Chamberlain, Maine. A shitty name for a shitty town.

Gary Barkovitch wasn't exactly sure why the hell he had to be here – sure he'd have a few weeks of peace before the people here realized that he was the most annoying prick they'd ever met and would start hating him, but he didn't know where anything was here, it was too goddam small, and he missed D.C.

Wow. Chalk that up on the list of 'sentences Gary Barkovitch never thought he would think.'

It wasn't that living in Washington, D.C., had been a pleasant time for Barkovitch. It hadn't. He'd hated it. But somehow, he hated this place more. It was just… creepy. In a weird way.

But he'd have to go to school tomorrow in the new tiny high school with new stupid classmates who would probably hate him right off the bat.

It wasn't until the middle of the day that he heard a muttered 'freak.' He tensed up, then realized that they were talking about the girl who was walking in front of him who apparently did not own a hairbrush. She hugged her books to her chest tighter and walked faster. Barkovitch didn't particularly care. They had someone else to focus on. Really, that was motherfucking great. He wouldn't automatically have a big red target painted on his back.

That had actually literally happened once.

It hadn't been fun.

By lunchtime, though, Barkovitch felt too nervous to eat anything, so he decided to maybe wander around a little, learn where everything was.

It was then that he ran into freak-that-doesn't-own-a-hairbrush. "Watch it," he snapped, as though she'd run into him. Her books were all over the floor.

Usually, when this happened, they didn't just nod and pick up their books, hair covering their face.

What the hell was going on.

"Hey!" Barkovitch said. "Don't just take it for Chrissake. Yell at me! Call your boyfriend to come beat me up! Do something, damn it!"

"I don't have one." Her voice was barely audible, which added to the fact that Barkovitch had no idea what the hell she was talking about.

"What?"

"A boyfriend."

Barkovitch laughed. "Yeah. Of course not. Christ, I shoulda known that. Why would freak that doesn't own a hairbrush have a boyfriend? Almost as stupid as thinking I'd have a girlfriend. Christ, I'm an idiot." He realized that he was rambling and left the girl to her books, muttering under his breath as he was often prone to do.

To be honest, he didn't usually know what he was muttering about under his breath, but if he actually stopped and listened to himself it sounded threatening enough so he kept it up.

On his way home, he noticed freak that doesn't own a hairbrush a few blocks behind him. He slowed, waiting until they were walking beside each other. He cleared his throat. She looked up at him through her hair – in addition to a hairbrush, she really needed a haircut, Jesus Christ. She really wasn't all that pretty, especially if you compared her to two of the more popular girls. Barkovitch didn't know their names – Chris Something-or-other? She was something nice to look at, and so was her friend… Sue. Sue Snell was the friend.

Yeah, both of them were nice-looking.

"You live over here, too?" he asked, feeling more awkward by the second. She gave him the tiniest of nods, and he sighed. Christ. What a freak.

Eventually, she turned to go into a house. It looked almost abandoned. "Christ, you live here!" he blurted out before he could help himself. "I thought it was fucking… abandoned or something! Jesus Christ."

A woman who was most definitely this freak's mother poked her head out the door. "Carrie!" she said, and Carrie hurried up, not looking back at Barkovitch once. "Stay away from my daughter!" the woman shouted.

"Buy your daughter a hairbrush!" Barkovitch yelled back.

…

The next few weeks passed uneventfully. Carrie No-hairbrush – except it looked like she had been trying to keep her hair under control lately – Abandoned-house always managed to get way far ahead of him before he left the school so he could never interrogate her about her psycho mother.

And then Barkovitch fucked things up for the first time in Chamberlain.

He'd tripped over someone's foot. He didn't know if they'd meant to trip him or if it had been pure accident, but how it went, Barkovitch fell, jumped up, indignant, and yelled at them to watch where they put their feet.

Those few words turned the entire school's attitude on him in a few short periods. Soon it was back to what he was used to – the muttered insults in the hallways, the not-so-accidental trips, the shoving into walls. He retaliated as much as he could. Problem was, even in a school this small, there was only so much five-foot-six-and-three-quarters Gary Barkovitch could do.

He ended up hiding out in the library during lunch hour after one extremely irritating morning. Unsurprisingly, Carrie No-hairbrush Abandoned-house was there. Reading up on telekinesis or some shit. Barkovitch sat down across from her. "Why're you reading about that for?" he asked. She glanced at him, darkened, and muttered something about a project. "Christ, maybe the reason people don't like you is because they can't fucking hear you. Speak up."

"It's for a… a project," she said. Barely audible, but still audible. Barkovitch leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the table. Christ, he was bored. Being with Carrie No-hairbrush Abandoned-house was better than being with no-one, but it was still boring as hell. Especially since being with this one was probably only going to brighten the target on his back. Hey, you already think he's a freak, why not cement it by the fact that he hangs around this chick!

Barkovitch tipped back too far in his chair and fell.

Right before his head hit the ground, something stopped him. He looked around, and his head was literally floating above the ground.

Then it broke and he fell. He sat up. "What the- holy fucking- you just-" he stared at her, and she darkened, burying her face in one of her telekinesis books.

…

Now it wasn't her avoided him, it was him avoiding her. She really was a freak. He was unlikeable, but she was full-on… weird. She could- she had goddam telekinesis, for Chrissake!

He ran into her at the grocery store while picking up some eggs for his mom, who insisted that he 'get out of the house and stop muttering about freak girls with telekinesis.' He was ready to just turn around and pretend that he didn't see her, but apparently she wasn't having that, because she grabbed onto his sleeve.

"What," he said flatly. "do you want?"

"I was thinking…" she turned a shade darker and started at her feet. He wondered if he could maybe make a break for it. "I mean, neither of us really have any friends, and I was wondering if we could maybe… be friends?"

Barkovitch swallowed and, before he could get out of there, his tongue betrayed him. "Uh. Yeah. Sure. Bye."

This is one of my new favorite crossover pairings. Because neither of them have any friends.