Okay, I have a rather guilty announcement to make. I haven't been much on the whole Degrassi thing lately, (what with school, exams, switching dorms and stupid, stupid boys) but I must admit, there is something else has captured my attention. Regrettably, I too have become one of those doe-eyed females, aged 18-25, obsessed with Grey's Anatomy. I tried to stay away, but I couldn't help it, my dormmate suckered me in! So anyway, the point? The point is that I stole the first line in this story (about kissing in elevators) from Grey's courtesy of George, because I have found that the Izzie/George/Callie triangle intrigues me just as much as the Manny/Craig/Ellie thing. I am a hopeless sucker for the best friends-turned-lovers kind of thing. So here it is, my first fic in awhile, hope its stomachable. (Neither show is mine.)
"I can't keep kissing you in elevators." she tells him, her voice as low and steady as the thumping background will allow, her gaze clear and level with his own, and her throat (and heart) constricting painfully with every untruth she gives utterance.
He smiles (that smooth, devastating smile of course), "Okay, so maybe elevators are off limits, but we still have storage closets, bathrooms, empty buses- the possibilities are endless babe." he hooks a finger through her belt loop and pulls her in closer to him.
"No Craig, I mean it." she says with frustration, swatting his hand away and taking a step back. She takes a deep breath and struggles to maintain her composure, she will need it if she is going to go through with this.
No, not if.
She was going to go through with this. She had to.
She stammers out, "I'm being serious, and you know it. What we're doing…it isn't right, it's, it's the very opposite of right, it's-"
"Wrong?" he interrupts with a smirk, and she sets her jaw in determination.
"You have a girlfriend, Craig. A girlfriend…so then just what the hell does that make me?" she inquires, tilting her head to keep eye contact as he shifts his gaze uneasily.
"Elle…we've talked about this before." he tells the ceiling, a hand absentmindedly rubbing the back of his neck.
"No, we haven't. I've brought it up and you've avoided the subject. That is not talking about it."
He sighs, "I've told you, she isn't my girlfriend, not anymore."
"Oh yes, of course! How could I have been so foolish!" she exclaims, clutching at her chest in mock apology, her voice low and sharp "I mean, you two are obviously over each other, I mean, you only, text her constantly and call her daily. Oh, and not that I even care about that stupid thing, but it's perfectly normal to put your ex-girlfriend as number one on your top freaking eight. All of those things just scream, 'I've moved on'."
"Ellie, don't be like that. You know it's complicated."
"Of course I do, that the problem. Things between the two of you are complicated, between she and I are complicated, and it's especially, superbly, extremely complicated between us. God Craig, things between us have always been complicated. And I've accepted that, because honestly, that's the only thing I've ever known. But the longer this goes on, the more I'm starting to realize that I don't think its supposed to be like this. I don't think its supposed to be this… well, complicated." She says with a shrug, giving up hope on eye contact and turning her back on him to press her forehead against the poster-swathed walls. She doesn't mean to, but she still flinches when she feels his hands on her shoulders.
"Sorry" he says with offense, stepping away from her and dropping his hands.
"No, Craig, don't" she spins around and catches one of his falling hands in both of her own, yet still preserving the distance between them. "I'm sorry, it's just… damn it Craig, why do things have to be like this?"
"I don't know. I wish I could give you an answer but I don't think I could say the right things. The only thing I do know, and what I hope that you know, is that I would never lie to you. She isn't my girlfriend, Elle, I promise you that."
"And neither am I." she mutters, letting go of his hand
"Not yet." he whispers under his breath, unheard by her and she begins to pace the dirty hallway, hands pressed tightly against her throbbing temples.
"Listen, I understand…well, no, maybe understand isn't the right word, but I get at least part of what is going on between you two. You have history, and that can account for so much of what goes on between two people, especially history like yours. So I get that you have history, and I get that it's difficult with her still being in high school, and I get that you have agreed to see other people-"
"Ellie-"
"No. Because the thing is, history, its just that. Its history, its the past. Move on Craig. Because I don't want to be another person, or another woman, and I sure as hell don't want to be THE other woman. I figure you've had enough experience with those to know better a second time around." The comment was as deliberately aimed and sharp as her glare, which yet again had been redirected to bear down upon him.
"You aren't the other woman, I would never do that to you."
"So she knows about me? She knows that you are sleeping with me?" she shoots back, taking a step closer.
"She knows that I am seeing other people, yes."
"Jesus Craig! I know that! I just said that! Stop dancing around the issue and just be as honest with me as you keep claiming you are. Does your girlfriend know that you are with me?"
And she can't cry. She isn't supposed to cry. She is supposed to be steady and level and clear…but she wasn't. She was shaky and sniffling and scared and everything she thought a strong woman shouldn't be. She hated herself for being reduced to this by a boy, she hated that she had become one of those girls, but what she really hated, what she completely and utterly loathed about this feeling… was that despite everythingshe hated, she knew she loved him more.
And love, Ellie Nash was learning, was just the damnedest thing.
"Look, I know that this doesn't put you in the best of positions-" he starts tentatively, but quickly earns a hardened scoff for his words as she attempts to manage her tears and regroups. "Okay, so it is a horrible position, but this situation isn't going to be easy for any of us. I wish we could get though this without anyone getting hurt, but it looks like it's too late for that. But for now, and I know this sounds shady and I apologize for that, but right now I just think that what she doesn't know won't hurt her."
"But it hurts me." she chokes out, clenching her fists tightly enough for small crescents to being cutting through her palms, "Or does that not count for as much ? God, don't answer that. It doesn't matter, none of this can matter, not anymore. I just can't do this, and I won't, not to myself and not to Ashley. She doesn't deserve her what we are doing to her. Maybe you two had the right idea back in grade eleven, maybe you were meant to be together."
"Ellie, stop it. Don't-"
"Manning? Nash?" the backstage door swings open and a twenty-something tattooed girl holding a clipboard interrupts him.
"Yeah, that's us." Ellie answers for the both of them, hastily swiping at her tears in the darkness of the smoky hall and moving away from Craig.
"You're on in twenty." the girl reports, looking up from her set list to give him a sultry once-over before turning around and closing the heavy door behind her.
"Well, you heard the lady, let's go." she says, biting back a comment about the skank that just left them. If he wanted to go catch herpes from her, it wasn't any of his drummer's business. It never had been.
"We can't…we aren't just going to leave things like this, we can't-"
"We can't keep kissing in elevators. " she cuts him off, "We can't keep lying to my best friend and your quasi-girlfriend about what is happening between us, and I can't keep pretending like I am happy with only getting half of you. But we can keep playing together. After all, that's what we came out here to do after all, isn't it? Ellie Nash, taking off after high school to follow Craig Manning around?"
"Ellie, its not like that, its-"
"Fifteen minutes, " calls out a muffled voice
"It's not like anything. It can't be."
So… It's kinda AU, if you haven't figured that out. Craig and Manny never got back together, but Ellie did fall in love with him. Ashley stayed in London, but came back, hence the reason she is still in high school. Craig didn't go to Toronto, but ended up touring with Ellie just like he said in that episode…I forget which one. See, we can still have some good ole angst heartbreak even without cocaine!