AN: Dedicated to Vladdiechica for starting an Elitz forum and to SavetheRamen who made the vid I mentioned all the way back in chapter 1. Sigh, this chapter came out a little differently than I wanted. ButI think it's better than what I had originally intended anyways.

Warnings: Violence, Elitz

Disclaimer: I don't own Degrassi. If I did, this would ABSOLUTELY be a plot.

Chapter Four

Make Me Weak and Then Save Me

This is ridiculous. Fitz is a senior, how can he possibly manage to loiter outside every single one of his classrooms? Eli is staring to freak out. Before school even started, there was Fitz goofing of with his goon squad. On his way to second, Fitz slams him forcefully into the lockers then cackles like a hyena. In the lunch line, Fitz's feet become impossibly tangled with his own and he tumbles to the ground. The final bell rings rings and Fitz is getting lectured for cutting class. It is a marked change from the willful ignorance the bully had been exuding since the alley fight that landed Eli a split lip and smug smile and Fitz a night in jail and a court hearing.

And Eli's friends are starting to notice.

"Wow, Fitz is really working overtime on his 'kill Eli slowly' vendetta." Adam comments with concern and humor the way only he can while Clare examines the shiny new bruise dominating the mass majority of the left side of his face. Her fingers ghost over the tender flesh and her eyes stare into his and it's one of those moments. You know, the kind that should be reserved solely for teen dramas on tv. Eli's absolutely convinced that in that moment Clare can see through him and every lie he's ever told straight to dirty, black soul.

He jerks away from her smooth, gentle hands and forces a hiss of pain through his teeth. She hasn't actually hurt him, he just needs to break the connection; to make her blind to his mask again.

"Sorry."

"It's okay. Just don't...touch it." He says, sliding his eyes away from her beautiful baby blues.

"This has got to stop." Clare asserts, all righteous and protective. "He can't keep treating people like this."

"He's not treating 'people' like this, Clare." Eli snaps. And it's not her fault because she doesn't know, but he hates that she thinks she can lump together what Fitz does to everyone else and what he does to him. "He's treating me like this. And I can handle it."

Except, of course, that he can't. He's drowning in this, so far under that he can't remember the world before he lost sight of the surface.

"I'm," Clare stumbles over her apology, caught off caught off guard by the ferocity in his words and tone. Blindsided by the hurt. "I'm sorry."

"No. I'm sorry." It's not her fault, he reminds himself, she doesn't know. Can never know. "I don't know where that came from." Like hell he doesn't. He wonders if maybe he's too good at deceiving everyone around him.

"It's cool, man." Adam smooths over, throwing an arm over their shoulders. "Getting whaled on can put anyone in a bad mood."

If only getting whaled on was all he had to worry about...

"Yes, that's helping." Eli feels obligated to snark with feigned good humor. "Screw it, I'm gonna skip class, chill in Morty for a bit. Like, until I can blink without pain."

"You should go to the nurse." Clare says with the gentlest edge of reprimand; after all his hard work, she's still a good girl deep down inside. He thinks that's what makes him like her so much.

"Nah. 'I fell down the stairs' starts sounding really suspicious after the first time." Even though he's never been to the nurse and, if he had, he's far more than capable of coming up with a myriad of perfectly believable BS to spoon feed her. But Clare doesn't need to know that. And honestly, Eli just wants to open Morty up in the back, take advantage of all that rear storage space, and sleep for an hour or two.

"See you later." Adam acquiesces with a fist bump and a smile, dragging a slightly more disapproving Clare along with him.

Eli groans out in frustration. Owen and a gaggle of goons would choose just this period to skip and, of course, would have picked today of all days to park right freaking next to him.

"Hey, it's the death-boy." Someone says, drawing attention to the goth before he can turn around.

"I hear you like death." Owen says with a smile that reminds Ei of a sickly carnivore eyeing it's prey, and jumps off the hood of the old orange car.

Eli is so not in the mood for this. His face hurts. His chest hurts. His hands hurt. His everything hurts and he's in no condition to fight anyone, let alone half of the school's bullies.

"Maybe I just like the car."

"Who jacked your face up, man? I want to shake his hand." Jeers another face in the crowd.

"Your mom. Apparently, she likes it rough." And, dear gods, that mouth of his is going to get him killed.

"What did you say about my mother?"

"He said she likes it rough." Chimes in the only person who could make this situation worse.

Fitz.

Fuck. A normal fight, where fists and words are the only weapons, Eli could maybe handle. But there's no way he can take Fitz and everything he represents right now. Maybe Owen will make good on his implied threat and kill him.

But Eli doubts it.

Fitz hands, hands he knows better than his own, slip around his arms from behind. Fitz squeezes him tightly, so tightly Eli can scarcely breathe. Then, suddenly his feet lose their purchase on the ground beneath them and Eli knows where this leads. Sure enough, after a moment where Eli becomes terrified that the senior is just going to hold him, he's hurtling through the air. He hits the gritty pavement face first, gravel and dirt and pebbles digging into the tender and bruised flesh.

The rest of Fitz's cronies laugh like jackals and slap each other high fives. Fitz's silence passes unnoticed by everyone but the boy who is the cause of it.

"Let's get out of here." Fitz scoffs. "I don't want to catch dork."

Eli lies motionless on the ground, listening to them depart and praying that they don't come back.

Prayers are seldom answered.

"I saved your ass, you know." Fitz says calmly, casually, as if he wasn't the reason Eli needed saving in the first place.

"What do you want." Eli asks, climbing up from the pavement with a bitten off cry of pain. Rivets of crimson leak from the scattering of scrapes and cuts that now litter his face.

Something like remorse settles into his enemy's eyes. He takes a hesitant step forward, Eli takes a frightened step back. The pattern contines, Fitz advancing steadily with Eli struggling to avoid him. His back collides with Morty and he wants to scream. Because he knows with certainty whats coming next.

Fitz's hand reaches out. Eli flinches away, but the bully refuses to be detered and his calloused hand makes contact. Just...not where Eli was expecting. Rough hands, attempting vainly to be gentle, trace over every cut and scrape on his face. Fitz outlines every bruise on his body, from his face to his chest and stomach and back, including ones that only he and Eli know because he's the one who put them there.

"I'm sorry." The words ghost out and Eli isn't sure if Fitz even knows he's said them out loud. But before he can ponder their significance, Fitz's lips are on his, hungry and demanding, and Eli has no choice but to submit.

Fitz removes his hands, places them against the hearse on either side of Eli. Caging him in. Then his lips transverse from lips to jaw to neck. And between every almost gentle kiss, an equally almost gentle apology.

And when Fitz suddenly jerks away and storms from view, Eli is left standing there wondering what the hell just happened.