See Through
A south park fanfic
By: CloneofJoan
Starring: Eric Cartman and Wendy Testaburger.
This is and isn't a love story.
Cartman likes to think that he doesn't think of her.
He does, all the time, even she knows - he knows she knows - and it horrifys him, to feel so unbelivably translucent under her gaze. He knows Wendy can see right through him, she picks apart all his clever schemes and layers of carefully layed out facade until they are reduced to something as solid as smoke.
He thinks of her the most when it rains, when he can feel the drops splattering against the windows in torrents he thinks about her. Her wild hair flying out behind her, her eyes narrowed, screaming at him. She was stronger than he'd ever be, she didn't need to carefully glove her emptions, and he envied her for that courage. She was emotion, raw and wild and powerful, real; like he wasn't.
He remembers, at night, when he's lonely and trying to drown out the sounds of his mother with yet another man. When all his faux attitude and grumpy disposition add up to nothing and he feels like a little kid again. He remembers the way it felt to lie next to her, to feel her hair brush against his skin.
He needed her in all the ways that she didn't ever need him, it was simple. He had wanted her, waiting, spun a complex web of schemes around her to trap her, to make her his - and in the end it was all for naught. When he stumbled into her bedroom that night, rain spattering behind the lavander curtains on her windows, he thought he had won, he thought he had made her bend to his will when all along - she had outsmarted him. She had avoided his tricks and traps, seen through his every lie, and instead of falling into his trap, she walked into it. Willingly. She was giving this to him, and he felt a sting that was worse than his lonliness. He felt the sting of her pity.
He remembered how, he was wet from the rain, leaving his car in the driveway, he had trudged through the slush on the road, rain peltng his face to arrive at her door and surrender.
He remembered how she looked at him when she saw him that night, when not even a sliver of the moon could bare to look at him. Him and all his weakness bared for her, only her. Always.
Her gaze reduced him to a grain of sand. She almost rolled her eyes at him, and behind those violet lenses, he saw the briefest streak of : 'I feel sorry for you.' and it infuriated him.
He remembers trying to gain the upper hand, pulling the door closed behind him with some scathing remark which she didn't return. Seeing her walk down the hall and up the stairs, knowing he should follow, knowing she was thinking something like 'Let's just get this over with.'
She seemed tired when he pulled off his shirt and layed down next to her, nearly pullng the tiny blanket off her as he crawled under it and lifted it to cover his bulk.
He thinks she only said two words to him that night: "You're cold."
He was cold and wet, his feet were basically popsicles, and when they brushed against hers it broke his heart a hundred times to feel her flinch away.
Cartman remember being nervous, and his hair was soaking wet from rain and little gobules of water kept creeping down his forehead. He remembers kissing her, like he had thought about a thousand-million times, only to feel as if she was completley uninterested.
He remebers wrenching himself away from her, and feeling like he was pulling himself apart, ripping sinew and muscle, and breaking bone.
"Maybe we should stop."
She shook her head, no. And took a deep breath, steeling herself. He wondered how it must feel for her to touch him - repulsive, probably - as her hands rested on his shoulders, her eyes looking just slightly away from his, to avoid complete and whole contact.
He remebers how it felt to push inside of her, like a thousand bolts of lightning were running through his body all at once. Like all his dreams were coming true and he was breaking through that glass ceiling that held him down and every little piece of himself was going into being connected with her, if only for a moment.
'Just this one time. And then we won't speak of it again' : Was the unspoken promise between them both as he rocked between her thighs. He needed to record every little detail in his mind. The feeling of her skin against his, the way his stubble grazed the side of her cheek, how she was wearing too much mascara and had a tiny mole on her inner thigh.
He buried his head into her shoulder and grunted as he came, inhaling the intoxicating scent of her hair. Even her scent was dizzying, making him feeling like he was falling down a thousand rabbit holes at once.
Later, Cartman could hear the rain falling thickly from the eaves as she rolled onto her side, turning her back to him. He pushed himself forward so he was resting against her, placing his head into the crook of her neck and folding his arm around her.
He knew he was transparent to her, that she could see his carefully hidden desire from the very beginning, and he knew that he would never be able to be with her like this ever again.
He placed a single kiss on her shoulder, and whispered the words that gave him to her, once and for all.
Cartman remebered the few agonizing moments after, hoping for her to say something, anything at all after his confession. He knew she was awake, knew by the way she tensed her shoulders after he said it and in the fact that feigning sleep was in her nature. He never expected her to say it back, really, he just needed to have it said.
All through the night, even before he went to sleep, Cartman thought about her and tried to memorize everything about the past few hours. But the thing he remembered most was the sounds of her slow, even breathing and the never ending rain that fell all around them.
A/N: Okay, fairly depressing, but I wanted to write a piece that explored Cartman's character, one who puts on a false front to hide all his pains and wants. I've been listening to a lot of The Mountain Goats lately ("No children" and "love,love,love" especially) , and this may have contributed to the overall mood of the fic. I recommend that everyone checks the songs out.
I currently have 8 more fics in the works, so who knows, perhaps I'll be posting another (hopefully longer) one soon. I urge all those who read this fic to check out my other fics, as I am always looking for comments and good critique.
As per usual, reviews would be lovely.