AU, I guess, but I'd like to believe it's real. This started out as a domestic fic one shot and somewhere along the line it turned into this. In short: Craig and Ellie's relationship after moving in together, as seen through varying perspectives.

Reviews are appreciated, but I'm not demanding anything. As always, I do not own Degrassi. If I did, Crellie would have been endgame, no doubts about it (though if I'm being honest they totally end up together in my heart). I have most of this written already, so updates should be fairly regular! Lyrics by The XX.

Hope you enjoy!

Angels

"And everyday
I'm learning about you
The things that no one else sees
And the end comes too soon
Like dreaming of angels"

They initially moved in together under the mutual agreement of being 'just friends.' Nothing more. Absolutely nothing more.

She had just moved to the city after landing a job writing for a small local news station, happy to trade in the gloomy and harsh Canadian winter for the California sun; he had already been living there for years, doing his whole rock star thing, and had just moved into a slightly bigger apartment. In a city as lonely as Los Angeles, it was nice to have a friend, and though their last encounter ended with a few hazy kisses in an airport terminal, they were determined to start fresh. It was a brand new day, so to speak, and there was no need to complicate their new lives.

Given their history, the arrangement shouldn't have worked out. At least not for as long as it did, anyway. They managed to keep their relationship neutral, so much that they were able to further mend their old fragile bond and even maintain separate romantic relationships.

This isn't to say there wasn't tension, though; there was more than enough of the awkward to go around. There was the prick of a law student Ellie dated for a few months who never seemed to have anywhere else to be. His clinginess drove Craig insane, to the point where he vocalized his annoyance and got the cold shoulder from Ellie for about two weeks until she dumped the guy for the same reason. There were the multiple incidents where Craig, still being unaccustomed to sharing his living quarters, had forgotten to knock before opening the bathroom door while she'd been showering or changing before they finally bought a lock for the door. The occasional neglect to inform one another that they would have a particular kind of company over. The eating of each other's food. Things that come with the turf of having a roommate.

But then there were nights where neither of them could sleep. They would stay in the living room, sprawled out on the floor as they listened scratchy music on an old record player Craig had salvaged from a pile of junk in a yard sale while visiting a friend in San Fernando Valley. They would talk about life and music and film, but mostly they were quiet and for the moment, it would feel as if nothing had changed. They were 16 again, hiding out in Joey's old garage, listening to his old record collection and trading secrets to pass the time, both of them not knowing how much they would come to want all that time back. They were still growing – still learning, about life and each other.

And maybe they were; maybe nothing really had changed at all, but just evolved and grew as they did.

It was nights like those that caused the most tension of all because the next morning they'd return to their new lives, and follow their newly revised Guidelines for "Just Friends" and go on pretending that their past was just that: passed. And aside from the slowly-resurfacing feelings they both did their best to ignore, it all worked out fine.

And then some nights change everything.