@jcunos
Leaving a show often felt like losing a second family. Derek never took it well, and he was taking it even worse now that it meant losing his last connection to Leo, too. He was trying not to let it effect his audition process or his relationship with Eila, both fake and real. But that meant it had to spill over somewhere, and Derek had decided that he would let his emotions out in the most productive way he knew how: By bottling all of it up and replacing it with new friends.
Or, well, old ones, really.
He was spending more and more time with the other sides of months old text threads, reaching out to old guest stars to fill up the sudden gaping wounds in his schedule. That was one of the real reasons Derek had started spending so much time with Amelie, suddenly, trying to teach her to be a child actress the right way.
Juno Benson was one of those old friends, although one that Derek was far more excited about. There had been a two-part episode towards the beginning of the season, when Derek and Leo had still been trying to figure out what to do about their relationship, and meeting Juno had been like a breath of fresh air-- Unlike the main cast, all 20-somethings with too much energy and drama, Juno had be a candle flame, steady and passionate and illuminating. His guest role had been the English professor, a la The Dead Poets Society, and Juno had given a monologue-- soliloquy? Derek wasn't sure, he'd probably slept through that class in real life -- so moving that Derek had started crying, forcing the whole scene to reset.
The man was good, okay?
Far away from the set of Jacksonville Square, the two sat outside the steps of Brand Library, the shadow of the towering white building offering them all the shade they needed.
"Anyway, that's enough about me and my Terrible, No-Good, Bad Day," Derek said, sniggering into his coffee. "The tigers went back into their cages and almost everyone lived. Bo-ring. How have you been, Benson?"