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Good Lives	By : shuffmcpuff Category: +S through Z > South Park > Slash - Male/Male Views: 1680 -:- 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
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Good Lives
Part Three
"I don't mind losing self-respect

I've done it before and I'll do it again

I'm stifled tonight, which is fine
I've done it before and I'll do it again"

~ "The Kids Are Sick Again," Maxïmo Park
"Damn, Kenny, I feel like we haven't seen you in forever."
Kenny smirked and propped his feet up on his desk. It was a Wednesday, October 17th. The first period class they shared, which was a blow-off graduation requirement called Consumer Education, had yet to start. "Is that the royal 'we,' Stan, or are you speaking for both of you now?"'
Stan looked embarrassed, shoving his hands in his pockets, so Kyle took over, resting his elbows on the side of Kenny's desk and leaning forward over the chair he was straddling. "Seriously, though, Kenny, this is the first time you've been in first period for like a week."
Kenny shrugged and scratched the hair above his ear with a pencil. "I'unno. Busy, I guess."
Stan snorted and perched on the edge of his desk. Due to the South Park school district's revolutionary organizational system, he had had the desk in front of Kenny's in every class they'd had together since the sixth grade. "'Busy.' Yeah, okay. When have you ever been busy? Doing what?"
"Part-time job," said Kenny.
"Really?" Kyle said, looking stunned.
"No way," said Stan. "Who hired you?"
"I did," Kenny said. He twiddled the pencil between his fingers and rubbed the tip with his thumb. "Freelance work."
"The fuck? What're you doing, solving mysteries?"
"Bet he's got an ascot on under that hoodie."
"Or a fucking monocle. Sherlock Holmes hat."
"Or he could be a superhero or something. Like a masked vigilante."
"What? That's stupid."
"Wait, I know, I bet he's doing stunts for money again. Eating roadkill off the street and shit."
"What? Fuck you, Kenny, you didn't want to give us a cut this time?"
"Fuck you guys, too," Kenny said cheerfully. He was in an incredibly good mood. Partially because it really had been a while since he'd seen Stan and Kyle, but mostly it had to do with the fifty bucks he'd managed to make off of the janitor that morning before school had started.
Kyle sighed and leaned his head on his arms. "Dude, just tell us."
"Nah, I think you guys should keep guessing," Kenny said, tapping his lips with the pencil. "You were getting pretty close."
Stan frowned at him. "You're not doing anything illegal, are you?" he said. "I mean, like, seriously illegal. It was cute when we were kids, but… you know. I don't want you to get arrested or something."
"Aw, that's sweet of you, Stan," Kenny said, and Stan sighed the way he did whenever someone (usually Kenny) succeeded in taking him down a peg. "But don't worry. I'm handling it."
Something about the look in Kenny's eye and the tone of his voice—or perhaps the way he'd stuck the end of his pencil between his lips and taken a bit more of it into his mouth than was strictly necessary—made Stan blanch. "No," he said.
Kyle frowned at him. "What?"
"You are not," Stan said, looking downright shocked. "I mean, you haven't—you're not actually—"
Kyle glanced at Kenny and, catching sight of the look on his face, seemed to get it. He sat up abruptly and turned a little red, to Kenny's utter delight. "… What? Kenny, you're—seriously?"
Kenny pulled the pencil out of his mouth with a pop. "Yep," he said.
They both seemed a lot more impressed than he'd have given himself credit for. As if it was hard, Kenny thought, to give a blowjob.
Stan was shaking his head slowly. He seemed to have adjusted to the idea faster than Kyle, who was still looking at Kenny like he'd grown another head. "Jesus Christ. What the hell. And you came to us all freaked out."
"Well." Kenny paused. "Well, it's not… sex. I've got some standards, you know." Even if they wouldn't believe him, he felt like he had to say it anyway. "But it's surprising how many people will throw money at you if you smile real pretty and offer to get them off. So I started thinking—after I decided that I sure as hell wasn't going to do anything to help my deadbeat parents—that it wasn't the worst way to make money."
Stan's frown deepened. There was pity in his face, somewhere, but Kenny was determined not to see it. "And are you?"
"What?"
"Making money."
Kenny shrugged and dug his hands into his hoodie and jeans pockets, littering his desk with neatly-folded bills.
Stan stared. "Jesus."
"Kenny…" Kyle hadn't looked away since he'd learned about Kenny's occupation. Kenny didn't even think he'd blinked, and he felt the hard parts inside of him shiver at Kyle Broflovski's knit brows and big, searching eyes. "Are you okay?"
Kenny looked at him, dropping the mocking demeanor for once. "I'm fine, Kyle."
Kyle nodded, accepting his word. He wasn't pitying. He was just concerned. That, Kenny thought wryly, was the difference between Stan and Kyle.
Kyle severed his gaze, which fell onto the bills still scattered across Kenny's desk. "May I?"
"Sure. Since it's you."
Kyle began thumbing through the bills, counting under his breath, and Kenny raised his eyebrows at Stan, who was watching him with a less-than-friendly cast to his features. Kenny mouthed what at him and Stan shook his head like it wasn't worth verbalizing.
"Fuck, dude," Kyle said in amazement, drawing their attention back to him. "Kenny, you just pulled like two hundred and fifty bucks out of your pocket."
"Yeah, the rest is at home," Kenny said, and he grinned upon seeing Kyle's eyebrows disappear under his hat. "I need a l'il chump change to be walking about with," he added in an affectation of his parents' drawl, and when they both shook their heads incredulously his grin widened.
"You have been buying your own cigarettes lately," Stan said, and he finally cracked a little bit of a smile.
"But you're saving most of it," Kyle said tentatively. A couple of years ago, if Kenny had gotten his hands on so much as a single ten-dollar bill it would be gone within minutes, spent on something cheap and worthless that he could nonetheless call his own. "That's not really like you, dude."
"Hey, taxes on cigs are a bitch nowadays," Kenny said, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "But yeah, I dunno. I figure there's something I can do with it after I turn eighteen."
They were all quiet for a moment, Kyle lost in his own world as he stared down at Kenny's desk while Kenny twiddled his pencil between his fingers and convinced himself that he'd done the right thing in telling them the truth. Finally, he laid the pencil down with a definitive click and gave Kyle a sideways glance. "So what about you two?" he said.
It could have been his imagination—which, to be frank, Kenny McCormick largely ignored if it wasn't relevant to food, money, or big, floppy tits—but Kyle seemed to stiffen at the question, rubbing the back of his neck and looking away in badly-feigned innocence. Stan seemed less bothered, but there was still a shade of unpleasantness to his frown as he crossed his arms over his chest. "What do you mean?"
Kenny quirked an eyebrow. Weird. "Weren't you fighting or whatever a couple of weeks back?"
"Sort of. No big deal." Stan turned abruptly and eased into his chair. He began to pull his books out of his backpack and put them on his desk without looking back.
Kenny snorted. Stan was so easy to read. "So you're…?"
"Fine."
"Fine?" This was directed at Kyle, who started and smiled a little, more out of nervousness than any warmth of feeling. "Yeah, we're, um—we're okay," he said, picking up his bag and stumbling a little as he got up from the chair, which was actually Annie Polk's. She gave him a dirty look as she yanked it toward her. "Class is gonna start, so—"
"Meet you after," Stan said without looking at him.
"Sure," Kyle said, and crossed the classroom to get to his desk.
Kenny stared at the back of Stan's head. He seemed at ease—and if you asked Kenny, there were never very many reasons for Stan Marsh not to be at ease—but there was a lingering tension in his neck and shoulders that he only picked up on because he'd been watching his friend internalize his negative emotions for as long as he could remember.
Generally Stan was pretty sensitive—and frankly, when they were younger, kind of a pussy—but he had a tendency to pretend that he didn't care about the unjust things that he couldn't change, which had become more pronounced as they progressed further into their teenage years. That part of his personality had always formed a solid complement to Kyle's, who was outspoken and filled from his head to his toes with a belief in the inherent goodness of the world, a belief that had always brought out the best in Stan. But now that they'd had this strange upset, and the problem apparently wasn't the rest of the world, but each other…
Kenny rolled his eyes and took his feet off of the desk. Whatever. Not my problem. He was not about to start spending his time worrying about little idiosyncrasies in his friends' weird, almost too-close relationship. Their teacher entered the room, and Kenny laid a hand on the brand-new pack of cigarettes in his jeans pocket, yearning for the class to end already so that he could sneak out and have a smoke (and maybe earn a few bucks on the side). He had his own shit to deal with.

It wasn't so much that things between him and Stan were still awkward, Kyle thought. Nor was it that the sudden blowjob and the intensity of the kiss that followed had deteriorated their friendship at all. On the contrary, in fact. He'd returned to school the day after and he and Stan had been so casual, so in-sync, so completely normal that almost everyone had forgotten by now that they'd had one of their infrequent spats. The fact that Kenny had even asked about it had thrown both of them off, to the point that he'd felt some of that old awkwardness creeping back into the atmosphere as he sat across the classroom from Stan, squirming and throwing glances at his friend's face in profile. But generally, Stan and Kyle were better than back to normal, as Kyle found that he was seeing Stan more often than he had for months, even though he was still grounded, and Stan's depression was nowhere to be found. Stan would come over to his house after football practice nearly every day for the couple of hours that both of his parents were out of the house, and those hours were some of the best, and the freest, of Kyle's day. In fact, everything about his and Stan's friendship was the same as it had always been except for the habit they'd gotten into of making out, more often than not, whenever they were alone together.
Kyle had begun by keeping track of the number of times he and Stan kissed, mentally labeling the encounter "number two" when Stan leaned over while they were watching TV one afternoon and kissed him on the mouth, but he quickly abandoned the exercise as the instances began to increase in length and frequency. Stan was always the instigator, alerting Kyle to what he wanted with a brush of his knuckles against Kyle's cheek or a falsely casual look that lingered until Kyle set down his controller or put the TV on mute. But Kyle never pushed him away, reciprocating his actions so that the two of them would end up crushed against the end of the Broflovski's couch, whatever they'd been doing lying forgotten as they crushed their mouths together, tongues tangling, Stan tracing the contours of Kyle's collarbone as Kyle twisted his fingers with a surprising, sometimes frightening eagerness in Stan's hair.
He couldn't pretend that it didn't completely freak him out. There was the kissing itself, which he could've counted his number of experiences with on one hand before he'd started doing it with Stan. He felt like he was improving, knowing when to apply pressure and when to yield, when to use his tongue and when to reign it in, but he couldn't help but feel embarrassed by how much more comfortable Stan was with… it. Kissing. Making out. Well, of course. He'd probably been doing this with Wendy since they were in middle school.
Which was another thing—the fact that no matter how you looked at it, Stan was deceiving his girlfriend by doing this with him. It was only ever difficult to act like everything was normal when Kyle was face-to-face with Wendy and couldn't help but dwell on the last time he'd made out with her boyfriend. He knew he needed to bring it up with Stan, but every time he resolved to say something, his insides would lock up and he'd placate himself with the fact that there would be a next time. And it became abundantly clear, as the days wore on and he and Stan spent more and more of their time together sucking face, there would be a next time.
He'd never thought of himself as a timid person. (In fact, when push came to shove, he knew he could be just as obnoxious and abrasive as Cartman often was.) But somehow, when it was just him and Stan, he found himself hiding behind his own passivity—waiting for his friend to touch him and then reveling in the giddying, terrifying strength of the pure sensation that followed. He felt it so strongly that when he and Stan had to part, because of the time or the sound of Ike descending the stairs, he would often sit there in a stupor, embarrassed at what must have seemed like his own desperation. But he never kidded himself by thinking that he wanted to put an end to it.
Despite the many underlying issues that were beginning to simmer under the veneer of their relationship, he liked it. He liked this ritual that had arisen between them; this strange little blip in what was otherwise an old-fashioned, all-American, heterosexual best-friendship. And it made his insides quiver to think that soon, very soon, he would have to say something that would bring it all crashing down around them.

The afternoon of the day they'd seen Kenny in class started out normally enough. Stan slouched into Kyle's house after football practice, duly exhausted, and collapsed onto the couch next to his best friend, who was watching bad TV with his bare feet propped up on the incliner. Stan complained about Cartman being a dick to everyone at practice, and Kyle snorted and asked him if he was really that surprised.
"He's just being more insufferable than usual," Stan said, slipping off his shoes and taking the remote that Kyle offered him. "Bullying the kids on the JV team and pitching a fit when people don't cover for his mistakes and stuff." He began flipping through the channels and paused on a Cops knockoff that involved a lot of bleeped-out yelling and wailing sirens. "I mean, I know why he's doing it. We've got the homecoming game on Friday and everybody's kind of stressed-out. It's just—"
"You wish he'd act his age and stop being a fucking baby about it."
"Exactly," Stan said, and to Kyle's surprise he flopped over onto his lap. Kyle started a little but didn't push him away, especially when Stan curled up on the couch and grasped one of Kyle's knees like his bony thighs were better than any pillow. "I'll be glad when the season's over."
"You want to win the game, don't you?" Kyle said, like everything about this was regular and normal, and for good measure he ran his knuckles along Stan's hairline, behind his ear. Stan twitched a little bit.
"Well, yeah," he said, "that'd be great, but it's not like we're going to advance to the semi-finals even if we do win on Friday. And this season has just been… I don't know. Exhausting."
Kyle cocked his head, focusing on the TV for the moment. A pale guy in a dirty wifebeater was being cuffed against the side of a police car. "Do you think you'll play next year?" he asked.
"Huh?"
"You know, wherever you go to school."
Stan shrugged. "I dunno," he said. "I haven't really thought about it."
He didn't say anything else, and Kyle, even though he sensed that Stan didn't really want to talk about this, said, "It just seems to me like you don't enjoy it the way you used to."
"It was never really about enjoying it," Stan said, and Kyle felt his hand tighten on his knee. "I have fun playing and everything; I know all the guys on the team, y'know, whatever. But you know how bad my dad wanted me to play football. And that sort of thing—like, high school sports and everything—that matters here, you know? There are guys down at the sports bar who live for that crap. Uncle Jimbo's been placing bets on my games since I was a little kid. But at some college somewhere… there won't be any of that. I just… I don't know."
"Is that why you don't want to think about college?" Kyle asked.
Stan was quiet for a moment. "It's part of it," he said roughly.
Kyle smoothed his hand over Stan's brow, fleetingly. There was a whole bunch of shit that he could say in response—advisory or reassuring or so corny that Stan would tease him relentlessly (if gently) until they both forgot what they'd been talking about. But none of that seemed necessary when he just seemed to understand.
"I get it," he said finally, softly. "It's okay."
Stan sat up and looked at Kyle, and Kyle barely had a chance to brace himself before Stan kissed him, his tongue pushing immediately into his friend's mouth. Kyle kissed him back, his teeth brushing against Stan's lower lip, and he was just beginning to get into it, hooking one of his hands around the back of Stan's neck so he could pull him closer, when he felt his hat slide off of his head and Stan made a noise into his mouth, a strange little deep-throated chuckle he didn't think he'd ever heard his friend make.
Kyle pulled away, embarrassed and more than a little irritated. "Stan," he said. "Give me my hat back."
Stan grinned in a way that was curiously childish and put Kyle's ushanka on his own head, pulling on the flaps in the same way Kyle did when he was nervous. "Nope."
"Seriously," Kyle said, shoving a few tendrils of red hair out of his face when they fell in front of his eyes. He needed a haircut, he knew, and it made him that much more anxious to have his head uncovered.
"You have got such a complex about this hat," Stan said, ducking out of the range of Kyle's reaching hand.
"It's not a complex. I just hate my hair."
"So cut it off."
"Like that would look any better."
Stan's mouth twisted. Every once in a while Kyle would make these deprecating remarks about his own appearance that implied some sort of self-esteem issue, or at the very least that he cared more about how he looked than he let on. He wondered sometimes if there wasn't some lingering fallout from that list the girls in their class had made in elementary school, the one that had (falsely) labeled Kyle as the ugliest boy in the class. "I like your hair," he said.
Kyle snorted. "Yeah, sure you do."
"I think you look better without the hat."
Kyle looked at Stan uncertainly, his hair falling into his eyes again. This time he didn't brush it away. "Really?" Kyle said quietly, as Stan pulled the hat off of his head, still keeping it out of his friend's reach. "Mm-hmm," Stan said under his breath. He kissed his friend softly, his breath ghosting over the swell of Kyle's lower lip, and then harder when his lips parted a little. But then Kyle was struggling, pushing him away, and Stan's brow furrowed when he pulled back and saw Kyle's flushed cheeks and the way he'd averted his eyes. "No… no. Wait," he was saying. "Just… wait a minute."
"What?" Stan said in a throaty voice, and Kyle had to shake his head to convince himself that he was right to go with his instinct. They couldn't be doing this right now. Not when Stan had just said something like that. Things were getting into a weird area. "We can't… listen," Kyle began, looking meaningfully at Stan, who groaned and pressed his face into the juncture of Kyle's neck and shoulder.
"Stan," Kyle said wearily. "Come on. Please."
The tone of his voice made Stan straighten up, although his dismissive look made it clear that he didn't want to have this conversation. "What?" he said, more clearly.
Kyle took a deep breath. "Should we really be… doing this?"
Stan shrugged. "Why not?"
"It's just… it's weird," Kyle said, brushing his hair out of his face with a frustrated twist of his hand. He really wished Stan would give him his hat back. "Neither of us is, like, gay or anything, so it's kind of odd that we'd just keep… y'know…"
The 'gay' thing had never really even entered into his doubts about the situation, but he knew it would make Stan think about things a little more critically—and now he was frowning, gripping Kyle's ushanka tightly in his lap without seeming to realize it. "Do you hate it?" he asked.
Kyle sighed. He was missing the point. "Stan—"
"Kyle," Stan said forcefully, for him anyway. "Do. You. Hate. It. I'm asking you seriously."
"I… well… well, no," Kyle said, blushing. He found himself looking at his hat in Stan's hands rather than Stan's face. "But that isn't—"
"Dude, look at me," Stan said, and Kyle did, taking in his friend's serious face; its solid bone structure and dark blue eyes. It wasn't fair. Stan was too good-looking. "Does it bother you? Are you going along with it because you're too polite to say no, or… or do you just not care enough to stop me?"
"No," Kyle said, almost insulted that his best friend would think he could be that cold-hearted. He wondered if this had been weighing on Stan's mind. "No, I would never… I mean… of course not…"
"Because it's just that… I always—" Stan stopped, slightly flushed and clearly embarrassed. "You never… start anything, so I feel like I'm always—I mean, I don't know whether you really want to—"
"I do—" Kyle felt like his words couldn't come out fast enough. "I do, but I don't want to, like… break the rules or anything—"
"'Rules'? What? What do you—what rules? Why the hell would there be rules?"
"I don't know," Kyle said, although a small part of him was whispering, Why wouldn't there be. "I don't know why I said that, but… Stan. Listen. It isn't that I… dislike kissing you. Not at all."
"Then what's the problem?"
Kyle hesitated. "I…" Stan's voice was quiet, almost tender, and something in Kyle's gut squirmed at the intimacy of his tone. They were close, closer than they normally were when Stan wasn't sticking his tongue down his throat, and his friend's very nearnesswas making him sweat. "The problem—" And then he stopped, swallowing, because his voice was shaky and too weak to convince anyone of anything; "the problem," Kyle said when he'd collected a little bit of resolve, "is that this just isn't normal."
Stan looked away, and Kyle let himself breathe. He was frowning, chewing on the inside of his lip, and when he spoke it was in such a low voice that Kyle had to strain to hear him. "So?"
Kyle stared at him. Stan was by no means close-minded or conservative, but Kyle had always been the more deviant of the two. On the whole, Stan was pretty laid-back, but he did care about social mores and conventions. He did care what people thought of him. "'So'? What do you mean, 'so'?"
"That's it," Stan said, leaning his head against the back of the couch and looking at him imploringly. "I mean, it's not like anyone else needs to know. And if you don't care… and I don't care… then why should it matter whether it's normal or not?"
Kyle's breath caught in his throat. It was a convincing argument, even if the very secrecy gave him that prick he often experienced in the back of his mind when he knew something wasn't quite right. More important was the fact that by anyone Stan meant Wendy, and both of them knew it. Stan was willing to live with the deception—to pretend that it wasn't a deception at all—because he apparently got the same strange thrill out of kissing his best friend that Kyle did.
It wasn't as if there weren't several things Stan did with Wendy that he also did with Kyle, he figured. (He didn't actually know what Stan did with Wendy, or what guys did with their girlfriends at all aside from the obvious, but Stan was Stan. Odds were they watched movies and talked and occasionally played video games or sports, just like he did with the guys.) He and Wendy kind of shared Stan between them anyway, if he was being honest with himself, so really—what was sharing one thing more?
He could feel his hesitation wavering, and Stan could apparently see it in his expression; his face eased into a lopsided grin as he plopped Kyle's hat back onto his head, momentarily obscuring his vision. "We cool?"
"Yeah," Kyle said when he'd adjusted his ushanka. "Yeah, we are. Sorry. I'm just—"
"I know," Stan said, as if he actually did. "Don't apologize."
They looked at each other for a long moment, and Kyle steeled himself a little, his lips burning as he prepared for Stan to kiss him again, but at what felt like the last moment Stan looked at the TV and said, "The fuck is wrong with that guy's teeth?"
"Like forty years of chewing tobacco," Kyle answered immediately, and even as Stan laughed his heart sank a little. There was a trembling, seizing, fluttering feeling in his chest he wasn't sure he liked. He glanced at Stan, quickly, but there wasn't any sign in his face that Stan was still dwelling on the matter, so he settled back into the couch to watch TV and squashed the sudden urge to lay his head on his best friend's shoulder.

"He's what?" Wendy said, dropping her plastic fork into her salad.
It was lunch the next day, Thursday October 18th, and she was eating with Stan and Kyle. It had kind of become a habit—her girlfriends, most of whom were cheerleaders, had started taking lunches off to rehearse for the homecoming game, and she didn't mind sitting with the boys, anyway. They'd all known her long enough that no one tried to give her special treatment for being a girl or Stan's girlfriend, and there was something about hanging with guys—sitting with her knees casually spread, elbows resting lankly on the table, yelling to be heard and punching Cartman in the shoulder when he was being a prick just like everyone else—that released the tension that sometimes gathered between her shoulder blades.
She and Stan weren't fighting anymore—or avoiding one another, or being awkward around one another, or whatever the problem had been that had made her feel like he was slipping away. Maybe the problem really had just been between him and Kyle, and her input hadn't been needed at all. (They were certainly getting along well enough now.) Maybe she'd been over-thinking, over-sensitive; it seemed ridiculous now that Stan would dump her, as she'd begun to fear, to the point that it was almost embarrassing to think back on how concerned she'd been a few short weeks ago. There was a weight that'd been lifted from her shoulders. When she smiled at him now he smiled back, easily, the way he used to, and when he'd asked her to the homecoming dance a couple days ago, she'd agreed with conviction, and a certainty that their world had somehow shifted back into normalcy without incident.
That certainty had faltered somewhat, however, when she learned just what Kenny McCormick had been doing with his spare time for the last month.
"Man, I know," Stan said, his eyebrows raised in such a way to suggest dude, Wendy, calm down. "We were surprised, too."
"He's usually… um … around," said Kyle, who was leaning his head on one arm and seemed more absorbed in folding a paper football out of a napkin than the subject of their conversation. "Recently, not so much. We weren't worried or anything, since, y'know, he's Kenny, but we were kind of curious, so—fuck—" The napkin had ripped in his hands. He threw the pieces aside and pulled another napkin from the dispenser. "So we asked him, and… I mean, apparently he's been making a ton of money off it—"
"Give me that," Stan said, his lips curving at Kyle's efforts. He leaned his head on one of his fists, obscuring part of his face from Wendy's view.
"What? No. Make your own."
"You're doing it wrong."
"Like hell I am."
"No, really, you have to use paper or something; the napkin's too soft—"
"But that's so dangerous," Wendy exclaimed, interrupting their bickering. It had set her blood pumping through her veins, imagining someone she knew putting themselves at risk like that—and in a small, prejudiced town like South Park, too. What made it worse was that both Stan and Kyle, whom she normally counted on to side with her on these issues, seemed not to understand the risk. They were both looking at her a little bemusedly, as if they weren't sure what she was talking about. "Not to mention illegal—he could get into serious trouble—"
Stan snorted. "In South Park? Yeah, sure."
"I was kind of worried too, Wendy," Kyle said, meeting her gaze. "But Kenny can take care of himself. He'll be fine."
Wendy made a face. "Whether or not he can 'take care of himself'—"
"It's his decision, Wends," Stan said, interrupting her. "It would be different if he was being forced into it, but Kenny's always kind of done his own thing."
"It's still not right," Wendy murmured, but Stan and Kyle were absorbed in attempting to make another football, so she gave up and rested her chin on her arms, not quite watching the boys swat at each other on the other side of the table. She liked to think she was pretty familiar with Stan's friends—Kyle was around more often than not, and it was hard not to feel like she knew Cartman better than she wanted to—but Kenny had always remained sort of an enigma. He seemed to hover at the edge of their group, usually listening but never saying much, a smirk on his shadowed face and a lighter or a cigarette in his hand. She'd known him since she was four, of course, she and everyone else in their graduating class, but it wasn't as if there was anyone but Stan, Kyle, and Cartman who really made an effort to hang out with him. More than anything, to be honest, he was—and Wendy's face screwed up in embarrassment at the thought of it, reprimanding herself for being so close-minded—he was poor, just like his unemployed parents, who were well-known welfare recipients and alcoholics; he lived in the part of town most people preferred to avoid and dressed in clothes that perpetually looked and smelled like they needed a wash. She wracked her brain for a conversation she'd had with Kenny and came up with nothing, only recalling what her parents had said about him after dinner one night, a couple of years ago.
"I can't believe Stanley is friends with one of Stu McCormick's boys," her mother had said as she cleared the dishes from the table, sweeping the used silverware into a cloth napkin and stooping to put the leftover duck on the ground for the dog to eat. Stan had come and gone for dinner, as he often used to when they weren't quite as used to each others' parents. "He's such a good kid. I can't imagine what they'd have in common."
Wendy's hackles had risen almost immediately at a perceived insult to Stan's integrity. "They've been friends forever, Mom," she'd said. "Since kindergarten, at least. Besides, Kenny's not that bad."
Her father had looked up at that. "You're not spending time with him, are you, Wendy?"
"Well… no," Wendy said, "but it's not like he gets into trouble at school or anything. Especially compared to Eric Cartman."
"I heard that Mrs. McCormick was caught trying to shoplift from J-Mart a couple weeks ago," Wendy's mother said, completely disregarding her daughter's hint that Stan had friends that were much more worthy of complaint. "J-Mart. Can you imagine?"
"It's tough out there for some people," Mr. Testaburger said, returning his gaze to the crossword he'd been doing and shaking his head. "But… well. I'd have a little more sympathy for them if they at least tried to find work."
Now Wendy shifted uneasily at the fact that she hadn't tried to say more in Kenny's defense—and, looking up, started at seeing him suddenly from across the cafeteria. He was with Cartman, leaning casually against the double doors on the south side of the room, and although he was on all accounts a pretty average-sized guy he seemed small, almost vulnerable, in comparison to Cartman's massive bulk. All at once they looked over, Kenny's gaze meshing with Wendy's for the briefest of moments, and she looked down, blood beginning to pool in her cheeks; she knew they had probably just seen Stan and Kyle sitting across from her, but she couldn't help but feel that Kenny had caught her looking at him with pity.
"Wendy?" Stan's voice was soft and concerned, and she felt the back of his hand brush against her forehead. She didn't look up (if she had, she would have seen Kyle glance at Stan and then away, busying himself more readily with his mess of a paper football). "What's up?"
"Nothing," she said, straightening and tucking her hair behind her ears; she smiled at him, ignoring the shapes of Cartman and Kenny making their way toward their table through the crowd, and took his hand across the table. It was unusual for the two of them to show affection for one another in public (especially with Kyle there, in front of whom Stan had always kind of balked at acting "the boyfriend"). He accepted her hand readily, however, squeezing it so that Wendy couldn't help but grin, even as Cartman made room for himself on the bench next to Kyle and Kenny slid unobtrusively into the spot next to her. "How about you? Are you ready for the game tomorrow?"

The night of the homecoming game.
The field lights had been switched-on since about three-thirty in the afternoon, flooding the sky with a glow that was visible from anywhere in South Park and beating down on the high school football field like a beacon. The bleachers were packed, home and visitor sides, and the furor topside was second only to the swarm of activity that was going on below. Under and around the bleachers kids were lounging against the bleacher supports, playing music, sneaking beer and cigarettes: taking full advantage of the fact that their parents and teachers were too engrossed in the game to pay them much attention. Freshmen wandered the crowd in wide-eyed groups, giddy and giggling as they took in what was for a lot of them their first real high school party.
Kyle sat on one of the front-row bleachers, hunched-over and shivering despite the oversized hoodie he wore, which enveloped his arms and fell in waves around his torso. It was the beginning of the fourth quarter and his attention had started to slip from the game. Relying on the scoreboard to keep track of what was happening on the field, he began to watch the players themselves—how they moved, their posture, how each one of them registered stress. These were his classmates, his friends—he saw their names printed clearly on each of their backs—but there was something fundamentally different about seeing them suited up, under the spotlight, in their element. Even Cartman, whose sizable gut and fat ass were overshadowed by his height and the bulk of his gear, seemed almost menacing, stalking around the field in between plays and screaming barely-discernable insults at the other team. Kyle's eyes travelled over Clyde Donovan, oddly imposing in his uniform, Terrance Mephisto, who was huge to begin with, and finally Stan, who was taking a break over by the sidelines and had removed his helmet, his face streaming with sweat. As he watched, Stan poured a bottle of water over his head, the rivulets streaming down over his face and neck as he shook the excess water out of his hair. Kyle quickly looked away.
"You okay, man?" Token said quietly at his side.
"Mm. Yeah," Kyle said, shuddering a little and pulling his hoodie more snugly around his slender frame. "Just cold."
"Too fucking right," Craig said darkly from Token's other side. "My balls are going to fall off it gets any fucking colder."
"Oh, Jesus," Tweek said suddenly from the end of the row. "For real?"
"What?"
"Do your balls really fall off if they get too cold?"
"Fuck, I don't know. Sure. Probably."
"I don't want your balls to fall off, dude."
"The fuck're you worrying about my balls for, queer-mo? Worry about your own."
"Mine? Oh, Jesus!"
"Nobody's balls are going to fall off," Token said loudly.
The three of them were there to support Clyde just like Kyle and Kenny (although he'd disappeared pretty quickly after the game had started) were there to support Stan and Cartman. Kyle didn't feel totally comfortable sitting with them. Token was on the basketball team with him, so they were friends, he guessed, even if they never really hung out outside of practice, but the pull of old childhood animosities was such that now, at the age of seventeen, he felt out-of-place among the members of their old rival gang from elementary school.
Craig, Tweek, Clyde, and Token's group didn't go all the way back to preschool the way Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny's did, but it was just as curiously mismatched now that they were all nearly grown. Clyde, who was a great athlete despite the fact that he wasn't all that great at anything else, and Token, who was great at pretty much everything, made an interesting contrast to Craig and Tweek, who had become veritable potheads over the last couple of years. Craig smoked because it was easy to steal from his parents, who dealt to most of South Park's adults, and Tweek smoked because weed calmed him down like nothing else could. They'd probably smoked a bowl or two before climbing up onto the bleachers and now Tweek was starting to sober up; he'd been quiet for the most of the game, spending as much time playing with his lighter as he had staring at the field, but now his neuroses were starting to return. If Kyle leaned around Token and Craig to look at him, he would probably see that a tic had begun in the side of Tweek's mouth as he fixated on his frozen, ruined testicles.
"They're doing all right, though, aren't they?" Token said, rubbing his hands together to get warm. "I kind of assumed Middle Park was going to wipe the field with them in the first five minutes."
"Yeah, they're not sucking as much as they could," Craig said, rubbing his chin. Nobody could ever tell when he was high. Craig was just Craig. "They might even win. Cartman's got the whole visiting team terrified that he's going to sit on them and fart in their mouths." Token couldn't hold back a quiet snort, and Kyle heard Tweek squeak in disgust and terror.
He was following Stan around with his eyes again without even seeming to try. Each and every time his conscious attention slipped from the game, fixating on the chill or on what would happen afterward, who would throw a party and who would throw up or break something or become a new drunken legend, he found himself staring at Stan, easily distinguishable by the familiar arch to his neck and the way his body twisted when he threw the ball. He'd seen Stan play football before—hell, he'd sat in this very spot at games before—but there was something different about this time, something palpable and anxious in the twitch of his toes, the nervous shiver of his limbs.
Maybe it was the fact that, in all likelihood, this was the last time he would ever see Stan play.
A cold breeze tugged at his hood and he pulled it more securely over his head. He wasn't wearing his hat. It hadn't been a big decision or anything. He'd been tugging at his hair in the mirror, frowning at how long it'd gotten and wondering if there wasn't anything to Stan's suggestion that he cut it all off, when Kenny had shown up at his house and he'd left for the game without really thinking about it. As he sat out in the open, however, shivering and feeling curiously vulnerable without Stan or Kenny or even Cartman next to him, he had to tell himself that there wasn't something to Stan's other suggestion, that he had some sort of anxious complex about his hat. It was stupid. It was a hat. There was nothing wrong with feeling strange without it, he reasoned, as the crowd groaned as one entity over some missed opportunity on the field. He'd been wearing the thing for as long as he could remember, after all; in first grade he'd had to push it up over his forehead in class so he could see the board. Of course it would become part of his identity. Of course—his hair fell into his eyes and he grunted in frustration as he tried to blow it out of his line of vision—of course he would look different without it, and of course he would, upon seeing his reflection, wonder for a moment who it was staring back at him.
Tweek made a noise again, in surprise this time, and Kyle's attention snapped back to the field. Stan had the ball. He was running. Kyle's eyes raked frantically over the field, trying to understand what had happened, but before he got it together he saw one of the Middle Park players, a huge, broad-chested guy who had about six inches on Stan, run up to block him, his arms wide open. Stan tried to dodge and the guy kneed him deliberately, viciously, in the stomach. He went down like a rock.
"Jesus!" Craig yelled over the referee's blaring whistle and the entire crowd screaming FOUL. Tweek had latched onto his arm, eyes wide, lips tumbling over some soundless mantra. "That was fucking dirty!"
Everything had taken a nosedive into chaos. Clyde crouched over Stan, winded and struggling for breath on the ground, while Kevin Stoley had to dig his feet into the green and grab Cartman by the arm to keep him from tearing into the offending player. Randy Marsh, shirtless and clearly drunk, was trying (and failing) to climb over the bleachers down the row, crying "Stan! Staaan!" at the top of his lungs. The ref and the Cows' coach had run onto the field, the former still blowing his whistle in long, earsplitting spurts, and after a couple more confused moments Stan himself could just be heard yelling, "I'm okay! I'm okay!"
"Jesus," Craig said again as the clamor started to die down. "What a dick. They're getting fucking desperate. Stan's lucky he's not barfing all over the field."
"Oh, God—" Tweek's voice was hushed. "You think—ah!—you think he'll be okay?"
"Well, yeah." Craig's usual monotone was only slightly bitter. "It's Stan, isn't it? Stan fucking Marsh. S'not like anything bad would actually happen to him—"
"Kyle," Token said sharply. Both Craig and Tweek leaned around their friend to see Kyle clutching at his hood with whitened knuckles, his eyes like saucers. He'd barely acknowledged that Token had said his name, only glancing their way when he grasped his shoulder. "Dude. Hey. Calm down. He's fine, look."
Stan was on his feet, his arms pressed lightly to his stomach as he argued with their coach, probably insisting that he could still play. Kyle nodded slowly. His fingers loosened the iron grip on his hood and he began to register what was going on around him again: the whistling, hollering noise of the crowd, Token's hand rubbing tentative circles on his back. "Yeah," he said finally, before looking at Token and cracking a smile. "Thanks."
"No problem," Token said, grinning a little. Craig leaned his elbows on his knees, smirking, and said, "What, is that you over there, Broflovski, with all that adorable red hair? I didn't realize you'd traded your Jewfro in for a Jewmullet."
Kyle smirked back, pulling his knees to his chest. "You start saying I look like a girl, Craig, I might have to punch you in the face."
"Oh, yeah, like you're pretty enough to be a girl."
"Prettier than you, assface."
"Hey, y'know, that's a legitimate medical condition—"
"Guys!" Tweek screeched, about a stone's throw away from completely losing his shit. "Jesus! Ah! Stop arguing!"
Token reached over and tousled Tweek's already messy blond hair. "Don't worry about it, dude. Everything's cool."

They won the game. It became obvious that they would in the last couple of minutes, as Middle Park fell farther and farther behind and the furor in the South Park stands because fuller and less-contained. Stan didn't score the winning points, but most of the stands were screaming his name—a testament to his injury and courageous determination to keep playing so late in the game. He looked stunned, excited, and a little freaked-out by all the attention, Kyle thought; he clutched his helmet to his chest and swayed on his feet as he stared up at the stands, seemingly wondering whether he should wave to the crowd or join his teammates in spilling a cooler of lemon-flavored Powerade over their coach's unsuspecting head, but his attention shifted entirely when a slight, dark-haired form streaked past Kyle where he sat on the bleachers. "Stan!" Wendy shrieked as she ran toward him, beautiful, positively glowing; Stan threw his helmet aside and opened his arms, and as they kissed in front of most of the town it occurred to Kyle that he knew just what Stan's lips tasted like, and how it felt when he pulled you closer and brushed his teeth, just lightly, over your lower lip. He sat stock-still, shivering, ignoring the arm Token had thrown around his shoulders and the excited vulgarities Craig was yelling in his ear, and felt his pulsating heart drop into his stomach.

It wasn't until Stan had to head to the locker room to change that Wendy made her way over to her friends, who were hanging out by Bebe's used convertible in the parking lot. Red was checking her hair in the rearview mirror while Heidi Turner smoked a cigarette in the back seat and tried not to cough. Bebe began clapping slowly as she watched Wendy approach.
"Scandalous," Bebe said, grinning at her. "Absolutely shocking. Was that your first kiss?"
"Shut up," Wendy said, shoving her, although she couldn't entirely banish the satisfied blush from her face. Stan had given her his letter jacket, which was warm, if much too big for her. Her fingertips were just visible at the ends of the sleeves. "What's going on tonight? Have you guys heard anything?"
"Party!" Annie squealed, apparently unable to contain herself, while Bebe laughed and said, "Stark's Pond. I guess you were too busy making out with your boyfriend to hear Eric Cartman screaming about booze and a bonfire." When Wendy groaned to diffuse her embarrassment, Bebe countered with, "I know you don't like him, Wendy, but the kid knows how to party. Seems like it could get pretty wild."
"I'm all right with Eric Cartman if I don't have to hear him speak," Wendy said dryly.
"Or look at him," Heidi spoke up, giggling at her own wit, while Bebe waved her hands in a 'simmer down' gesture. "Anyway, it starts as soon as everyone can get their asses over there, so we were gonna leave like… now. Do you want to come with us or wait for Stan? … Wendy?"
"What?" Wendy said, although she still wasn't really listening. Her eyes had fallen on a tall, burly-looking biker in a denim jacket and a shorter, slighter young man in a black hoodie and nondescript blue jeans leaning against the Dumpster near the back of the stands. The older guy, who had to be about twenty-two or twenty-three, was a South Park High graduate from a couple years back. He'd fallen right into the drinking-swearing-watching the game circle of men who sat in the South Park sports bar every night, and now belonged to a biker gang who spent their evenings zooming around South Park's narrow streets and catcalling the lined strippers who worked the poles at the Peppermint Hippo. The other young man was Kenny McCormick.
"Gawd, is that Kenny?" Red said, having followed Wendy's gaze. "The company that boy keeps."
"That guy's scary," Annie said in a low voice. "My dad said he got into a fight at the bar last week."
"More like every week," Red said, tousling her hair in the mirror. "What's Kenny doing, looking for pointers on how to be white trash?"
"Like he needs them."
"Wendy," Bebe said again over the others' titters, but Wendy held up her hand. Kenny was leaning away from the biker, slouching with his hands in his pockets, but the way he seemed to arch toward the other guy, looking up at him from under his tousled bangs, was somehow imploring. The man said something to Kenny, leaning a little closer than necessary; Kenny nodded, and they headed under the bleachers together.
Wendy felt a tingling in her extremities. She was having trouble catching her breath. It'd been one thing to hear that Kenny was prostituting himself—it was shocking, yes; she'd certainly been shocked. But there had been a part of her, the very small part of her that was a South Park citizen through and through, that had shrugged it off as nothing. It was Kenny, "that McCormick boy," after all; he was depraved and incorrigible and somehow inhuman. He would do anything for a few bucks. He'd eaten part of a dead manatee in the third grade because the whole class had dared him to.
But these memories, as confusing and frankly horrifying as they were, were colored with the veneer of childhood. Now Wendy was no longer a child, and she had just watched one of her classmates prostitute himself next to a Dumpster at a football game. She took a step forward.
"Wendy," Red spoke up, sounding frustrated. "C'mon, girl, are you coming with us or not?"
"Yeah," Wendy said suddenly. "I will. Just… give me a minute."
"What? Wendy—"
"Just a minute," she called over her shoulder as she ran back toward the bleachers.
She was blinded for a moment as she stepped under the creaking aluminum. The sounds of the crowd, still milling around the grounds, seemed muted in comparison to the roar of her own heartbeat in her ears. The grounds had been quickly abandoned by the kids who'd been here earlier, leaving nothing but trash and half-eaten hot dogs and pizza slices from the concessions stand, and for a moment, the space seemed devoid of anyone at all. After frantically craning her head, however, she caught sight of a human shape shifting against the darkness: the biker's spiked hair, the collar of his denim jacket. Quite forgetting her own safety for the moment, Wendy called Kenny's name.
There was a scuffle: the screech of boots against pavement, a male yelp. Kenny stumbled to his feet, wiping his mouth, while the biker fumbled frantically with his belt, already tripping over his feet in order to get away. "Hey… Hey!" Kenny snapped as the guy began sprinting away between the bleacher supports, still tugging at his pants. "You owe me!"
"Fuck you, faggot!" the biker yelled over his shoulder, and the rev of an engine told them that he'd reached his motorcycle.
Kenny whipped back around. Even under the scattered lighting she could see the clench of his fists and the cold flash of his eyes. "You stupid cunt," he hissed.
Wendy's jaw dropped. "… What did you call me?"
He didn't answer, picking his backpack up off the ground, and she stomped over, her feet connecting clumsily with the ground in her anger. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" she said when she'd gotten within six feet of him.
He looked at her, a short, dirty look, and she felt her resolve waver somewhat; there was something different about him, something harsh and animalistic that she'd never seen before in her benign classmate—but when he turned to walk away she felt herself swell with a fresh wave of irritation. "Hey! I'm talking to you!"
He ignored her, his form dappled by the glow from the field lights slanting in through the cracks in the bleachers, and she found herself chasing after him, grabbing at the baggy sleeve of his hoodie to make him pay attention. "Kenny—"
Kenny turned around suddenly and jerked his sleeve out of her grasp; Wendy stumbled and would have fallen into him had she not shrunken away suddenly at the look on his face. "What."
Wendy swallowed and her hands grasped at the ends of Stan's letter jacket. She had been angry two seconds ago, enough perhaps to give him a piece of her mind for his indiscretions and for calling her that disgusting word, but nothing, nothing, could compare to the fury in Kenny's face at that moment, the dim, infrequent lighting carving his features into something grotesque and violent as his eyes bulged at her out of the darkness. His shoulders, bony but unequivocally masculine under his dirty hoodie, seemed to tremble with repressed activity. She was sure for a moment he was going to hit her, and she couldn't help but cringe into herself the slightest bit, her head dipping and her dark hair falling inconsequentially over her shoulders to cover her face—but perhaps he'd seen the fear in her and felt shamed by the idea, because his face softened a little and he ran his fingers through his crop of dirty blond hair, more sullen and frustrated now than angry. "… What do you want?"
"You…" Wendy bit the inside of her lip and felt a little of her purposefulness return. "You shouldn't be doing this."
"Doing what," Kenny said flatly, shoving his hands into his pockets and leaning away from her.
"Giving head to some… homophobic redneck under the bleachers at a football game," Wendy snapped, relishing the weight of the words in her mouth. Kenny's eyebrows had shot up; he apparently hadn't expected her to be so frank, and she felt the slightest curl of pride in her chest at the fact that she'd been able to surprise him. "For money. You don't see a problem with that?"
He cocked his head, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, and as he lit up she could see the mocking derision on his face. "Should I?"
"It's illegal, for one thing, and dangerous; any one of these guys could beat the shit out of you or give you some disease, and…" She didn't know where her words were coming from anymore; her face felt flushed and she could feel the speech bubbling up from under her tongue like it had been spirited directly into her mouth. "And you deserve better than this."
He snorted, bringing his cigarette hand up to cradle his mouth. The lit cherry revealed the amused twist of his lips and the hard set of his eyes. "Well, listen to you," he said, and Wendy felt her face grow hotter. "You get a rush from your boyfriend winning the big game and decide to do some charity on the side?"
Wendy pressed her fingers briefly to the front of Stan's jacket, wishing she'd thought to give it to Bebe. "No," she said, "I've been meaning to speak to you. After Stan told me what you were doing—"
Kenny sighed and rolled his eyes. "Dammit, Stan…"
"I'm glad he told me!" Wendy said hotly. "Frankly, I don't think he and Kyle are nearly concerned enough—"
"Or maybe they just know me a little better than you do," Kenny said, leaning towards her a little; she caught the smell of his cigarette and something else underneath it that may have been Kenny himself, sweet and musty, like faded cologne and old orange peels. She turned half-away. "Did that ever cross your mind?"
Her tongue felt thick in her mouth as she tried to formulate an answer. They both glanced at the parking lot at the sound of a car horn. "You're keepin' your ride waiting," Kenny said, almost in her ear, and she glared at him even as she heard Bebe's and Red's voices, as if from far away, calling her name.
"Well?" Kenny said, his eyes mocking, and although it was unreasonable, and she knew she could have come up with a proper argument if he'd only given her another minute, all she could think to do was mumble "Fuck you" under her breath and turn on her heel, sprinting off between the bleacher supports to rejoin her friends. Kenny watched her go with dull eyes, then glanced distastefully at the cigarette in his hand and crushed it underfoot.
"What the hell was that all about?" Bebe asked blankly as Wendy hopped into the backseat of the convertible, shoving Heidi and Annie into the opposite door as she attempted to get herself situated.
"Nothing," Wendy said harshly, and when Bebe caught sight of her face she raised her eyebrows and turned back to the wheel, knowing better than to press the issue. "Let's get out of here."

Stark's Pond had undergone more than a few renovations since they were kids. In fourth grade it had been steamrollered and turned into a Wall-Mart, which the townspeople had burned down, and then an upscale Jim's Drug, which the townspeople had also burned down, and after existing as a charred, toxic dump for a couple of years the mayor had had it cleaned up and beautified in an attempt to turn South Park into a tourist attraction. When this scheme failed, just like all the others, the plot of land had become overgrown and largely forgotten about. Nowadays it looked roughly the same as it had in the old days, and it was frequented for the most part by the same people: little kids who liked to play on the ice in the winter months and teenagers looking for a place to drink and fuck and break the law where their parents wouldn't think to find them.
Stan was having a pretty shitty time at the party. Not that there was anything about it that objectively sucked. There was a bonfire. Kevin had driven his crappy old pickup truck onto the grass and was blasting the top 40 out the open doors and windows, so they had music. They had booze: someone had stolen a couple of thirty-packs of beer from a dad or an older brother, and Kenny had assured them that he'd bring another, whenever he decided to show up. They'd had parties like this one all summer that it still made him smile to think of now: everyone tipsy, dancing, laughing until they were dizzy and winded on the ground. Clyde and Token catching Tweek off-guard and tossing him into the water. Bebe challenging the guys to a shotgunning contest and winning, hands down. Sitting with Wendy and feeling her slip her hand into his, secretly, like a promise.
Tonight, however, just felt… lackluster. The victory itself had been explosive, ecstatic; he'd remembered what he'd liked about football in the first place, leading him to think that yes, maybe he would continue to play in college, wherever that ended up being. But his mood had steadily declined from his public kiss with Wendy to now, so that the present Stan, sitting at a picnic table surrounded by chattering classmates, could not have felt more apathetic about where he was and what he was doing any more than he already did.
His logical mind told him that it had everything to do with Wendy. She hadn't stayed long. He'd shown up at the party with Kyle and Cartman, who had bickered the whole trip over, and had looked for Wendy with the hope that she would help buoy his quickly plummeting mood. She'd been caustic, however, and quick to irritate; Stan hadn't really known what to do with her. Her girlfriends seemed to be at a loss as well, which had resulted in her leaving within twenty minutes of his arrival.
"It isn't you," she'd said when he walked her to the street. "I'm sorry, Stan. I'm just in a really awful mood."
"Can I help?" he'd asked, even though he didn't feel like he had much cheer to spare.
"No, it's… don't worry about it, okay?" She'd kissed him on the cheek and given him back his letter jacket. "Have fun. And congratulations."
And he wasn't worrying about it, really. Wendy just got into moods sometimes. He'd learned when to comfort her and when she actually just needed some space. He wished she wouldn't have gotten into a 'mood' at a party that was technically partially in his honor, but he wasn't concerned about it being his fault. She'd meant it when she kissed him earlier that night.
No, what was actually bothering him was something else entirely.
He'd first transitioned from elation to confusion when he met up with Kyle after the game and Kyle had seemed less than overjoyed to see him. Instead of returning Stan's grin he'd smiled tightly at him, almost uncomfortably, and said, "Good job, dude."
Not that he'd expected Kyle to heap praise on him or anything. But it was harder to feel as good about his performance in the game when his best friend seemed not to care—and when it became clear that Kyle didn't feel like hanging out at all, avoiding his gaze when they spoke and ignoring him almost completely on the car ride over, Stan had begun entertaining the notion of getting Cartman to pull over and let him go home by himself.
That wouldn't have worked either, he reasoned—he was a celebrity at this party. If he'd tried to go home, there probably would have been a committee delegated to going over to his house and forcibly dragging him back out. People he barely knew kept coming over and congratulating him on his victory—like it was just his victory—as if they were the best of friends, and his injury, which had stopped hurting about ten minutes after the guy had kneed him, was practically a cause célèbre. People would suggest that he try legal action, that they should all go over to Middle Park and fuck up their stands as a way of vengeance, and Stan couldn't possibly say that he didn't care one way or the other. It was the kind of thing that Kyle would have found incredibly funny—if Kyle weren't sitting at a picnic bench fifty feet away, talking to people Stan knew he didn't like instead of spending the evening with his best friend.
"Stan," Bebe said, touching him briefly on the knee for comfort. She was with her new boyfriend, a kid in a leather jacket who looked scared shitless to be hanging out with a bunch of seniors. "You're looking pretty glum, chum."
Stan cracked a smile. "Thanks, Bebe."
"Dude, Stan, are you sure you don't want to go check out that bonfire?" Cartman said, craning his neck around to get a better look at it through the crowds of people. "It looks fucking sweet. I mean, I helped build it, so I know it's fucking sweet. We could set some freshmen on fire or something."
"Nnn… no, dude, that's okay," Stan said. "You go ahead, I'll be fine."
Cartman shrugged and popped open another beer. "Nah," he said. "More bitches over here anyway."
"Cartman, you are such a pig," Heidi said, knocking into Stan with a beer can clutched in her hand. He wondered how many she'd had. "Why do you gotta call us 'bitches' all the time?"
"Because bitches are bitches, ho," Cartman said easily, clinking his can against Craig's, who had lifted it with a wry grin. Tweek was sitting next to him and had calmed down again, which might have had something to do with the lit joint in his hand. "Tweek, bro, you want to give me a hit of that shit?"
"Hell no, dude," Tweek said calmly before taking another drag and holding it in.
Stan was only half-paying attention to what was going on around him, accepting a beer from Cartman and popping it open without really looking at him. He would feel Kyle's eyes on him sometimes—that familiar, watchful gaze that he would have been able to sense in his sleep—but when he turned his eyes on his best friend Kyle would be looking away again.
It was irritating, that was all, since he couldn't even begin to guess what he had done wrong.
Bebe rested one of her boots on the bench next to Stan and leaned over in a show of checking the lacing that ran up the back. "Kyle?" she asked.
"What about him?" Stan said.
"You're staring at him an awful lot." When he didn't respond, she said, "You could just go over and talk to him, you know."
Stan shrugged. "He doesn't seem to want me to."
"So he's being a little bitch about something," Bebe said, straightening. She and Kyle weren't each other's biggest fans. "Seriously, your mopey attitude is bringing everybody down."
Stan glared at her, and would have said something about not asking everybody to hang around him when he felt like moping, had a commotion not announced a new arrival to their party.
"Kenny!" Cartman exclaimed, sounding much happier to see him than he would if he were entirely sober. "Where the hell have you been?"
Kenny, sour-faced and brooding, hopped onto the picnic table next to Stan. "Had to walk," he said shortly. "My ride bailed."
Cartman waved this away. "But what about the beer?"
Kenny's face twisted into a peculiar expression that almost passed for a smile. "My ride was also my buyer," he said.
Heidi giggled. Stan could feel her nails on his shoulder through his jacket. "You guys know somewhere else we could get beer, don't you?"
"I guess," said Stan. He didn't feel much like drinking. He was only halfway through his second beer, and what he'd already swallowed was sitting like a weight in his stomach. His wandering gaze latched onto Kyle again, who was talking to Token with a drink dangling carelessly from his hand. Kyle glanced at him and then away again, quickly, and took a long swig from the can. Stan frowned.
"Heidi," Bebe said sweetly, leaving her boyfriend's side to tug on her friend's arm. Heidi pouted a little and moved away from Stan. "I don't think you need anything else to drink."
"I just think it would be fun, Bebe," Heidi said petulantly. "I like to have fun at parties. Right, Stan?"
"Huh?" Stan said, his eyes still on Kyle.
"Of course Stan likes to have fun at parties," Bebe said, her manicured nails digging into Heidi's wrist. "But he's probably a little sad since Wendy isn't here, don't you think?"
"Well, obviously," Heidi said, prying Bebe's hand off of her arm. "That's why I'm trying to cheer him up, Bebe, duh."
"Where is your ho, anyway?" Cartman asked Stan after downing the rest of his fifth can. He immediately popped open his sixth and began drinking again, a veritable bottomless pit.
"Home," Stan said, shrugging. "She went back a while ago. Seemed like something was bothering her."
"Yeah, and I wonder what that could be," Heidi said, putting her hands on her hips and frowning at Kenny. Stan raised his eyebrows and also looked at Kenny.
Kenny stared at her, seemingly avoiding Stan's gaze. "What?"
"You know what! She was fine after the game, and then she went over to talk to you for some godforsaken reason and was all, like, pissy on the ride over here. What did you say to her?"
Everyone was looking at Kenny now. He shrugged, looking down the way he did when he was nervous. "Man, fuck if I know. She came over all pissed off or whatever and scared off my ride." He gave Stan a significant glance, but Stan just frowned at him like he didn't know what he meant. "I may or may not have been a little short with her. You try listening to some broad yapping at you when she just cost you a ride and a free case of beer."
Heidi gave him her worst look. "You're disgusting, Kenny McCormick."
Kenny smirked at her and took a swig of Stan's beer. "S'what I'm here for, babe."
"Even if we had more booze it would just get confiscated," Craig said flatly, bringing the conversation back around to what was important. "You know Barbrady and his pig squad are gonna show up pretty soon and try to book us."
"Then what the fuck are we sitting around for?" Cartman leaped off of the picnic table, stumbling a little in his inebriation. "Conga line! Mosh pit! Let's go! Bring the beer!"
Everyone grumbled a little at being ordered around by Eric Cartman, but the crowd around the table began to disperse and wander toward the bonfire at the pond-front, which was the center of the party proper; Craig and Clyde carried what was left of the 30-pack between them, throwing cans at people who called for beer and then roaring with laughter when the cans landed on the ground and burst. Stan got up to follow, his gaze glancing upon Kyle again, but then Kenny laid a hand on his arm and said, "Dude. Walk with me."
Stan glanced at Kyle again, who was talking to Kevin and Jason at the other table and laughing at something the latter had said. He looked like he'd had more than a beer and a half. "Sure," he said, and followed Kenny away from the crowd.
"You know, you probably shouldn't say stuff like that about Wendy," he said presently, when they'd walked in silence for almost a minute.
Kenny snorted. "Is that all you're going to say?" he said, taking another swig of Stan's beer. "Most guys would've punched me in the face for saying that shit about his girlfriend."
"Wendy doesn't need me to fight her battles for her," Stan said, shrugging. "I mean, if I happened to tell her what you'd been saying I would watch your back, but…"
"Yeah, you tell her a lot, don't you?" Kenny said, and when Stan looked at him questioningly Kenny sighed. "You didn't happen to tell her anything about me, did you?"
"Oh," Stan said. "Um."
"Think hard, Stan."
"… Oh. Jesus."
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry, dude, it just kind of… came up in conversation—"
"In conversation. Okay."
"I didn't think she would actually—"
"Yeah, well, apparently she would. And did." Kenny was quiet for a moment, then said, almost hesitatingly, "You don't ever, like… talk about me to her or anything, do you?"
Stan frowned. "About you?" he said. "No, not really. Like what?"
"Like… I don't know, whatever. Stuff. Anything."
Stan considered for a moment. "No," he said again. "I don't think so. Maybe in passing. Why, did she say something that pissed you off? Because dude, I'm sorry; I love her and everything but I know she can be kind of insensitive sometimes. She means well, you know?"
"Yeah," Kenny said. He shook his head. "Just forget about it."
"You sure?"
"Yeah." Kenny pulled his hood more securely over his head. "She's not gonna, like… try to turn me in or anything, is she?"
"No," Stan said after a moment. "I mean, I'll talk to her, but I doubt she would."
"Good. Man—" He rubbed his eyes, which seemed incredibly tired. "I've gotta think twice about telling you and Kyle anything now."
"Don't say that," Stan said, even though Kenny had been half-joking. Kenny's hand lowered slowly as he watched Stan with a wary look in his eye. "Look, man, I know you think we can't relate to you or whatever, but… we care about you, all right? Don't feel like you have to shut us out."
Kenny looked almost embarrassed. "Jesus, Marsh, way to girl out on me," he muttered, and when Stan opened his mouth in protest Kenny shook his head and put up a hand to stop him "No, I… I get it. Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Kenny looked away. "And tell Kyle thanks for me, too."
"Well, I… um…"
Kenny's gaze swung back toward him. "Yes?"
"Speaking of Kyle," Stan said in a rush, hearing the desperation in his own voice, "do you think he's acting kind of funny? Like, avoiding me? 'Cause he seems like he's—"
Kenny groaned. "Oh my god," he said, rubbing at his face. "No, dude. No fucking way. I am not in the mood to deal with your and Kyle's gay bullshit tonight, all right?"
Stan had jerked a little at the word 'gay.' "What?" he said, trying not to sound offended. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that I've been watching you guys pretending not to look at each other since I got here and it's like the most pathetic thing I've ever seen," Kenny said, lighting a cigarette. "Just go over there and fucking talk to him if it's bothering you so much. I mean, Jesus Christ. You don't have this many relationship problems with your fucking girlfriend."
There was definitely something about Kenny tonight that differed from his usual casual demeanor, and Stan wondered what he and Wendy had actually said to each other. Kenny's bizarre irritation, the way he seemed ready to snap at the slightest provocation, reminded him more than a little of Wendy's behavior not an hour earlier.
It was hard to focus on much of anything else, however, when he could see Kyle still sitting on that picnic bench and nursing a can of beer by himself. Bebe had told him to do the same thing, but now that he was thinking about it… "You really think I should just ask him?"
"Dude, yes," Kenny said, rolling his eyes. "Seriously, it's Kyle. You guys will be super-best-faggot-friends until the end of time. Don't tell me you think he's actually mad at you."
"Well, no," Stan said numbly, wondering what Kenny would think if he knew how close he and Kyle had actually gotten. "But… um… Kenny…"
Kenny raised his eyebrows. "What?"
"… Nothing," Stan said, rubbing his arms to collect himself. He had actually, he thought bewilderedly, been about to tell Kenny about the habit he'd gotten into of kissing Kyle when he felt like it. Maybe the beer he'd had was affecting him more than he'd realized. "I'm gonna go over there."
"Good," Kenny said, ashing his cigarette. "I'm gonna bounce."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Not really in the mood to party." He paused, and then said, a little awkwardly, "Sorry for talking shit about your girlfriend."
Stan chuckled. "Sorry I told my girlfriend that you're selling yourself for money."
Kenny finally grinned. "So we're even," he said before turning and sauntering away into the darkness.

"Kyle," a voice said.
Kyle looked up. Stan was standing in front of him, rubbing the back of his head, trying to look as if he weren't as nervous as Kyle felt. "Oh," he said. "Hey, dude."
Stan looked for a moment like he was going to say something else, but then he sighed and sat next to Kyle on the picnic table. Kyle edged away so that there was a little more space between them. "What's up?" Stan asked.
"Mmm. Not much." Kyle shrugged one shoulder. "Trying to enjoy this party, I guess. Which, frankly, is pretty shitty."
"Right?" Stan laughed. "Kevin's barely even getting any reception on his radio."
"Oh, dude, I know. It's like, 'hot new single, crackle crackle, some Mexican dude, crackle crackle crackle.'"
"And did you see that sophomore get tossed into Stark's Pond? Poor kid's gonna end up in the hospital with pneumonia."
"They only did it because we did it first. That was a good party."
"Yeah, that was a good party." They were quiet for a moment, Kyle taking another sip of beer, before Stan spoke again. "So what's really up?"
"Nothing," Kyle said, a little guiltily, as if he hadn't meant for Stan to notice he was avoiding him. Which was stupid, because—Stan's anger flared up a little—of course he would notice.
"It's not 'nothing,'" he said. "You've been ignoring me since the game let out. What gives?"
"I wasn't ignoring you," Kyle said, sounding even guiltier.
"Like hell you weren't. This is the first real conversation we've had all night. Are you mad at me or something? Did I do something to piss you off?"
"Of course not," Kyle said, and his tone was convincing enough. "Look, dude, don't worry about me; I'm okay right here, so go have fun. This is your night, y'know?"
"I thought we agreed it was a shitty party," Stan said, his anger still rising. "And how the hell am I supposed to have fun without you?"
Kyle looked at him, mingling pleasure and disbelief with just the tiniest bit of despair, but it was then that Craig's premonition came true: Officer Barbrady pulled into the overgrown Stark's Pond parking lot with what looked like the entire South Park police force, lights flashing and voices roaring over the cars' intercoms. Kids ran in every direction, alternately terrified and screaming with laughter, while officers piled out of the squad cars brandishing truncheons. Barbrady himself had a megaphone in one hand and his gun in the other, and was waving the latter around while he yelled at the kids to line up in an orderly fashion. Cartman could be heard screaming "Piiiiiiiiiigs! I smell bacon! I smell bacon!" with Clyde's raucous laughter undulating in the background.
"Shit," Kyle said, apparently stunned. Stan grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him off of the table, and together they sprinted toward the line of trees.

The woods were strangely quiet. Impossibly, there was no one else around; the police hadn't followed them, and neither had any of the other kids. The first snow had yet to fall, so it seemed darker than usual under the cover of the trees, the plants on the forest floor whispering under their feet and the branches that spiderwebbed over their heads blocking most of whatever light would otherwise have penetrated the gloom.
Stan still had Kyle by the wrist. Kyle was tugging at his arm, making half-hearted attempts to free himself, but Stan was too pissed to notice, his thoughts spinning angrily and colliding in his head, so finally Kyle gave an almighty wrench and said, "Dude! Let go of me!"
Stan stopped abruptly, whirling around in surprise; Kyle was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, glaring at him. He looked different somehow, older, less like the kid he'd known his whole life than he'd ever looked before—and Stan noticed for the first time that Kyle wasn't wearing his goofy green hat. His face, shadowed by his hood in the dim moonlight, the way his bangs fell into his eyes, his mouth, set into a hard line near the point of his delicate chin… they belonged to a person Kyle had turned into when he wasn't paying attention, and he shrunk into himself now with the irrational fear that he was alone with someone that he didn't know at all.
"… I'm sorry," he said finally.
Kyle groaned and rubbed his face, and the gesture was so familiar that Stan felt a rush of warmth at the recognition. "No—no, it's… whatever," he said, closing the last couple of feet they had between them. "You have to stop apologizing to me when I treat you like shit."
Stan smiled self-consciously. "Maybe I am a piece of shit."
"Stan, you are like the furthest thing from a piece of shit." Kyle paused, rubbing his eyes. He looked exhausted, and slightly intoxicated, from close up. "I didn't mean to ignore you like that," he said. "That was… really immature of me."
"But what did I do?" Stan said, unwilling just to let it drop.
"Nothing," Kyle said forcefully. "You didn't do anything; it's just me, I… I just… sometimes I wonder why we're friends," he said, and when Stan took a step back, his eyes wide, he gave a sigh and shook his head in frustration. "Ugh, wait, that came out wrong. It's just that… I mean, you're great. You know that, right? You're, like, confident and handsome and great at everything, and I'm just… some kid. It freaks me out sometimes, you know? Like, why am I your best friend, of all people?"
"Because we've always been best friends," Stan said.
Kyle looked at him wearily. "Is that enough, though?" he said. "I keep feeling like… like I'm too dependent on you. And the minute you figure that out, you're gonna get sick of me."
Stan watched his friend squirm and pull at his hair for a couple seconds, feeling curiously as if Kyle had just punched him in the bruise on his stomach. "Kyle," he said finally, "you're the smartest guy I know, but that is the most retarded thing I've ever heard you say."
Kyle frowned. "Dude, I've said dumber things than that."
"Whatever, okay? First of all, you are not just 'some kid.' Second, I want you to depend on me. We're best friends; that's what we're supposed to do. And third, I could never, ever get sick of you."
"You got sick of everything else," Kyle said. "Even Wendy—"
"And I went to you, didn't I? That was—that was routines, okay? You're not a routine, you're—I can't believe we're even having this conversation."
"I'm not?" Kyle said, and although his shoulders were still hunched self-consciously his voice had gone sort of hushed and unfocused, like he was hanging on every word Stan said.
"Of course you're not."
Kyle looked away, his eyelashes fluttering as he began to chew on his lower lip, and Stan had to remind himself that they were outside, in the open; that there were probably twenty other kids in these woods. "So what am I?" Kyle said after a few quiet, pregnant moments.
"You're… I dunno, you're Kyle." Stan paused, licking his lips. He felt light-headed. The trees were beginning to spin. "You're my best friend, and… so you know, I would rather hang out with you than, like, anyof the people at that party. I can talk to you about whatever stupid bullshit is bothering me and you always listen. I feel like you know me for who I am, not just the stuff I do…." He trailed off, unable to articulate exactly what Kyle meant to him. It wasn't something he could put into words. "I… I don't really know what I'd do without you, dude—"
. Kyle shoved him against a tree and kissed him, hard.
The tree's surface was rough and there was a knob twisting painfully into his back, but these petty sensations took a back seat to the thought that Kyle, in kissing as in most other things, was a very quick study. His hands, which had grasped the front of Stan's jacket, traveled up over his shoulders and wound in Stan's hair, forcing their mouths together with a franticness that sent Stan's blood slamming through his veins. He pulled Kyle flush against him, making Kyle gasp sharply into his mouth, and ran his hands over his shoulders, his back, the arch of his spine; feeling the shape of his body through the folds of his hoodie. He didn't feel like a girl, Stan thought dimly, his thought process hindered by the pressure of Kyle's tongue and the sting of his fingernails on his neck; he had broader shoulders, a slim waist, subtle muscle mass where Wendy just had softness. It wasn't off-putting, however, just different; it excited him because this was Kyle who was pressed up against him, pulling away slightly to draw breath, his eyelashes brushing against Stan's cheek. Stan kissed him again, savoring the taste of his mouth: beer, a cigarette he must have had, and something else, something that was uniquely Kyle. Kyle's hands slipped inside his jacket, clutching at the thin material of his T-shirt, and Stan gripped Kyle's jaw, deepening the kiss; his hood fell away from his face and Stan ran his hands through his friend's shaggy hair, feeling him shudder a little at the unexpected contact.
Then a twig snapped somewhere nearby and Kyle leaped backward, stumbling a little over his own feet in his haste. Stan blinked dumbly at the sudden change in atmosphere, and they both listened intently for the sound of footsteps or a human voice.
"Um," Kyle said after a moment, when it appeared they were still alone. "Sorry." And then: "I've been wanting to do that all night."
Stan wavered on his feet, watching Kyle pull his hood back over his reddening face, and he felt like he should say something witty and cool, something that would impress him. But he couldn't think of anything that wasn't either stupid or that Kyle would make fun of him for saying anyway, so he tried to flatten his hair, feeling his chest and stomach burn where Kyle's fingers had been a moment before, and said, "Oh."
"I bet it's getting late," Kyle said. "You think we should…?"
"Yeah," Stan said, closing his eyes and shaking his head. The beer was definitely affecting him more than he'd thought it had. Definitely. It had to be. "Let's go."
They set off under the trees, Kyle with his head down and his hands shoved in his pockets, an intentional distance between them that they both felt the weight of.

The walk home wasn't awkward, exactly, even if they were both quieter than they might have been otherwise. Stan, in particular, was preoccupied by his own thoughts, reflecting on the rollercoaster of emotion that the last hour had been and wondering, a little warily, what it was about his and Kyle's friendship that had been more tumultuous as of late, when Kyle stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.
Stan looked back at him, confused. "What's up?"
The ends of Kyle's lips curved up a little. "This is my house."
"Oh. Yeah." When Kyle turned to go up the walk Stan followed him. He'd rarely been on the Broflovski's street so late at night. It was dark, quiet, almost peaceful; there wasn't a single light on in any of the houses. Kyle paused on the porch, leaning against the banister, and Stan leaned against the opposite banister and looked at him. He needed to say something—something important, something that would dispel the awful agitation in his chest, but he felt dizzy and empty-headed, and the only words that occurred to him were mundane and ineffectual. He didn't feel so "great" at the moment.
Kyle was watching him, absentmindedly twirling one of his curls around his finger. "Want to hang out tomorrow?" he said. "I've got this new game, so… uh…"
"Okay," Stan said. His voice sounded too loud in the maddening quiet.
"Yeah, so, um, I'll come over—"
"In the afternoon sometime. Sure."
Kyle reached out and brushed his fingers against Stan's stomach, as if he wasn't sure he should touch him at all. Stan had received so much attention over the last couple of hours for his injury that the very thought of sympathy, toward the end of the party, had begun to turn his stomach, but the concern that Kyle couldn't quite extinguish from his wary eyes, the dip between his eyebrows, the way his lips trembled like he wanted to say something but couldn't—they hit him in such a way that impressed that Kyle was his best friend, the one person who would believe in him and care about him even when he wasn't winning football games and being what everyone else wanted him to. Finally, his voice low and gravelly with repressed emotion, Kyle said, "You're okay, aren't you?"
Stan nodded slowly. He tried to swallow, but his throat felt curiously tight. "Yeah."
"… Okay. Um, good. I'm gonna…" Kyle gestured at his front door. "I'm gonna go inside."
Stan was still nodding. "Sure," he said.
He thought for a moment—a split second—that Kyle was going to invite him in. Regardless of the fact that he'd practically grown up in the Broflovski's house, and that he'd been there more times than he could possibly count, the idea shot him through with an excitement bordering on agitation. It was like he was in middle school again and Wendy had invited him over to watch movies on the couch in the den while her parents kept dutifully to their bedroom—just like that. But then Kyle shrugged, and smiled, and said "See you tomorrow" in a voice that was barely audible despite the silence of the night around them.
"Yeah," Stan said. And then: "Kyle…"
Kyle raised his eyebrows, a silent question in his eyes. Stan hesitated, then said, "You really are my best friend in the whole world."
The corners of Kyle's lips turned up again. "I know."
He turned to go, but the agitation was traveling up Stan's throat into his mouth, and he said, again, "Kyle—"
Even though they were out in the open, and even though a light had gone on in Mr. and Mrs. Broflovski's window upstairs, Stan grabbed his friend by the wrist and kissed him softly, once. When they separated Kyle looked uncertain, but before he could say a word Stan mumbled "tomorrow" and leaped off of the porch, sprinting down the street toward his house with a ringing in his ears and a buzz in his chest that he couldn't have dissipated even if he'd wanted to try.

So I didn't entirely intend to turn Kyle into a mess of self-conscious neuroses, but it works for this story, so hey, y'know. It's not like I'm incapable of writing characters that aren't introverted and debilitatingly self-doubting or anything. (It totally is.)
Here's the deal on this story: it is nowhere near finished. In fact, I would venture to say this I still consider this the beginning. And I am determined to finish it, mostly just to see if I can. I would still love your feedback and encouragements and screaming hissy fits in the form of reviews, of course (that button down there? Click it. Do it now. Say words. That is all).
Oh, and see that 'M' rating up there? That kicks in next chapter. See you guys then.
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