Flotsam & Jetsam, Part II

[formerdinosaur]

In the morning, Stan wakes up alone in the back of the Jeep, everything aching. The position he slept in was more painful than sleeping on the ground, but he does like the feeling of being elevated, slightly safer. He sits up and scans the camp for Kyle. He's making breakfast over a decent-sized fire; Stan smells potatoes. They didn't take many perishable things, but they indulged in a few. They're all in need of a little frivolity.

Kyle apparently more than anyone: he's dressed in the same outfit he wore the day before, but he's added a lavender headband with a leathery-looking flower stylishly situated on the left side. His braids are neater; his hair looks wet.

"You didn't go to the creek alone, did you?" Stan asks.

"God, no!" Kyle says, boggling at him. "Why would you think that?"

"Your hair -- oh." Up close, Stan sees that it's not wet, just slick with some kind of product. There's faint, sparkly eyeshadow on his lids, gloss on his lips.

"I don't know why, but they ended up feeling like armor at some point," Kyle says, stirring hash browns. "Like they were protecting my boy self from being -- affected."

It takes Stan a moment to realize that he's talking about the braids, and even longer to acknowledge that Kyle seems to now have a concept of his boy self versus, presumably, his girl self. Stan isn't sure which of them is sitting beside him with a plate of potatoes.

"Look what I saved," Kyle says, digging around in the pocket of his too-tight shorts. It's the little pouch of salt, nearly empty. "Want the last of it?" he asks.

"No," Stan says. "You have it."

"I'll take it if you don't want it," Cartman says.

"You can have half," Kyle says, and he crosses to Cartman, bending at the waist to sprinkle two pinches of salt onto his potatoes. Cartman stares at Kyle, chewing slowly, still looking suspicious.

"I sure slept good last night," Butters says. "I even had a dream about Kenny."

"Yeah?" Stan says. "What happened in the dream?"

"He told me he'd meet us in California," Butters says. "He said he'd found a girlfriend, too, and that he'd bring her."

The subject of girls was already sensitive, but now it's like toxic gas that fogs the air. Butters shuts up and busies himself with eating. Kyle returns to Stan's side.

"I dreamed about Kenny, too," Kyle says.

"Yeah?" Stan says again, more cautiously now.

"He was a video game character and we were playing as him," Kyle says. "He kept dying, and then I'd remember that he wasn't really dead."

"Well, he is really dead," Cartman says. "And I'm not going through any shit like that again. The next guys who run up on us are getting dropped. I don't care if I have to go down with them."

"Aren't you glad to be alive?" Stan says. "Kenny didn't die for nothing." He wants to say that Kyle and Butters didn't go through hell for nothing, either, that it was a sacrifice they made for the others' lives, but that's understood. At least, he hopes it is. He's certainly not going to try to vocalize it yet.

"I'm glad to be alive, sure," Cartman says. "But I'm not going through that again."

"Oh, Eric," Butters says. He puts his head on Cartman's shoulder.

"We've got the cars now," Kyle says. "Relax."

It's true that the cars are life-changing, but so much has already changed, and Stan doesn't feel relieved or safe. Kyle puts on make-up every day and sleeps in girlie underwear and Stan's flannel. He doesn't talk about life at the camp again. Stan wants to ask but doesn't want to know. One evening Kyle and Butters are washing together in yet another creek while Cartman and Stan gather firewood nearby, and Stan takes the opportunity to speak to Cartman alone.

"We've got to be getting near the border," Stan says. "Any day now."

"Yep," Cartman says. He's been quieter ever since Butters and Kyle were taken, and the return of Butters hasn't renewed his exuberance.

"Does he talk about it?" Stan asks, keeping his voice very low. "Butters? About what happened?"

Cartman looks up from the twigs he's sifting through, and at first Stan thinks he's about to get walloped. Cartman turns to look at the creek, where Butters is helping Kyle redo his braids. They both have soft chests now, and little rolls on their stomachs when they sit.

"He talks about it, yeah," Cartman says. "That's all we fuckin' talk about."

"Really." Stan wants to ask, and even Cartman isn't dense enough not to see it. He snaps a twig in half and pitches one end into the dirt.

"What the hell do you want me to say?" Cartman asks. "They were whores."

"No," Stan says. "Whores get compensated. They were kidnapped -- they were victims."

"You know what I fucking mean! To those assholes who we killed, they were whores. You knew that before we found them in those -- clothes." He makes a face, glancing at the creek. "Maybe when we get to California he'll stop wearing make-up."

"I don't care if he wears make-up. He can wear it for the rest of his life. Fine with me." Stan hates the make-up, hates the smell of it, the way it makes Kyle look like something half-dead, reanimated by a mortician's kit for a public viewing, but something is holding him together, and Stan's not about to start pulling cards from the trembling tower.

"It's fucking freaky," Cartman says. "And those shorts."

"You're not trying to fuck Butters, are you?" Stan asks.

"No," Cartman says. "I don't think he likes that anymore. Fuck!" He curses loud enough to get Kyle and Butters' attention. Stan waves to let them know things are okay. "I want to kill them all again," Cartman says. "I should have really taken the time to appreciate it."

"We didn't have the time," Stan says. "Forget it -- shut up. They're coming."

In bed that night, Kyle is affectionate in an abstract way. This has been happening increasingly, and Stan is afraid to move when it does. Tonight, Kyle straddles Stan's hips and slowly unbuttons the flannel shirt. He pushes Stan's t-shirt up so that it's bunched under his chin and lies down, pressing their bare chests together. Kyle sighs like he's just put soothing ointment on a burn.

"You want to wash this tomorrow?" Stan asks, touching the flannel.

"Nn, no," Kyle says. "Not yet. It smells like you."

"I smell like me," Stan says, and Kyle laughs. "And you can sniff me whenever you want."

"But I like wearing this smell," Kyle says. "I like it on my skin. Like this," he says, and moves just a little, so Stan can feel the warm pressure of Kyle against his nipples. It's enough friction to make his cock jump.

"Sorry," Stan says, in case Kyle felt that.

"You're such a good man," Kyle says. "You're a man now, aren't you?"

"I don't think so," Stan says, his voice starting to tremble.

"I didn't mean like that." Kyle sits up again. He looks especially crazy in the moonlight, his eyelids heavy, the pigtails stiff and in need of a wash, too. "I could make you a man like that, though. If you could get hard for me."

"Shh," Stan says, gathering him back down. "I don't need -- I mean -- of course I could get hard for you."

Kyle wiggles against him and Stan gasps. "That's like, partial," Kyle says. He hides his face against Stan's neck. "It's too much to have to think about - I know. It's okay.”

"I just want to do whatever you want," Stan says. He pushes his hands up under the flannel and rubs his fingertips over Kyle's back. Kyle shivers, then flinches.

"Not like that," he says, and Stan stops touching him. He winds his arms around Kyle's neck and just holds him. "Yeah, better," Kyle says, his voice very small.

The following morning, Stan wakes up to the sounds of shots being fired. He rolls out of the Jeep in a panic, casting around desperately for Kyle, confused when he sees Butters sitting calmly by the fire, drinking from a coffee mug.

"I told them I should wake you up first," Butters says. "It's so mean!"

Cartman and Kyle are on the edge of camp, Kyle holding the shot gun and Cartman standing behind him, showing him how to aim it. Kyle has Stan's flannel unbuttoned over a clinging undershirt, and Stan is surprised that Cartman is willing to teach Kyle how to shoot while he's wearing those booty shorts. There are some empty cans from the previous night's dinner set up on a log. Kyle clips one with his next shot and cheers.

"I guess we have a lot of extra bullets now," Butters says when Stan sits down beside him, pissed off about this.

"We're still calling unnecessary attention to ourselves," Stan says. "Cartman is such an idiot. Sorry," he says when Butters frowns.

"I don't think it's a good idea, either," he says. "But we'll get moving soon, and we're not too far from California."

"Sure," Stan says. "Did they talk about the border being open at all? At, um, the camp?"

"No, they sure didn't," Butters says. "But that doesn't mean it's closed."

"I know," Stan says, and he glowers in Kyle's direction when he fires another shot, missing this time. "Um, so. What's your opinion on Kyle?" Stan asks.

"Oh," Butters says. He worries his mug between his hands. "You mean about -- the clothes and stuff?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I'm pretty confused about it," Butters says. "'Cause he really didn't like those clothes at first."

"He didn't."

"Nope, he hated that more than anything, seemed like. But, you know." Butters peeked at Stan nervously, his shoulders lifted. "They'd beat us up if we didn't do what they said, so pretty soon we were dressed like that all the time. There was this one fella who would bring us outfits. I think he was the one they'd been doing all this to before us. He was older than us, um. And fatter."

Stan knows who he's talking about. The fat man had entered the house almost as often as the leader, but his stays were much more brief. He seemed to be tasked with bringing daily supplies; Stan had assumed it was just food.

"He was a real asshole," Butters says. "Sometimes we hated him worse than the ones who were allowed to, um, spend time with us."

"Did Kyle break down at some point?" Stan asks, the sound of the gun going off and the way Kyle is listening to Cartman's instruction setting his teeth on edge. "I mean, of course he did, but he doesn't talk about any of this."

"I wouldn't expect him to," Butters says. "Kyle's got a lot of pride, you know? I never saw him break down all at once. It was a little at a time, I think. We used to talk about you," Butters says, and he grabs Stan's arm. "That's what we did when they left us alone and we had some peace. We'd sleep, but to get to sleep we'd have to tell each other stories. Kyle would tell me stories about Eric, and I'd tell stories about you."

"What kind of stories?" Stan asks. The idea of Kyle trying to sleep in that place, to actually rest, is somehow the most disturbing thing he's allowed himself to imagine.

"About how things would have been," Butters says. "If the world hadn't changed, if the infection hadn't come. I'd ask Kyle to tell me stories about how Eric and me would have been in high school, and he was so good at it! He'd put suspense in it, you know, and make sure that Eric really sounded like Eric, which is kind of like a jerk sometimes. But then he'd give me the ending I wanted, like Eric singing me a song or something. I don't think my stories about you were as good, but Kyle was sweet about it, he acted like they were."

"What did you say about me?" Stan asks, because suddenly this seems enormously important. "In the stories -- what kind of things?"

"Oh, all kinds of things! I'm not as creative as Kyle, but I tried to be. Let's see, umm. I told one about how you found a magic flute in the woods and when you played on it all the animals would come and listen. And you kept trying to show Kyle how this worked but they were afraid of him, so when he was there they didn't come, and he thought you were making it up to tease him! But then finally one day Kyle hid in the woods and watched and saw you with all your animal friends -- oh, shoot, this is so silly."

"That pretty creative, actually." Stan puts his chin in his hand, watching Kyle with the gun. He's wearing his ballet slippers today, the ones with laces that go halfway up his calves.

"I have to tell you something," Butters says, whispering. Stan looks over at him, exhausted by what he's already heard.

"What, Butters?"

"Um." Butters chews his lip and taps his fingers on the rim of his mug. "I'm afraid this will make you mad, but I told Eric and he didn't get mad, so maybe not."

"Mad about what?"

"Well. The way we'd do it is we'd take turns. One night would be my turn to tell a Stan story, then the next night it would be Kyle's turn to tell an Eric story. And the one who was having the story told to him would lie there with his eyes closed while the other one sorta leaned there next to him. 'Cause the idea was to get to sleep and not have nightmares. So the story sorta turned into your dreams on the best nights."

"Why would I be mad about this?" Stan asks. "It sounds -- I'm really glad you did that for each other. That you did that for Kyle, thank you."

"Well, sometimes it would still be a little real before the person who was listening to the story fell asleep," Butters says. He's turning pink, staring at Stan as if he should know what that means. Stan has a suspicion, but he can't ask, because Kyle and Cartman are headed over with the gun.

"That was fun," Kyle says, looking at Stan. "Did you see? I hit two cans."

"Good job," Stan says. "You might have woken me up first, okay, since I don't really love waking up to the sound of gunfire."

"Sorry," Kyle says. "You just looked so tired."

"Well, the Jew is a shitty shot," Cartman says. He sits down with the gun across his lap and reaches for a pan of cold potatoes that were probably being saved for Stan. "But he's got a good teacher."

"Don't call me a Jew," Kyle says. It's the first time he's objected to that in years, and nobody asks why now. Kyle sits beside Stan, smelling like gun powder and the waxy stuff he puts in his hair to make the braids possible. "Hey!" he says when he notices Cartman picking at the potatoes. "Those are for Stan."

It's warm that night, so they make their bed on the ground and look up at the stars. Stan is tired but Kyle is restless, biting gently at Stan's neck and jaw, leaving little marks. His leg is slung across Stan's hips under their blanket, and Stan wants to squeeze his thigh, but he remains passive, letting Kyle squirm and nip at him.

"Butters said you guys told each other stories," Stan says, hoping the reminder won't be hurtful. Kyle doesn't go tense or sigh, just moves his hand from Stan's shoulder to his chest.

"Butters didn't have a very good Stan voice," Kyle says. "But he tried."

"So you pretended to be --? The person? Sometimes?"

"Yes," Kyle says, a little tightly. "That part he was good at. He's very snuggly. Like you."

"So, you. I mean, I'm really glad. Because I was thinking about it, too. Pretending. I used to pretend your pack was you."

"What did you do to it?" Kyle asks, lowering his voice in a way that makes Stan nervous.

"Held it. If I was feeling really out of my mind I'd pet it a little."

"If I was feeling really out of my mind I'd let Butters kiss me and tell me he loved me," Kyle says. "As if he was you. That's what he was trying to tell you. He feels bad about that. Because I did it for him, too, as Cartman."

"Jesus," Stan says. He rolls toward Kyle, trying to study his eyes. Kyle is giving him a defiant stare, as if he expects Stan to make fun of him for this. "I do love you," Stan says. "Can I -- could we kiss? Sometime, maybe?"

"Maybe," Kyle says, and he rolls onto his back. "The worst part about the whole thing was their mouths. Even sucking dick wasn't as bad as having some hot, disgusting mouth on me. Wanting to be kissed by Butters like that didn't last long, is what I'm saying." He rolls away from Stan, then looks back over his shoulder. "Come here," he says.

Stan scoots over and puts his chin on Kyle's shoulder, spooning him. He's not sure where to put his hand, and Kyle seems to realize this. He finds Stan's hand under the blanket and pulls Stan's arm around him.

"It makes you feel disgusting just for having a body," Kyle says. "That's what it's like." His voice is clear, but Stan can feel Kyle's neck get hot against his cheek. Stan stays perfectly still, holding his breath, waiting to see if Kyle wants to say more.

"You don't have to hide any of it from me," Stan says. "If it makes you feel better, you can tell me all the worst stuff. If you want to."

"That is the worst thing," Kyle says. "What I just told you."

"You're not disgusting," Stan says, though he knows it's the wrong thing to say. There's just nothing else. "You're what keeps me going. You're everything good."

"You wanted me to kiss you," Kyle says. "That morning."

"I'm just so glad we're together again," Stan says, not wanting Kyle to think he did anything wrong then, or ever. He closes his eyes against the back of Kyle's neck; his skin is still hot. "Together, however you want it to be, as long as I'm near you I'm okay."

"You were up there in the hills," Kyle says. "All that time?"

"All but the four days it took us to follow the tire tracks. I used to watch that little window all day. I dreamed all the time that you would open it, that I could just see you and know you were - not okay, but still there."

Kyle is quiet for a while, touching the tiny hairs on the back of Stan's hand. The bite marks he left on Stan's neck are throbbing, and it feels good.

"I just wish I had kissed you," Kyle says. "That day. So I'd know."

"You don't have to do anything that you don't want to--"

"I know that, Stan. Jesus. You think I don't know that when I'm with you?"

They're both quiet for a while. Stan feels like his heartbeat is shaking Kyle from behind, and he wants to apologize for it. Finally Kyle sighs and sits up on his elbow, digging into the pocket of his discarded shorts, which rest beside or within their bed at night. Under the blankets he's wearing cotton panties, dark blue.

Kyle finds his cigarettes and lights one. He rests his head on Stan's folded arm while he smokes, eventually passing it over to him for a drag. Stan hasn't smoked since before Kyle was taken; they couldn't risk it while they were hiding in the hills, where the brush was dry and the wind dragged the smell of everything they did down into the valley. Smoking feels like fire in his throat now, but it always kinda did.

"I don't want to go to California," Kyle says.

"No?" Stan thinks of Mexico, his dream of an unspoiled beach. "Well. I meant it, Kyle. You don't have to do anything you don't want to."

"That's such a lie," Kyle says. "I had to go with those men. I had to, Stan, and we all knew it. They'd have killed you if I didn't, and then I'd have ended up with them anyway. And I had to stay alive in that place with the dream that you'd come get me, that you could make what I had to do okay. This whole thing -- the world is a rotted fucking corpse with no hope of a future, and we all just have to march on toward the end, because everybody has to do things they don't want to do."

"I mean now," Stan says, and he hates himself for attempting to refute what Kyle just said, because all of it is true. "Now that you're with me. Whatever happens, I just want you to be -- as happy as possible."

"Because I'm your surrogate girl," Kyle says. "That means something different to you, different than what it meant for them. Even for Cartman it's different, with Butters. He wants his mother back. That's what Butters really is for him, if you're paying attention. And you want someone to cuddle and protect. Everybody's replacing what they lost."

"I didn't lose some girl," Stan says. He did cry when Wendy started getting sick, mostly because his mother and sister had already died and Wendy was the last girl on earth who had once meant a lot to him. "I lost my family. We both did. If we're 'replacing' anything it's that, isn't it? I want to feel like I still have a home. That's you, Kyle. And these fucking sleeping bags."

"Do you miss Kenny?" Kyle asks.

"Sometimes," Stan says, unwilling to answer dishonestly. He'd often hated Kenny during the past seven months, because Kenny had looked down at the camp like a video game level that he was prepared to try to conquer, not like a bottomless pit of all the worst places where his imagination could take the only person he still loved.

"When they showed us his body, that's the only time I earnestly thought about killing myself," Kyle says. "Because I thought they'd bring you in next, dead. But now I think I would have turned into some kind of phoenix. I would have been so filled with rage and disappointment that I would have transformed into an actual personification of fury, and I would have burned everyone alive. Not just everyone in that camp, everyone left in the world, until it was just me sitting alone on a cinder."

"Is that your way of saying you love me, too?" Stan asks, and he's sure he's going to regret the question, but when Kyle smiles at him it's like every sun that has ever broken a hopeless horizon, everything bright.

That's the first night that Kyle punches Stan in his sleep. He's distressed, crying out with a nightmare, and when Stan tries to comfort him he gets Kyle's fist in his face.

"Oh, God!" Kyle says when he wakes up and sees what he's done. "Jesus, I can't have anything, can I?" He starts weeping, and Stan finds that he's actually glad to see him crying, finally. He tries to hug Kyle, but Kyle pushes him away and scrambles out of their bed, stumbling away from the camp in his underwear and Stan's shirt, barefoot.

"What the hell?" Cartman says, throwing open the back door of the van. Butters is clutching at him, looking terrified.

"It's okay," Stan says. "He had a bad dream -- shit, Kyle, wait!"

He follows Kyle through the woods, his socks landing in sticky patches of mud. When Kyle finally runs out of energy he throws himself against the trunk of an ivy-covered tree, his hands disappearing into the vines.

"Dude, stop!" Stan says as he reaches him, breathless from the run. "It's okay." He wants to touch Kyle, but he's afraid he'll get hit again. Kyle is sobbing, his head dropped between his arms.

"I don't want to hear what they said anymore," he says. "I don't want it in my head."

"Can I hug you?" Stan asks. "Do you want that?"

Kyle sinks down to his knees, tearing ivy leaves off the tree as he goes. He holds them over his mouth, and for a moment Stan thinks he's going to eat them, but he just screams into the crumbled mess of them. Stan hasn't heard anyone scream with such despondent horror since the infected men in South Park started to change. He drops down to sit behind Kyle, shaking with the urge to close him into his arms, holding himself back.

"Part of me wanted them to bring you in after Kenny," Kyle says, his voice muffled by the leaves. "Because then I could just die and be done with it. I didn't want to have to start over, halfway. I don't want this anymore. I don't want to try for something normal. That's all gone forever, even if we get there and California is untouched."

"What do you want?" Stan asks. He can feel the skin around his eye puffing up, the pain reaching him slowly. Kyle pulls the end of one braid into his mouth and sucks on his hair, humming under his breath.

"I want to evaporate," Kyle says. "I don't want this body anymore. I don't want to walk this fucking earth. I want to float. I want to be weightless." He looks at Stan from over his shoulder, his eyes raw and wet. "What do you want?" he asks. "You want me to be okay?"

Stan has to think about it for a minute. He decides to be honest.

"I want to hold you," he says.

"I hit you," Kyle says, and he turns back toward the tree.

"You were asleep," Stan says.

"Not completely. I don't want to hurt you, but I want to leave marks all over you. I like the thought of it. No -- I want to infect you and then let you eat me alive. But I'm not a real girl."

"You're so tired, dude," Stan says. He reaches for Kyle's shoulder, touching him very gently, waiting to see if he'll flinch. When he doesn't, Stan leaves his hand there. His heart is slamming, and part of him is afraid that Kyle will whirl around and bare his teeth at him like a cornered animal. "Let's go to the creek and find a cold stone to put on my eye," Stan says. "One of those smooth ones." Butters was collecting them earlier.

"Alright," Kyle says, standing shakily. Stan puts out his hand and Kyle takes it. He stares at the ground while they walk, tears still rolling down his jaw, dripping from the end of his nose.

At the creek, Kyle chews on his braid while he watches Stan search for a stone. Stan's head is beginning to pound. He refills his pocket canteen from the creek and drinks it directly, something he doesn't usually do. Kyle jumps up from the mossy bank to do the same. He keeps his eyes on Stan's while he drinks, and Stan thinks they might be pantomiming a suicide pact the way they played cops and robbers as kids, when they used their fingers as guns.

"Your poor feet," Stan says, squatting down to examine them. They're filthy, cut in a few places. "Let me wash them, okay, and I'll carry you back."

Kyle nods, and he watches Stan clean the dirt and blood from his feet in silence. He's stopped crying, and his head is lolling slightly like he's close to sleep. Stan hoists Kyle into his arms when his feet are clean, and he has to restrain a groan when he feels how heavy Kyle is. By the time they get back to camp Kyle has nodded off, his head resting on Stan's chest. Butters and Cartman are awake, working on the breakfast fire. It's almost morning.

"We're going to sleep for a while," Stan says. "Try to stay quiet, alright?"

"Fine," Cartman says. "But we're leaving after breakfast."

"Eric thinks we might make it to the border today!" Butters says, whispering.

Stan can't think about that yet. He decided at the base of that tree, when Kyle asked him what he wants, to never try to live outside of the moment. It's really the only way to bear what the world has become. He wishes he could give this to Kyle, too, to release him from the past. Stan feels released from the future as he settles Kyle back into the bed, tucking him in and climbing in beside him. Kyle wakes only slightly, moaning and reaching for Stan. They curl up together, and Stan strokes Kyle's hair, his fingers traveling over the brittle, waxy texture and all the way down to the curled end of one braid.

When Stan wakes up, Cartman is shouting that they need to get their lazy asses moving before the afternoon temperature climbs to 130. The wind through the open windows and the shade inside the cars keeps them cool enough, but neither vehicle was designed for this climate and their engines have overheated a few times. Kyle is already awake, observing Stan mildly. He moans and touches the tender skin around Stan's eye when he winces at the pain of trying to open it. Kyle's eyes are puffy, too, sore-looking.

"I understand," Kyle says.

"Yeah?" Stan has no idea what Kyle is talking about, but he ignores Cartman's rant and nuzzles Kyle's forehead.

"About needing to protect and cuddle something," Kyle says. "That's what kept me somewhat sane. Having Butters there. Trying to fight his battles. I get it. When they were gone, I could hold him and tell him it would be alright. He was like a human stress ball I could squeeze. It made me feel like I was doing something, you know, not just sitting back and letting them rip me to pieces. I just don't know how he stayed sane himself. I'm still trying to figure that out."

"You can squeeze me like a stress ball. I'm a fucking mess, too. I mean, I'm not trying to compare what I've been through to- but I need you, dude. I need you to tell me it'll be alright."

"But it probably won't be alright," Kyle says.

"That doesn't matter," Stan says. "It's a different kind of promise. I mean, why did you say it to Butters, then? Because you knew it would be alright?"

Kyle huffs. "No."

"Why, then?"

"I don't know." Kyle frowns and sits up. One of his pigtails, stiff from the wax, is almost perpendicular to his head. He forgot to wash off his eye make-up before bed, before crying, and he looks deranged but beautiful, pulling Stan's flannel around him. "I guess I just liked the idea that I could make Butters feel a little better. It was something to do." Kyle smiles strangely.

"What?" Stan asks, sort of afraid to know.

"I just realized," Kyle says. "How much I missed talking to you. Even when it's this futile conversation about God knows what. And I lose track of whatever point I was trying to make halfway through. It's the only thing I want to do, you know? Killing time with you at the end of the world. Complaining."

"Yeah," Stan says, and he pulls Kyle down to him, kissing his face without thinking, dryly. Kyle closes his eyes and presses into it when Stan kisses him again, on his cheeks and his nose. He reeks of ivy. "I was about two weeks away from muttering to my pack in bed at night," Stan says. "Missed this so much, fuck." His eyes fill up, though he's approaching something like happiness, and Cartman looms over them.

"Fuck, Stan," he says. "Quit wibbling. We've all got problems. Get your ass up and pack up the food supplies."

"Don't even talk to us like you're the leader," Kyle says, sitting up to glare at him. "We will get up whenever we fucking please."

"No, it's okay," Stan says, nervous about the sincerity of Kyle's sudden anger. It's not his usual bickering with Cartman; he looks dangerous, his eyes still slitted as Cartman walks off muttering. "Let's go," Stan says, helping him up. "Unless--"

"Unless?" Kyle stands, adjusting his underwear. His cock is very obvious through the thin blue fabric.

"You said you didn't want to go to California."

"Right," Kyle says. "I also said that I've accepted that I don't get to do what I want. I mean, there's nowhere else to go, Stan. So, c'mon."

They do reach California that day, and there's no wall like in the rumors from three years ago, when far flung rumors replaced news media. There are helicopters hovering over what's probably the Mojave Desert, and just the sight of actual aircraft makes Kyle reach over and grab Stan's wrist in terror.

"It's okay," Stan says, pretty sure that's not true. There are cars up ahead on the road, driving toward them.

"Stan," Kyle says, his nails digging into the skin on Stan's wrist.

"Want me to turn around?" Stan asks. "Drive into the desert?"

Kyle doesn't answer. Cartman backs the van up so that they're driving beside each other, slow.

"Well?" Cartman says. "We gonna run for it? Those copters have gun mounts."

"Doesn't mean they have ammo," Stan says.

"I think this is the border!" Butters says, shouting this over Cartman. "Maybe they just want to tell us to turn back!"

"Ha!" Kyle says. "Ha-ha. Not all of us, maybe." He's dressed like a woman, in full makeup with purple barrettes in on the ends of his braids, shorts squeezing into his fleshy thighs, Stan's flannel half-unbuttoned. It's too hot for an undershirt. Stan wants to tell him to cover up, to wipe off the lipstick.

Before they can make a decision, the caravan ahead is upon them. Stan feels too defeated to plan anything. He's got his gun, and he hands one to Kyle before exiting the Jeep. Maybe he knew they would all die like this in California, too broken to surrender and hope for another escape. Maybe they all knew; maybe this was why they all wanted to come. Kenny had seemed to know he would die when he made his way down to the camp. He'd seemed relieved.

Everyone in the other convoy is wearing black. A few of them have insignias on their shirts that Stan doesn't recognize until they've been beckoned to come closer. Kyle laughs, and it takes Stan a moment to realize why. The insignias depict a bird rising from flames: a phoenix.

"Miss," a man in what looks like a bullet-proof vest says, shouting over the sound of the hovering helicopters. He's speaking to Kyle. "Where've you come from?"

"He's not a girl!" Stan says. He's got his gun raised, and he's disturbed by the fact that no one in the opposite party has drawn a weapon or asked him to lower his. "He's just dressed like one!"

The man stares at them for a moment, then turns to say something to a taller man beside him, who leans down to allow the first one to whisper in his ear. There are about ten of them total, making a human wall across the road, probably more in the cars.

"We're gonna need all of you to come with us," the first guy says.

"And why should we?" Cartman asks, cocking his gun. Butters is standing behind him, his fingers hooked into the waistband of Cartman's pants. Kyle and Cartman both look ready to shoot. Stan isn't sure what he's ready for: an ending, probably, just that.

"Our operation controls everything from this borderline to the Pacific," the man says. "We provide shelter for survivors, but nobody gets in without a health screening. Especially if they're traveling with a lady." He looks at Kyle again, and there's heartbreak mixed with the suspicion on his face. Stan isn't sure if it's because he thinks he'll have to quarantine this young girl or because he can tell just by looking at Kyle that he's not actually female, just a false alarm.

"That's no lady!" Cartman says. "Kyle, show them your dick!"

Kyle looks at Stan, and Stan feels it in his throat like someone has thrown a sword straight through his neck, cutting him off in mid-breath. Kyle is looking like him like he's asking if he really has to take his clothes off to prove what he's not.

“No,” Stan says.

“Come with us, please,” the man in the bullet-proof vest says again.

The organization calls themselves the United Remainders and they have zero female members. They seem okay, but Stan won't let them examine Kyle alone. He tries to explain that Kyle is traumatized without saying anything that will humiliate him, because he's there during the negotiations, at least physically. He's staring into space like he's sure that if he doesn't make eye contract with anyone he won't be detected. Eventually they allow Stan into the room during Kyle's examination, and he has to look away when Kyle undresses for them, showing them what he really is. They're all reunited when they're confirmed as Not Infected, and after a brief interview a man who introduces himself as Chief Human Relations Officer Wattley asks if he can speak to Stan alone.

“I'll be right back,” Stan says, patting Kyle's hand. Kyle is breathing shallowly, his eyes still unfocused. “Butters,” Stan says, so sharply that Butters jumps. “Tell him it'll be alright.”

“It'll be alright, Kyle,” Butters says, reaching across Cartman's lap to take Kyle's other hand. Wattley clears his throat and Stan lets his hand slide away from Kyle's, follows him out of the room.

“We have resources available for you boys,” Wattley says when he's alone with Stan, out in the hallway. They're in a building that used to be a rural high school, far from the actual settlements, which are apparently near the coast. “But I can't bring him into our community if he's going to dress like that. It will upset people.”

“It will upset him if you don't let him dress like that,” Stan says. “Like, he might break down completely. Like, this is how he's coping with what happened to him. So.”

“You said he was kidnapped?” Wattley says. He's a tall guy with a gray buzz cut, maybe fifty. Stan hasn't seen anyone so old or sturdy-looking in a while. He nods.

“By like thirty guys,” Stan says. “For seven months. Look, he's not going to go walking around town, anyway. He's terrified of strangers. Just let him keep his clothes. He'll stay out of sight while he's dressed like that, I promise.”

Stan makes this promise believing that Kyle won't need the clothes much longer. The settlement they're assigned to is near what used to be San Diego, and it's well organized, quiet, populated with young men who have been through a lot. It seems like the kind of place where Kyle can heal over a period of years or for the rest of his life, whatever it takes.

They're given two rooms in the same building, and Cartman and Butters take the one on the first floor while Stan and Kyle move into a room on the second floor. The building was once a luxury hotel, but this only makes its current state of whitewashed austerity more eerie. They have their own working bathroom, which is a miracle, and a balcony that looks over what was once a pool. It's been filled with soil and serves as a community garden: tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, snap beans, herbs. Stan is assigned a job in the kitchen, chopping those vegetables and others that come from bigger plantings. Kyle is exempted from work because of his condition. Stan brings him his meals in his room. There is a community dinner where men play cards at the table, but most people seem to eat in their rooms.

Kyle continues to dress in women's clothes, eschewing Stan's flannel shirt for little dresses that he makes from bedclothes or whatever else he can find, securing them around him like towels with hair clips holding them in place. His hair gets longer and he tries different styles, but usually defaults to the pigtails. As the weather gets colder he begins to wear the knee high socks he took from the camp almost every day, padding around the room in them, chain smoking and drawing on the walls. He draws birds, duplicating them in careful order as if he's trying to create a wallpaper pattern. He punches Stan in the face almost every time he wakes from a nightmare, which is often, but Stan never has the will or the presence of mind not to lunge toward him and try to calm him down. Stan's nose begins to resemble a boxer's, square and fat, and one of his front teeth gets chipped, but he tells Kyle - and means it - that he thinks it makes him look tough, that he likes it.

“Maybe you shouldn't do that,” Stan says when he comes home from work one day and sees Kyle leaning on the porch railing, smoking a cigarette and looking down at the courtyard. He's getting a little better at making dresses, using a needle and thread that Stan traded for, cutting out his patterns with some scissors instead of a knife.

“But look,” Kyle says, turning. There's a pair of platform sandals with blue straps in his hand. “Someone tossed these up for me.”

“Who?” Stan asks, hurrying to him. He gathers Kyle into his arms and checks the courtyard below, but there's no one down there.

“Some guy,” Kyle says. “He said they were his sister's. He wanted me to have them.”

“Get inside,” Stan says, sharply, and Kyle shrugs.

“I'm bored,” Kyle says.

Stan treads lightly, wanting to remind him that he can rejoin society if he cuts off his braids and dresses like a boy. He doesn't say anything, just shuts the doors that lead to the porch and pulls the curtains over them.

They don't do anything overtly sexual, but sometimes in bed Stan wakes up to the feeling of Kyle kissing the back of his neck in delicate little pecks. When Stan is awake Kyle mostly gives him love bites, and Stan gets a lot of looks for the condition of his neck. Stan gets erections, and if Kyle does Stan doesn't see them.

“Check it out,” Kyle says one evening after he's taken his bath. He's wearing only panties - cranberry red, Stan doesn't recognize them, worries about this - and a clinging white tank, his wet hair already braided neatly. Stan is kneeling on the floor, working on trying to fix a cheese grater with a crank that he found in the kitchen. If he can, it will make shredding carrots super easy.

“What am I looking at?” Stan asks when Kyle puts his foot near Stan's folded legs, arching it dramatically.

“My leg,” Kyle says. “I just shaved.”

“You always shave,” Stan says, and he feels badly for pointing it out. He's never sure what about Kyle's adopted femininity he should talk about and what he should pretend not to notice.

“Yes, but, feel,” Kyle says, reaching down to rub his fingers over his leg. Just seeing this makes Stan's dick a little stiff. “The first five hundred times I did it I'd get those little red bumps, right? Now it's totally smooth. Feel.”

Stan does, and it quickly gets out of hand, his fingers sliding up toward Kyle's thigh and back down again. He's breathing hard, cock aching, staring up at Kyle and begging permission. Kyle grins and picks up his foot, resting it against the bulge in Stan's pants.

“Can I lick you?” Stan asks, his hands still moving on Kyle's leg. He feels like he's going to throw up.

“You may,” Kyle says. He bends down to pat Stan's head. “My good boy.”

That's disturbing, but Stan is already licking him, moaning, his hands wrapped around Kyle's calf. All Kyle has to do is move his foot a little and Stan comes in his pants, his chipped tooth scraping Kyle's perfect leg. Kyle groans and grabs his dick through his panties. Stan is almost too delirious to realize what's happening before Kyle comes hard enough that some of it seeps through the porous cotton.

“Oh, shit,” Stan says, putting his fingers over the cut on Kyle's leg, blood leaking from where Stan's tooth scraped him.

“Yeah,” Kyle says breathlessly. “Lick - there. Please.”

Stan does, beginning to feel like he'll be sobbing before this is done. Kyle drops down into his lap and presses his face to Stan's, still panting. He kisses Stan with blunt determination, shoving his tongue into Stan's mouth. Stan tastes blood and soap, and he tilts his head back, letting Kyle have him, not sure if he should dare answering swipes of his tongue.

Kyle ends up being the one who throws up, all over Stan's shirt. He had beets for dinner; Stan spent the afternoon chopping them.

“No, but I liked it,” Kyle says, stroking Stan's face when he bursts into tears. “Except for the kissing, maybe.”

They have Cartman and Butters over for dinner sometimes, and to play cards. Butters is bolstered by being useful; he works in the laundry and his hands are always raw. Cartman has of course graduated to management, security division. He wears a community-issued handgun on his belt.

“I've been hearing some things around town about a red-headed woman,” Cartman says one evening when they're sitting around the little card table in Stan and Kyle's apartment, eating slices of a spice cake that Stan made for the occasion. Cartman is staring at Kyle, waiting for him to acknowledge this remark. Kyle is concentrating on eating his cake as if he didn't hear.

“You should be careful, Kyle!” Butters says. “We just don't want anything to happen to you.”

“Nothing will,” Stan says, and he glowers at Cartman. “What's he supposed to do, stay away from the window like a vampire? It's your job to keep people from congregating without a permit, so keep them away from our courtyard.”

“Oh, God,” Kyle says. “Those idiots are harmless.”

“Kyle!” Stan says, turning on him. “You don't know that.”

“They just-” Kyle shrugs one shoulder, slowly, still looking at his cake. “They know I'm not a girl. They just like having something to look at.”

“Kyle,” Butters says, starting to cry. “Please.”

“Please nothing,” Cartman says. “I'll nail your fucking doors shut if you keep this up. You're going to start a riot, never mind what they'll do to you on a more - personal level.”

“You need to go,” Stan says, standing.

“I'm warning you about this on two levels,” Cartman says as he rises from the table. He's gained a lot of weight since they arrived here, and his hair line is receding. “One,” he says, holding up a finger that he then points at Kyle, “For his safety. Two, because if this behavior doesn't stop they'll throw you out of here. I'm serious, you guys.”

“Maybe I don't like it here that much,” Kyle says.

“Yeah, you liked it out there, did you?” Cartman says, pointing toward the door. “You liked that better?”

“Get out,” Stan says. Cartman scoffs and throws the napkin he had tucked into his shirt on the table.

“Thanks for the cake,” Butters says, sniffling and taking Cartman's outstretched hand on the way out.

Stan locks the door behind them, and when they're gone he stands there for a while, his hands braced against the door, head hanging down. He can hear the click of Kyle's fork against a plate, and he knows Kyle is finishing the rest of Butters' cake, scraping up the frosting.

“Look,” Stan says when he's gathered himself enough to walk back into the main room. “I know you're hurting, okay, but I need you to level with me. As your partner.” This is what they call each other, and they mean it in the sense of cops who've been paired together, people who are trying to solve a crime. “If you have some sort of agenda, fill me in. Let me know.”

“Agenda?” Kyle guffaws and looks up from his cake, his lips shining from licking the sugar off his fork. “I'm smoking cigarettes on my porch. If people want to come around and toss me their dead lady friends' old clothes, that's their choice, not mine.”

“You didn't really make that, did you?” Stan asks, referring to the dress Kyle is wearing. It's a strapless sun dress with fold-over bodice that's meant to show cleavage, pale blue with a green and pink flower print. Kyle had claimed that Butters brought him the fabric while Stan was at work.

“What the hell am I supposed to do?” Kyle asks. “Write my memoirs? It's not like you'll fuck me.”

“What does me - what? What does me fucking you or not have to do with it? Do you think I don't want to? I get hard from watching you smoke, Jesus.”

He knows he shouldn't have said any of that. Kyle has his elbows braced on the table, the tips of his fingers pressed together lightly, as if he's considering Stan's business proposal.

“You wouldn't want to do it without kissing,” Kyle says.

“I only want whatever you want!”

“Oh, I doubt it,” Kyle says.

“How can you think that?”

“Uh.” Kyle reaches into the knee sock he's wearing and pulls out the straight razor he uses to shave his legs. He shaves Stan's face with it, too, twice a week. “I want you to cut me with this,” Kyle says. “Not bad, just like you did with my leg. With your tooth. That time.”

“I don't want to hurt you.” Stan wants to drop to his knees and beg until Kyle turns into a phoenix and burns the room down around them. He's not sure what else he wants except to never hurt Kyle, not even a little, not even at his request. Especially not then.

“I've tried doing it myself,” Kyle says, slipping the razor back into his sock. Stan has noticed little cuts on Kyle's legs. He thought they were from shaving. “It's not quite right. Not like when you did it.”

“That was an accident,” Stan says.

“I know,” Kyle says. “And maybe I liked that aspect, too, who knows. You want me to level with you? I want to get out of here.”

“And go where?”

“Someplace where they don't take one look at Cartman and make him the Sheriff. Someplace where I don't have to see Butters' lip shake every time he looks at me, like I'm someone he left behind on a sinking ship. Stan, I. I think I want to go back to South Park.”

“Oh, God,” Stan says. He puts his hands over his face and breathes in deep, smelling the spices he worked with, the vanilla extract he put into the frosting. It's all precious; he had to take two extra shifts to trade for it. For a fucking cake, Kyle's favorite, then Kyle wouldn't even eat it all himself. He insisted they have Cartman and Butters over to share it after looking at Stan like he was a beloved cat who'd brought him a dead mouse after he surprised him with it.

“I think Kenny is there,” Kyle says. He picks up Stan's plate and licks the frosting off.

“Kenny is dead,” Stan says.

“Is he?” Kyle frowns, and for a moment Stan is confused, too. “Oh, yeah.”

Neither of them sleeps after they've climbed into bed that night. Kyle lies on his back and stares at the ceiling. Stan curls up at his side and strokes his arm apologetically, though he has nothing to apologize for. After a while Kyle makes an irritable noise and pulls his arm away.

“What if we went home and it was all back to normal?” he says. “Including me?”

“That would be wonderful,” Stan says. “But.”

“You wanted to live at the beach. I feel like I'm in prison.” He turns his face against Stan's. “Sorry, that was cruel.”

“No - I understand. It's just. I couldn't keep you safe before, when we were on our own. And then I needed Kenny and Cartman to help me get you back after I'd fucked everything up.”

“You?” Kyle frowns. “No, you didn't fuck anything up. What?”

“You wanted to leave the creek, Kyle. I voted to stay.”

“Voted.” Kyle rolls his eyes. “Don't even start with that shit. They would have caught up to us anyway. They had cars, Stan.”

“Oh.” Somehow, Stan had never thought of that. “Give me that razor.”

Kyle looks at the ceiling, the corner of his eye twitching.

“No,” he says.

“Let me shave your legs from now on. How's that? Is that a fair compromise? I'll fuck it up a lot at first, but I'll get better. So - so you can have a little of what you want, for a while. And then maybe you won't want it anymore.”

“Stan.” Kyle closes his eyes. “If you want me to stop dressing like this, you have to take me away from here. This is who I am in mixed company. It just is.”

Stan starts looking into ways to take Kyle elsewhere, increasingly concerned as his wardrobe grows. During his lunch breaks at work, Stan goes out to the courtyard, always afraid that he'll see Kyle smoking on the balcony and winking at guys who are waiting below, but he never sees any evidence of this happening. This worries him further, but his research into other places to live that are even remotely safe yields nothing.

Stan's twenty-first birthday arrives, and somehow they've been in the settlement for a year. He asks for the day off of work for the occasion, and wakes up when Kyle is crawling down his body, pulling out his dick.

“Wait,” Stan says, his legs spreading automatically. “You don't have to.”

“I know,” Kyle says. He sighs, contemplating Stan's dick, watching it grow harder in his palm. “I'm not doing it for you. This is the one thing I did before - before, okay? I want it all the fucking time, just. Let me do it. I want to remember. Okay?”

“Okay,” Stan says. He doesn't like how far away Kyle is, wants to pull him closer but doesn't want to dare any movement beyond blinking.

“Happy birthday, by the way,” Kyle says, and he puts his mouth around Stan's cockhead. He's much, much better than he was last time, and recognizing this makes Stan take a long time to come. He worries that Kyle will be insulted by this, but when Stan finally comes and recovers enough to look down, Kyle is smiling, wiping his mouth. “Yep,” he says. “I wasn't remembering wrong. I like the way yours tastes.”

They discover other things Kyle likes. He's never had a rim job, and decides he wants to try it. He's a big fan.

One day, Stan comes home and Kyle is wearing Stan's old flannel and a pair of his pants. He has his braids tucked up under one of the baseball hats Stan wears at work to keep his hair out of the food.

“I want to go on a field trip,” Kyle says. It's the first time Stan has seen him without eyeliner since he mysteriously acquired a few sticks of it a year ago. He's wearing a little lip gloss, but it would not be obvious to the casual observer.

“Okay,” Stan says. He walks into the apartment and sets down a hard boiled egg and some cubed ham, Kyle's dinner. “Where to?”

Stan prays that he won't say South Park, because he's pretty sure he'll take Kyle all the way back to that graveyard if he asks.

“The ocean, I guess,” Kyle says. “Maybe you'll find enough driftwood to build a shack. Remember when you wanted a shack on the beach?”

“I still want that,” Stan says.

Kyle grins and lets his head fall back. He's seated at the table, his legs tucked to his chest.

"I know you do," he says.

Stan borrows a car from a guy at work and they drive to the perimeter of the territory: the shore. As they're closing in on it Stan feels lucky, because it seems no one is around. When they climb out of the car and walk down over the dunes he can see why. The beach is littered with debris of all kinds: an old washing machine half buried in the sand, a multitude of car parts, a laptop computer with most of the keys missing, lying open like a shell. Stan is horrified, because this was important for Kyle, a big step, and the beach is so depressing that Stan feels heavier all over, struggling to walk through the sand.

"Oh, man!" Kyle says, skipping ahead of him. "Look at all this stuff!"

It's junk, but Kyle is fascinated. A busted oscillating fan - he hasn't seen one in years! Hubcaps, clothespins, a green necktie. The best stuff is at the waterline: monstrous wreckage from ships, a helicopter blade, a rusted chain with links as big as Kyle's head. He flits among the garbage, cataloging it, and after a while Stan begins to see the beach the way Kyle does. It's not dirty; the water is clean and there's no paper litter, no glass. The objects that have washed ashore have been polished by the water, and when the sun starts to sink they gleam. Kyle takes his pants off when they're wet almost up to the knees; he's walking in the surf, barefoot.

"If we walk down far enough I bet we'll find a beach house nobody's using," Kyle says, speaking to Stan from over his shoulder as they walk.

"Yeah," Stan says. He's ready to walk until they're in Alaska, as long as Kyle keeps expressing fascination with every new thing they come across.

Eventually they stop, and Kyle pulls his knife from the front pocket of the flannel.

"Kyle," Stan says, his bones going cold.

"Let me just do this part," Kyle says. They're in a relatively uncluttered section of shoreline, only what might have been a lamp stand and a trellis with a fishing net twisted around it in their immediate path. Up ahead there's the tail of a jet, but that's probably another mile or two off. Kyle walks deeper into the water, until it's swirling around his knees. Stan follows him out, carrying Kyle's shoes, his pants. He's not going to let Kyle kill himself just because he wants to go out on a good memory. Stan wants to live, and he won't without Kyle.

Before Stan can get there, Kyle makes the cut: the left braid first, then the right. He regards them for a moment before flinging them into the waves.

"Those things were their idea, anyway," Kyle says as Stan drags him back toward the shore, out of the changing tide. "I forgot that, somehow."

On the beach, Stan cuts Kyle's hair by the light of the sunset. Kyle is sitting in Stan's lap, facing him, patient while Stan tries to even out his hairstyle. Mostly it looks like a dog chewed his hair off, and when Stan confesses that this is the case Kyle laughs hard, throwing his head back.

"We should head back," Stan says when the knife is stuck in the sand, blade down. "Before it gets dark, you know?"

"I know," Kyle says. He's holding Stan's face, rubbing his thumb over a bruise that he gave Stan a week ago during a nightmare. "Your poor nose," he says, kissing it.

"I think you made a man out of me," Stan says.

"Oh," Kyle says. Stan didn't mean to make him sad. "Well, here," Kyle says, his lips brushing against Stan's. "Be a boy again for a second. I'll be one, too."

They kiss, soft and tentative, no tongues. Stan's hands are on Kyle's waist, his heart high in his throat, threatening to spill out through his lips. Kyle licks Stan's bottom lip, pulls it gently through his teeth. When Kyle blinks his eyes open Stan feels like he's looking at some newly naked part of him. It's the lack of eyeliner, maybe.

The sinking sun sets the broken machinery around them on fire with new color, and Kyle kisses Stan again, squeezing Stan's waist with his legs and pulling him out of the ground, a man who was almost buried alive. Stan takes his first breath just in time, almost too late, and pushes it back into Kyle's mouth.

(the end)

Amazing art for the story:

Kyle with his mural by Nhaingen

Stan and Kyle by Arvy

Stan and Kyle by Julads

A song for this story: The Streets - Avalanche City