A Sister

Squirrel Tamer

"I hate you." And she did. Oh how she did. It sounded like a lie, but it felt real and the raven-haired girl had to turn back, she always turned back. You didn't just walk away when your sister spoke to you. You didn't just turn away and leave when Icky Vicky said something to you.

But she was so tired of it. Tootie was just too tired of it.

"Whatever." She hissed and began to leave again, but a growl from the garnet haired one stopped her. She yelped as someone wrapped a hand tight around her small wrists. She tried to struggle against her sister's grip, but it hurt. "Let go of me!" She screamed and pulled back almost stepping onto her lovely white gown and tearing it.

"Didn't you hear me, little sister?" Vickie snarled into the much more delicate Tootie's ear. "I said that I hate you. You're stupid and worthless and he's just going to leave you, baby sister, he's going to run away from you and find her. Because that's who he is and you're a fool to believe in him."

Tootie had always turned back when her sister spoke, because she had always had the small and fading hope that maybe, just maybe, her sister would say something different and something kind and something that a sister should say. She turned around because she wondered if maybe this time things would be different, maybe Vicky wouldn't hate her anymore. But just because they were sisters didn't' mean that they meant anything to one another. Just because they were sisters didn't mean that Tootie was actually a someone to Vicky.

What a fool she was. Always looking for the good in people. Always the optimist. Always the dreamer. And yeah maybe some of her dreams did come true but it was a fool's hope to believe that her sister, the evil Vicky would ever change. It was worthless to look for her good side. It didn't exist.

She was done.

"Let go of me!" Tootie screeched and wrenched her arm away from her sister. Vicky look startled for a moment and then scared as Tootie puffed up as best she could and loomed over her older sister. "You're horrible! Everything you say is awful and wrong and I don't care anymore, because Timmy loves me! Timmy loves me and I love him and we're going to get married today and just because you can't find someone of your own you shouldn't take it out on me! It's your own fault, you...you wench!" And with those last words she pushed her sister hard and watched as the eldest daughter flew back and hit the wall hard. Tootie froze. It was as if she had pushed nothing. As if Vicky hadn't even been there. There was too little weight.

"Vicky?" Tootie mumbled as she took a shaky step towards her sister. She looked down and saw the things she had never noticed before. Her sister was thin, frighteningly thin. Her eyes were sunken in and her skin was sickly pale. She was shaking with each movement. "When was the last time you ate?"

"Don't talk to me!" Vicky screeched and turned her head away in anger.

"Vicky..." Why was her voice so shaky and frightened? Why did she still care about her big sister? "What's wrong with you? You look..." She swallowed hard. "You're dying."

"I'm not dying, you twit." Vicky snapped. "I look like this because I hate you. You did this to me."

Her anger flared again.

"I didn't do anything to you! Stop blaming your problems on me!"

"You-You took him from me."

"Wha-?"

And then she knew.

Timmy.

"I loved him. Loved him. But it wasn't right. It was never right. I had to fight it. I had to quell all of my emotions and my feelings. I had to pretend like he was nothing to me. I had to pretend like I hated him most, because I loved him most. I was scared all the time. Someone would find my secret, because there's no such thing as secret. But I hid it well. I hid it until I couldn't any longer and then I told him. He was almost sixteen and I was twenty-one and I was babysitting him and he was about to take out the garbage and I just said it. I just told him. And do you know what he did?"

She didn't want to hear anymore. It just was too weird and wrong and so many other things.

"Nothing. He didn't laugh, he didn't run, he didn't say I love you or call someone to take me away. He just looked at me for a moment and then kept going. He didn't even care. It didn't even matter. I was nothing to him by that point, just one more person he had to deal with. Not even worth a nod. Just nothing."

"But you..." Tootie watched in horrified fascination as actual tears began to leak out of the evil Vicky's eyes. "You were something to him. You were annoying and strange and you irked him and he saw you and he acknowledged you and I hate you for that. I hate that you were something and I was nothing. I hate how you can be so stupid and foolish and damn optimistic and he still loves you. And I fight and I yell and insult him and push him around and I'm nothing to him. I hate you, little sister. I really really hate you."

Tootie could only watch as Vicky broke down completely. Could only stand emotionless and unfeeling, because in the end Vicky was nothing to her either. In the end even Tootie's hopes and prayers and childish optimism couldn't change the fact that Vicky was nothing at all.

She was, after all, just a sister.

A/N: Tootie/Timmy/Vicky triangle. Just me fooling around with the sisters' bond...or lack thereof.