Atomic Bomb
Summary: Our monsters are made through fights with monsters, even if trapped behind the patina of egotism where we are left unaware. Real wars never end. [Eric and Kyle centric. ): ]
AN: . . . I find this relationship terribly interesting from Eric's side.
Does that make me a bad person? D8 (Er, I suppose that's said half-jokingly?) Ahem, that aside, all the following characters belong to their respective owners. (On an unrelated note, this was partially inspired by the song She's the Blade, although the lyrics are only loosely fitting.)
He sparked with instability and lost fire, the chemical kind attributed to nuclear power; the source was internal-- whispering and volatile beneath the pressure of self-control, and prone to implosions that either vaporized the enemy or left them in the grasps of decades of torture and radiation. He was a weapon in and of itself, down to the notion that he wasn't actually aware of it.
Atomic bombs were an awesome thought as far as Eric was concerned, but the fact this was Kyle left the comparison seemingly barren and awkward. Cartman had been sensibly stunned-- all that, frankly, projected authority, and he had the look of a pampered faggy Jew-boy, who, when not regulating public behavior and proper moral rationale, stuck his large nose into other's business just as quickly as anyone. (Particularly his, which added to their mutual hate all the more.)
It was kindergarten and Kyle that introduced him to the indifference of society; when he was left frustrated, he didn't forgive like his mother made efforts to do-- he got up and left. Paid no attention, nothing-- simply went on without Eric, as though he wasn't important. Kyle Broflovski, the bitch, had blown him off as if he was plebeian, and that was something he had never known before that, and it left his brain buzzing with new energy. The remnant was an electric charge he couldn't characterize, but it suddenly made him want to win; to demonstrate, and everyone else was simply fustian before this feeling of threat and presence. (What he hadn't counted on was the loneliness wrought from removing yourself from everything, and the hatred forged through isolation.)
The next thing he remembered was the first real fight they'd gotten in to. Standing there amid the snowy green of the churchyard, he learned that Kyle didn't just hit like normal people-- he freakin' beat the shit out of you, and bit and clawed until he was rendered inert regardless of odds or body mass. Having been little more than a thrashing pile of six-year-old limbs and nasally snarls, he was pried away by a wide-eyed father who didn't know whether to scold or congratulate him on his success. (Furthermore, punishment didn't always mean the beating was over. It sometimes resumed provided Kyle had a stick up his ass or sand in his vagina the following morning, evening, whatever. He was the type who started his own battles and had a mind to finish them in the same way.) Eric, having no concrete idea what Jews did or being one meant, only understood that he'd beautifully managed the detonator. All he needed was the necessary catalyst-- a slur from the history channel or an action-- to capture his distanced attention, and then he had all the control he wanted. (He later realized that this approach worked not solely on Kyle, but also most people, which was what he considered encouragement from god to use it appropriately.)
He reminded him of bombs in another way, too: his argument was "do the right thing or I'll fucking kill you". It seemed relevant in the figurative sense, but Cartman enjoyed all the prowess offered in that red button nameless men declared 'off-limits'. He was drunken on their competitive, dangerous coexistence, and enthralled by the thought of laying claim to sovereignty and everything that Eric Cartman felt he was to the world and that utterly unrestrained Kyle Broflovski was to Eric Cartman.
It was a higher kind of power, brought on from the individual, which permeated beyond the normal. What Kyle ended up being was what Eric had no talent for, and that fed to the hunger for victory-- because he saw that he was naturally brilliant, methodical, precise, darkly erratic, and scientific, Eric's blooming ego was compromised, and bent at odd, fragile angles. He had an unsatisfied thirst for superiority, and, as he watched government addresses and the power and attention given to military men, he began to wonder-- but, when he saw the swastika, he began to consider.
When he heard that the Jews were the oppressors, he felt something inside him begin to know. The implosion and the aftershock of nuclear power-- he thinks that Kyle has so much at his disposal because he merely is, and thus he wants him as property because that's what he should be rather than staying as "freedom" and a paradox. Men are born to regulate the use of bombs.
He is powerful, albeit less than human and more than liberated, and that leaves Eric sick.
AN: Ick. D: What in the hell was that. (. . .) Er, these don't reflect my views. At all. (Eric's gross. D8 ) This plot was originally planned to flesh out further, but I'm just pitifully lazy. (Oh well.) Read and review?