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Good Lives	By : shuffmcpuff Category: +S through Z > South Park > Slash - Male/Male Views: 1683 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I'm pretty sure Matt and Trey don't give two flying fucks that people write fanfiction about their characters. For the record, though, I don't own South Park, and I certainly don't make any money from writing about it.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
Good Lives
Part Two
"I don't want to know that you don't want me

I don't want to know what you do without me

I don't want to know what I'll be without you

I don't want to know, I don't want to know"

~ "Someday," Tegan and Sara
Kenny McCormick loved depravity. He lived it. He fucking rolled in it every time he slept. It was in the stained bathtub on his front lawn, the vodka in his mother's cocoa. The bleach stains on the musty shag carpeting in his room. He breathed it in every morning when he pulled on clothes his mother hadn't been bothered to wash and felt it slither down his throat every night when he washed down his microwave dinner with day-old instant coffee. It was in his stolen cigarettes and the broken blood vessels in his eyes. When he felt threatened at school by the citric sterility of cleanliness or the staying power of an idea, it was his safety net. He would disappear into his faded black hoodie and let his mind trickle away under the stink of motor oil and alcohol and cheap cologne.
His parents still made him angry sometimes. His older brother Kevin, who had the only income, was always either at work or slumped on the couch next to their dad, his eyes glazed over with liquor, and his younger sister Karen spent most of her time in her room, slinking around with her head down when she had to emerge, so reacting to their parents had become Kenny's responsibility. When he found his unemployed mother goading Kevin into taking more hours at work, or caught his dad sneaking quarters from the sock in Karen's drawer, things like that—that's when he would go off at them. He'd scream and shake and beat the shit out of the furniture like a child having a tantrum, just so they'd stop staring and fucking get up off the couch and fight with him. They fought with each other enough. But these fits usually ended with Kenny leaving, stomping past the broken-down gas station where Cartman had once shut Butters in a refrigerator and sucking on a cigarette like his life depended on it, and when he finally slowed to a stop and stared blearily at the sky he could never remember what he'd been so angry about. So he went back, and things carried on the way they always had. And it was all right, because he'd never known anything else.
This time was different.
There was nothing wrong with the idea of prostituting himself, Kenny figured. He might've done it himself had he ever been in dire need of a quick buck. The thought of being groped at and violated made him feel sick to his stomach—apparently he had a line, and that was it—but if he maintained control over the situation… well, that was a different story. There was a power to the act of seduction that he found almost appealing. He could be good at it, probably. As good as Kenny could be at anything.
The thought of doing it for them, though, of sinking his rightfully-earned fuck-money into the parade of TV dinners and bottles of J-Mart brand vodka that made up their home, made him want to break more than furniture. He wanted to break their heads. He wanted to snap their necks and sell their bodies to the state, use that for rent money. Fuck them. He didn't need parents. He didn't need anybody, not even Stan and Kyle.
So he would do it. He'd whore himself out. But he'd do it his way, with his mouth or his hand or any other part of him that the poor sad motherfucker who was paying him wanted to use, as long as he, Kenny, got the final say. And he'd do it himself, without having to sit around that cesspit the Peppermint Hippo while they took most of his cut and held the rest of it for his parents to come and collect when they ran out of booze money. He knew this town, and he knew how to listen. He knew who to talk to at the sports bar, at the gym, on the streets, even at school. And most importantly, he would go through with it all, because he'd never learned what it meant to go too far.
Yeah, Kenny McCormick loved depravity. He was depravity. And several weeks later, he was coming to school every morning with the pockets of his hoodie lined with twenty-dollar bills.

When Stan woke up the morning after he'd sucked Kyle off, he lay in bed for a very long time without moving. The light glancing in between his curtains was too bright, his limbs felt heavy and tangled like a marionette whose strings had been cut, and although the numbers on his bedside clock were approaching the time at which he usually left for school, he couldn't seem to get up the energy to do much but dwell on what he'd done.
They'd been okay last night, him and Kyle. Mrs. Broflovski's dinner had been wonderful, and the family evening had been serene in a way that didn't reflect anything the Marsh family had ever done together. The TV had rumbled quietly in the background as Ike thrashed everyone at a game of Trivial Pursuit, and between the comfort of being in a familiar place and the relief that accompanied no one demanding anything of him, Stan had felt at peace.
The only time he and Kyle had been alone was when Kyle saw him to the door and nodded at him instead of saying goodbye. Stan had tried to say something—anything, really, just like a see you tomorrow or a thanks for having me or whatever. But Kyle's eyes had flashed the way they did when he was irritated, so Stan had left without saying anything, rubbing his arms against the autumn chill as he walked home in the dark.
It wasn't that he regretted it. At least, he didn't think he did. His memory of the act itself was fuzzy and unreal, and he was having trouble convincing himself that yes, really, me, I did that. He wasn't depressed anymore: it felt like he had taken a break from himself, and now that he'd had a breath of fresh air he was content with being Stan Marsh again.
Involving Kyle in his bullshit emotional problems, however, was possibly the stupidest thing he had ever done. Kyle was… well, sensitive was the wrong word, but he just took everything so seriously. It would be just like him to insist that they talk about it, or that he had to tell Wendy about it. Or that they couldn't even be best friends anymore. He'd want to overanalyze it and discuss every last effect it could have on their relationship when honestly, really, all Stan wanted to do was forget they'd ever done it. It didn't need to be anything more than an embarrassing memory they never talked about so long as he managed to convince Kyle that it hadn't meant a thing.
I should have asked Kenny, Stan thought bleakly, staring at the ceiling; the thought gave him a sick feeling that he'd never experienced with Kyle, but it was true. It was Kenny, after all, who'd put the idea in his head, and it wouldn't have taken much coercing to get Kenny to help him out. (Kenny may not have liked it, but there wasn't much he wouldn't do for a couple of bucks or a hot meal.) Most importantly, Kenny would understand. He'd have laughed at Stan and patronized him and the whole experience would have been a hell of a lot more shameful, but that would be it.
Stan rolled over and stuffed his face into his pillow, clutching the ends with both hands. What the fuck is wrong with me? Why did I have to ask Kyle?
Because he never felt wrong when he was with Kyle. Kyle just kind of understood stuff about him that he would've been embarrassed to have to admit to anyone else. And sometimes, when they were hanging out just Stan and Kyle, he almost felt like they were really one person who had been split into two separate consciousnesses, the way they seemed to get each other.
Maybe that had been his mistake.
There was a quiet knock on his door and Stan grunted in response. The door cracked open and his mother said, "Stan, honey? Wendy's here to see you. Is it okay if I send her up?"
Stan sat up. "Wendy?"
"You're not expecting her?" Sharon opened the door more fully and frowned at seeing him still in bed. "Oh, Stanley, did you just wake up? You'll be late for school."
"Yeah, sorry, Mom. Had some stuff on my mind."
Sharon's expression softened. "If you're still not feeling a hundred percent, I guess you can stay home another day. I know you must be torn up about losing that game…"
That's right, Stan thought dimly. They'd lost a football game on Friday. "No, Mom, it's fine, I'm fine. I'm not upset about the game. Just send Wendy up, okay?"
Sharon raised her eyebrows. "Are you going to be dressed by then?"
He was just pulling a t-shirt over his head when Wendy slipped into the room without knocking, her face easing into a smile. Stan laid eyes on his smart, practical girlfriend, her dark hair contrasting prettily with the pale blush of her skin, and as he took her into his arms he felt for the first time in a while that his life made sense.
He wouldn't let her kiss him, citing morning breath as an excuse ("Seriously, Wends, I got out of bed like three minutes ago"), but she insisted on holding his hand, playing into the stereotype of the clingy girlfriend that she generally would have mocked—and Stan let her, squeezing her hand in response to her head on his shoulder. They sat side-by-side on Stan's bed, hands tightly clasped and thighs touching, as Wendy traced patterns on the inside of Stan's forearm.
"How are you feeling?" Wendy said softly.
"Um… okay," Stan said, wondering if she thought he was upset about the game, too. No wonder Kenny had made fun of him. "Doing all right, I guess. No complaints here, really."
Wendy looked at him carefully. "Did Kyle talk to you?"
Stan's face fell with such severity at the reminder of his best friend that Wendy clutched his arm. "Stan? Stan, are you all right?"
"Yeah," Stan said, a few wisps of the old depressive fog beginning to cloud his consciousness. "You… what… what about Kyle?"
"We discussed you," Wendy said, without having the decency to look embarrassed. "On Thursday. I asked him if he thought you'd been depressed recently. He did, and he said he'd speak to you about it."
Stan felt hollow. The thought of Kyle and Wendy interacting without him there—even if it'd been about him—didn't sit right in his stomach. "He did?"
"Yes." She frowned, regaining some of her usual steely demeanor. "You didn't fight, did you?"
"No," Stan said—and then, realizing he'd need a way to explain it to her if Kyle was a little colder to him at school than usual—"Yes. Maybe, a little. You don't have to worry about it, okay, Wendy? It doesn't have anything to do with you."
Wendy dropped his hand. "Well," she said coldly, "I suppose it doesn't matter that I've been worrying about you for days, since it has nothing to do with me—"
"Jesus, Wends, stop. I'm sorry, I didn't mean that." Stan rubbed her shoulder awkwardly, and although Wendy's frown didn't dissipate she leaned into his touch a little. "This is just… it's between me and Kyle, all right? I don't want you worrying about it."
"Okay," Wendy said after a moment. Her voice sounded small. "As long as you—fuck! Stan!"
Stan watched her jump to her feet, nonplussed. "What?" he said.
"School! School starts in fifteen minutes! We totally lost track of time!"
"Shit," Stan said, getting up. "I'm gonna go brush my teeth."
"My perfect attendance record," Wendy moaned, shoving Stan's school things into his backpack for him. "I'll never win that perfect attendance scholarship with a tardy so early in my senior year…"
"'Salrigh', Wenns," Stan said, leaning into the room with his toothbrush stuck into the side of his mouth. "We'll jus' run, or—" He turned around and nearly collided with his mother on his way back to the bathroom.
"I was about to leave for work," Sharon said, steadying her son with one hand and jingling her keys with the other. "Do you guys need a ride to school?"
As much of a rollercoaster as the day had been for him already, Stan had to admit that seeing Wendy, practically in tears, catapulting out of his room and into his mother's arms was probably the funniest thing that he'd see for a while to come.

Kyle wasn't at school that day.
It wasn't incredibly strange for Kyle to stay home. He was diabetic; he just got sick sometimes. But this wasn't illness (it couldn't be; Kyle had tackled Ike just last night and tickled him half to death for beating him so badly at Trivial Pursuit). This was altogether too much of a coincidence. For the first time, Stan felt panic beginning to flutter in his stomach.
It took him until the sixth-period study hall that he usually shared with Kyle to get up the courage to text his friend. The last texting conversation they'd had (Stan saw as he brought Kyle's name up on his smartphone) had been before the get-together at his place on Friday night; they had been trying to organize a way to hide the beer that Craig had lifted from his garage until Stan's parents went to bed. Kyle had made a crack about filling Sharon's health-drink bottles with beer that was actually pretty funny, but Stan had been too preoccupied to respond. His fingers itched to form a retort, operating under the vain hope that if he did so he would somehow be transported back to Friday night, before any of this had happened, but presently he sighed, and steeled himself, and typed out Dude are you alright. Send.
There was a possibility, after all, Stan thought to himself, leaning his elbows on his thighs to stop his leg from jiggling under the desk, that Kyle was really just home sick, and he hadn't gotten into contact with Stan because he was in class and Kyle didn't want to get him in trouble…
When a good fifteen minutes had gone by without a response, however, Stan felt like his worst fears had been realized. Kyle always had his phone on him, especially on sick days. In the past he and Kyle had kept a running conversation going all day, Stan keeping Kyle updated on what was happening at school while Kyle kept Stan up on what was happening on daytime TV. The fact that Kyle wouldn't respond to his texts made Stan feel like he was well and truly cut off from his best friend. Even when they fought, Kyle was mature enough to respond in some way to any entreaty that Stan would send him. This was awful. This was serious.
Football practice was a bust, as Stan fumbled every pass that he tried to make and dropped the ball every time he managed to get it in his hands. Coach had to take him aside at the end of practice and ask him why one of his best players was fucking up like a little girl who didn't know how to play. Stan had had to say that he was going through some stuff but that he'd get it sorted out as soon as he could, watching Cartman mimic his awful plays behind Coach's back while Clyde Donovan stood back and looked stonily at Stan from the sidelines.
"What the hell, Stan?" Cartman said when Stan rejoined them in the locker room. "You're 'going through some stuff'? What the fuck is that?"
"Shut up, Cartman," Stan said without any real malice. "I'm not in the mood."
"Don't bring personal shit to the field, Marsh," Clyde said frostily. "You cost us the game on Friday. You know that, right?"
"Sure, Clyde, blame it on me," Stan said. He started changing rapidly, missing the confused look Clyde sent him. Cartman rolled his eyes.
"Look, Stan, if you're going to be a weeping pussy about your feelings and shit, I won't hold it against you. I mean, you've been doing that since kindergarten, so it's only natural that you'd continue to be a weeping pussy into adulthood. But we have to work on the part where it affects me. A'ight, Stan?"
"Whatever you want, Cartman," Stan said, pulling his t-shirt over his head and picking up his duffel bag. When he finally looked at Cartman and Clyde they were both frowning at him.
"The fuck're you going in such a hurry?" Cartman said, a little put out that he hadn't managed to prick Stan's ire.
"Kyle's house," Stan said, and then he was gone.

"He's ill, Stanley. I'm sorry, but I can't allow Kyle to leave the house today."
"Please, Mrs. Broflovski?" Stan wheedled. "It's really important. Can I just go up and see him for a couple minutes? He won't even have to leave his room."
He tried for his sports-star smile, the one that seemed to make adults fall all over each other in their rush to help him out, but Sheila wouldn't budge. "I'm sorry, Stanley, but I can't allow that, either. He might be contagious, and I'm sure you'd hate to be sick with your homecoming game coming up."
Bullshit, Stan thought desperately, and Sheila must have seen an inkling of it on his face; her frown deepened as she started to pull the front door to. "I'm sure he'll give you a call when he's feeling better, Stanley. Goodbye now."
"God dammit," Stan muttered to the Broflovski's closed door. She knew something. She had to. He'd never pegged Kyle for a mama's boy—Sheila Broflovski had proved on several occasions that Kyle's long-standing terror of her was completely and totally justified—but he couldn't remember the last time Mrs. Broflovski had treated him that coldly. Could Kyle actually have told his mother that—?
Stan's dizzying thoughts were interrupted by a huff of air and the scrape of metal against concrete. Stan spun around to see Ike Broflovski struggling up the driveway with a shovel as big as he was, a tartan scarf obscuring half his face. He was busily clearing fallen leaves away from the concrete, trying to look as if he hadn't been glaring at Stan a moment earlier.
"Ike!" Stan hopped off of the Broflovski's stoop and liberated the shovel from Ike's small hands. "Need some help?"
"No," Ike said shortly, pulling the scarf away from his mouth with one hand and reaching for the shovel with the other. "And I'm not telling you anything about Kyle, either."
"Come on, Ike, please," Stan said in a lower voice, keeping the shovel well out of Ike's reach. "This is really, really important. He's not actually sick, is he?"
"Of course he isn't," Ike snapped, ripping the scarf away from his throat. "Kyle's just so special that he gets to stay home just 'cause he's a little upset—he's not the one who started kindergarten two years early—"
"Upset?" The bottom seemed to drop out of Stan's stomach. "He said he was upset? What about?"
Ike gave him an appraising look. "It's because of you, isn't it," he said. "What did you do? I thought he was acting kind of funny last night."
For once Stan was glad that he had a violent savant for a sibling instead of Kyle's preternaturally intelligent little brother. "I just want to know what Kyle told your mom," he said from between clenched teeth.
Ike snorted. "Man, give him a little credit. He didn't tell her anything; he just convinced her he was too messed up to go to school and locked himself in his room. Mom said he hasn't come out all day."
Stan sighed. That was one thing less to worry about, at least. "Thanks, Ike," he said.
"What did you do?" Ike repeated, but Stan was already jogging away.

The next day, Tuesday the second of October, Kyle still wasn't at school.
Wendy knew this was why Stan was so on-edge. He was constantly rubbing his arms or jiggling his leg or ripping whatever poor piece of paper he happened get into his hands into tiny nervous pieces, to the point that she took away his homework and gave him a napkin to play with during lunch. Usually she'd let Stan have a little space in the cafeteria, sitting with her girlfriends while Stan and Kyle and Cartman and Kenny horsed around at a nearby table with a variety of guys from the football and basketball teams, but today Kyle was gone and Kenny continued to be mysteriously absent during the lunch period, so she'd sat down with Stan and the guys, offering to get his lunch for him and unwrapping his plastic silverware after she returned.
Bebe, who was between boyfriends at the moment, had come with her, sitting across from Stan and Wendy and observing the interactions between them like so much animalistic foreplay on a nature show. "Damn, Stan," she said finally, reaching over to take one of his fries. "You look like hell."
"Thanks, Bebe," Stan said, scratching compulsively at one of his temples.
Wendy rubbed his back in small circles, prompting Stan to sigh and stand up, his hands clutching the end of the lunch table. Wendy frowned. Bebe frowned. "I'm gonna go get some more ketchup," Stan said, and he drifted away from the table.
"Seriously," Bebe said, staring after him. "This is all because he's fighting with Kyle?"
"I—I guess," Wendy said, looking a little more lost and confused than she normally did. "He won't really tell me anything… he just keeps saying it's between them."
"Well," Bebe said, raising her eyebrows and taking another one of Stan's fries. "That's pretty much par for the course, isn't it?"
Wendy frowned. "Bebe—"
"What I'm wondering," Cartman said loudly, sliding his large girth along the bench in order to insert himself into the girls' conversation, "is why anyone would suffer with that Jew rat out of the picture. I feel like I'm on vacation."
"You know perfectly well why, you fat fucking asshole," Wendy snapped.
"And you, Bebe," Cartman said as if Wendy hadn't spoken. "You actually dated the Jew, didn't you? Tell me, what was it like to bang outside of your own species?"
"Oh, Jesus, I didn't bang him," Bebe said, as if the very idea was completely reprehensible. "We dated for three weeks in the seventh grade. We only kissed like twice."
"Ugh," Cartman said, shuddering a little. "Bitch, do me a favor and never put that image in my head again."
"Shut up, Cartman," Wendy said, although frankly the idea of Kyle and Bebe kissing was weird enough that she agreed with him.
At this point Stan returned and they fell into an awkward silence. Wendy watched Stan out of the corner of her eye with her hands folded in her lap, hesitant to touch him again in case he made another excuse to leave, while Stan sat moodily at her side without acknowledging her as he squirted ketchup onto his fries. His anxiety seemed to have been replaced by a crushing depression. Bebe and Cartman sat ogling both of them from the opposite bench while Token, Clyde, and Kevin, who made up the rest of the table, started talking loudly about basketball to diffuse the tension.
The silence was shattered by Butters.
"Hey, fellas!" he said as he leaned against their table, displaying his usual total inability to read social situations in the loudness of his greeting and the cheerfulness of his wave. "H-Hi, Wendy," he added, granting her a flushed, wavering smile that Stan, Wendy couldn't help but think, didn't seem to see.
Stan didn't seem up to much, really, his fingers curled listlessly in his hair as he dipped a fry into his glob of ketchup over and over again, and it was this that keyed Butters into the fact that things weren't quite right at their lunch table. His pale brows furrowed as he bent in Stan's direction, totally missing the hashbrowns that Cartman was flicking unsuccessfully in his direction. "Gee, Stan, are you all right? You look kinda down."
"Fine, Butters," Stan said without so much as changing his expression.
"Well, are you sure? Because—"
"Oh, Stan's all right, Butters," Cartman said loudly. He'd given up on pelting Butters with food and had crossed his large arms on the table, regarding Stan with a smirk that didn't quite reach his eyes. "He's just fuckin' devastated that his buttbuddy Kyle isn't here to snuggle with him."
"I swear to God, Cartman," Stan said quietly, before Wendy could berate Cartman for his insensitivity. "If you don't shut your fucking mouth I will make sure to break each and every one of your fingers on the football field."
Wendy's mouth went dry, and Cartman's eyebrows shot up a little: of the few friends Cartman had, Stan was the least likely to make physical threats. Kenny had a mouth that was as dirty as everything he owned and Kyle and Cartman loathed each other, everyone knew that, but Cartman and Stan tended to get on pretty well when it was just the two of them. Now Stan was looking at Cartman like he'd kill him if he just had an excuse to do it.
The guys at the other end of the table had stopped pretending they weren't paying attention and were openly watching Stan and Cartman stare each other down. Bebe began to inch away from Cartman on the bench while Wendy hissed, "You guys, no," under her breath, but Cartman's mouth was twitching with irritation and just a little bit of disbelief as he reached for a retort. "Please, Marsh, like you could do a goddamn thing to me without your wittle feelings getting in the way. 'Oh, Coach, I'm sorry I can't play for shit, I guess I'm just going through some stuff—"
"I'm warning you, Cartman," Stan growled, his hands white-knuckled on the edge of the table.
"'I'm Stan, I'm too much of a huge, weeping pussy to play football,'" Cartman said in a sing-song voice, his eyes as hard as granite as bounced up and down on the bench and wiggled his fingers. "'I'm so pathetic that even my faggy Jew friend doesn't want to suck my cock for me—'"
Stan lunged forward; his fist would have connected with Cartman's jaw had Token not been ready to grab him by the shoulders and yank him back into his seat. Cartman leaped back anyway, stumbling over the bench as he swore to himself and cracked his knuckles. "Jesus Christ, Stan," he spat, "the fuck is wrong with you lately?"
"N-Now, Eric, you did provoke him," Butters said cautiously, while Wendy rubbed Stan's arm and Token muttered something in his ear about Cartman not being worth it.
"Whatever," Cartman said, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "This is retarded. Screw you guys, I'm goi—"
"Yeah, fuck you, go home," Stan said darkly, shrugging Token's hands off of his shoulders. Cartman flipped him off and stalked away, followed by Butters, who excused himself hurriedly and ran after him, calling "H-Hey, Eric, wait up!"
"I hate him," Wendy said coldly, slipping her hand into Stan's and squeezing (after a few heart-wrenching moments, he squeezed her hand back). "I really do. He doesn't give a shit about anything that doesn't affect him—stupid, ignorant, racist—"
"That's just what makes him Cartman," Bebe said, ripping the plastic cover off of her tartar sauce.
"He's horrible, though," Wendy said, glowering at her best friend. "He is honestly the worst person I've ever met. I mean, he started that fight for no reason—"
"It's okay, Wendy," Stan said, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. "That was my fault. He says shit like that all the time. I should know better than to let him get to me."
"Stan," Wendy said pointedly, "you shouldn't just have to endureit if it bothers you." Stan shrugged. It seemed like his thoughts were a million miles away—with Kyle, Wendy thought poisonously, and immediately regretted it. It was ridiculous for her to be jealous of Stan's best friend, and selfish of her to think Stan shouldn't be bothered by it if they were fighting. She pressed on. "I'm serious. He's awful to you, and he's awful to Kyle, and if you act like you don't care he'll think he can keep doing it. He's just so—God, there's not even a word for what he is. He's just disgusting."
Bebe snorted through her fish sticks. "Wendy," she said after she'd swallowed, "just who was it, several years ago now, who came to me in tears because she thought she was attracted to Eric Cartman?"
Stan seemed to come to life. "What?"
"You bitch," Wendy said, trying to pretend that her face wasn't darkening with a hot blush, "don't fucking bring that up now."
"Wait, when the hell did this happen?" Stan said, turning to Wendy.
"Fourth grade," Bebe said, raising her eyebrows at Stan. "What, Stan, you don't remember?"
"Remember what?" Stan said, still looking at Wendy, who was furiously tucking her hair behind her ears.
"When Wendy kissed him," Bebe said, grinning. "In the middle of a school assembly."
"What."
"Hell, I remember that," Token said, and when Stan looked at him incredulously he shrugged a little sheepishly. "I thought you were there, Stan."
"He sure was. Man, the look on his face…"
"Must've blocked it out."
"All right," Wendy said, still blushing but meeting Stan square in the eye. "I was working with Cartman on some project and I started having these… dreams… anyway… I was having trouble concentrating on the project and Bebe—" –she shot her friend a withering look—"—told me that if I kissed him and got it over with it would dissolve all our sexual tension and the whole thing would be over with. Assuming no one brings it up again at really inconvenient times—"
"Worked, though, didn't it?" Bebe said through another fish stick. "You went right back to hating that fat bastard."
"Of course I did, but—"
The bell rang. The noise around them amplified as the student body rose to leave the cafeteria. The guys at their table dispersed pretty quickly, Stan squeezing Wendy's shoulder before he left without a word, but Wendy grabbed Bebe by her long curly hair as she started to get up.
"What the hell was that, Bebe?" Wendy hissed. "Are you trying to get Stan pissed at me? Why would you mention that stupid bullshit about Eric Cartman?"
"Honey, Stan couldn't be pissed at you if he tried," Bebe said, removing Wendy's fingers from her hair.
"Then why? What's your angle?"
"No angle," Bebe said, smiling a little. "But I did get him to look at you."
Wendy stared at her for a moment before rushing off through the crowd to find her boyfriend. He was almost out the cafeteria door, his backpack slung over his shoulder, his head inclined as he listened to one of Jimmy Valmer's jokes.
"Stan," she said breathlessly, latching onto Stan's arm. Jimmy cut himself off mid-stutter and gave Stan a knowing smile before hobbling off.
"Oh—" Stan looked at her, surprised. "Hi, Wendy. I thought you had class on the other side of the building."
"I do—I just—" Wendy paused, trying to slow the frenzied beating of her heart. "I'm sorry about that thing with Cartman. It was a really long time ago, and—"
"Aw, Wends, I know that," Stan said. He cracked a little bit of a smile. "I mean, I was kind of shocked at first, but you're right, it was years ago, and I know it didn't mean anything, so…" He trailed off, watching Wendy's face fall. "… Wendy? Are you—is that all?"
"Yeah," Wendy said after a moment. "Go on, Stan. You don't want to be late for class."
"Okay," Stan said, delivering another strained smile on her behalf as he turned to go. "See you."
"Later," Wendy said, although no one was there to hear her.
She knew she should have been happy that Stan wasn't angry—that she was dating someone who was mature enough not to fly off the handle at the mention of her kissing another guy. Much less one that he'd nearly punched in the face about ten minutes ago. But—she clutched at her chest. Was that what she wanted? For Stan to be angry on her behalf? Did she want a boyfriend who was jealous and petty, who would revert to violent acts of machismo to defend her honor?
No, that wasn't it. Stan had never been like that, and she didn't think they'd be together if he was. But… her fists clenched in frustration and a little bit of hopelessness. This isn't right. It had never been such a chore to get his attention before.
Last year they'd seemed to spend every waking moment together. No matter what either one of them was going through, their relationship seemed to exist above it all. She'd felt incomplete if she was walking down the hallway and he wasn't by her side. Stan always had a smile for her, or a kind word, or a kiss when no one else was around. But lately… no, since summer… he just didn't seem to notice her anymore.
Summer.
Her stomach clenched like it had been gripped by a vice.
She remembered the glare of the field lights glancing in through the window. The scream of crickets over the rumble of the SUV—Stan had left the engine on; she didn't know why—Stan himself, silhouetted against the window—his neck, his shoulders—
And pain. Too much pain.
Misery curdled in Wendy's stomach, threatening to spill over into a tightness in her throat and a wetness in her eyes, but she spun on her heel and backtracked to their table, where her messenger bag still sat next to the bench. The cafeteria was almost empty, the stragglers conversing idly or shoveling leftover food into their mouths, but Wendy still shoved past the few people stupid enough to get in her way.
This didn't mean anything. Anything at all. She and Stan had had rough patches before—they'd been broken up before, too, even if those spats had been elementary and middle school fare, brief and pointless. Their relationship was bound to change as they got older. Of course it was. They couldn't spend every waking moment together for the rest of their lives, and she'd be naïve even to suppose they could.
But I love him.
She loved him; she wasn't sure she knew how not to. And Stan—he loved her, too. He was just going through some emotional troubles, that was all; a bad mood stretched out into weeks on end, and—Wendy bit the inside of her cheek to combat her trembling lip—she would see him through it. She always had.

Kyle couldn't take it anymore.
Yesterday his mother had been concerned enough about his well-being to stay out of his way; she had come by his door every couple of hours and asked (timidly, for her) if he was feeling any better and if he needed anything, but for the most part she'd left him to himself, the reality of which he'd had mixed feelings about. Today, however, Sheila Broflovski was not about to let her son spend a second day at home feeling sorry for himself without at least finding out what had made him so miserable. She was banging on his door ever half-hour, yelling at Kyle to "come out of there right now" and "listen to your mother," to the effect that even with his headphones in and his head buried under his pillow he couldn't completely block her out. Finally, around 1 p.m., he'd slammed the door open, probably looking a little worse for wear. Ignoring Sheila's repeated inquiries, he'd stomped down the stairs, running a hand through his messy red curls. He needed to eat something anyway.
It was nearing 4:30 now, however, and Sheila was beginning to wear him down. She'd let him return to his room with the stipulation that he left the door cracked open, but this only gave her leave to fling his door open unexpectedly with some plea or another to "tell Mommy what's bothering you" or, alternately, "you'd tell me if you were doing drugs, wouldn't you, Bubbe?"
This time she swung the door open and had the gall to walk into the room and sit on the side of his bed. Kyle glared at her. "I swear to God, Ma," he said, his voice hoarse from a couple days' worth of disuse. "You come in here one more time and I'll jump out the window."
"Don't be rude," Sheila said sharply, but then her face softened. "You know, Kyle," she said, looking a little awkward, "Stanley came by yesterday."
Kyle shrugged, ignoring the way his gut twisted at the sound of Stan's name. He'd heard the murmur of Stan's voice from downstairs and had run to the window. He'd watched Stan talk to Ike in the driveway and then watched him leave. "So?" he said.
"He said it was really important," Sheila said. When Kyle didn't respond, she grasped his hand and said, "Kyle, honey. If Stan's done something to upset you this badly… wouldn't it make you feel better to talk about it?"
Kyle couldn't help it. He knew he shouldn't say it, he knew he would regret it later, but he just couldn't help it. "Not to you," he said.
There was shouting, and yelling, and even some tears, as far as Kyle could tell from the way Ike was bowled over laughing in the doorway, but in another couple of minutes Kyle had been grounded for a month and locked in his room again, this time with the provision that he wouldn't be able to come out even if he wanted to. Kyle sighed with exasperation and a little bit of relief and flopped back onto his bed, intent on spending the hours until dinner listening to music and staring at the wall, but in another forty-five seconds he was back on his feet, stashing his mp3 player in the pocket of his cargo shorts and pacing around the room in tight little circles, his head buzzing with restlessness.
His mom was right. He had to talk to someone. He'd shut himself up in his room because he couldn't stand the thought of dealing with his family otherwise, but truthfully he was going crazy in here, where just a couple days ago Stan had… but no, he couldn't think about that. Except he had been thinking about it, constantly, since Sunday night, to the point that he was probably going to explode if he didn't unload on someone pretty soon.
That, or he'd actually tell his mom what was going on with him, the repercussions of which were just too terrible to consider.
The problem was that he couldn't think of a single person he wanted to open up to. Ike was a possibility, of course, but he didn't really want to be saddling his younger brother with his problems (not to mention Ike would more than likely use the information for blackmail). His mom and dad were clearly out—and there were plenty of people at school that he considered "friends," but not… friends. The kind of friends you could call out of the blue and spill your guts to. Except for Stan, of course.
He really should have been trying to talk to Stan. Stan obviously wanted to talk to him—he'd gotten several texts and calls yesterday before finally turning his phone off—and Stan had even tried to come over to see him in person. Apparently Stan was less of a coward than he was.
As much as the subject made him feel sick and helpless and totally miserable, his best friend was all he could think about, and the very thought of actually seeing Stan—hearing him speak, being near to him, having to speak in return—made his palms sweat and sent red-hot spikes of fear crashing through his stomach, so that he found himself curling into the fetal position, his nose pressed into his knees as he shook his head. No, no, no, he couldn't see Stan. Not right now. He needed someone who knew him well, who wouldn't talk about him behind his back… someone he was close to…
And then he fell backwards and accidentally smacked the back of his head against the wall, so obvious was the answer that came to him in that moment.
Kenny.
He grabbed his phone from his bedside table and turned it on. There were only a few more unread texts from Stan than there'd been yesterday—apparently he'd given up, which made Kyle's throat ache a little—but, crushing down a new wave of sadness, he sent Kenny a quick text without bothering to read any of Stan's: Kenny I need to talk to you.
He got a reply within the minute. man kyle I thought you were dead. come over.
Kyle exhaled shakily, too rattled even to laugh at Kenny's little joke. He slid off of his bed and into a beat-up pair of flip-flops before he remembered he was grounded. He doubted the sentence would extend for the full month, but his mother was definitely not going to let him stroll out of the house tonight to visit a friend. He considered for a few stressful moments whether or not he should text Kenny back and say that he couldn't come over after all, but the thought of sitting here by himself for the rest of the night was so pathetic that it made him feel nauseous all over again.
And dammit, he was seventeen years old. He would be eighteen in the spring, and then he was going away to college. Why should he care if he was grounded? Kyle grabbed his house keys from the top of his dresser and shoved them in his pocket, a new strength animating his slender frame. He had to start rebelling sometime, didn't he? He had to show her she couldn't push him around like she did when he was a little kid, even if he had to…
His eyes alighted upon his bedroom window.
Well.
He'd warned her, hadn't he?

In comparison to escaping his own house and enduring the anxiety that convinced him he was going to run into Stan on the street, Kenny's house was painfully easy to infiltrate. The screen door was cracked open, so Kyle walked right in, nodding at Kenny's parents as he passed them on the way to his friend's room. They were slumped in front of the TV on the McCormick's half-flattened couch and didn't acknowledge him as he walked by.
Stepping into Kenny's room after experiencing the rest of the McCormick's home was a little like reaching a save point in a video game. The odor that permeated the living room, which reeked of carpet mold and the rankness of unwashed dishes, was somewhat diminished by the familiar Kenny-smells of old cigarettes and Axe body spray. The walls were littered with lewd posters and magazine cutouts that Kenny had collected over the years, and the colorful strains of the local classic rock station could always be heard from the clock radio on the milk crate next to the bed. Kenny himself was seated on his bed with his back to the wall, legs stretched out and ankles crossed as he played a game on his old PSP. He was wearing his usual black hoodie with the hood pulled up over his head and a pair of denim cut-offs. Kyle hesitated in the doorway, wondering if he should knock, but before he could decide Kenny noticed him and grinned, patting the spot next to him on the flannel blanket that covered his mattress. "Hey, Kyle, good to see you. Play the next round for me?"
"Sure," Kyle said, and sat cross-legged next to Kenny on the bed. The game was a one-person shooter that he remembered them all going apeshit over a couple years back. It'd been a while since he'd played, but soon enough his still-shaking fingers slipped into the familiar key combinations and patterns as he remembered how to play the game, and his heartbeat began to slow. For the first time in two days he felt calm.
Kenny was lying on his side with his chin balanced in one of his hands, watching Kyle's progress on the level. "How'd you get that?" he asked, nodding at a scrape on one of Kyle's calves.
"Caught it on a tree," Kyle said, concentrating on the game.
"A tree?"
"I jumped out my bedroom window."
Kenny rolled over, positively shaking with laughter. "Why?" he asked when he'd recovered.
"I'm grounded," Kyle said.
Kenny snorted. "Grounded," he said. Kyle knew he'd never been grounded a day in his life. "That why you haven't been at school the last couple of days?"
Kyle's breath hitched a little in his throat. "No," he said, choosing his words carefully. "That was something else."
Kenny sat up, pulling his knees to his chest and crossing his ankles. When he didn't say anything for several pregnant moments, Kyle sighed and put the PSP aside. "I'm kind of… avoiding Stan right now, okay?"
"Shit, dude, I know that," Kenny said. "Everyone knows, the way Stan's been acting the last couple of days."
"What? He's—what has he—?"
"Hey, I'm no messenger," Kenny said, fixing Kyle with a hard-eyed stare. "And most of it I heard second-hand anyway. But you wanted to talk, didn't you? So talk."
Kyle bit his lip and pulled on the flaps of his ushanka. He realized he was blushing. He couldn't tell Kenny what had happened between him and Stan. He knew that now that he was actually here. Kenny was ready to listen to him, giving him a chance to speak despite his disinterested façade, but now his pulse was beginning to hammer in his veins again, his resolve shrinking under the stress. He sunk his teeth into the inside of his cheek, hating himself for his cowardice. "Kenny," he said softly, and saw Kenny's head incline toward him out of the corner of his eye. "When did we all grow up?"
"Dunno what you mean, Kyle," Kenny said a little brusquely. "I'm not eighteen yet. The second I am…"
He trailed off, seeming to think it was better not to continue, but Kyle was shaking his head slowly. "That's not what I meant," he said distantly, tugging on a lock of hair that had escaped from under his hat. "I mean, I… when I, like, imagine myself, it's like I'm still thinking of myself as a kid. But I'm not really a kid anymore, am I? I have all these responsibilities now; I have to go off to college, start my life… but what, haven't I been living my life already? What have I been doing up until now?"
Kenny shrugged. "Nothing wrong with being a kid."
"But I just feel like everyone else is so much older. Like you, you…" He trailed off, watching Kenny's tired eyes under his tousled bangs. Kenny probably hadn't felt like a kid in a really long time.
Kenny chuckled a little, breaking the tension. "Man, Kyle, aren't you just a big ball of contradictions."
"Huh?"
"Didn't you want to go to school out of state? Get away from everything?" When Kyle looked at him questioningly Kenny shrugged and added, "Stan told me. It bothered him, I guess."
Kyle smiled despite himself. "Does it bother you?"
"What?"
"That Stan and I always come to you to when we can't go to each other."
Kenny stretched. "It should," he said, rubbing one of his shoulders. "In fact, I don't really know why it doesn't annoy the hell out of me. But… you know, whatever. It's not like Cartman would listen to either of you whine."
"I wouldn't let him if he wanted to," Kyle said, disgusted, and Kenny laughed outright. "You know," he said, lighting a cigarette, "I heard Stan nearly punched him in the face today at lunch."
"No way."
"It's true. Clyde told me."
"Stan?"
"Right? I'd have told him he did both of us proud if he hadn't been spacing the fuck out all day." Kenny paused, his eyes resting moodily on his hands in his lap. He took another drag. "I tried to start a conversation with him in class today and it was like talking to a brick wall. Wendy's been throwing her tits at him and everything, acting like a real girl for once, and it's like he doesn't even care." He regarded Kyle with a sidelong glance that his friend, worrying his lip and gazing blankly at the ceiling, didn't seem to see. "Kid's real messed up over you, dude."
The corners of Kyle's mouth turned down a little. "… I don't believe you."
"You don't have to. It's just what I heard."
A silence stretched out between them for a few precious seconds before Kyle sat bolt upright, his face souring in a grimace. "All right. Jesus. Fuck. Fuck."
Kenny grinned through his cigarette. "Going to Stan's house?"
"Yes. Maybe. Yes. Goddammit."
"Aw, you'll do all right," Kenny said, closing his eyes and exhaling. When he opened them again, Kyle was holding out his hand. "What?"
"Give me that."
"Broflovski, I'm shocked."
"Shut up."
Kenny handed Kyle his cigarette and watched Kyle cough after he took a drag, his virgin lungs seizing up at the invasion of alien carcinogens. He was still grinning. "Those things'll kill you, you know."
Kyle glared at him and handed the cigarette back, still coughing. "Fuck you," he managed to force out.
"Yeah, yeah. Get going."
Kyle turned to walk out the door and paused in the doorway. "Kenny," he said, looking over his shoulder.
Kenny had picked up his PSP again, intent on continuing Kyle's game. "Yeah?"
"Thanks. Really. I mean… I really do appreciate it."
Kenny didn't look up. "Don't worry about it, man. You just do what you need to do."
Kyle left without another word. Kenny fiddled with the PSP for a little longer and then set it aside, staring at the cracks on his walls with occasional glances at his cheap-ass cell phone. At 6:53 he sighed, and stood up, and took a long last drag on the ashy dregs of his cigarette. He had an appointment to keep.

Stan was lying on his bed without moving again, watching the sky outside his window settle into dusk.
Both out of a desire to get Coach off his back and shove it in Cartman's fat ugly face, Stan had gone all-out at football practice that afternoon, taking responsibility for three touchdowns in practice skirmishes and several impressive interceptions. Coach openly praised him for overcoming his weaknesses and the team was expressing admiration for him again. He'd even gone the whole practice without hearing Cartman's usual snide comments. But all the attention had made him feel, if possible, more depressed; it was all too clear to him that he was only any use to his team as a tool. If he fucked up again tomorrow, there was no guarantee that their smiles wouldn't sour on their faces; that they'd jump at the chance to whisper about him again behind his back.
He'd been trying not to dwell on Kyle, but it was impossible when Kyle's very absence was tied into every last one of his ugly feelings. He found himself thinking about love. If there was unconditional love, the kind that dogs had for their owners and that parents were supposed to have for their kids, then he'd thought that he and Kyle had kind of like an unconditional friendship; no matter what either one of them said or did to disrupt the bond it would still be there, unchanging, because he was as much a part of Kyle's life as Kyle was of his.
But apparently there were rules, and he'd broken them. Stan rolled onto his stomach, pressing his face into his pillow. No matter how much he tried to tell himself that it was stupid for Kyle to avoid him, that Kyle was being immature and soon enough he'd come around and everything would go back to normal, he knew better. He'd fucked up, bad.
He didn't know if he'd ever see Kyle again.
As soon as he had the thought he dismissed it as ridiculous; of course he would see Kyle again. Kyle couldn't stay home from school forever, and when he came back they'd see each other in class and lunch and probably in the hallways and stuff. South Park High School was pretty small. But when they had to meet—what would he see in Kyle's face? Would Kyle look at him at all?
There was a knock on the front door downstairs, which floated up through Stan's open window. Stan jumped, but quickly settled back down into his comforter; his dad's drinking buddies were coming over tonight to watch TV. Someone must have gotten here early. That was all. The door opened downstairs; Stan was about to bury his face in the pillow again when he heard his mother's shriek carry in through the window: "Kyle! Oh my goodness, what happened?"
Stan shoved himself into a sitting position, his hands clutching at the comforter. He could barely hear Kyle's sheepish reply over the sudden pounding of his heart: "Um, yeah, hi, Mrs. Marsh. Do you think, um—is Stan home?"
Sharon made some reply, but Stan was already rocketing off of his bed and out the door into the hallway; he stumbled to a halt at the top of the stairs, nearly falling over the banister. Sharon and Kyle, who was leaning against the doorframe, looked up at him.
"Stanley! Kyle was just asking about you," his mom was saying, but Stan was watching Kyle's face. His mouth was open a little, his eyebrows knit under a few tendrils of red hair and the brim of his hat, but then he grinned and shrugged and averted his eyes, a hint of color dusting across his cheeks, and Stan noticed what had caused his mother's shriek when she opened the door: Kyle was putting all of his weight on his right foot and bleeding profusely from the sole of his left.
"Oh, honey, come in!" Sharon said, letting Kyle put his weight on her shoulder as she opened the door a little wider to accommodate him. "Where are your shoes?"
"Um, well, one of them broke," Kyle said, dragging his gaze away from Stan as Sharon bent to look at his foot. Stan began to descend the stairs. "They were really cheap anyway, so I just got rid of them, and—I think it was a broken beer bottle—"
"It's not very wide, but it looks deep," Sharon said, straightening. "We should disinfect it right away. Stan, why don't you take Kyle up to your room and I'll find the first aid kit?"
"Sure," Stan said. Kyle put an arm across his shoulders and Stan steadied him at the waist, feeling the warmth of Kyle's hipbone through his thin T-shirt, and they went up the stairs together without speaking. Stan breathed in the familiar odor of Kyle's sweat and listened to his slightly labored breathing, taking them as heady indicators that this was real, that Kyle was here in the flesh beside him, and had to bite the inside of his lip to keep from clenching his teeth.
They stopped in the bathroom so that Stan could grab a hand towel, ignoring Kyle's timid protests, after which Stan walked Kyle into his bedroom and instructed him to sit on the bed and put his injured foot on the towel. Kyle complied, not looking at Stan as he sat down across from him.
"Did you want to make a dramatic entrance or something?" Stan asked, trying to keep his voice neutral.
Kyle snorted, the noise coming out a little like a nervous choke. "It was an accident, trust me. It's my fault for walking around without shoes on in Kenny's neighborhood—that place is basically a trailer park—"
Stan stared at him. There had been an ugly little pulse in his chest at the sound of Kenny's name. "You went to Kenny's house?"
Kyle noticed the animosity in his tone and looked up with a frown. "C'mon, Stan, it wasn't a social call or anything—"
"Yeah? Well, excuse me for being a little irritated when I hear you're going over to Kenny's place without so much as answering any of the, like, fifteen texts I sent you—"
"I went over there to get him to talk me into coming here," Kyle said, sounding a little frustrated.
Stan's anger caught in his throat. The only word he was able to force out was "oh." Sharon bustled into the room with the first aid kit; she insisted on tending to Kyle's wound herself, and Stan sat there without speaking, watching Kyle wince as his mom applied disinfectant wipes and Neosporin to the area.
After applying a butterfly bandage to Kyle's foot, Sharon patted him on the shoulder and offered to drive him back to his house when he was ready to go home. Kyle smiled and thanked her, and she left them alone again. Stan hadn't moved once during the whole process.
Kyle sighed and leaned back a little on splayed palms. "Your mom's so nice," he said. "You have no idea how jealous I am."
"It's only because you're not her kid," Stan said, wondering why he kind of wished Kyle would go, too. It was almost painful to look at him. All he'd wanted for the last couple of days was to see his best friend and talk to him, but now that Kyle was actually in front of him, he was so uncomfortable that he'd rather just be by himself.
When Kyle shifted to put less pressure on his foot, however, Stan's heart twisted at the prospect of his leaving again. His hand, resting on his knee, squeezed into a fist, and he said, "Don't—"
"Don't what?" Kyle said, but when he saw the look on Stan's face his eyes clouded a little, and he sighed. Stan knew that sigh. It was Kyle's Serious Talk sigh. "Listen—" he said.
"No, you listen," Stan said, more tersely than he'd intended. He got up, closed the door, and returned to his place on the bed, where Kyle was watching him with dread in his eyes. "… Don't look at me like that, okay?"
"Why not?" Kyle asked, sounding petulant. "I know you're pissed at me, so I might as well—"
"What? No, no, I'm not pissed at you, I'm just… I'm really, really happy to see you, Kyle." And it was true, so true that it was a little embarrassing. He was so relieved that Kyle was really right in front of him, and the future that he'd been shaping in his head just a few minutes ago would never come to pass, that recognizing the feeling for what it was made his stomach clench with discomfort. He couldn't calm down; his body felt electric. It was so strong that he wasn't sure whether it was a good feeling or not. "… I'm so sorry. I'm so, so, so sorry."
Kyle looked confused. "Why are you—?"
"No, please, just… just listen, okay? I was selfish; I wasn't feeling like myself—but that's no excuse. I never should have pressured you into doing something you weren't comfortable with, but I was so… obsessed with myself that I didn't think for a minute about how you would feel. I, um…" Stan trailed off. He could feel himself blushing. Kyle was a little red, too, watching Stan closely with his mouth slightly open, and Stan dropped his gaze to Kyle's injured foot, needing to focus on something that wasn't his eyes or his lips. "This is all my fault," he began again. "So if you're mad at me I really don't blame you, but please—"
Kyle shook his head a little. "Stan," he said.
"—please forgive me, I'll never—"
"Stan," Kyle said, and Stan shut up at looked at him. The corners of his mouth had turned up a little. "Stan, I'm not mad at you."
Stan stared at him for a moment, then pursed his lips and said, "You should be."
"No, I shouldn't," Kyle said, holding back a nervous laugh. "Listen, I'm not—that's not why I was avoiding you." He paused. "Sorry. About that. By the way."
"Um… that's okay," Stan said, watching Kyle tug on a lock of his seldom-seen hair.
"I…" Kyle sighed and rubbed his face. "I was just… scared. You just—you came out of nowhere with this and all of a sudden I was just scared at the very thought of you. Like, right now? Sitting here with you? I'm—I'm terrified, okay? I thought maybe it would go away if I just saw you and we talked about this but I cannot calm down and I have no idea where it's coming from. And I hate it." He said this so vehemently that Stan's breath hitched a little. His friend's eyes were blazing. "You're my best friend."
Having said this, Kyle seemed to lose his nerve; he pulled on the flaps of his ushanka and averted his eyes, his face a hot, boiling red. "… I, um… I just don't know what to do. If everything's gonna be all awkward from now on, and we start… growing apart… I don't know if I could bear that."
Stan swallowed, hard. He'd been thinking about it for a while—he might even have first thought of it when he saw Kyle in the doorway downstairs. He'd been trying to get the idea out of his head, because he knew—logically—that it would probably only make their situation worse. But now his mouth seemed to be moving on its own. "There's something we could try."
Kyle's brow furrowed. "Huh?"
Stan sighed—a long, put-on, last-resort sigh. He was probably as red as Kyle was, from nerves and the cringing embarrassment of so much as mentioning something like this to his friend, but it seemed like the words were going to come out whether he wanted them to or not. "I could kiss you."
Kyle reacted about as well as Stan had expected. He jerked physically away, pulling his legs to his chest, and Stan was unpleasantly reminded of Kyle's body language when he'd dropped to his knees on Sunday night. "Listen, I know it sounds stupid, and—and I know it sounds like more of the same," he said, pinching the bridge of his nose in an automatic gesture, "but there's a reason. Wendy told me—"
"Wendy?" Kyle said, pumping the syllables of her name with more venom than Stan had heard in his voice all night. Stan took one look at the betrayal in Kyle's face and realized his mistake. "You mean you—"
"No, I didn't tell her that, she just said—"
"Oh, you didn't tell her something? What a fucking shock—"
"Jesus Christ, Kyle! I thought you told your mom!"
"Like I would fucking do that! I didn't even tell Kenny!"
"Oh, you didn't, did you?"
"No! I didn't tell anyone!"
"Well, I didn't tell anyone either!"
They were worked-up, breathing hard, glaring at each other, and for a moment Stan thought that was when he'd do it—that they'd be yelling and all of a sudden they'd be kissing like they were in a bad TV movie. But he didn't do anything, and Kyle wiped at his eyes. He was trembling.
"Well?" he said finally, grasping at his bandaged foot momentarily as he leaned away. "What did Wendy tell you?"
"Well, um—she said—and this was after Cartman left; I almost clocked him at lunch today."
Kyle's mouth curved, just a little. "Yeah, I heard."
For the first time, seeing that look on Kyle's face, Stan felt almost proud, but he wouldn't let his sudden upswing in mood deter him. He told the whole awful story Wendy, Bebe, and Token had pieced together for him at lunch, stressing that while he didn't actually remember this happening, everyone else seemed to, proving that his girlfriend must actually have kissed Cartman. Kyle made the appropriate noise of disgust when he got to that part.
"You know," he said slowly, tugging at his hair again, "I think I remember that happening… you were right there, Stan…"
"I've heard."
"But…" he paused. "Why does that mean we should… um…"
Stan bit his lip. He could only imagine the face Kyle would make when he said the words 'sexual tension.' "Wendy said how she felt about Cartman went right back to normal after she kissed him, so maybe if we… um… if we do that too we'll get rid of our sexual tension" (there it was) "and… everything will be fine."
"We have sexual tension?"
"I guess so."
"But… Stan." Kyle looked at him imploringly, a little desperately, and Stan found himself focusing on Kyle's lips as he spoke. "Dude, I can't kiss you."
"Look, I know it's stupid, but we have to do something," Stan said, ignoring the rate at which his heart was beating, ignoring the way that he was too aware of every gesture Kyle made; every instance in which he was incrementally closer or farther away than he'd been the moment before. He looked Kyle in the face and asked himself if he wasn't just talking himself into this. If he really, actually wanted to kiss his best friend.
Oh, Jesus. He really, really did.
"I just want to be able to able to laugh at this later," Stan heard himself say. "And then forget it ever happened."
Kyle looked at him warily. "Last time we do this?"
"Last time."
"And you won't try to persuade me to do anything else? Because I don't know, dude, it's getting a little creepy."
"Come on, Kyle, don't joke about that; I feel bad enough—"
"Okay, okay." Kyle closed his eyes. Sighed. Opened his eyes again. "Okay," he said. "Yes. Let's try it."
This would work, Stan told himself. The idea of him and Kyle kissing was ridiculous, after all. Unconditional friendship. One of them would probably burst out laughing and break the tension. There was no reason to stress about it, and there was definitely no reason to tell Wendy, who probably wouldn't believe they'd done it even if she ever found out. Still, Stan avoided Kyle's eyes, looking instead at his clenched jaw, the tensed muscles of his neck, and something occurred to him.
"Kyle," he said.
"Yeah."
"Is this the first time you've ever kissed someone?"
He'd answered his own question almost as soon as he asked it. It had to be. Kyle hadn't dated someone in years, at least as long as they'd been in high school, and it wasn't as if he had ever openly expressed an interest in some girl or another. He tended to keep that kind of thing to himself. Not to mention that the idea of Kyle kissing some girl was… well, it was just strange. Kyle, he expected, would blush or look away or make some kind of excuse.
Instead, he raised his eyebrows and said, "Of course not."
Stan felt like he'd received a blow to the head. "Wh—wait, who?"
"Um…" Kyle seemed to lose the tension in his shoulders as he frowned, trying to remember. "Well, there was Rebecca in the third grade… Red, I think, during Spin the Bottle; that was fifth grade… and then I dated Bebe in seventh, so—"
Stan leaned over and kissed him, taking advantage of Kyle's open mouth.
Kyle's lips weren't soft. They weren't slick with lip gloss like Wendy's, but chapped, a little torn where Kyle sometimes worried his lower lip with his teeth. Kyle's whole body stiffened; it seemed for a moment that he was going to pull away, but then Stan felt, rather than heard, him make a noise in his throat, almost like a sigh, before his eyelashes fluttered closed. Stan angled his head so that he could deepen the kiss, and he felt Kyle shudder a little (he was sure, sure, that his friend had never had someone else's tongue in his mouth), but then he slowly, hesitantly, brought his hands up to cradle Stan's head, his fingers intertwining with the hair at the nape of his neck, and began to kiss him back.
It wasn't a perfect kiss. Kyle started out toothy and uncertain, and they were sitting too far apart for the distance to be entirely comfortable for either of them, but there was something blossoming in Stan's chest and throat that staggered his breathing and made him want to probe farther and farther into Kyle's mouth, discovering his lips and the roof of his mouth and the shy curl of his tongue. Stan traced the indentation of Kyle's spine through his T-shirt, making Kyle twitch and arch his back away from Stan's fingertips; he traced the contours of Stan's jawline with his thumbs, crushing their mouths harder together, and Stan yanked Kyle practically into his lap, their limbs tangling awkwardly as Kyle threw his trembling arms around Stan's shoulders and Stan savored the press of Kyle's body against his. His relief at having Kyle with him, here and now and closer than ever, broke free of its discomfort and bloomed into full-blown, ecstatic joy. He broke the seal of their lips, pressing his mouth to the curve of Kyle's neck, and Kyle gave a gasp that was almost a whimper in his ear, making Stan crush his friend tighter against him—
There was a too-loud knock on the door. Kyle jumped and looked around at the door while Stan pressed his face into Kyle's exposed neck, feeling the pulse of their aligning heartbeats.
"Stan? Kyle? Are you both in there?"
They were both frozen for a moment, neither of them daring to speak, until Stan breathed out slowly and pulled away from the dizzying heat of Kyle's bare skin. "Yeah, Mom, we're in here."
"I'm sorry to bother you boys," Sharon said through the door, so guiltily that Stan wondered for a moment if she somehow knew what they'd been doing, "but Kyle, your mother has called three times since you got here. I tried to tell her that you'd hurt yourself and we were patching you up, but… well, you know how she gets." She paused, as if reminding herself not to make disparaging remarks about Sheila Broflovski to the woman's own flesh and blood. "Anyway, I think it's best that I take you home before she starts threatening to call the police. I'll go start the car."
They heard the sound of her retreating footsteps on the carpeting outside, and Kyle started untangling himself from Stan's grasp. "Jesus—" he was muttering to himself. "Christ—I forgot all about her—"
"Don't let her push you around," Stan said, leaning against the backboard. His voice sounded strange, kind of hoarse and distanced from everything that was going on around him.
"No, you don't understand," Kyle said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and wincing when his injured foot touched the floor. "I'm, um, I'm grounded—I kind of snuck out of the house." He missed the impressed look that passed over Stan's face, getting unsteadily to his feet and testing the ball of his left foot on the floor. "I don't really know what she's going to do to me, so… I better get home…"
Stan leaned his head against the backboard too, watching Kyle with speculative eyes. "I could drive you instead."
"No," Kyle said, a little too quickly; he looked as if he couldn't imagine something more terrifying than being alone in a car with Stan. "No, dude, that's okay—your mom already offered, so… that's fine." He must have seen something shift in Stan's face, because his features softened a little and he said, "C'mon, Stan, don't look like that."
Stan shrugged. "I don't know how I'm supposed to look."
"Like everything's cool between us." There was a dusting of color across his cheeks, but his expression didn't change when Stan looked at him questioningly. "… It is, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Stan said after a moment, smiling a little to show Kyle he was okay.
"All right. Good." Kyle hovered by the side of the bed for a moment, looking down at Stan as if wracked with indecision; finally he murmured "See you tomorrow" and left the room as quickly as he could.

Not every chapter will have this sort of structure, I promise. It just kind of worked for the first two.
I realize that there should be snow on the ground in South Park due to the show's own logic. My response is that it's early October in the story and that's stupid. It's the same reason I'm only obliquely referencing things like Kenny's tendency to die and Cartman's occasional attempts at world domination. They just don't fit very well into a (melo)dramatic story about high school kids.
P.S. Please review. It's just polite. And it'll probably make my day.
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Good Lives