She's just bothering him now. He said one little thing last night and now she's pulling him further and further into this, when he really just… "Maybe you can't see it because you're blinded by his music or his truly horrendous attitude, but you're acting like a complete fool over some moron who isn't bright enough to pay attention to you."
"What, like you do?" she snaps, and he just looks at her, sort of squints actually, because what is she getting at now?
"Karen."
"No, I just…" She looks down, and he can see her shoulders sag a bit, like the anger is slipping away and they're about to have a proper conversation instead of just shouting at one another. "For a while I really though you and I were…But it's not like you made a move, Derek."
Oh, come on.
"Excuse me for not wanting to be your bloody rebound."
She actually looks confused. It's irritating.
"Who says you would have been?" she asks, and he's not sorry for chuckling at her and rolling his eyes.
"You were engaged, and your fiancé slept with your costar. You're really trying to tell me you aren't on the rebound?"
She sits down on the sofa and sort of folds in on herself, pulls her legs up so just her toes are hanging over the edge, and wraps her arms around her knees. She looks so sad that he almost feels like an asshole for pointing all that out to her if she hadn't actually realized it for herself. Perhaps mentioning the jackass who screwed her over wasn't the best plan there.
He can't just leave her sitting there looking like that all alone. He walks over and sits down next to her and fights with himself over whether or not to put his hand on her. Somewhere. Comforting, that kind of thing. But he doesn't, because if she starts to cry as a result, he'll really hate himself. And not the kind of self-loathing people find charming.
"You're avoiding the actual subject," she says quietly, more into her knees than to him.
"What's the subject, then?"
She glances at him and god, he just loves her here, in his space. He wishes she weren't upset, but he still wants her here. Funny, that is.
"Jimmy."
At least she has the sense to sound timid bringing it up again.
"Of course." And if he moves away from her and leans back against the sofa, well. She won't know it, but it's not because he wants to.
She turns to him, sort of buries her face in her own shoulder, and god dammit, she's so beautiful.
"I did the same thing with you, you know," she says, the sound of it muffled by her shirt.
He thinks he knows, but, "Did what, exactly?"
She sighs, lets go of her legs and then ends up angled entirely towards him, her elbow on the back of the sofa. "This stupid thing where I…God, Derek, I would have given anything for you to just notice me, but then you didn't, and I mean…What was I supposed to do?"
His initial reaction is to laugh, and, as a rule, he's bound to his initial reactions and doesn't even know how to stop them. So he's just looking at her as he laughs, because she's ridiculous, and when she gets up off the sofa and heads for the door, he really just thinks she's pissed. He's not about to let her leave, though.
He jogs towards her and then stands in front of her, and she won't look at him, but he sees that her eyes are sort of glimmering, and fuck.
"Jesus, Karen, are you blind?"
Perhaps he shouldn't have just said the first thing that came to mind there.
"You don't have to be mean, Derek," she says, in this tiny little voice that really makes him hate himself.
"I'm not…For Christ's sake, of course I notice you. Don't be daft." He can tell she's torn between being mad and…something else. She's just looking at him. He's just told her he didn't want to be her rebound, and yet she's acting like he hates her. Where did she become confused? "If you think I don't spend 90 per cent of any time when you're around just looking at you, you're absolutely mad."
He thinks he could actually make a case, here, that he notices her a hell of a lot more than she notices him.
"You can't just…" She looks down, but then her hands are on his sides, and he can't remember the last time they were this close, really. They've been all kisses on cheeks and him directing her in rehearsal. "You can't say that and then not do anything about it. Do you know what I mean?"
He thinks he does, and he's about to say so, but then she's just looking at him and she leans up, presses her mouth to his, and fuck, it's perfect. It's bloody perfect, the way her lips sit against his, stationary, until her hands hold his shirt a little tighter in her fists and she moves her lips again. She's just…She's so fucking everything, and he can't, as much as he wants to, just remind her of where his bedroom is and tell her he's wanted her there since the first goddamn day he saw her.
The way he says her name is soft, quiet, and his hands are on her shoulders, difficult as it is to push her away. She presses her lips together and looks close to tears, and Christ, he's an idiot, but he's not stupid, and maybe he knows damn well what he's doing here. He's sending her off to some other guy. But the truth is, he wants her more than Jimmy ever will, and he wants her more than she wants Jimmy, and she'll realize that. She will.
"Not now, darling," he says, hand on the side of her neck. His thumb strokes the soft line of her jaw and he feels her swallow.
"Derek," she whispers, and leans into him a bit, so his free hand slides over her back. Fuck, she's really making this difficult on him. He doesn't think she'll ever be able to comprehend just how much. "What am I doing?"
He chuckles a little, kisses her temple and lets his fingers slip into her hair. "You'll figure it out."
"How can you be so sure?" she asks, then she's pulling away from him, so far that they're not touching, and god, that's a bit of a shock to the system, actually. "About any of this."
He doesn't like her so far away when he knows that as soon as she leaves this apartment, they'll hardly touch again until she's sorted it all out.
So he sets his hands on her face and kisses her, and he was going to say something, too, but then she's kissing him back, just gently letting him press his mouth against hers, and he can't think of anything to say that'll make it any clearer than this.
She leaves without saying goodbye, but then that's fitting, too.
Characters: Karen/Derek
Summary: But here he is, coffee cup in hand, watching her at least attempt to make it look like she's not only staring at her phone because she hopes Jimmy will message her.
Disclaimer: Don't own.
A/N: Super huge thanks to likebrightness for helping me along with this one.
It's ridiculous, if you ask him. She hasn't, but he doesn't care. It's actually a little pathetic, the way she's swooning over this bartender as though he's a fucking superstar. The kid's got talent, Derek will admit, but for Christ's sake, she's practically throwing herself at him and it's possibly the most juvenile thing Derek has ever seen her do. Which is saying something.
And fine, sure, there's a certain amount of jealousy that swells in his chest every time she does that stupid grin when she says the guy's name, but that's not entirely unexpected either. Not to him. And if she figured it out and acted shocked, well, that'd just annoy him too.
He wasn't kidding when he told her they need to focus on Bombshell now. Hit List is great - or it will be - but it's a long way from being where Bombshell is, and frankly, it'd be a waste of her energy to worry about it when she should be throwing everything into playing the part that's been hers for the better part of a year now. And they're going to Broadway. If that doesn't take precedence in her pretty little head, he may lose his mind.
"I just feel bad for him, you know?" she says to Ana as they take their seats for the read through. "He just works so hard and he feels like he has nothing to show for it."
Ana, who Derek actually quite likes because she's rational, and that can be a difficult quality to find in this world he works in, sort of half groans, like Karen's being an idiot. Which she is. Ana also sees that Derek is looking.
"He will. It's not your responsibility to make him a star."
Then Karen does that thing where she sort of smiles and looks down and it's so cute. "But I want to."
Derek rolls his eyes and doesn't care if Ana or anyone else sees.
… … …
He's tempted to throw her damn phone out the window. Really. He keeps thinking to himself, "The next time she looks at it…"
But here he is, coffee cup in hand, watching her at least attempt to make it look like she's not only staring at the screen because she hopes Jimmy will message her.
Then Tom, of all people, comes over and sits next to him at the head table in the rehearsal space.
Tom scoffs, or laughs, or some other noise Derek just generally doesn't appreciate. "Could you stare any harder?"
Derek glares, and seriously thinks of just walking out, but there's something about Tom that makes him feel like he always needs to be mature. Mostly likely because Tom is exactly the one who calls him out on being I'mmature. It's rich, really.
"She's distracted."
Tom just grins and opens his binder. "And you're distracted by her." Tom turns to Derek, pen in hand and that stupid grin on his face. "What's new, really?"
"Oh, piss off."
… … …
He can't take this. Well, he could. He could stay here and watch her eyes follow Jimmy around the room all night as he delivers drinks to the tables he's waiting on. Derek's almost stubborn enough to stay here and just let her look like a fool doing it.
Only when he considers it, he starts to believe it'll make him look like a fool, too. The poor sod at the bar with the gorgeous girl who's got her eye on someone else. He may be a lot of things, but pathetic isn't one of them.
"I should be heading out, then," he says, after just one drink. Why he even agreed to meet her here, he has no clue. Likely because she asked and he's too nice (to her) to say no and suggest somewhere else. Like his apartment.
(That's a strange thing to him, too. Before Jimmy was ever in the picture, Karen actually spent quite a bit of time at his place. She hasn't come over in ages. He shouldn't care, but he's finding more and more that he cares a lot about the things he tries to stop himself thinking about. Funny how that works.)
"What? Why?"
She's genuinely confused. It pisses him off, frankly.
They were supposed to come here to talk about this scene they'll be working on tomorrow, but they did that for about 15 minutes and he realized Jimmy had more of her attention than Derek's talk about her work did. Forgive him for just giving up.
Derek leans in, after setting enough cash on the bar to pay for his drink and hers, and she's looking straight ahead even as he speaks into her ear.
"If you wanted to see him, you should have had the nerve to just tell him that. Don't drag me into it."
He hears her swallow, even over the noise of the bar.
And fuck, he's already deeper into this than he ever wanted to be, isn't he?
She just sort of almost whispers his name, and gives him this look that could almost make him stay.
"Goodnight, darling."
She doesn't come after him, and he honestly can't figure out whether he expected her to or not.
… … …
All he wants is a cup of coffee, and you know they say things taste better when you don't have to make them yourself. There's a great café two blocks away, and that's where he's headed, when he walks out of his building and turns left on the sidewalk.
"Derek!"
Okay, it's not that he hasn't become accustomed to women shouting at him, it just seems odd at this hour.
And he knows the voice, so he doesn't bother turning to look.
Then Karen is standing in front of him looking incredibly angry, which he's trying not to care about. She's not saying anything, though, so it's difficult to be distracted.
"Right, well," he says, then cups her elbow carefully and pulls her along with him because people are trying to pass them on the sidewalk and unless she's going to explain herself, he thinks it's silly to stand there like that. "I'll buy you a tea."
"I don't want a tea, Derek." She's sassing him, pulling her arm away, and then crossing hers and glaring at him again. "Why did you say that to me last night?"
"You'll have to be more specific, darling." And yes, he's trying quite hard to seem disinterested. You'd think he'd be a goddamn expert at this point, because he feels like that's all he's done the entire time he's known her.
"About Jimmy. About me wanting…" She stops talking, but then, "What?"
"You came all the way over here to ask me why I dared to point out the obvious." It's clearly what she's done, it's the only reason she's here, and he's not going to pretend like it's not a little crazy. "Let me ask you, then. Why do you care?"
She rolls her eyes in this exaggerated way that sort of makes him smirk, which he's sure isn't helping his case, whatever his case is meant to be right now.
"You left me alone in a bar, Derek."
"Oh no," he chuckles, and this is the whole thing, isn't it? "I left you in a bar with Jimmy."
She swats at his stomach, which surprises him. It doesn't hurt, but he isn't expecting it, so he flinches. "Why is everything all about Jimmy, all of a sudden?"
Laughing is the wrong thing to do, but damned if he cares. And he's quite done with this, whatever this is that's happening right now, so he moves to walk around her, but she's grabbing his arm, then.
And if this is going to continue, they should at least get off the street where they have witnesses. He's a name and she will be, and neither of them need the gossip.
(As if walking into his building together is any better.)
She gives him the silent treatment in the elevator, and he couldn't care less. She's the one who came here with something to say. He's not going to start conversations.
(If he were going to do that, he'd be asking her why everything's all about Jimmy all of a sudden.)
She drops her bag on the counter in his kitchen and then walks through to the living room, like he's seen her do twenty times before, since she really became comfortable in his apartment. He remembers when that happened. They'd had lunch and walked through the park and he'd bought her an iced tea. She'd played with the straw too much to look like a grownup, and swatted his arm when he told her so. Then back to his place because apparently they weren't finished spending time together.
He doesn't remember everything, but he remembers a lot.
"You make it sound like me being interested in someone is somehow a sin," she says, arms in the air, then lets them fall by her sides again as she looks at him. He can't imagine a time when he stops thinking she looks gorgeous in that room with the city visible through the windows behind her. "You don't have to like Jimmy, but you could at least…"
"At least what?" he half-groans. She's just bothering him now. He said one little thing last night and now she's pulling him further and further into this, when he really just… "Maybe you can't see it because you're blinded by his music or his truly horrendous attitude, but you're acting like a complete fool over some moron who isn't bright enough to pay attention to you."
"What, like you do?" she snaps, and he just looks at her, sort of squints actually, because what is she getting at now?
"Karen."
"No, I just…" She looks down, and he can see her shoulders sag a bit, like the anger is slipping away and they're about to have a proper conversation instead of just shouting at one another. "For a while I really though you and I were…But it's not like you made a move, Derek."
Oh, come on.
"Excuse me for not wanting to be your bloody rebound."
She actually looks confused. It's irritating.
"Who says you would have been?" she asks, and he's not sorry for chuckling at her and rolling his eyes.
"You were engaged, and your fiancé slept with your costar. You're really trying to tell me you aren't on the rebound?"
She sits down on the sofa and sort of folds in on herself, pulls her legs up so just her toes are hanging over the edge, and wraps her arms around her knees. She looks so sad that he almost feels like an asshole for pointing all that out to her if she hadn't actually realized it for herself. Perhaps mentioning the jackass who screwed her over wasn't the best plan there.
He can't just leave her sitting there looking like that all alone. He walks over and sits down next to her and fights with himself over whether or not to put his hand on her. Somewhere. Comforting, that kind of thing. But he doesn't, because if she starts to cry as a result, he'll really hate himself. And not the kind of self-loathing people find charming.
"You're avoiding the actual subject," she says quietly, more into her knees than to him.
"What's the subject, then?"
She glances at him and god, he just loves her here, in his space. He wishes she weren't upset, but he still wants her here. Funny, that is.
"Jimmy."
At least she has the sense to sound timid bringing it up again.
"Of course." And if he moves away from her and leans back against the sofa, well. She won't know it, but it's not because he wants to.
She turns to him, sort of buries her face in her own shoulder, and god dammit, she's so beautiful.
"I did the same thing with you, you know," she says, the sound of it muffled by her shirt.
He thinks he knows, but, "Did what, exactly?"
She sighs, lets go of her legs and then ends up angled entirely towards him, her elbow on the back of the sofa. "This stupid thing where I…God, Derek, I would have given anything for you to just notice me, but then you didn't, and I mean…What was I supposed to do?"
His initial reaction is to laugh, and, as a rule, he's bound to his initial reactions and doesn't even know how to stop them. So he's just looking at her as he laughs, because she's ridiculous, and when she gets up off the sofa and heads for the door, he really just thinks she's pissed. He's not about to let her leave, though.
He jogs towards her and then stands in front of her, and she won't look at him, but he sees that her eyes are sort of glimmering, and fuck.
"Jesus, Karen, are you blind?"
Perhaps he shouldn't have just said the first thing that came to mind there.
"You don't have to be mean, Derek," she says, in this tiny little voice that really makes him hate himself.
"I'm not…For Christ's sake, of course I notice you. Don't be daft." He can tell she's torn between being mad and…something else. She's just looking at him. He's just told her he didn't want to be her rebound, and yet she's acting like he hates her. Where did she become confused? "If you think I don't spend 90 per cent of any time when you're around just looking at you, you're absolutely mad."
He thinks he could actually make a case, here, that he notices her a hell of a lot more than she notices him.
"You can't just…" She looks down, but then her hands are on his sides, and he can't remember the last time they were this close, really. They've been all kisses on cheeks and him directing her in rehearsal. "You can't say that and then not do anything about it. Do you know what I mean?"
He thinks he does, and he's about to say so, but then she's just looking at him and she leans up, presses her mouth to his, and fuck, it's perfect. It's bloody perfect, the way her lips sit against his, stationary, until her hands hold his shirt a little tighter in her fists and she moves her lips again. She's just…She's so fucking everything, and he can't, as much as he wants to, just remind her of where his bedroom is and tell her he's wanted her there since the first goddamn day he saw her.
The way he says her name is soft, quiet, and his hands are on her shoulders, difficult as it is to push her away. She presses her lips together and looks close to tears, and Christ, he's an idiot, but he's not stupid, and maybe he knows damn well what he's doing here. He's sending her off to some other guy. But the truth is, he wants her more than Jimmy ever will, and he wants her more than she wants Jimmy, and she'll realize that. She will.
"Not now, darling," he says, hand on the side of her neck. His thumb strokes the soft line of her jaw and he feels her swallow.
"Derek," she whispers, and leans into him a bit, so his free hand slides over her back. Fuck, she's really making this difficult on him. He doesn't think she'll ever be able to comprehend just how much. "What am I doing?"
He chuckles a little, kisses her temple and lets his fingers slip into her hair. "You'll figure it out."
"How can you be so sure?" she asks, then she's pulling away from him, so far that they're not touching, and god, that's a bit of a shock to the system, actually. "About any of this."
He doesn't like her so far away when he knows that as soon as she leaves this apartment, they'll hardly touch again until she's sorted it all out.
So he sets his hands on her face and kisses her, and he was going to say something, too, but then she's kissing him back, just gently letting him press his mouth against hers, and he can't think of anything to say that'll make it any clearer than this.
She leaves without saying goodbye, but then that's fitting, too.