How You Mix the Two
A/N: Yay for unconventional pairings. Okay, this is insane, maybe a bit (or a lot) OOC, and slightly corny and unrealistic (all in how you take it), but here it is. You may not like it, but it was fun to write. Reviews are seriously appreciated. Let me know what you think. And now…
3 o'clock. He glanced at his watch for the third time in a span of five minutes. His foot lightly kicked a stone and he rubbed is forehead. He leaned back against the building that was Degrassi and closed his eyes. He opened them again and saw her coming around the corner. Right on time.
Her "I don't care," grin was tact into place, as she trudged across the grass with her hands in her pockets, not lifting a foot to walk.
"Thought you'd never show up," he stated aloud, and her smirk widened, as she raised her eyebrows.
"You were waiting for me." It was a half question.
"No. I just don't like breaking tradition," he said, and they both knew that was a lie.
"I'm touched, really," she said wryly and placed her back to the wall, in the same position he was in.
He looked at her. "Funny," he said shortly.
She ignored him, and eyed the black guitar case resting next to him, rolling her eyes. "You and Ashley have a little disagreement?"
He glanced at her suspiciously. "How'd you know?"
"You always bring your guitar with you if you and your dramatic girlfriend fight," she stated observantly. "Which seems to be happening a lot more, now that I think about it."
He said nothing.
"So," she said, dominating the conversation, "what was it this time?—no, let me guess. You forgot to drop down to the floor and kiss her feet, so she threw a Paige and caused a scene?"
He glared at her. "No."
"Okay." She said nothing more, just looked at the ground, making patterns in the dirt with her shoes.
He looked at her expectantly. "You aren't going to ask why we fought?"
She shrugged. "Go ahead. I'm not stopping you."
He hesitated. "Nah, I'm not in the mood anymore."
She rolled her eyes and grabbed the black bag she always carried around with her. Casually, she pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
Watching her, he said, "Don't."
She looked up at him, annoyance faintly conveyed in her eyes. She sighed quietly and then threw the cigarettes back into her bag. Leaning back against the school building, she mumbled, "You win."
He grinned satisfactorily and then changed the subject after a minute of silence. "Why do we always meet out here?"
She shrugged. "Out of habit, I guess."
"I guess. I mean, there's no better explanation, right?" Though he meant his question to be rhetorical, he found the words coming from his voice tinted with a bit of desperation, as if he was searching for a better answer.
"Right," she said, focusing her gaze on her back, grubby shoes.
Ignoring the sinking feeling in stomach, he boldly said, "Maybe we just enjoy each other's company."
She used her left foot to kick a chunk of dirt off her right shoe. She then turned to look at him. "Don't get all Brady Bunch on me, Manning, please."
He grinned. "You love it."
She punched him lightly. "Shut up."
This only encouraged him. "Who knew you were such an undercover Brady Bunch lover?"
"Keep dreaming. You aren't going to get anything on me."
"That's what's so weird about this whole three o'clock thing," he told her, and earned himself a surprised look.
"What? That you can't get any blackmail on me?" she said, anger flaring through her dark eyes. "Real nice."
"No," he said in his defense. "That after all the times we've ever sat out here and had these bizarre conversations, I've learned nothing about you."
"What can I say?" she said, closing her eyes to the sun. "I don't like sharing secrets. God, if I knew you were so nosy I would have just kept walking the first time I saw you sitting out here alone."
"But you didn't," he said with a sly smile. "Admit it, you love me." He was teasing her again, and suddenly forgot what he was talking about in the first place. She had a way of doing that.
"I'm not afraid to knock you out," she warned coldly.
"Sure."
"Why aren't you scared of me, Manning?" she demanded.
"Because I've cracked your code," he said smugly.
She crossed her arms over her chest. "Oh, really?"
He nodded. "You're not that different."
"Yeah, and you know so much about me," she snapped, staring at the ground.
He shrugged.
"You know how badly my fists want to meet your face right now?" she said with irritation.
He laughed. "You wouldn't hurt me."
She scowled. "Stop it. You can't predict me."
"Okay," he said, and was silent for a few moments. He spoke again. "You're not all that tough, Alex. Sure, you've given guys black eyes and broken bones, but you're just lost and lonely and confused just like the rest of us. As much as you hate being stereotyped, we're all in the same boat."
She smirked while picking at a hangnail. "I'm on a totally different island than you, Craig Manning."
He sighed. "We've both…been through stuff, you know?"
She gazed at him, lowering her thumb from her mouth. "You don't know what kind of shit I've been through, so don't preach to me."
He sighed.
"Okay," she said hesitantly a moment later, "we've been through shit. But that doesn't make us all one big, happy family, got it?"
"I get to you," he blatantly stated, catching her off guard.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
He grinned, with no further explanation.
"I hate you," she snarled, putting on her best attempt at anger. It failed her, though, and she just ended up looking like one of those bad actors on a cheesy television movie.
He laughed and she rolled her eyes. The perfect pair.
Her cell phone rang, disrupting their moment and she reached for bag, digging for her phone. She flipped it open and held the metallic, silver device to her gold hoop clad ear saying nothing but an uninviting, "Yeah?"
She talked for about a time period of fifteen seconds and then flipped her phone shut and threw it in her bag.
"Amy's on her way," she said involuntarily. She played with the leather strap on her bag and then threw it over her shoulder. "She'll be here in like two minutes."
Craig smiled. "I find it funny how it's always you who's leaving."
She frowned. "How's that funny?"
He shrugged.
She picked at the hangnail on her finger again. He always made her restless.
"You're a strange kid, Manning," she said.
"Some would say the same about you," he retorted lightly, expecting a blowout reaction, but this time she didn't react. She thought.
"Maybe," she said, internally wincing at the thought of giving into Craig, agreeing with his teases and acting like they were really friends.
Was that even the proper term for their relationship? Friends? It sounded weird in her brain, and she hoped not to say it aloud because she thought she might puke. But looking at him, she saw in him what she saw in herself. This undeniable loneliness. He had to be lonely, right? He spent almost every afternoon out there with her, talking about inane things like the Brady Bunch or sometimes less inane things like music or movies. Never anything too serious, though, because crossing that line was entering the uncomfortable zone, something they had never tested out before.
Yeah, he must be really lonely. Or just one fucked up kid like she was. She stared at him, in his leather jacket and faded blue jeans and wondered just what was so damn special about him that he could make her feel so inferior to him. She lost all of her Alex power and she was like an ant under a little kid's shoe.
The surge of emotions that she felt overwhelmed her; she had never been one for handling her emotions in a productive way, but this was something. Something big. And she thought maybe it was something in the air—yeah, it had to be something in the air—that made her act the way she did, but suddenly his face was between her hands and her lips met his so urgently, and she wondered at first if he was going to pull away. But his hands were in her hair—something she would have nailed Jay for doing—and the connection was indisputable. It was so there.
And when they pulled apart, she saw Amy's car pulling up, and she panicked for a moment, wondering if Amy had seen anything. Her breath was shallow and her eyes were searching his, but he was just as confused as she was. She adjusted the strap on her bag and began to walk away. She turned to him before she got into Amy's car and said, "Thanks for waiting for me."
He grinned and she found herself grinning back, knowing that Amy would question her in the car on why she would spend her all of her free time with a loser such as Craig Manning, but that didn't matter to Alex at the time. No, it didn't matter at all.