That Gay Kid

by dreaming-in-pretenses

Marco's a chameleon; he adapts labels and contracts illnesses. Ellie just wants him to be him - the real him. She alone knows there's much more to Marco than the closet he's overcome…He just needs to let the walls down. Marco/Ellie

Title: "That Gay Kid"
Characters/Couples: Marco/Ellie
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Homophobic slurs, allusions to sex, cursing
Timeline: Sometime during season 7
Disclaimer: I don't own "Degrassi: The Next Generation."
Summary: Marco's a chameleon; he adapts labels and contracts illnesses. Ellie just wants him to be him - the real him. She alone knows there's much more to Marco than the closet he's overcome…He just needs to let the walls down. Marco/Ellie
Notes: I wanted to explore a different style of writing, and this is what came out of that desire. I apologize if you find it unreadable or confusing – but please let me know what you think! I'm always looking to improve, and thus welcome any concrit. Thank you! Also: Just in case it might be confusing, when I compare "El" to "he/him," I'm talking about the Spanish use of the word. Just wanted to be clear! :)

"That Gay Kid"
By: dreaming-in-pretenses

Marco's not in love with Ellie. Not exactly.

This - thing, this impossibly zany wonderfully incomprehensible thing, whatever it is that has been between them since the very first time they met -

It's different from being "in love," he thinks. Stronger than just any plain old love, definitely, but different from "in love," nonetheless.

This is the mantra he recites to himself every night, when he's waiting anxiously - like a good friend! - for her to return from a hard day in the office, when he's - respectfully! - massaging her tense muscles, when their lips - chastely! - are brushing up against each other, when their tongues - every. single. night...accidentally? - are embracing as frantically as they're embracing each other, when he's - gayly, gayly, godfuckingdammit, I'm GAY! - stripping her down, out of her dress, and down down down to her core, where he soon too will follow. And the mantra continues - really, it does! - a softer and softer voice inside his head, surely echoing on repeat as the reason in his mind stops responding and his thoughts stop processing, and- And the two, the best of friends, bare in the most simplistic ways, will lie for the rest of the night, hands intertwined, voices unified, bodies meshed together, melting, melting, melting, into one another, into one...

And - obviously! - the mantra repeats, repeats, (stalls and stalls and) repeats - until the morning rises and the closet opens, and a wall once again builds itself up inside, impenetrable by anyone of the wrong type, whether it's a boy trying to hide back inside or a girl trying to knock it down. It's different from "in love." I'm outside of the closet, and no girl, not even "El," the one who defies gender norms in her very own damn name, can force me back in.

"And this is different than being in love."

It's a necessary mantra, one he maintains not out of denial (he is gay, and this isn't the denial speaking, either; like Paige he has only looked at and fantasized about and gone on dates with men), but out of desperation (he's Marco Del Rossi, Queer Kid, Faggot, Homo, Gay gay gaygaygaygay). Ever since he revolutionized his identity from (whisper it faster; Don't. Get. Sucked. In. Again!) to The Out And Proud Man With No Handicaps, No Worries, No Problems, he's had to deal with the label of "that gay kid." It's been so long, and he's grown so attached to the new, happy Marco, that he even accepts the insults. New, Proud Marco hears them so often they're a part of him, anyway. Can't have "homosexual" without queerfagcocksuckerqueen, and Marco is the very poster boy of "homo," after all. So he sucks it all up, demeaning names and all, and goes on with his happy days. And "El," - but not "he," goddammit, as far from "he" as one can get - wants to put an end to that happiness. And he can't have it.

"Conformity," (s)he mutters, and goes on to talk about "adapting" - not "enjoying" or even "accepting," but "adapting;" Marco the Chameleon surveying his background, so picturesque and rainbow and - when did that happen? - infected, and forcing himself to change to the color of infection, too. She's always had a vivid imagination, of course, and doubly so when she's fighting for something. He remembers that she was the one who fought the hardest for New Marco in the first place, before the age of adapted infections...But regardless, she fights him now, and he fights her.

And as he pats the closet wall lovingly, appreciating it much more now that he's back on the other side, he thinks to himself that he's doing the right thing by sticking by his Ideals. So what if they're a bit conventional? So what if they're a tad masochistic? He's a one-gender-one-love kind of guy, and El isn't either of those for him. She can't tell him what he can or can't be when she can't even meet either of the requirements. So he lets it go, and the mantra starts up again, repeating and repeating and repeating some more.

On and on it echoes, until he finds himself eagerly awaiting her return - as any good friend would! - and the mantra stalls slightly, just very, very slightly. Just long enough for them to become one again.

Marco's not in love with Ellie. Not exactly. What they share is different from being "in love" - it's stronger than just any plain old love, definitely, but different from "in love," as well...

Yet, sometimes, as the walls drop and the closet vanishes, her eyes find his, and he doesn't need to adapt. He already is. They just are...

It's moments like this in which he thinks their love...might not be so different after all.