The Thin Line Between Love and Loathing
A one-shot fic by RottenOne
Summary: She wants nothing to do with any of them. Until she needs them.
Disclaimer: Don't own. Shut up.
It's amazing how much the group annoyed her. She could be sitting in class at school and all of a suddenly, hear one of their voices, and a feeling of anger would bubble up. They didn't even really have to say anything particularly stupid. They just had to speak and Erin found herself flooded with anger.
They always sat in the left hand corner, in the back, near the windows. Erin always sat in the front right hand corner, specifically to avoid seeing any of those fucking dopes who thought they were so cool. They thought they were better than her - they thought they were better than everyone else. They found Ray. They found "the body." They were special. Oh, wow, how special - you managed to overhear a conversation, run down the railroad tracks for a day and a half, and find a dead body. In the mean time, however, they managed to get leeches all over their bodies, almost get hit by a train, and were too stupid to remember food.
Wow, Erin thought, that's sure is something to brag about.
It didn't help that Erin's twin sister was in love with Chris. It was one of those mournful crushes, where she would swivel around in her seat just to stare longingly at Chris' face. Megan always had been hopeless. Megan always had been the "romantic" one - the one with hope.
Erin chose to ignore that portion of her sister's life - that obsession with Chris Chambers. Erin decided instead of focus on what Megan did right in her life. Megan, however, found it increasingly strange of how irritated Erin became when those four boys were in any of their classes and how much she hated hearing Megan talk about Chris.
Chris this and Chris that - anyone would get annoyed with hearing their identical twin talk like that for several hours at a time. Erin found it easier to just block out the noise of her sister's voice and if Megan asked for an opinion, Erin told her the truth, "I don't give a shit, Megan, how about that one?"
Megan got the sneaking suspicion that maybe Erin liked Chris too.
But no, Erin didn't. She had been at school with Chris for as long as she could remember. And she hated him. She hated the entire group. They were annoying, wannabes, and too smart for their own good. They thought they were so fucking clever, but really, they had nothing better to do that sit in a goddamned tree house for several hours a day and do what? Play poker. Please. There were better things to do. She hated Chris. She possibly hated Chris the most. He was dirty; he would grow up to be nothing, despite her arguments that he would be something, someday. Erin laughed at that - laughed whenever Megan mentioned it.
Chris would turn out just like every other male from the Chambers family. And it was funny that people somehow got it in their head that it would be any different. Yeah, maybe Chris was smarter and he had that little dork Gordie that helped him through every hard part of school, but Gordie couldn't be there for him through college, through life.
Erin blinked three times and stared out over the fields of wheat. The sun was setting in late May, a time in Oregon when it was getting warm, but not really warm enough to do anything fun. She hated Oregon and wished she lived somewhere else, without an annoying group of town heroes strutting around like buffoons. She wishes the Cobras would just stab all of them to death and just get it over with.
A knock on the doorframe drew her attention to her mother.
"Erin, there's some boys downstairs saying they need to talk to you."
There was no sense of worry on her mother's face.
"What do you guys want?"
Erin stood face to face with boys she hated. They didn't know she hated them. She was civil in everyday life - a little cold, but civil.
"It's your sister - we didn't want to tell your mom - "
"What?"
As much as Erin hated them - hated Vern, hated Gordie, hated Teddy, and despised Chris - she loved her sister. Her sister was half of her heart.
"She - um, she asked Chris something and then she went running into the woods," Gordie spat out. "We think she needs your help."
Erin pushed through them yelling. "You assholes!" She ran as fast as she could down the street, unconscious of where she was going, what she was going to do, and unwilling to acknowledge that it's quite possible that nothing was wrong at all.
She found herself running into the woods at the edge of the field and heard more yelling. She looked behind her. Those four idiots were trailing behind, not running nearly as quickly as they should have been. What had Megan asked Chris? And what had he said? If he said anything to jeopardize Megan... Erin would kill him. Kill him.
Erin took off again; she heard yelling from the middle of the woods.
"Megan?"
"Erin! Erin!!"
Erin sprinted into a clearing, where she came to a dead stop. She stared at the center of the clearing, where Megan was being held with her arms behind her back. And there was Eyeball.
Although she didn't harbor quite as much hatred for him as much as she did the four average Joe superheroes, she hated Eyeball enough to want to rip his balls clean off. But she knew that at that moment, she knew that wasn't an option.
"You have a twin? Why didn't you tell me?" Eyeball laughed. He was crazy. He'd gone crazy ever since the whole thing with Ray. Something in him snapped when he saw that dead body - maybe it was some deep seeded memory that he blocked off as a child, but something about that dead body made him go crazy.
He had taken to roaming the woods. He was extremely dirty and he was holding Megan very uncomfortably.
"Get off my sister," Erin said. She went the nice route. She didn't want to fight anybody. Then, someone bumped into her from behind. She turned her head to see Gordie. The four buffoons were standing behind her. "Good job," she mumbled.
"Sorry," Gordie replied.
"I don't think you get it," Eyeball muttered. "This girl is in my forest. You are in my forest. You are, therefore, mine now."
"Shut up. You don't own these woods," Erin said. She thought he was kidding. How could he be serious?
Well, he was crazy.
"Yes, yes, I do," Eyeball said.
Then he did this motion with his arms. Holding Megan's he made a scissor motion, almost like he was flexing his muscle, but the way he twisted Megan's arms - Erin heard a snap. She screamed. Megan screamed. Eyeball let go of her and Megan fell to the ground, gasping and shouting. Both of her arms were at strange angles next to her body.
"You broke her fucking arms!"
The twin bond stepped in. Erin was crazy with anger. Something inside of her snapped. She ran forward, bashing her body into Eyeball's. He was knocked off balance, and stumbled. The four idiots stood behind her, stunned, or maybe just unsure of what to do. Erin wrapped her hands around Eyeball's throat before he could react. She was screaming with rage. Megan was still screaming, in chronic pain.
Then Erin felt the rushing. All the boys - all four of them - pounced at once, tackling Eyeball to the ground. It was a rolling ball of kicking, hitting, and choking - all of them focused on Eyeball.
Then, there was a sudden stillness. Eyeball made a gasping noise and gargled, passing out from Erin trying to choke him.
"Did - did you kill him?" Gordie asked, his voice cracking almost painfully. Erin, for once, did not feel irritated by his voice.
"No, he just passed out," Chris said. His voice came from near Erin's right ear. "We... we need to get Megan to the hospital. Quick."
The doctors had rushed Megan into a room and shut the door. Erin stood outside, waiting for her parents to show up, and the four people she always saw as useless and pointless stood against the wall farthest from her. She turned to them.
"I guess, I should thank you guys," she whispered. "I dunno... what would have happened had -"
She didn't know what else to say. It all seemed so pointless. Megan had passed out by the time they got to the hospital. Erin had thought she was dead. But people don't die from broken arms, Erin kept telling herself.
"No, it's fine," Chris said. "You wanna go outside? Get some fresh air?"
Erin wanted nothing to do with any of them, especially Chris, but she did need to calm down. Something inside of her was telling her she needed to find out what Megan had asked Chris.
Outside the small hospital in Castle Rock, Oregon, the air was still, dark, and dead. Erin stood silently against the concrete wall, Chris stood about a foot away, looking up at the sky.
"Your sister... she asked me if I liked you," Chris said, suddenly, almost as if he was announcing it to himself. "I said -"
"Don't tell me you said yes, because I will be so angry at you," Erin snapped. Chris looked back at her. Erin looked at his face. His features were just visible in the fuzzy, blinking light of the hospital. "Please don't tell me you said yes." She closed her eyes, hoping that it wasn't coming.
"I said yes."
"Oh, fuck me," Erin shouted. "You son of a bitch, Jesus - "
"Well, she said you liked me too," Chris said, his voice shaking. He was staring at Erin's face hopefully, waiting it would turn back to his.
Erin's eyes flew open. "You dipshit, she likes you. I can't fucking stand you. Every time I see I get angry. Something about you makes me want to break your -"
And she stopped then, because Chris was laughing. He was laughing. Erin realized she was smiling. She was smiling.
"You are such a bad liar."
"I am not lying." Erin could feel the anger subsiding though.
"Whatever you say."
"Fuck you."
"Sure."
They were quiet then for a few minutes. Erin thought about it. She always hated Chris - he had such an attitude, that he was better, cooler, smarter than everybody else.
"I don't like you," Erin whispered. And she was only sort of lying.
"Sure you don't," Chris laughed. "You just deny it because Megan does."
"Do not."
"Do too. You just say that because you feel bad."
"Shut up! We're twins. We stand up for each other."
Chris laughed then. Erin found herself smiling.
She did.
She did like him. She hated certain things about him - she hated his family, she hated his clothes, she hated the stupid stories he told - but she found herself thinking of all the things she liked - she liked his jokes he told in class (even though she held back her smiles), she liked how his eyes crinkled at the edges when he smiled, she liked how he stood up for people.
"Megan ran into the woods because of you."
"No, she ran into the woods because she wanted to," Chris replied.
Erin stared at him. That was true too. Megan was just trying to do what she thought was right and what was right was - what was right was to ask him what he felt, and what he felt was not what Megan wanted him to feel.
"Whatever."
"So do you like me?" Chris asked.
"I don't know. Maybe I do."
Chris smiled then.
"I'm still trying to decide if you're the good twin or the evil one."
"Would the evil one strangle Eyeball?"
"...Yes?"
And Erin laughed.
School the next week seemed confusing and strange. Both of Megan's arms were plastered and the twins - the O'Driscoll twins - were the talk of the town. Especially Erin - because she strangled Eyeball until he passed out, which seemed to be a feat. So now Erin was what she had always disliked about the four boys - she was the average joe superhero.
But something changed. When Gordie raised his hand in English class, she didn't find his voice so annoying. When Teddy insisted that he get his frog first in biology, Erin really didn't care. When Vern accidentally dropped his orange juice on her table in the cafeteria, Erin didn't scream at him (like usual.) And when Chris told a stupid joke in government, Erin let herself smile.