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his girlfriend is evil!

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Considering that Derek is twenty-six years old, a fully grown adult (mostly) and has friends that are all fully grown adults (mostly) it is considerably rare that he gets phone calls after midnight. In fact, when it does happen, it is more often than not Casey, who calls at 3 A.M. when she a) is stuck somewhere, out of gas, and won't he please come pick her up, she has class in the morning, b) at Emily's house, they were having a girl's night and Emily was a little upset because she's fighting with Ryan and won't he please come pick her up, she's too tired to drive, or c) any variation on a) or b), always ending with, please come pick me up Derek, keep in mind I'm only saying please because it's polite because I know you're going to come no matter what I say because you're totally whipped, neener neener neener.

So when Derek's phone rings at 2:44 A.M. exactly, his first groggy thought is, shit, come on, I have a meeting at eight o'clock tomorrow, before he registers the fact that Casey is, in fact, in bed next to him, and not wandering around in Toronto somewhere, out of gas or consoling random strangers or accidentally committing the entirety of their bank account to a pyramid scheme, or whatever other trouble she can stumble her way into.

"Turn tha' off," Casey mumbles, confirming her presence, before rolling over and kicking Derek in the thigh in the process, like the delicate, graceful princess that she is.

Derek groans, grabs his cell phone off the night stand and rolls out of bed. He stumbles into the bathroom and turns just the vanity light on to save his eyes before he answers - it's an unknown number, but with Edwin in California and Lizzie abroad in England, they've all developed kind of a paranoia about unknown numbers, so it's faster to not kid himself.

"What," he growls into the phone, though, because it's still three o'clock in the morning.

"Hello!" a boisterous voice on the other end declares. Derek winces and pulls the phone away from his ear. "Is this Derek Venturi?"

"Yes," Derek says warily. "Is this God?"

"...no," the voice answers, sounding confused.

"Then you are not important enough to be calling me at fucking three in the morning," Derek hisses.

"But it's only midnight!" the voice yelps.

"I'm hanging up now," Derek says.

"Wait, wait, wait! It's about your brother!"

Derek pauses. "What about Edwin?" he demands.

"He's in danger!" the voice exclaims. "Grave, grave danger."

On one hand, Edwin, Derek thinks. On the other, 3 A.M., and this person does not sound like emergency room personnel.

He sighs wearily. "What kind of danger," he says, long-sufferingly.

"It's - well, it's complicated," the voice replies. Uh huh, Derek thinks. "Let me explain - my name is Josh Nichols and I'm - "

"Wow, I cannot articulate how much of a shit I do not give, Josh Nichols," Derek cuts in. "Let me explain. It's three in the morning here in Toronto and I am a grown up with a job, so I'm really not appreciating the James Bond game or whatever it is that you're playing at. So I'm gonna give you about three seconds to tell me how you know Edwin and how he's supposedly in danger, or I'm going back to bed."

"His girlfriend is evil!" Josh Nichols explains breathlessly, words tumbling over each other.

"...what," Derek says.

"Well, I don't know if you're aware or not, I mean, I don't know how close you two are, as brothers - not that you wouldn't be close, why wouldn't you be close, Edwin's very nice and you seem, you know, nice too, kind of - ow!" Derek closes his eyes wearily as a flurry of shuffling and muttering erupts on the other end of the phone line. "Ow. Sorry. That was - anyway. I wanted to warn you, you see, because me and Drake - that's my brother, see - we're used to her, but Edwin isn't, but he won't listen to reason! So it's the right thing to do. To warn you. Heh."

"To warn me about...Edwin's girlfriend?" Derek asks.

"Yes! She's our sister. And she's evil."

Derek counts to five silently in his head before he answers. "And this couldn't wait until tomorrow morning?"

"This is the only time we could call!" Josh Nichols exclaims. "Megan - she has bugs all over the house, and I rigged this radio to disrupt the signal but we could only do it after she was asleep otherwise - "

"Okay!" Derek exclaims. "Thanks for the warning. Appreciate it. Good night."

"Wait! Aren't you going to - " Derek maybe takes a little more pleasure than he usually does in pushing the 'off' button.

"Whazzat?" Casey murmurs as Derek climbs back into bed, shivering as Derek slips his chilled hands beneath her shirt to warm them.

"Edwin's dating the spawn of Satan," he says into her shoulder, voice muffled by her hair.

"Oh, good for him," she replies sleepily, reaching back with her ankle and tangling their legs together.

On the nightstand, Derek's phone lights up silently. Derek rolls his eyes and ignores it.