Title: Dog Days Are Over
Chapter: One-Shot
Fandom: Degrassi
Author: Plurabelle Louisianne
Summary: Eli had screwed up. Big time. He knew that.
Extended Summary: Eli has faced his demons and is coming out the other side, a whole person again. But he has one more bit of closure to gain.
Rating: T for Teen, mainly for language
Pairing: Mentions of Eli-Clare
Secondary Pairings: None
Author's Notes: Of all the storylines on Degrassi over the years – Eli's (and also Craig's, because it is similar) is the one I most identify with. I know what it's like to be that depressed and that desperate to hold on to someone, to the point that you're willing to do anything. Depression is not an easy disease to overcome – and I've had it since I was a child – but it's possible, and I really hope to portray that here. Yes – someone who suffers from it will always be fighting it – but once you get on top of it, it's doable. And from all that I've seen of the upcoming season – I'm not sure the writers are going to portray that for Eli, so I wanted to do it myself.
I wrote this back in April, I think . . . and I've been squatting on it since then, editing it and refining it. I think it's ready. Its unbeta'd – but I've read and proofread it so many times that I don't think there's anymore real errors at this point.
A big thing I'd like to point out – this is somewhat AU for Drop The World, Part 2. I've changed Eli's injuries from the crash a bit, mainly because I wrote this BEFORE the episode actually aired, and I'm ignoring the very end of the episode, where Clare accuses Eli of manipulating her. So just ignore what you know from the last fourth of the episode, alright? Cause it doesn't apply here. And obviously – this story is totally AU from Season 11, since it hasn't even aired yet.
Frankly – I had intended to name this story something else – "Losing My Mind," after the song by Maroon 5. But once I finished the piece – the title and the song no longer seemed to fit, even if they were the inspiration in the first place – it was just too dark, too obsessive feeling, and didn't quite convey the light at the end of the tunnel the story had found when I was writing it. As I was editing, the other song came on iTunes – and I was like, "Wow, serendipity – this totally fits." So there are two songs I recommend listening to while reading this – "Losing My Mind" by Maroon 5 and "Dog Days Are Over" by Florence + The Machine. Both rock!
I do have thoughts for a sequel to this thing – 2 sequels in fact – but we'll see how this piece does first before I get around to writing them. Enjoy, and please review and let me know what you think! Thanks!
Disclaimer: All characters and situations remain the property of their respective owners. Though I wish Eli were mine – cause I would have told the story of him going off the deep end a little bit better, that's for darn sure! The lyrics are from "Dog Days Are Over" by Florence + the Machine.
Dog Days Are Over
By Plurabelle Louisianne
"The dog days are over . . . the dog days are done . . . the horses are coming . . . so you better run . . .
Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father . . . run for your children, for your sisters and brothers . . . leave all your love and your longing behind . . . you can't carry it with you if you want to survive . . ."
Florence + The Machine
Eli had screwed up. Big time.
He knew that. He'd succeeded in scaring off the most precious person in his life. He had held on too tightly to Clare and smothered her. It no longer mattered why he'd done it - the reasons he had and excuses he made to justify his actions were inconsequential and flimsy now. He'd acted like an obsessed psycho - controlling, domineering, and just downright creepy - and he reaped the benefits, so to speak. She no longer loved him.
He had no one and nothing to blame but himself and his diseased mind. He had clung to the beautiful butterfly, and wanting to hang on to her, gotten torn to pieces when she wanted to fly away. All he could do now was wait - and hope - for her to fly back.
He rested his forehead against the wheel of his car with a sigh. He hated the emerald green Corolla his parents had given him. It was nice - but it wasn't Morty. It didn't have the soothing, musty, formaldehyde-and-embalming-fluid tinged scent of death, or the broken-in, cushy seats, or the busted handle on the driver's side door that only he knew the trick of getting to work. The Corolla was clean and shiny, and it still had that new car smell. It didn't break down, and it didn't constantly need to be fixed and tuned.
Morty had been Eli's place to escape to when things got bad or too overwhelming. When he needed to think or brood, he could just jump in and drive. Morty had given Eli freedom. The Corolla felt more like a coffin, like a symbol of how much Eli had fucked up his life in the past few months - hell, in the past couple of years - starting with losing Julia, then Clare and ending with crashing Morty. He had very nearly ended his life. Morty was dead, and sometimes . . . sometimes, Eli still wished he himself was, too . . .
After crashing Morty - which had been a half-desperate attempt to win Clare back and a half-genuine, if crazed, desire to die - he'd been in the ICU, in a coma, for a week, with a myriad of other cuts, bruises, and serious injuries. He'd driven into a large tree near Degrassi, and apparently the fire department had to tear the car apart to get him out. Truthfully, he didn't really remember the wreck, and only the barest bones of what led directly up to it had come back to him - enough to know why he'd done it and the frame of mind he'd been in at the time, but little else. Everyone kept telling him he was lucky to be alive, but it wasn't always easy to feel so. Especially when he could still hear the echoes of the fight on the phone with Clare beforehand in his mind – "We're not meant to be together . . ." She had sounded so terrified of him, and it scared him to think of the darkness that had driven him to the edge that night. Sure, he dressed all goth, and he was biting and sarcastic, and he wrote really, really creepy horror fic . . . but he'd never let the darker side of his personality truly take over before.
He was getting better though. He was in the ICU for another week after he'd woken up, then moved to the psych ward for another two before he got to go home finally. The doctor diagnosed him with obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression, with a side-order of post-traumatic stress disorder (thanks, Fitz, Eli thought), which had kind of been a "Well, no shit, Sherlock!" moment for Eli, since he'd always known there was something seriously wrong with him. Along with taking a couple of different medications every day, he had therapy with his shrink twice a week and a journal to write in as needed, "to do something productive with the blues" as his therapist put it. At his shrink's suggestion, he got out and about with Adam, and his two newest, most surprising friends, Drew and Fitz, a lot, to keep himself from dwelling too much on his darker thoughts and memories, and he was very active in the drama program at school, as well as a summer theatre program for teenagers at Toronto U.
He also had physical therapy three times a week for his left leg, which had been broken in the wreck, and for his left hand and arm, the bones of which had been shattered. He found as he physically got back into shape, his state of mind improved as well. His PT said it was post-workout endorphins, but the reality was that there was something very satisfying about seeing the tangible results of his hard work, akin to how he'd felt working on Morty. Exercise had become a part of his method of coping, a way to vent his anxiety and frustrations, much like the black Moleskine journal sitting on the passenger's seat had become a place to release his inner demons.
He lifted his head from the wheel once more, gazing across the street at a small, brick townhouse. Clare's house. It had been almost three months since he'd been there, though he saw Clare in school every day, up until summer break started a couple of weeks ago.
They didn't speak much nowadays. Mostly just a "Hello" in passing, sometimes a "How are you?" Clare had come to visit him a few times in the hospital while he was there, and it had been more than awkward. He wasn't really sure what to say to her anymore. "Sorry I went nuts and tried to kill myself over you" just didn't cut it, considering everything they'd been through together.
And while he still loved her . . . it just wasn't the same, for either of them. There was a lot of changing and growing that needed to happen in both of their lives before they could ever be together again. And he was actually okay with that. He just wasn't okay with all the things that had been said in the heat of anger and desperation and the things that were still unsaid. He needed closure.
He'd had a major breakthrough at therapy the afternoon before. It had involved a lot of crying and shouting, and admitting to some harsh truths he'd been hiding from for a long time. There had been a long talk with his parents, resulting in some big, but exciting changes going forward in his home life. There had also been two rather long letters written. One had been dropped off at Julia's grave that morning.
The second was sitting in his lap at the moment. He'd been trying to work up the courage for the last hour to deliver it. And as he saw Clare step outside to check the mail, he decided it was now or never. Getting out of the car, he quickly darted across the street and up the pathway to the house, where Clare stood with her back to him, still wearing pjs, her hair tousled from sleep. Despite everything, her beauty still took his breath away.
"Clare!" he called out. She turned and smiled kindly when she saw him coming toward her.
"Eli, how are you?" she asked, giving him a hug. He inhaled her flowery scent as he hugged her back for a moment, but didn't allow it to make him sad, like it normally did. This was goodbye, closing a door, moving on.
He pulled back, pressing the envelope silently into her hand. She stared at it in confusion for a moment, before finally taking it from him. He kissed her gently on the forehead, and then looked into her bluer-than-blue eyes.
"Better now," he replied with his trademark smirk and a nod, as he turned and left. And it was the truth.
He had nowhere to go but up. Gone was the intense gloominess that had pockmarked his entire life like a bad plague, and he was determined it was going to stay that way. Things were only going to improve, no matter what happened - if he and Clare got back together, if he found someone else, if he was single the rest of his life. If he went to college, if he wound up halfway around the world serving the needy, if he ended up in a nut house . . . life would go on, because he had finally decided he wanted it to.