AN: Quickie update! Not much to say about this, but I should have another 'Deleted Scene' chapter coming up about what's going on in the meantime all of this. Stay tuned! And Googleeyes, you provided some inspiration for this little scene, because there's nothing better than a misunderstanding to liven things up!
Wasn't it good? Wasn't he fine?
Isn't it madness, he won't be mine.
But in the end, he needs a little bit more than me.
More security - he needs his fantasy and freedom.
I know him so well.
It took time to understand him
I know him so well.
-Chess
As Erik and Ahmed jammed towels under the crack in the door and prepared to fill the bathroom with smoke, Christine passed on the pizza and made her way back to the room she was sharing with the other girls. The past twenty minutes had completely destroyed her appetite and she really wasn't comfortable with the idea of making merry with the others while Ahmed tried to talk Erik out of the bathroom. Maybe she should have stayed, but the others were perfectly satisfied to eat pizza in the hallway and barely registered her leaving. The fact was, if they had moaned and groaned and begged her to stay behind, she would have, but they just shrugged, said goodnight and dug into the pepperoni. That stung a bit and left her feeling slightly hurt on top of everything else she was going through that night.
It wasn't that she was super vain and thought everyone at Memorial just loved her, it just struck her sometimes, at moments like this, how much of an outsider she was in her group of friends. Erik had kind of been her in, he was the one who usually called and invited her to things, he was the one she talked to the most outside of the group (as her roommates, Meg and Sorelli didn't count) and it looked like she had royally screwed everything up there. It occurred to her to run back to the room, pound on the bathroom door until Erik came out and she could apologize to him – but apologize to him for what? 'Sorry I acted like a total spaz, but I thought you lost your nose in a fight?' That would surely go over well.
He shouldn't even have been fighting in the first place! Really, this was all Erik's fault. For all the fun she'd had since she enrolled at school, Erik had also been responsible for some of the most heart-poundingly horrible moments of her life this year and not all of them could be laughed off with a shrug and a shake of the head. He was incredibly reckless and yeah, maybe he had some issues and couldn't help it some of the time, but that still wasn't an excuse for every stupid thing he did. He was eighteen year's old, for crying out loud! He could have gotten seriously hurt in that fight or seriously hurt someone else or the cops could have come and the whole school could have been blacklisted from the competition.
It was in this foul mood that Christine made the meandering walk to her hotel room – only to realize that she'd left her key card with Meg. Closing her eyes and kicking the door in frustration (which hurt her toe far more than it hurt the door), she started to make her way back to the boys' room to ask for the card back – but stopped when she saw Raoul walking towards her from the other end of the hallway.
"Hey," he said pleasantly, smiling at her since he was not a mindreader and did not know that Christine wasn't in a smiling mood. "Where's everybody else?"
"Upstairs," Christine said shortly. Then, realizing that Raoul wasn't the one causing problems and wasn't the one she should be irritated with, elaborated, "They're in your room – or, outside your room, actually. Erik's...kind of having a moment."
"Oh, Raoul said awkwardly, leaning up against the wall and running his hands through his hair. "Um. Why?"
Rolling her eyes and throwing her hands up Christine sighed. "He's Erik. Whatever. I don't really want to talk about it." Because as much as she wanted to unburden her guilt and anger on a friendly soul, Raoul really didn't need to hear the whole story and he probably didn't want to anyway. "What happened to the rest of the Scooby Gang?"
"They wanted to go swimming, we split up to look for people...well, okay, that's not true," he admitted, turning a little pink in his cheeks. "I offered to split up since I kind of wanted to get away from them – not that I don't like everybody, I do, it's just it's a little...much. You know?"
"Oh God, yeah," Christine sighed, sinking to the floor with her back up against the door. "They're just...sometimes, it's like they're speaking in inside jokes and I'm never in on any of them. I don't think they mean to do it, or they're actively trying to be mean and exclude me...it's just awkward."
"Tell me about it," Raoul agreed, joining her on the floor. "It's great that they've got this bond, but sometimes I just feel like, hi, I'm here too, can I join the conversation?" He grinned, flashing perfectly even white teeth, "I even laugh along sometimes, when they joke about things I wasn't there for and I always wonder if they think I'm being a poser or something, which is stupid because, aren't they being rude for making jokes that not everyone will understand in the first place?"
"Yeah," Christine nodded, though she didn't think it was rude exactly, just inconsiderate. Rude implied an intent to cause insult and it wasn't like anyone meant to be insulting...90% of the time, anyway. It felt really good to have a conversation with someone who was just as outside of all of this nonsense as she was and Raoul was suddenly looking like a really good confidante. "I just...God, it can be so frustrating sometimes. I mean, we're not in high school anymore and sometimes it feels like they're this weird clique."
Raoul nodded, scooting a little closer to Christine as he did so. "Yeah, and it really sucks for me sometimes because I don't think Erik really likes me all that much and he's just, like, their freaking leader or something. Have you noticed that everyone just...sorta goes along with what he wants? I mean, he's talented, but he's...uh. You know."
"Oh, believe me, I know. He's...so frustrating sometimes. Like...like, he acts like a jerk, like a huge jerk and he doesn't trust you with things and I guess that's because he thinks I'm – that some people are idiots and don't understand things or couldn't understand things if they knew certain things and, I mean, there are just some things that you eventually tell people. Maybe not when you first meet them, but eventually after you get to know them and you're friends and you've bonded and you've visited him in the hospital after he was a complete asshole and I'm sorry, but you can't just explain every bad thing you do as not mattering because you have problems." After her vague, but spirited monologue, Christine glared at Raoul, obviously hoping for some equally enraged sympathy. "You know?"
It took Raoul a moment to respond. Though he couldn't claim any diplomas in psychoanalysis, he did understand that Christine was upset about something. Upset about something to do with Erik, something that he hadn't told her that she thought he should have by now. Hmm.
Well, Raoul reasoned to himself, putting his Sherlock Holmes thinking cap on. It has to be something personal because if it was just something stupid, like his favorite pizza topping, she wouldn't be so worked up. Because Christine, though not a doormat, was usually pretty even-keeled. It was one of the things he liked best about her, she was so nice and easy-going and understanding. Easy to talk to – except when she was monologing vaguely to him about something she clearly expected him to agree with. So, something personal about Erik that she found out, that he didn't tell her that she thinks he should have told her. Okay. What big secrets does Erik have about his personal life?
Here he was kind of at a loss. Since he and Erik didn't talk that much and yes, he had been avoiding him pretty thoroughly since that whole basement incident which totally freaked him out and completely extinguished the flame he'd been carrying for him since that long-ago October make-out, Raoul really didn't know enough about what Erik shared about his life and what he didn't share about his life to make an educated guess. Erik had mentioned once that even though his mom and dad called themselves 'husband' and 'wife' they weren't legally married (it was some kind of protest statement, they hadn't really gotten into it). Was that what Christine was mad about? But no, her dad and his girlfriend had been together for years and weren't married, so Raoul didn't think she would have a problem with two people having a long-term relationship outside the bonds of holy wedlock.
Clearly it wasn't the fact that Erik was a few fries short of a Happy Meal since they all found out about that back in December. And she'd been really adamant that she didn't care and it didn't matter that Erik was crazy, they were still friends and that was that. Raoul had been really impressed (and a little jealous) that she felt so strongly about her friendship with Erik and he let the matter drop entirely, hadn't brought it up since. So, what could it be? Unless -
Oh. Oh, crap. Thinking back all those months ago, to his ill-conceived October Crush, Raoul remembered asking Christine whether or not Erik was gay. For his part, he'd kind of assumed so, even though Erik didn't give off an obvious vibe about it...then again, he hadn't realized Armand was gay until Charlotte told him, so he clearly couldn't be trusted to figure that out on his own. Anyway, Christine said she didn't know, that she asked once and all Erik said was that he didn't want to talk about it. So maybe he was gay. And Christine was mad because he didn't tell her and she found out from someone else – but that still didn't completely make sense, since why would she be mad that Erik was gay?
Unless – oh. Oh. Unless Christine had a crush on Erik and found out he was with someone and that's why she was mad! It all fit! It made perfect sense! And yeah, duh, of course you'd tell one of your friends that you're dating someone and if they found out and they had a crush on you the whole time and didn't know, they'd be really upset.
Proud of himself for figuring out what the problem was, Raoul nodded vigorously and said, "Yeah, totally. That's just a completely dick thing to do."
"I know!" Christine exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air. "It's so...childish. Again, we're not in freaking high school, it's not cool or cute to keep secrets like that from people, like you have to be in the in-crowd to find certain things out. Jesus. I mean, what the hell?"
"I don't know," Raoul shook his head. "That's douchey, like, why not just say it? Really, I mean it's not like something like that even should be a secret. What's the big deal?"
"There isn't one! There really isn't, until you make it a big deal by being all secretive and then blowing up when it's out of the bag or whatever." In her ire, Christine had totally forgotten that, in theory, Raoul had no idea what she was talking about. And she had more or less forgotten her promise to herself to keep it that way.
"He got made at you?" Raoul asked, sounding slightly disgusted at such conduct. "Why? You didn't do anything wrong. He's the one who should have come clean to you first, especially if..." But here he trailed off. Though he wanted to know the identity of Erik's boyfriend/girlfriend (since they still hadn't sorted that issue of preference out) and who had told all to Christine, he figured it wasn't his place to ask. If she wanted to tell him, she would tell him – or he could work it out with the mad detective skills he just discovered he had.
Fortunately (or unfortunately, as the case may be), Christine was on too much of a roll to stop her emotional outburst now so she just sighed and dragged her fingers through her hair in frustrating, yelling at the ceiling. "Ugh, I know, right? He gets all out of control and laughs at me and yells at me, like I'm supposed to know what the hell is going on. He's...he's such an asshole, I don't know why I'm friends with him." Looking back at Raoul, her eyes softened and her mouth turned up into a little half-smile. "You're so much nicer than him. God, you're so much nicer than all of them, do you want – I mean, can we take a walk somewhere? I don't really want to deal with anyone else right now."
"Yeah, sure!" Raoul said, scrambling to his feet and offering Christine a hand up. "I think there's...a twenty-four hour gym or something. It's almost midnight, I don't think anyone will be down there."
Christine gratefully accepted the help off the floor and smiled properly, if a little tightly, at her friend. "Great, that sounds fine. God, you're so awesome, thanks for listening." And with that, she threw her arms around Raoul and gave him a very long and very tight hug, all the while the phantom image of Erik's noseless, embarrassed, angry face glared at her from behind her closed eyelids.
