--Sour--

By KT the Shimmer Skank

Rating: R for harsh language, drug and alcohol references, violence, sexuality, and slightly controversial themes.

Dedication: This one is for Aubrey-doll, of course.

Author's Notes: This is set in AU season four, mainly because I wrote most of it before season four aired and didn't feel like changing the plot around to fit it. My projected length at this point is eight chapters, give or take. It was originally intended to be a one-shot songfic to the Stone Temple Pilots song, "Sour Girl," but the story sort of evolved into something else. Nonetheless, I still much give much love to STP, for their music has been muy influential in the writing of this fic. I do not own Degrassi or make a profit. I hope you enjoy, and reviews are always very much appreciated.

o o o o o o o o o

The sun is going down slow. I'm shaking just a little. Pinkyellow light sneaks through the cracked olive curtains and falls on top of her pale skin, illuminating her like some kind of porcelain whore. She lies across an altar of unclean sheets. I reach out and touch her, even though it feels wrong, and she's just as soft as always. I laugh in spite of myself. She always tries to act so fucking tough, but in reality she's nothing but fragile. So easily broken, so difficult to repair. Porcelain whore.

So I guess that makes all of this my fault. Eh. That's nothing new. I've been carrying the burden of everyone else's shit for as long as I can remember. Babysitting my drunken parents at twelve, moving out on my own at sixteen, taking in my little brother at twenty-one. Being fired from job after job, being fucked over by girl after girl. Something goes wrong, let's make it Tracker's fault. He's so fucking good at taking the blame. And I am. I think that, deep down, it really is all my fault somehow. I certainly don't do anything to make situations better, that's for sure. I just flow. That's all I can do. Take things as they come to me, balance the spinning plates as they stack higher, try to have a little fun and not fuck it up too badly.

I have never been a model citizen, but I've always been able to take care of myself and stay out of trouble. I'm a simple guy. I don't ask for much. Food, shelter, my motorcycle, cable television, and a good lay every once in awhile. When Sean moved in, I learned that a thirteen year old boy needs so much more than that. And it turned out I was the one who had to provide it for him. It was a dose of responsibility that pulled the ground out from under me. My essentials-only existence was thrown for a loop. Suddenly I had to think of someone else's needs before my own. He needed love, guidance, and reassurance; all the things I'd learned to live without. It was hard sometimes. He was so caught up in his junior high troubles, and it was hell for him, but it was hard for me to care at all. None of this crap will matter in a few years, kiddo, I wanted to tell him. I sometimes wished I could spare him all that pain by simply telling him not to try so fucking hard. It wasn't worth it. But no, I had to keep those thoughts to myself. I had to be the parent, not the disillusioned older brother. I had to say encouraging things and go to parent-teacher conferences and remind him to keep his nose clean. I had to pretend to give a fuck, and let Sean learn about life for himself.

Taking care of Sean brought new shades of reality to the way I looked at life. At times it made me wonder if one person could really save another, or if in the end we only had ourselves.

Inevitably, there came a time when I chose my own needs over Sean's. I had a dream babe and a dream job calling my name. I mean, was I supposed to give that up just for him? I was supposed to stay in this shithole just because Sean didn't want to leave behind his little girlfriend and his loser gangster pals? I mean, you'd think he'd want to come with me. He'd been going nowhere but down for several months then. Getting away from Degrassi would have been the best thing in the world for him, I thought. I had no idea why he wanted to stay behind. But he did. So I left him. I'm only human.

And alot of good THAT whole ordeal did me. When I returned to Toronto ten months later, it was without Wendy, without dignity, and with only six dollars and thirteen cents to my name. I pulled up on my motorcycle to the shithole house that looked the same as always. I walked through the door and tossed my keys onto the table as always. Sean was planted on the couch, staring absent-mindedly at the TV.

"Hey," he said, without looking at me. It was like I'd only run to the store for milk or something. Like he was just as apathetic to my presence as ever. Like everything was completely the same.

But nothing would be the same again.

"Hey, Sean, are there any--" She had walked into the living room, head to toe black, red hair in frizzy pigtails. She stopped and looked at me. "Oh. Hi. You must be Tracker."

"Yeah, I am," I said dully. I walked into the kitchen without looking at her. I opened the fridge to get a beer; then I remembered I hadn't lived there for ten months, Sean was only sixteen, and there was no beer in the house. I settled for iced tea instead. "So, what? We have a new roommate?" I asked Sean with a smart-ass smile as I poured my drink. The glasses were clean. The kitchen was neat. Sean MUST have had a girl living with him. That was the only explanation. No Cameron man could ever pick up after himself so well.

Sean sighed. He still didn't get up off the couch. Still wouldn't look at me. "This is my girlfriend Ellie. She crashes here sometimes."

Oh, really? I wanted to say. It made me uncomfortable how easily Sean had made this house HIS house. He was a big man now, wasn't he? Thought he could just have girls over whenever he felt like it. I felt it was my duty to put him in his place; remind him he was only sixteen years old, and there was no way he knew how to take care of himself. But then I remembered that I'd been in exactly the same situation at that age. In fact, I hadn't done nearly as well as him. He'd been living by himself in the same place for ten months without getting evicted. That was more than I could say for myself when I first starting living on my own. It had to be the girl, I decided. No way was Sean that responsible on his own. Hell, when I left him he was two steps away from going to juvie.

"I see." The ice in my drink clinked against the sides of the glass as I swivelled it around. "Are there any other random guests I need to prepare myself for? Are we running a motel now?" I tried to sound angry but it really wasn't working for me. It was hard to pretend that I gave a damn.

Sean was not fazed. "No. Just Ellie."

Ellie, the culprit, was still standing somewhat uncomfortably in between the kitchen and the living room. She tucked loose strands of red hair behind her multi-pierced ear and coughed. "It's... nice to finally meet you," she said.

I looked at her for a moment. So this was the type of girl Sean was dating now. She was certainly no Emma. She possessed virtually no color. If it weren't for those bright pink lips and flaming hair, she would have been completely black and white. She was extremely petite, almost too small to fit into her own persona.

I thought of the beat-up orange '87 Civic I'd seen parked on the sidewalk, covered in dust and colorful band stickers. "Is that your car out front?" I asked her.

She nodded. "Well, some of the time. It's kind of a piece of crap. Sean's trying to fix it for me."

I smiled mockingly at Sean. "Aw. What a great guy." I looked down at her chest. Not for any perverse reason, of course. Just because of what her black t-shirt said: Whores On Parade. I pointed. "Great band."

She seemed startled. She looked down, remembered her shirt, and laughed as though embarrassed. "Oh yeah. They really are. Sean and I saw them live a few weeks ago. It was awesome." I nodded vaguely and took a drink of my iced tea. She lingered for a moment before deciding the awkwardness was more than she could take. She went into the living room and sat down on the couch next to Sean.

Well. My homecoming had certainly been interesting. I had expected nothing less. "Well, you kids have fun. I've been driving for the past six hours, and I'm exhausted. I'm gonna go crash in your room, Sean." It had to be Sean's room, of course, because I'd had to leave my bed, as well as most of my possessions, back in Alberta.

I looked at the back of Sean's head, which seemed to be all he was willing to let me see. He gave me a vague grunt, which I took as a yes. As if I was going to listen if he said no. This was my house again, I'd do whatever I felt like doing. I peeled off my leather jacket as I walked out of the kitchen and tossed it carelessly to the ground. I took just one more look at my brother, who I hadn't seen for ten months. He still wasn't looking back at me. But she was. She looked right at me with chilled hazel eyes that I couldn't read. Slowly she turned back around, and she and Sean were both yet again oblivious to my presence.

Upon my return, I called a few friends and managed to land a job working the graveyard shift at the convenient store up the street. Not a glamorous livelihood, but a steady paycheck nonetheless. Sean lost his student welfare once I started working again, but he'd found his own job delivering groceries after school. As we fell into a routine, I began to realize how different life with Sean was now. He wasn't my little brother any more. He was my roommate. He chipped in on rent and groceries, and came and went as he pleased. We barely saw each other. I would just be coming home from work as Ellie was picking him up for school. I slept all day and woke up just as he was stopping by after school before going to his job. Sean was suddenly independent, and I suddenly had the leisure time and unburdened mind I'd been wanting ever since he first moved in.

Too bad I didn't have a damn thing to do with it.

Ellie was there all the time, too, which made it feel that much more like I was living in Sean's house and not my own. Sean finally got her car running, but that didn't make much difference, considering it was always parked in front of our house anyway. Sometimes she would be there even before Sean got home from work. Apparently he'd made her a key. I'd wander in, half-awake in my boxers, looking for Lucky Charms, and she'd like, be there. Watching TV or making a snack or doing homework at the kitchen table. She scared the shit out of me more than once.

One of the times she really threw me off was one morning when I came home from work. It was the first time she'd stayed the night since I'd been there. She'd started a pot of coffee, and she was sitting there in her gray pajamas with a bowl of oatmeal. Her school bag was sitting on the table next to her.

"Jesus fuck," I breathed as I tossed my keys onto the table. I jumped, and then she jumped. It took us a moment to catch our breath.

"Sorry," she said in her usual softspoken voice. "Didn't mean to scare you."

"No," I said tiredly as I stepped into the kitchen. "No, it's cool." I got a glass from the cabinet and turned on the faucet. She continued eating her breakfast completely casually. I sat down on the opposite side of the table.

"So what's the story, kid?" I pulled a cigarette out from my pocket and brought it to my lips. "Do your parents even know you're here?"

Ellie smiled, but it was sarcastic. A sad smile. "My mother is more than likely way too slammed to notice I'm gone."

I nodded, though I wasn't looking at her. I was too busy fishing through my jacket pockets for a lighter. "Yeah, I've been there. But I'm sure Sean's told you all about that." I looked up and saw that she was holding out a red plastic lighter for me. I took it somewhat curiously and lit my cigarette. "You smoke?" I asked, handing it back to her.

She nestled the lighter into one of the small side pockets of her bag. "No." She tugged down the long sleeves of her shirt uncomfortably. Early morning quiet filled the room. I puffed slowly.

"So what about your old man, then? He cool?"

She exhaled slowly and started stirring her spoon idly through her oatmeal. "My dad was killed a few months ago in a suicide bombing in Gaza."

I flicked ashes into the amber-colored ashtray in the center of the table. "I'm sorry."

She nodded. She stared right into her bowl but it didn't look like she was going to eat anything else. She let go of her spoon. She tapped her feet as though listening to music and tugged habitually at her sleeves. Maybe she wanted me to say something. I didn't have anything else to say, though. When it came to death, I was lousy at condolences.

"I should go wake up Sean now," she said, rubbing her tired eyes. She picked up the oatmeal and tossed it into the sink. Then she turned around, leaned against the counter, and stared at me for a moment. She opened her mouth to say something, then just closed it and laughed softly.

"What?" I said. I took another drag of my cigarette.

"Nothing. It's nothing. I'm just tired." She left the room.

I finished my cigarette and went to bed.

Ellie and Sean were always going out on the weekends to see some band or another. It didn't take long for me to realize that not only did they basically have full control over the house now, they also had an astoundingly better social life than me. I tried hanging out with some of my old friends, but it didn't feel the same. Actually, it was exactly the same. That was the problem. The same scenes, the same bands, the same girls. I was fucking bored of Toronto. But hey, where else would I go? Every time I tried leaving I just wound up back here again, and in even worse shape. I was twenty-four years old, and I had yet to break the cycle. It was starting to get pathetic.

"Dude, Heroinface is playing at Red Lounge tonight," my buddy Clint was telling me. It was two in the morning, the store was dead, and we were stuck behind the counter in our orange shirts and blue name tags. "I can't believe I'm stuck working."

I rolled my eyes and laughed. "Yeah, well, Heroinface is a bunch of pretentious Nirvana wannabes and they suck major ass. You're not missing anything. This might actually do you good. A night away from shitty music might like, clear the stupid out of your listening tastes."

"Ha. Ha. Fuck you."

The bell on the entrance door rang. Combat boots attached to purple-fishnet-clad legs sauntered into the store. With one glance at those legs I knew it was Ellie, but once I traced her body to the upper half, I was completely thrown. The guy groping her and sucking on her neck definitely wasn't Sean. I had to blink a few times, and grasp the disparity of the scene playing out before me. My little brother's girlfriend was standing only a few feet away from me, blatantly cheating on him. I watched the blonde yuppie guy make goofball comments as his hands roamed all over her safety-pinned and black-laced body. Ellie giggled. She giggled, for Christ's sake. It was baffling. If it wasn't right in front of me, I never would have believed that was her. She was like a completely different person.

It was when she and her guy came up to the counter to check out that she finally noticed me. Suddenly I was right there in front of her and her whole little game was shattered. That's when I saw the Ellie I knew. Her skin was suddenly pale as snow, paler than usual. I smiled jokingly at her with my eyebrows raised. She stared at her feet, her face blank, while the dude, who was completely oblivious, paid for their stuff. She made a quick exit without looking at me. I think she was holding her breath. I stared at the door long after she was gone, still unsure of what I'd just seen.

"Holy fuck," said Clint, licking his lips. "I would totally tap that."

"Dude," I said, shaking my head. "That's my little brother's girlfriend. She's like, sixteen, fuckface."

Clint raised his eyebrows. "Seriously? Ouch."

"Yeah..." I mumbled vaguely, nodding. I already thought of Sean's girl as something of a freakface, but I'd never thought of her as the type to play those kind of games. She was quiet, no doubt, but the idea of her having secrets like that had never occured to me. I didn't know what to think. How much else was she hiding? Her complications seemed to grow every time I saw her.