The Beginning after the End - House M.D., PG-13

Notes: Spoilers for “No More Mr. Nice Guy.” Title is from a song by Stars.

Cameron knows she should feel guilty, but it’s empowering somehow. Using him. Showing him that he’s disposable too. She tells Chase she’s off to see another annoying friend; he tells Wilson he’s screwing a whore. And neither of them is lying. Not really.

It isn’t what she wanted, or maybe it is. He wouldn’t be doing this if he thought she still cared, and the funny part is that she no longer does. It isn’t how she once imagined. There are no flowers or candles or soft music, no whispered I love yous. House never needed to be saved.

It isn’t beautiful and it isn’t meaningful and maybe it isn’t supposed to be anyway. It just is. She meets him in dark sweaty bars and half an hour later they’re tangled between unwashed sheets and rough embraces and mouths that taste of beer and Vicodin. Sometimes her hand accidentally brushes against his scar and her touch is softer than she wants it to be, but he doesn’t notice anymore. His eyes darken and this time it’s not because he’s being his usual sadistic self. It’s because she’s won.

Cameron isn’t surprised when she learns that he’s sick and so is she. She’s suspected for a while. This is the kind of sickness that has no known cause, no prescription, no cure. She doesn’t want help anyway. I’m fine, she says. This is the best I’ve ever felt, she says, and she laughs.

They don’t talk about it. They don’t talk much at all. He comes as she goes and she slips away so quietly sometimes that he’s not sure if she was ever there.

Whatever She Needs: Epilogue (12/12) - Degrassi, PG-13

The invitation surprised him. At first he felt more than a little unworthy, but finally he supposed that eight years were long enough to heal anything. Still, he felt weird about it. He couldn’t bring himself to decide if he should go until the very last minute, at which point he jumped into his car and drove the three hundred miles to Toronto and didn’t think about what he would do or say when he got there.

He arrived late and sat quietly in the back. The procession had already started and soon Emma entered his line of vision, radiant in her white dress and practically gliding on air as she floated down the aisle, making it nearly impossible to notice the groom at her side. An outdoor wedding with a feminist twist—Snake smiled at her public defiance of tradition.

The reception was awkward, as he expected, but Spike did acknowledge him even if she failed to hide her obvious shock at his presence. Snake noted that she had a date, but no ring. Then again, he had neither. He decided to refocus his attention; his eyes scanned across the crowd at a sea of mostly unfamiliar faces—Emma’s friends from college, coworkers, and just a handful of Degrassi alums that failed to include the one he was looking for.

The sun was setting as the party died down, and he walked leisurely along the road to where his car was parked—wondering, and not wondering. His breath caught when he saw her.

“Found you.” She had been leaning against a car that wasn’t his and walked towards him now with a bright smile and shining eyes, lovelier than ever. They stood facing each other in the middle of the empty road as pillars newly resilient to whatever forces might try to destroy them this time.

“How did you—”

“Manny mentioned it to me. And I thought… well. Here I am.”

Snake stared at her, dumbfounded. “After all these years…”

“Years never mattered to me,” she said.

Snake nodded. “You’re right.”

She studied him more intently, eyes searching. “You look exactly the same,” she concluded.

“Less hair.” Snake smiled. “More wrinkles.” He took a step closer to her and the sun was just dipping into the ground, painting the sky in a wild, fiery haze. “You look beautiful,” he added, and this time when she looked away shyly, the silence didn’t terrify him.

Finally Darcy looked up again. “So where were you going?”

It was a simple question, but he hesitated. Then he said, “I have no idea.”

She smiled and her eyes shone brighter than before. “Let’s go.”

His heart stirred a little as she reached for his hand and led him towards what he had been waiting his entire life to live.

Whatever She Needs: Touch (11/12) - Degrassi, NC-17

Warning for sexual content. Thanks to aphrodite_mine for beta reading.


He decided to go slowly—so she could change her mind if need be. He started at her neck and gently kissed her skin, absorbed in her perfume. Darcy’s nails were already digging into his shoulders and he stopped. “You’re nervous,” he said.

“Of course I am. So are you.” She brought her mouth to his and flicked her tongue across his teeth, reaching for the bottom of his shirt and pulling it towards her, her fingertips dancing across the skin of his back.

“I’ll be gentle,” he whispered.

“I know.”

He undid the first few buttons of her blouse and realized that she wasn’t wearing a bra this time. Tiny pink nipples stared back at him, the same color of Darcy’s cheeks as she watched him and whispered, “It’s okay.” He closed his eyes and pressed soft kisses to the skin, his lips creeping closer to an areola before finally capturing her breast in his mouth, the other under his palm. She was breathing hard now, and her chest was rising and falling as he kissed and caressed. He turned his attention to her other breast before traveling up to her lips again, barely hearing when she whimpered his name.

She turned her face away from him and he nibbled her earlobe, shivering as the tips of her fingers traced mysterious shapes on his back. “I can feel you against me,” she murmured.

“What?” Snake said, startled, his voice higher than usual and his face flushed.

“Can I?” she asked.

He nodded, and she reached for the fly of his jeans and pulled. Darcy placed both hands on the waistband and he wriggled out, kicking them to the floor, and waiting. He thought she was going to touch him then, but instead she laughed. “Briefs?” she said. “Aren’t they kind of… constricting?” He blushed deeper and couldn’t think of an adequate explanation, especially since he was pretty sure he had been trying to constrain himself for months. “Your turn,” she whispered, guiding his hand to her belt buckle. In one smooth motion, he undid it and soon had her jeans at her ankles, and then on the floor, their clothes in a quickly growing pile.

She was wearing light green panties and he tried not to stare at the clear spot where they were darker, glistening, waiting for him. Hesitantly, he moved his hand up her leg, gently stroking her thigh. Without warning, she reached down and placed her hand on his. “Please,” she said. “No one has ever touched me there.” She tugged at his fingers with her own and pressed them to the fabric of her panties, the heat and dampness radiating through both sets of fingers. She moaned as his fingers brushed the wettest spot, grazing against her through the fabric.

Slowly, delicately, even now making an effort to give her ample time to stop everything if she wanted, he pulled her panties down and saw, finally, the soft dark curls covering her most guarded region. He slipped her underwear down her legs completely and she shuddered, eyes closed, releasing jagged breaths.

Snake moved his hand slowly up her thigh, hearing her whimper “oh my god” when he brought his fingers closer, and the irony was too much and he froze. He sat back and drank in the sight of her completely naked body: eyes shut, lips slightly parted, hands clutching fistfuls of his sheets. She was perfect, beautiful, and he wondered if this was the cruelest punishment of all as he whispered, “I can’t do this.”

“What?” Darcy nearly shouted, all at once sitting up. Her entire face, like the rest of her, was flushed. Daringly, she reached out and touched the bulge under his briefs, slipping her fingers between the flap in the fabric and he groaned involuntarily, feeling himself hardening still. “But I’m ready,” she murmured, staring deep into his eyes with newfound determination, like a flower blooming in the dead of winter.

Snake gently pushed her hand away. “I’m not.”

Darcy looked away, and then abruptly pulled the sides of her shirt together across her chest, fumbling with the buttons. “Now I feel even stupider than I felt before,” she confessed, and he could see a couple tears caught in her eyelashes. He brushed his thumb gently against her eyelids, freeing them.

“It’s my fault,” he said. As she reached for her underwear, he internally berated himself, averting his gaze more out of embarrassment than politeness as she redressed.

There was a silence, and then she said, “I wanted you to be my first.” Snake looked at her again. She was fully dressed and somehow more naked than before.

“The man you marry will be your first,” he said slowly. “Or maybe it will happen sooner. But it can’t happen like this, a quick lay on my bed right before I jet out of town. It just can’t.” She didn’t say anything so he reached for his own jeans and stepped into them, waiting.

“Why not?” she asked finally.

“Because… you’d hate me forever. And I’d hate myself even more.”

She was quiet and Snake wondered if she hated him already. Then she leaned in and planted a soft kiss on his lips, pressing her palm to his cheek, briefly, before whispering, “Okay.” And then she was at the door.

Snake walked towards her, trancelike, and in his mind the image of her standing there staring at him with those too-trusting eyes and trembling smile was already burned in his memory forever. It seemed to have happened long ago.

“So this is it,” she said finally, and her words seemed to travel from his ears to the walls and back again. “I’m going to miss you,” she said, her voice shaking and the tears already falling down her cheeks. Snake enveloped her in his arms, and she leaned into his chest, steadying herself and settling in.

“We’ll see each other again,” he promised, even though he wasn’t sure if he could keep it. She said nothing and he pressed a kiss to the top of her hair, knowing it inadequate.

“I love you, Darcy,” he said as she pulled away, and she smiled and looked down and said nothing, only placing her hand on the doorknob and twisting, opening the door and disappearing behind it, wordlessly, like a ghost. Snake waited a few minutes before peaking behind it, half-hoping she’d still be in the hallway, but she was nowhere to be found, and in many ways, neither was he.

Whatever She Needs: Apologies (10/12) - Degrassi, PG-13

The apartment was larger when he awoke, and emptier, somehow. All the sounds from outside, the commotion and chatter and screeching of tires slipped through the space above the windowsills and reverberated against the walls and bookshelves and dirty dishes in the sink. All of it stumbled rudely and blindly forward to his ears and into his head and rattled around until it was at once silenced by an unavoidable realization.

He got out of bed and got ready for work.

Dan Hill was singing on the radio when Snake pulled into the parking lot and noticed that the leaves on the trees were lush and green. Maybe everything had meaning.

Classes dragged by, as they usually did at this time of year. It was nearly June. Conversations laced with fantasies of summer and graduation overrode his tedious instructions regarding flash animation and PowerPoint presentations. Free time for “internet research” was extended accordingly. Snake found it as difficult to focus as they did.

Darcy pointedly took extra time packing up her things at the end of his last class, and Snake’s eyes followed her every movement. She waited until everyone else had left the room and then walked towards him. He braced himself.

A tiny smile formed on her lips for a moment and then disappeared. “I’m sorry about—”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he said.

“Yes, I do. I was… stupid. Really stupid.”

“You weren’t stupid, Darcy. You were being…”

“Naïve?”

He was going to say a teenager, but held back. “I was stupid.”

“Why? For letting this happen?”

There was a long silence. “Yes,” he said finally. She shook her head and stared at the floor. “Everything happened so fast. I think I need to be alone for a while. And I think you do, too.”

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“I wouldn’t even know how to put it into words,” he lied.

“Snake,” she whispered, placing her hand over his, “please don’t end this just because I screwed up.”

He sighed and pulled his hand away, looking around nervously. “A few months, a year from now, you’ll think you lost your mind. Relationships like this don’t last. Not even in movies and books.”

“So? We can be the exception.”

“How?”

“Because… you saved me,” she said sincerely. “Because we make each other better.”

“It was an escape from reality, and…”

“And you got out. So now you don’t need me.”

“No. I didn’t say that.”

“I’m sorry that you’re scared, and I’m sorry that you’re stubborn, and I’m sorry for how I acted last night,” Darcy said, taking a deep breath. “But I’m not sorry for any of this, and I’m sick of having to say it over and over.”

He stood up and began packing his things, turning from her. “You will be.”

“Why do you keep saying that? How do you know?”

Snake stopped what he was doing and faced her again, finally admitting in a low voice, “Because I’m sorry for this, for all of it, okay?”

She shook her head, biting her lip. “You’re afraid, and you’re paranoid, and—”

“Darcy, I need space.”

“But I don’t. And I don’t want space. I want to be as close to you as possible.”

He couldn’t look at her. “I’m sorry. I think… I think you should go.”

“Fine.” And she was gone. The door closed and he was alone again, surrounded by colorful walls and computer monitors that had witnessed the entire pitiful conversation. He stood still and tried to feel nothing.

The next day, during the first of many meetings with Ms. Hatzilakos, he found out that Darcy would be taking a leave of absence for the rest of the semester. She would be able to make up her work over the summer and still graduate with the rest of her class the following spring.

“Her parents finally found out the root of her wild behavior lately,” Daphne said, leaning forward and lowering her voice. “She was raped. Can you believe that? It’s terrible. I really feel for the girl.”

Snake shook his head in disgust. “This isn’t some piece of tawdry gossip. And whatever happened to confidentiality?”

Her eyes widened. “Honestly, Archie, I expected a little more sensitivity from you. The rest of us were shocked when we found out.”

“Of course it’s awful. I just don’t think it’s any of my business.”

She straightened her shoulders in an exaggerated gesture of self-importance before explaining, “I’ve informed all of Darcy’s teachers so they know to be especially empathic of her situation when she returns in the fall.” She paused, waiting for Snake to react, but he didn’t. “All right, so what did you want to discuss?”

He gripped the ends of the armchairs and held his breath before responding.

Three weeks later, he was the recipient of a greater-than-usual amount of gifts and cards and eloquent farewell speeches. All of the students whom he’d watched grow and transform from prepubescent kids into almost-adults stood before him and said goodbye. They were all moving on to bigger and better—doing what he never could.

Emma approached him after the graduation ceremony and surprised him with a hug. “Jack misses you,” she said, then smiled before adding, “and so do I.”

“Same,” Snake replied, and after a few moments he reluctantly relinquished her embrace. He hesitated before asking, “How’s your mom?”

“She’s been… surprisingly okay,” Emma admitted. “You should talk to her.”

“I don’t know about that,” Snake said.

“Well, you should talk to me,” she tried. “More often. Call, email…”

“I will,” he promised, and when he smiled he realized it was his first genuine one in weeks.

An hour later, he was back in his apartment and surrounded by sealed boxes. He had just begun packing another when he heard a knock at the door. Snake opened it and Darcy stood before him—a breathing living vision from a dream that he forgot to have.

“Hi,” she said, smiling sheepishly and stepping inside.

“Hi,” Snake echoed, closing the door.

“I—” she began, but Snake wrapped her in his arms and halted her words with his lips and his tongue, kicking aside boxes and carrying her to his bed. “I love you,” she whispered between kisses. “If it makes any difference.”

“I love you too,” he said, and for a moment they seemed indestructible. Then they broke.

“What’s going on?” she asked, eyeing the boxes. “Are you leaving?” She met his gaze again.

Slowly, he nodded. “Tomorrow morning.”

“But—why?”

“Darcy, my whole life I’ve been playing it safe. I never once stepped outside my comfort zone—until you came along. But Degrassi and this town are holding me back. I need to explore for a while. I need to find my own path.”

“So—so take me with you,” she said, a little too desperately.

“You know I can’t. You need to stay, finish school, graduate… and then move on.”

“I want to be with you.” She reached for his hands.

“I know.” He kissed her forehead. “I know.”

“Will I never see you again?”

“If this is meant to happen, then we will.”

“But you don’t believe in fate,” she said. He looked away and they were silent for a while. “Can you do one thing for me, before you go?” Snake looked at her again, and she closed her eyes. “I want to know what it’s like,” she said.

“Darcy—”

“With you.”

“And your ring? And everything you believe?”

“I think God will forgive me,” she said sincerely.

“This,” he said, motioning to her and then him, “is the biggest sin of all.”

“I want to be a sinner,” she said.

“No, you don’t.”

“Nothing makes sense anymore. Nothing has made sense for months. But this, as screwed up as it is, makes sense. We make sense. I know I should be scared out of my mind, but when I’m with you everything feels right. It shouldn’t, but it does.” She inhaled sharply and held his gaze. “I want this.”

Snake was still holding his breath when he responded, “It’s not going to… erase the past. It might make things worse.”

“I’m willing to risk it,” she said, and she pulled him towards her.

Sometimes - So Weird, PG

Sometimes she wonders if she’ll ever get over him. Those are the times that she hates him. She blames him for leaving. It’s irrational, and she knows it, but she can’t help it. Sometimes she thinks he planned it.

She strums her guitar and they’re all minor chords. Her voice is hoarse and her lyrics barely make sense. Irene always smiles when this happens, and it’s cruel and ironic because her music shouldn’t be beautiful in times like this. She isn’t trying to create beauty. She’s trying to render that impossible unreality, her life unlived.

He mocks her sometimes. She wakes up in the middle of the night and his grinning face is burned under her eyelids and he’s stuck between the vehicles and she’s certain he’s grinning because he knows she’s stuck there too. She’s been there since that day. The paramedics forgot to remove her.

Sometimes she looks at Carey and wonders, and hates herself for wondering but it’s there. The fingers are the same as they glide across the strings and his eyes are full of life and wonder and his laugh is long and lets her remember, briefly, who she was before it happened. When he smiles at her or squeezes her shoulder or they’re sitting together, writing songs, her thoughts slip away and she’s twenty years younger and they’re about to embark on a journey that they will never fully comprehend.

Sometimes she laughs quietly to herself because it is so ironic, after all, that Rick believed in spirits and angels and extra-terrestrials and she can’t even bring herself to believe in god. She wonders, then, why she’s so afraid to allow herself to live.

Most times she wishes he’d leave for good.

Imagine - Degrassi, R

Notes: Tag to 713, “Bust a Move (Part 1).” Contains spoilers. Written for aphrodite_mine.


Choice or no choice, the aftermath was the same. She felt lifeless. Dirty. Wrong.

Peter was clumsy as he thrust in and out of her. It wasn’t loving, because he didn’t love her and she definitely didn’t love him. It wasn’t beautiful, because it was awkward and forced. And as calculated and premeditated as it was, it wasn’t what she had imagined. Probably because she hadn’t imagined it with him.

She tried to focus, to act the way she knew she was supposed to act. Small moans escaped her in veiled cries for help and she hoped he’d mistake them for the sounds of pleasure. She wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him as he awkwardly worked his way inside of her, snaking her fingers up to his scalp and wishing he didn’t have a full head of hair, or that his mouth didn’t feel so sloppy and inexperienced, or that his skin wasn’t so soft and smooth against hers. The bed was hard and small and uncomfortable and she tried to imagine that it was something else—maybe his desk or the cold tile of the zen garden floor—but it didn’t work.

“Darcy,” he gasped when he finally came, and to her ears his voice seemed funny and high-pitched and off, a fantasy gone completely wrong. She wanted to cry because of how stupid it was, how stupid she was for thinking she could trick her mind and transcend reality. Transcend what was even realistic.

“You okay?” she heard him ask when it was over.

“I’m fine,” she said, automatically. Automatic smile, automatic kiss, automatic laughter and automatic gaze. All of it had to be planned out and rehearsed in her mind over and over because if it wasn’t, she might do something crazy and end up hurting the only person who meant anything worth a damn to her, the one who would have made everything better, the one with whom she wished she were right now, but he had failed her, just like she failed him.

Now horns and whistles were blowing and everyone surrounded them and she had no idea what was going on and she felt ashamed and confused and lost and almost wondered if she had been raped again. She imagined going to him, telling him again, going back and doing it all over and not screwing up this time.

But finally she was fed up with imagining and wishing and hoping and wondering, so she left again when no one was looking and walked outside and sat on the front steps and pulled out her cell phone and dialed his number before she could stop herself. Her heart was racing.

“Hello?” His voice sounded deeper than she imagined, and quieter, and a little sad.

“Hi,” she said breathlessly. “It’s me.” The other end fell silent, and she immediately wondered if he even knew who “me” was. Then she realized he might have hung up. “Hello?” she said, desperately.

“Why are you calling?” He definitely wasn’t happy, but he didn’t sound angry, either. Confused, mostly. Darcy held her breath. “It’s almost midnight,” he added, as if that changed anything.

“I just wanted to see how you were,” she said.

“I’m fine. But I have to go.”

“I really need to talk to you,” she whispered, because he had been whispering. And now she heard him sigh.

“You know we can’t do that.”

Darcy blinked back tears. “I know.” There was a long silence, and she waited for him to say something or hang up on her, but he didn’t do either. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine him on the other end, and this time she could see everything, and his eyes were closed too and he was breathless, waiting. She spoke again. “It’s just that you’re—”

“I know,” he said, startling her. She wasn’t even fully sure of what she was about to say. “I have to go,” he repeated. “Bye.”

He set the phone down and his heart was racing and he wished it would stop, because racing hearts meant something and this couldn’t. It was just a coincidence. You’re thinking of someone you haven’t seen in a while and then you run into them minutes later. It happened to people all the time.

Snake turned over on his side and draped his arm around his sleeping wife, bare skin on bare skin. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought that their nightly routine had worn her out. But she was just tired. His heart raced faster as remembered rising and falling above her, how he had looked down at her expressionless face and then beyond it—imagining someone else completely—as if he might see a dark fleck of skin below her right eyebrow, that tiny spark of hope hovering above bright and youthful eyes.