AN: Holy cow, Fitz is so hard to write for. He has like NO cannon back story and that makes being in his head hard. So if he seems OOC, then it could only be expected.

Warnings: Violence, denial, angst, lust, the whole shebang...

Disclaimer: I don't own Degrassi. I wish I had a clever way to say that...

Chapter Six

Strike Me Down

Part II

"What the hell do you want?"

~Mark Fitzgerald, Try Honesty Part 2

The stupid little emo had gone and gotten him arrested. He'd gotten his ass handed to him just so he could beat him. What a piece of flaming shit. Fitz has to beat him down twice as hard now. Nobody pulls punkass shit like that on Mark Fizgerald. No one.

And those damned green eyes! Who has eyes that impossibly reckless and beautiful? It's just stupid. Like his smirk. Who the hell gave that kid that sexy twist of the lips that makes Fitz want to...

And he is officially ending that train of thought. Because Fitz isn't thinking about beautiful green eyes or seductive smirks. Nope. They're enraging eyes and infuriating smirks. That's what he means. Some times his head just gets confused. Yeah, that's it.

Which is why reaching a hand out to roughly snatch a hold of his collar and drag his punkass into the alley behind the Dot has nothing to do with Fitz just wanting to touch Eli and everything to do with kicking his gothic ass.

Really.

Geez, the little shit's fast. And those punches aren't just rolling off him either, where the fuck was this during their last fight? He lands a solid punch in the smug, smirking vixen's-er, bastard's stomach and Eli stubles back and away. But Fitz is having none of that, not today. His hands, almost of their own accord, reach out and take hold of his shirt and hurls him to the dirty alley ground.

He's lying there and Fitz feels just a second of hesitation, and no he does not know why, before he kicks the smaller boy hard in the spine. Eli lets out half a scream and Fitz can't help but respect that even lying in the dirt at his feet, Eli still won't let him see any weakness. Which officially means he deserves more than to just get the shit kicked out of him while he's lying prone on the ground...the sneaky shit probably would have grabbed his foot or done some other stupid, cliched thing away.

So Fitz once again finds his hands knotted tight in Eli's shirt, flipping him over so he can settle in and lay down some smack. Except those stunning green eyes are staring up at him, hazy and hurt and Fitz just wants to kiss the pain he's given him away.

"I fucking hate you." Lies. Lies he wants to be true. His life would be so much simpler if he could just hate Eli Goldsworthy and his smug smirks and daunting refusal to just lie down and die. And maybe he could if Eli hadn't won, hadn't challeged him with fists and words and made him a loser while the cops drove him away and Eli watched with his smirking lips busted and bleeding. If that hadn't been the single hottest thing Fitz had ever seen.

Fitz slams his lips down onto Eli's, tries to convey every thought, every feeling he's ever had. Hoping the younger boy feels the same. Hoping he can make him feel the same. But when he pulls away all that he sees in Eli's haunting green eyes is confusion and horror and disgust. His anger spikes, fueled by rejection and self-loathing, and he brings his fist down heavy and hard against Eli's fragile face. And when he kisses him again, Fitz can taste blood on his lips.

Eli begins to squirm, a vain attempt to move away, and Fitz responds by pressing down harder. Their touching now, nearly everywhere. Lips, chests, legs, groins. And, god, it's affecting Fitz in ways he'd never ever admit. His hand moves, slow, up and under Eli's shirt to run calloused fingers over flawless flesh. Muscules, hard and defined, twitch and jump at his every touch.

And then Eli manages to find a grip on him because suddenly Fitz is over and away from the boy he'd just been kissing. "Get the fuck off me!"

And that nails the facts home right quick. He's just kissed Eli. He's just kissed a boy who hates him. He's just kissed a boy. Snap your fingers and the anger's back, and Fitz slams his coulda-shoulda-woulda been lover up against the wall.

"This didn't happen, you little emo shit. You hear me?" Another heavy handed blow to the beautiful features of his infatuation. "It didn't happen."

And then, Fitz is gone. Running to god knows where to do god knows what. Probably to get wasted so he can forget this whole damned thing. Hell, maybe he'll even go home. All he knows is that he can't stay here, can't be anywhere near Eli and his mesmerizing eyes and his entrancing smirk, or he's going to slip up. He's going to do it again. Because the horrible truth he's been denying all along just ran up and bitchslapped him in the face.

Fitz is in love with Eli.

In a sad and panicked and really rather desperate way. And he doesn't know how to make the feeling stop.

Fitz jerks awake in the old orange car that Owen had bought for two hundred buck and then fixed up with thousands of dollars worth of stolen parts.

He wants to groan and throw things and tell the whole damn world that he's angry and confused. But he's in the car with two of the least tolerant people he knows with another freaking hard-on he got from a dream about Eli, so he settles for hopping quietly out of the vehicle and staggering into the night.

He doesn't need this shit in his life and he's not sure how much more of it he can take.

He wishes he was normal.

He wishes he and Eli could be normal.

He wishes they could be normal together.

He wishes this thing between them wasn't so hard.

He wishes Eli was his boyfriend instead of his bene-friend.