Halloween Fic: Spirit Animals
Gonna post this in 3 installments - the last one will be up on Halloween night!
Title: Spirit Animals
Pairing: Stan/Kyle
Rating: R
Words: ~20k; ~5,500 in this chapter
Summary: Cartman wants to film his amateur ghost hunting show at the site of the grisly McCormick massacre. Stan hates the idea but he can't stay away, because Kyle will be there.
Stan wants to drop out of the Midnight Society, but two things are stopping him: the fact that Kyle and Cartman would be the only remaining members if he left -- excluding Butters, who shows up when he doesn't have a conflicting choir practice -- and Stan's continuing belief in ghosts. He doesn't want to believe in ghosts, because it seems ignorant and childish, but he can't deny that he's seen Kenny at least four times since he was murdered in eighth grade.
"I now call this meeting to order," Cartman says, giving Stan a pointed look. Stan puts away his phone and glances at Kyle, who is doing his homework. Kyle is allowed to break the Midnight Society rules now that he's doing God knows what with Cartman upstairs prior to the club meetings. "The issue on the table today is, of course, Halloween."
"Oh, boy!" Butters says, and he claps his hands together twice. "What do you have in store for us this year, Eric?"
"I'm getting to that, Butters, if you'd shut the fuck up for a second." Cartman indulges in a dramatic pause, his eyes sweeping the pathetically empty basement. The Midnight Society, founded when they were twelve, used to have ten members. Now that they're juniors in high school, many former paranormal enthusiasts have defected to Wendy's competing South Park Society for Skeptical Inquiry.
"Just say it, Cartman," Kyle says, still scribbling on his Calculus worksheet. "And prepare to be deservedly rebuked."
"Kyle, okay?" Cartman says, glaring at him. "Quit talking like you're in Downton Abbey, Jesus Christ." He turns back to Stan and Butters. "This year's Halloween ghost hunt will be a very personal one for the team. For, you see -- we shall venture into the abandoned McCormick house."
"Nope," Stan says.
"Oh, gosh!" Butters put his hands over his mouth. "I don't know if that'd be right, Eric."
"Of course it wouldn't be right!" Kyle says, finally looking up from his calculations. "It's extremely disrespectful."
"How is it disrespectful to want to commune with our dead friend?" Cartman asks, throwing his arms out. "Huh? Kyle?"
"Because you're using an actual tragedy that happened to an actual person we knew for the purpose of playing your little ghost hunting game!"
"It's not a game, Kyle, okay? Can you seriously deny some of the evidence I've captured over the years? Do I need to play the EVPs for you again?"
"Please, no," Stan says, rubbing his hand over his face. "No EVPs, and no going into Kenny's house. You've been voted down, Cartman."
"Um, excuse me? No, that's not possible. I'm the president, and I have veto rights. I veto your objections."
"Have fun going alone," Kyle says, looking back to his homework.
"Alright, fine," Cartman says. "Have fun sucking your own dick."
"Ugh, stop," Stan says, his skin crawling with goosebumps. He can't take even the barest hint that the two of them have begun having what Kyle deems 'hate sex.' After Wendy dumped him, Cartman declared himself a proud gay man and immediately began hooking up with Kyle, who has been surly in response to Stan's utter disbelief.
"Threaten me all you like," Kyle says. He has an air of sophisticated indifference about the whole Cartman thing, and it makes Stan want to puke and cry simultaneously. "It's not like people are lining up to suck yours."
"I will literally do anything if you guys stop talking about this," Stan says.
"Excellent," Cartman says, and he picks up the gavel that he stole from the debate team, pounding against the card table he's sitting at twice. "Then it's settled. We'll stop talking about sucking dick, and Stan officially agrees to participate in the McCormick house investigation."
"I didn't say that," Stan says.
"You kind of did," Kyle says, and Stan snarls at him, but he's still looking at his homework.
"No worries, gentlemen," Cartman says. "We'll handle this subject sensitively."
"Poor Kenny," Butters says, and Stan gets up to leave. Upstairs, he dodges Liane's attempt to get him to join her for a nightcap, and he's at the end of Cartman's driveway when he hears someone following him. It's Kyle, still stuffing his books into his bag.
"Wait up," Kyle says, as if they had some kind of agreement. "You know I don't like walking home alone at night."
"I thought maybe your boyfriend would walk you," Stan says.
"He's not my boyfriend, he's just an asshole who happens to be attached to a cock that is available for my use. It's an unfortunate combination, I'll admit."
"That's fucked up."
"Yes, yes -- get over it, please. I was the only gay guy in school, and now there's two of us, and he's like a metric ton human skyscraper who's capable of murder, so I'm slightly less afraid of getting my ass kicked while affiliated with him. You should be happy for me."
"Oh, yeah, I'm thrilled. So if he's such an intimidating, protective force, why am I the one walking you home?"
Kyle has no witty retort for this question, and when he fumes in silence Stan feels giddy for a moment, then guilty.
"So, speaking of things that are fucked up," Stan says, happy to change the subject. "This Kenny thing. What the hell?"
"Cartman has unprocessed grief and this may be his way of exploring that," Kyle says. Stan scoffs.
"You are giving him way too much credit."
"Perhaps, or maybe I'm projecting. But maybe it's not such a bad idea for the four of us to visit the scene of the crime. For closure."
"Closure? Looking at some blood splattered walls in an abandoned house is going to help us get over Kenny's death, really?"
"They're hardly blood splattered anymore!" Kyle peeks at Stan, suddenly sheepish. "I have to admit, some part of me wants to go there. To, I don't know. Certainly not to speak to his spirit, but to atone with our memories of him, or something."
"Dude, you really are starting to sound like you're on Downton Abbey."
"Like you've even watched it!" Kyle smacks Stan's shoulder and Stan shoves him back, friendly-like. They smile at each other. Stan feels it in his gut. Sometimes Kyle still likes him.
"I just think it's crazy," Stan says. "Crazy talk from a crazy asshole."
"Says the person who claims to have seen Kenny's ghost."
"I have!"
"Yeah, yeah."
They reach the end of Kyle's driveway and stop. Kyle is back to shooting Stan huffy looks, his eyes guarded and fierce. Things changed around the time of Kenny's funeral. Stan and Kyle had spent the night together afterward. There was weird pre-sexual touching, which seemed excusable in the midst of their grief. Kyle has been distant ever since, or maybe Stan has. Either way, they still manage to spend almost all of their free time together, when Kyle isn't exploring his sexuality with the only available cock. Stan sometimes thinks his might be available, to Kyle if not guys generally, but he's too chicken shit to put the idea forward.
"So I walked you home," Stan says, feeling stupid.
"What do you want, a medal?" Kyle's voice is inappropriately loud, and it seems to echo down the dark street, making Stan slightly apprehensive about walking the rest of the way alone. Kyle groans and presses his fist to Stan's chest. "I'll see you in school," he says, and he turns for his house in a sassy little pivot that makes Stan wonder why he thinks Kyle is so much cooler than him sometimes.
*
At school the next day, Stan is buying a Cherry Coke from the vending machine when he's approached by Wendy, who looks preemptively disappointed by the encounter.
"What's this I hear about Eric going to the McCormick house on Halloween?" she asks. "That is such a toxic idea," she says before Stan can answer.
"Yes, I agree."
"Stan, please don't take that tone with me."
"What tone?"
"That stoic defeatist thing you do when you know I'm right and you don't want to deal with me."
"I have no problem dealing with you," Stan says, though he would prefer to just head to the lunch room with his Coke in peace. "And of course you're right. I voiced my dissent, but it's not like he's going to listen to me, or anyone."
"How about Kyle?" Wendy makes a queasy face that communicates her shared disgust for the idea of Cartman and Kyle copulating. "He can't put his foot down about this as Cartman's - lover?"
"Wendy." Stan recoils. "No, no, don't -- he's not a lover. God. And actually, Kyle is into this McCormick house thing. He thinks it will cleanse us spiritually or something."
"That doesn't sound like Kyle at all!"
"Well, does receiving sexual pleasure from Cartman sound like Kyle? He's lost his mind, Wendy. What am I supposed to do about it?"
"You know this is just about me breaking up with him," Wendy says. "This is so Eric. I just feel bad for poor Kyle. He'll end up getting his feelings hurt."
"Feelings are not involved."
"Ha! So he says. Kyle puts up this front, but he's actually a tender rosebud."
"Ew," Stan says, flushing, because it's not like he's never thought about Kyle's tender rosebud.
"You know he is," Wendy says, missing this. "And Cartman probably knows it to some extent. But never mind -- this McCormick house thing. I forbid it."
"Kay."
"Stan, really, I'm going to hit you if you keep talking to me that way."
"What way?"
"Like I'm hysterical and you're this put upon everyman douche who has to deal with the various hysterics in his life."
"Hmm," Stan says.
"Don't stand there thinking that's exactly what you are, because you're not blameless, Stanley. You can't keep letting him get away with things like this."
"Who?"
"Kyle!"
"What's Kyle done? It was all Cartman's idea."
"Sure it was," Wendy says. She's flustered, and Stan is beginning to wonder if she's jealous of Kyle for his access to Cartman's crotch. Such a thing seems impossible, but many things that once seemed that way have come to pass in recent years.
They head into the lunch room and join their usual assortment of friends, Stan taking a seat between Kyle and Token. Cartman is sitting at Kyle's other side, launching himself into his school cafeteria cheeseburger with everything he's got. Cartman is massive, and Stan scowls at him, resenting this. Stan is slim and only a few inches taller than Kyle, who is soft and petite, rosebud-like.
"Maybe we'll join you, for the sake of skeptical inquiry," Wendy says. She takes a seat next to Craig, who is eating yogurt in his usual irritating, lizard-like way, licking it daintily from the very end of his plastic spoon in a manner that takes the full lunch hour to complete.
"Join us where?" Kyle asks.
"On the ghost hunt," Wendy says. She scoffs. "Or desecration, I should say."
"Wendy," Cartman says, wiping cheese grease from his lips. "The only thing getting desecrated around here is my balls, okay? We're not even together anymore, so you can quit trying to break them."
"This isn't about you or your balls," Wendy says, and she gives Kyle a meaningful look that Stan doesn't appreciate. "Believe me, I'm relieved that they're being tended to by another these days. This is about our memories of our beloved friend who died tragically and much too young. Leave your goddamn balls out of it."
"Speaking of balls," Craig says. "I bet you assholes won't even be man enough to spend an hour in that house."
"Huh, okay, Craig!" Cartman says. "You want to bet?"
"Seriously, I'd have no problem staying there," Kyle says. "As a tribute. I'm not afraid."
"You're a lunatic," Stan says. "We're not staying there."
"Stan is the biggest pussy I've ever met in my life," Craig observes mildly, as if Stan isn't there or won't object to this statement.
"Not as big as you," Kyle says.
"Right," Craig says. "When's the last time I was scared of anything? I'm a fucking Nihilist, Kyle. That's the whole point."
"My fucking ass you are," Cartman says. "And if you're so above the concept of fear, Craig, why don't you and your little junior skeptical detectives come spend the night with us in the McCormick Death Den?"
"Don't call it that!" Wendy says. "And you know what -- forget it. I'm not getting involved with this on any level."
"Ah, Wendy, like I was even including you. I suppose it goes without saying that you lack balls. You lack balls so much that your ball-lessness creates a vortex which threatens to suck the balls off of even the most virile of men. I should know -- I was almost too late to yank mine back from the void."
"I broke up with you," Wendy says. "And the only reason I won't be joining you on your little quest to piss all over our memories of Kenny is that I think it's repulsive, morbid, and frankly pretty sad."
"Sure, Wendy, sure. We all totally believe that."
"What do you guys think you're going to accomplish?" Token asks. "Some black light footage of old carpet stains?"
"I don't want to see carpet stains," Stan says, suddenly very upset. "Wendy is right. You guys are being gross."
"Okay, excuse me?" Kyle says, whirling on Stan. "Do you even remember what Kenny was like? He was not one to stand on ceremony, or to observe boundaries or tip-toe around feelings. If he were here, I think he would be into the idea. He was really sort of spiritual."
"Do you even half think about what comes out of your mouth anymore?" Stan asks, rearing away from Kyle.
"Do you really need to ask that of someone who has swallowed Cartman's beastly jizz?" Craig asks.
"Why thank you, Craig," Cartman says. "I take beastly as a compliment in that context."
By the end of the lunch period, Stan still isn't sure what the plan is for Halloween. He could always stay home and watch scary movies with his parents, but that sounds like the absolute worst fate imaginable on multiple levels. He wishes he had some friends who weren't insane, and also that he didn't continue to feel responsible for Kyle's well being, despite Kyle having attached himself to the massive man meat that is Cartman and his beastly appendage.
In an attempt to talk to someone sane, if horrible and dull, Stan offers Clyde Donovan a ride home from school. He also does this out of lonely bitterness, because Kyle declined to accept a ride himself, in favor of going off on some foul errand with Cartman. Stan didn't ask for details.
"I'm in kind of a dark place right now," Stan confesses as he pulls out of the school's lot, Clyde beside him in the passenger seat.
"What does that mean?" Clyde asks. "Are you going to crash the car with me in it?"
"Clyde, Jesus -- no. I guess it means I need to talk. Can I talk to you about some things?" He normally confides in Wendy, but she's been making about as much sense as Kyle ever since her breakup with Cartman, which was allegedly brought on by Cartman confessing that he wanted to put his dick on her face while she slept, which she refused to consent to. Now Stan is left wondering if Kyle allows it.
"You can talk," Clyde says after an ominously long pause.
"Well," Stan says, not sure where to begin. "Remember Kenny McCormick?"
"Uh, yeah. Are there people who don't remember him?"
"I don't know what goes on in your head, Clyde. Anyway, Cartman has this idea that we should go ghost hunting on Halloween at Kenny's old house."
"Oh."
"Yeah. So, Wendy says it's immoral, which I tend to agree with, but for some reason Kyle is all into the idea, though he initially said it was bullshit, and I'm just like - why? Why is he determined to destroy himself?"
"Who?"
"Kyle! I mean, as someone who has known both of them for a long time, what do you think about the fact that he's dating Cartman?"
"It surprised me less than when Wendy dated him."
"Well -- yeah, but. No, I think Kyle is more surprising, in terms of Cartman's sexual partners."
"Okay."
"I mean, yes, both instances of Cartman dating these people were shocking, and I'm still a little shocked that anyone consents to let him lay a hand on them -- do you think he's attractive?"
"I don't like men."
"He's not a man, for fuck's sake! He's a boy, and I mean objectively, not as a potential sex partner for you personally."
"Can I get out of the car?" Clyde asks, eying the passenger side door lock.
"Clyde, no, we're in the middle of traffic here. Calm down. Why is everyone in my life a hysterical mess?"
"I don't know."
"And I'm not using hysterical as a gendered slur, or whatever, which is what Wendy would think. I mean it, uh. Neutrally."
"Okay."
Stan has to stop himself for berating Clyde for his cud-chewing tone, suddenly understanding how Wendy felt earlier. He turns on the radio and passes the rest of the car ride in silence, which Clyde seems perfectly comfortable with.
At home, Stan lies on his back in bed and tries to imagine Kyle, sleeping, with Cartman's big wang draped across his nose or flopped onto his cheek. His visions devolve into Kyle, awake, with Stan's cock lovingly tickling against his lips, asking for permission to enter. Stan reaches into his pants with a sigh.
After his beat off and nap, he lies there in bed feeling miserable and waiting for his mother to call him for dinner. He's overcome with a crushing sense of guilt, not because he beat off to the thought of Kyle sucking his dick, but because he's alive and Kenny is not. He's a ghost at best, and he hadn't looked like a happy one when Stan saw him. The first two times, Stan was too scared to move and Kenny just sort of walked off, but the third time he called out to Kenny, who seemed frightened and ran, and the fourth time Stan chased after him. Kenny lost him by veering into the alley behind the mall, which he seems to haunt. Stan goes there sometimes, but he's never been able to find Kenny's ghost when he's looking for it on purpose, just a bunch of food garbage from whichever bum slept there the night before.
In the days that follow there is more discussion about the Halloween plans, but Stan mostly opts out of the debate, resigned to the fact that he'll end up doing whatever the rest of the gang does on Halloween. He feels increasingly depressed about Kenny, and no one but Kyle seems to notice. On the night before Halloween, Kyle shows up at Stan's house after school with a grocery bag.
"Is your kitchen in use?" Kyle asks.
"Uh," Stan says, confused by the question and annoyed with Kyle's timing. Stan was just beginning his afternoon beat off when his mother called to him, saying Kyle was here. He's more in the mood for the soft-lipped Kyle of his fantasies than this real one and his unpredictable moods. "No, nobody's using the kitchen. Why, do you need it?"
"Yes." Kyle shoves around him and heads for the kitchen. "We're making caramel apples."
"Okay," Stan says, slightly more enthusiastic about this surprise visit now. "I love those."
"I know," Kyle says. He throws the grocery bag on the kitchen counter and begins unloading items. "I thought you could use some less intense Halloween fun."
"Less intense?"
"Yes, less so than whatever's going to happen tomorrow night." Kyle looked up from the groceries and met Stan's eyes in the sort of full-on, unguarded way that had been rare even before Kenny died. "You don't have to come if you don't want to."
"Please. Like I'd let you go there with only Cartman and Butters to watch your ass."
"My ass doesn't need your eyes on it," Kyle says, but he's smiling. "Come over here and start unwrapping caramels, please."
Stan thinks of protesting that harvesting caramel from many individually wrapped candy pieces has got to be the least efficient method of making caramel apples, but the unwrapping is actually weirdly soothing, so he keeps his mouth shut while Kyle washes the applies in his usual fastidious bordering on OCD way.
"I heard you gave Clyde Donovan a ride home from school the other day," Kyle says as he's drying the apples.
"You heard?" Stan scoffs. "From who?"
"Craig."
"Wow, well. Craig caught me, I gave Clyde a ride home. This sizzling hot gossip is sure to haunt me forever."
"Why are you being dramatic? I'm just saying, you were in a car with Clyde. That's kinda weird."
"How so?"
"Well, because -- why? Is what I'm asking. Why voluntarily be in the presence of the dimmest person we know?"
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's just that everyone else is so bright. Or glaring, even. I guess I was craving a dim presence."
Kyle gave him a long, piercing look, and Stan grinned.
"Is that supposed to offend me?" Kyle asked. "I don't care if I have a glaring presence. Good! If the alternative is Clyde, well. You have my answer."
"You're not one of the glaring ones," Stan says. "I meant Cartman, and Wendy, and Craig, though he's more like a monotonous droning noise that occasionally gets loud enough to irritate me."
"You're mixing metaphors, Stan."
"Well, sorry, I'm winging it."
Kyle is silent for a moment, and he joins Stan in unwrapping caramels. Stan waits, sensing that Kyle is about to explode for some reason or another. The backs of his ears are turning red.
"How many of these do we need to unwrap?" Stan asks.
"Fuck, I don't know!" Kyle says, loudly. "All of them, I think. Look, I'm just saying -- I'd be saddened if you ended up being friends with Clyde. It would disappoint me greatly."
"Kyle, what the hell? Don't worry about it. Clyde asked me if I was going to kill him within two minutes of getting into my car. He's just not that into me."
"What is that supposed to be, some kind of gay joke?" Kyle glares at Stan, his ears very red now.
"I guess," Stan says. He touches Kyle's back, because this sometimes has a calming effect. Kyle's shoulders lower slightly. "Chill, dude," Stan says. Kyle grunts and resumes unwrapping caramels.
"Nobody says 'chill,' Stan."
"You're still my best friend," Stan says, quietly, after some awkward silence.
"Really? The Cartman clause doesn't forbid that?"
"There's no Cartman clause. Do whatever you want with that fat piece of shit. I'm not going to abandon you in this darkest time of your soul's struggle."
He's afraid that might set Kyle off again, but Kyle just snorts and smiles down at the caramels.
Twenty minutes later, their caramel apples are lined up on a baking sheet, some rolled in chopped nuts, others rolled in M&M's. Stan thinks the idea of M&M coated apples is kind of gross, but he has to admit that it looks pretty. He joins Kyle in licking cooling caramel from the spoon they used to stir it up.
"This was a huge success," Stan says.
"We haven't even tried one yet," Kyle says. "And yet, I agree. They're great." He digs out his phone and takes pictures.
"Are you putting that on Facebook?" Stan asks when Kyle starts tapping around on his phone's screen afterward.
"Of course," Kyle says.
"Can't we even eat one before you memorialize this on social media?"
"Dig in," Kyle says, still Facebooking. "I think they're firm enough to eat."
Stan grabs for one of the caramel-only apples, thinking about other things that are firm enough to eat. His newest fantasy is the idea of licking Kyle's butt cheeks. If memory serves, the skin of his ass is the only place on Kyle's body where he has some light freckles.
They sit out on Stan's back porch with a couple of apples, eating them in companionable quiet, nuts dropping from Stan's and M&M's from Kyle's. Kyle shrieks in protest when Stan picks up the fallen M&M's and eats them.
"Five second rule," he says.
"You're like an animal," Kyle says, and something about the way he pronounces the word makes Stan take it as a compliment. Kyle's phone buzzes, and he digs it out to investigate. "Cartman 'disliked' my apple picture," Kyle says.
"Really? You'd think he'd be in favor of any kind of junk food imagery."
"Well, I think it's the caption he objects to."
"Which is what?"
"'Fun afternoon of crafting with Stan.'"
"Ugh, Kyle."
"What?"
"That word. Crafting. Is it really 'crafting,' even? When you eat the thing you made?"
"I think it is," Kyle says. He sticks what remains of his apple between his teeth so he can compose a message with both thumbs. "I'm telling him he can't have one," Kyle says, speaking around the apple. "I wouldn't want him to think our arrangement includes me cooking for him, ever."
"Arrangement," Stan mutters. Some brandy would be good with these apples. He keeps a fifth of it hidden in the lowest dresser drawer in his room.
"Don't get all grim," Kyle says, removing the apple from his mouth. "You take everything so personally."
"Yeah, I'm sure you can't relate. It's not like you freak out when Clyde rides in my car or anything."
"I was talking about this Kenny thing," Kyle says. "And the way -- I mean, when it happened. You really took it harder than any of us, back then."
Stan shrugs and chews his apple. He doesn't want to talk about that, really. His mind immediately goes to the night after Kenny's funeral, when he and Kyle pressed their wet faces together on Stan's pillow. Their lips never touched, but it felt more real than the kisses he'd had with Wendy, and less scary, until he thought about it the next morning and started to wonder what it meant.
"Well," Kyle says, sharply, as if rebuking Stan for remembering. "It will be interesting, tomorrow."
"Or just sad and awful."
"No, no," Kyle says lightly, but then he can't seem to come up with any reasons why it wouldn't. Stan reaches down to grab another errant M&M and pops it in his mouth. "Kenny used to do that," Kyle says. "Eat candy off the floor."
"I know," Stan says.
Kyle leaves shortly afterward, taking all but two of the remaining caramel apples with him. Stan eats another one after dinner, though his stomach hurts. The sugar overload fucks with his sleep schedule and he ends up tossing and turning for hours, trying not to replay the post-funeral night in bed with Kyle too vividly.
Kyle had of course been upset about Kenny, too, but that night after the funeral it seemed as if it was Stan's bottomless grief was what made Kyle finally break down and cry. Stan and Kenny had gotten closer as puberty progressed, since they tended to be more mature than Cartman and Kyle, who would still come to blows over the last Oreo if they got the chance. Kenny was quieter and more introverted, and Stan could relate to that. Meanwhile, Kyle had announced to everyone who was packed into the Airport Hilton ballroom for his bar mitzvah that he was gay, and Stan felt like Kyle was suddenly speaking in some coded language that Stan could only hopelessly botch. They were still close, but the ease of being together had all but dissipated; they'd had to work at it ever since they were about ten years old and started to develop distinct personalities.
Then Kenny died, not just incidentally but horrifically, violently, and in a way that was endlessly discussed by everyone in town, until all of South Park felt like a funeral. After the actual funeral, after watching Kenny's junior-sized coffin lowered into the ground, Stan truly felt like Kyle was all he had left. Stan had never been close to another friend, had alienated Wendy when he broke up with her the year before, and he was increasingly butting heads with his parents. Suddenly Kyle seemed impossibly, painfully precious, and Stan kept wanting to say, Don't go, don't leave me, but it came out only as wretched sobbing that made Kyle whimper and sniffle sympathetically, his hands pressed to Stan's cheeks as if he had to physically hold Stan together.
There was no question that Kyle would spend the night, and Stan doesn't remember a discussion about it. They just got in Stan's bed together at some point, still wearing their funeral clothes. This seemed to bother Kyle, who held Stan for a while, then sat up and removed Stan's shoes. He took his own shoes off next, then Stan's tie, followed by his own tie. There was another period of just lying together sniffling, Kyle's hand resting on Stan's side, Stan's arms curled against Kyle's chest, and then the fact that they were still wearing their belts seemed to perturb Kyle. He removed them, and after another stretch of quiet and sighing, there was some timid nuzzling, which was the first thing since Kenny's death that had approached real comfort for Stan. It was exactly what he needed from Kyle in the moment: no words and no boundaries, just an extreme but comfortable closeness. The heat of Kyle's breath on Stan's face made Kyle feel so real, and less in danger of being taken away from him. Stan wanted more of him, and it didn't feel sexual in the moment. Taking a cue from Kyle's undressing of the both of them, he began to unbutton Kyle's shirt.
He remembers the way Kyle's chest felt so vividly, soft and warm, the most vulnerable thing he'd ever touched. Stan ran his hands from Kyle's shoulders to his stomach and back again, everywhere, only a thin undershirt between Stan's palm and Kyle's skin. It's not the kind of Kyle memory that makes him hard; it makes his heart ache. Kyle's heart had been positively pounding while Stan touched him, and Stan moaned when he felt it, buoyed by the knowledge that Kyle was alive and safe, right there under his hands. Kyle had started crying again, and Stan thought maybe he should stop, but when he took his hands away Kyle started unbuttoning Stan's shirt.
Kyle touched Stan's chest more cautiously, maybe because Stan wasn't wearing an undershirt. His fingertips were trembling at first, but when Stan pressed his face to Kyle's cheek his hands steadied. At one point, when they were both close to sleep, Kyle toyed with Stan's nipples, which made him hard, but even that seemed like no big deal at the time. How could it be, when Kenny was dead? As long as Kyle was alive and Stan wasn't alone, Kyle could do whatever he wanted to Stan's nipples. Stan fell asleep feeling content for the first time since Kenny's death.
In the morning, Stan woke up with a face full of Kyle's curls, which had happened before, though not for a long time. He felt almost as if he'd been on a bender the night before, his head throbbing from all the crying and his stomach painfully empty. Kyle was still tangled around him, and Stan extracted himself, pulled his shirt shut and went across the hall to have a piss. By the time he got back, he was certain that he wouldn't fall into Kyle's arms again. Kyle was sitting up, groggy, peeking at Stan nervously.
"You want some clothes?" Stan asked while Kyle finished buttoning up his wrinkled shirt. Kyle shook his head.
"I should go home," Kyle said, and he did, leaving his tie and belt behind. The next time they saw each other, they didn't talk about. Stan felt sort of badly about this, but what was there to say?
He's still wondering what he could have done differently, lying in bed and reeking of caramel. Should he have kissed Kyle on the lips? Did he even want to? Does he want that now? There's something about Kyle that makes him seem like an exception to all of Stan's rules. If Kenny were alive, Stan could have talked about this with him. Kenny was open minded and sexually mature. He would have been able to parse Stan's dilemma somehow.
It's been a long time since Stan had a nightmare about the murders. In his dream, he's stuck inside the wall at the McCormick house, unable to help or to turn away from the spray of blood. He can feel it on his face, hot and wet. He wakes up in a panic, looking for Kyle, fumbling his pillow onto the floor. But Kyle isn't here. Stan's room is dark; the house is silent. It's after midnight: it's Halloween.
**
Title: Spirit Animals
Pairing: Stan/Kyle
Rating: R
Words: ~20k; ~5,500 in this chapter
Summary: Cartman wants to film his amateur ghost hunting show at the site of the grisly McCormick massacre. Stan hates the idea but he can't stay away, because Kyle will be there.
Stan wants to drop out of the Midnight Society, but two things are stopping him: the fact that Kyle and Cartman would be the only remaining members if he left -- excluding Butters, who shows up when he doesn't have a conflicting choir practice -- and Stan's continuing belief in ghosts. He doesn't want to believe in ghosts, because it seems ignorant and childish, but he can't deny that he's seen Kenny at least four times since he was murdered in eighth grade.
"I now call this meeting to order," Cartman says, giving Stan a pointed look. Stan puts away his phone and glances at Kyle, who is doing his homework. Kyle is allowed to break the Midnight Society rules now that he's doing God knows what with Cartman upstairs prior to the club meetings. "The issue on the table today is, of course, Halloween."
"Oh, boy!" Butters says, and he claps his hands together twice. "What do you have in store for us this year, Eric?"
"I'm getting to that, Butters, if you'd shut the fuck up for a second." Cartman indulges in a dramatic pause, his eyes sweeping the pathetically empty basement. The Midnight Society, founded when they were twelve, used to have ten members. Now that they're juniors in high school, many former paranormal enthusiasts have defected to Wendy's competing South Park Society for Skeptical Inquiry.
"Just say it, Cartman," Kyle says, still scribbling on his Calculus worksheet. "And prepare to be deservedly rebuked."
"Kyle, okay?" Cartman says, glaring at him. "Quit talking like you're in Downton Abbey, Jesus Christ." He turns back to Stan and Butters. "This year's Halloween ghost hunt will be a very personal one for the team. For, you see -- we shall venture into the abandoned McCormick house."
"Nope," Stan says.
"Oh, gosh!" Butters put his hands over his mouth. "I don't know if that'd be right, Eric."
"Of course it wouldn't be right!" Kyle says, finally looking up from his calculations. "It's extremely disrespectful."
"How is it disrespectful to want to commune with our dead friend?" Cartman asks, throwing his arms out. "Huh? Kyle?"
"Because you're using an actual tragedy that happened to an actual person we knew for the purpose of playing your little ghost hunting game!"
"It's not a game, Kyle, okay? Can you seriously deny some of the evidence I've captured over the years? Do I need to play the EVPs for you again?"
"Please, no," Stan says, rubbing his hand over his face. "No EVPs, and no going into Kenny's house. You've been voted down, Cartman."
"Um, excuse me? No, that's not possible. I'm the president, and I have veto rights. I veto your objections."
"Have fun going alone," Kyle says, looking back to his homework.
"Alright, fine," Cartman says. "Have fun sucking your own dick."
"Ugh, stop," Stan says, his skin crawling with goosebumps. He can't take even the barest hint that the two of them have begun having what Kyle deems 'hate sex.' After Wendy dumped him, Cartman declared himself a proud gay man and immediately began hooking up with Kyle, who has been surly in response to Stan's utter disbelief.
"Threaten me all you like," Kyle says. He has an air of sophisticated indifference about the whole Cartman thing, and it makes Stan want to puke and cry simultaneously. "It's not like people are lining up to suck yours."
"I will literally do anything if you guys stop talking about this," Stan says.
"Excellent," Cartman says, and he picks up the gavel that he stole from the debate team, pounding against the card table he's sitting at twice. "Then it's settled. We'll stop talking about sucking dick, and Stan officially agrees to participate in the McCormick house investigation."
"I didn't say that," Stan says.
"You kind of did," Kyle says, and Stan snarls at him, but he's still looking at his homework.
"No worries, gentlemen," Cartman says. "We'll handle this subject sensitively."
"Poor Kenny," Butters says, and Stan gets up to leave. Upstairs, he dodges Liane's attempt to get him to join her for a nightcap, and he's at the end of Cartman's driveway when he hears someone following him. It's Kyle, still stuffing his books into his bag.
"Wait up," Kyle says, as if they had some kind of agreement. "You know I don't like walking home alone at night."
"I thought maybe your boyfriend would walk you," Stan says.
"He's not my boyfriend, he's just an asshole who happens to be attached to a cock that is available for my use. It's an unfortunate combination, I'll admit."
"That's fucked up."
"Yes, yes -- get over it, please. I was the only gay guy in school, and now there's two of us, and he's like a metric ton human skyscraper who's capable of murder, so I'm slightly less afraid of getting my ass kicked while affiliated with him. You should be happy for me."
"Oh, yeah, I'm thrilled. So if he's such an intimidating, protective force, why am I the one walking you home?"
Kyle has no witty retort for this question, and when he fumes in silence Stan feels giddy for a moment, then guilty.
"So, speaking of things that are fucked up," Stan says, happy to change the subject. "This Kenny thing. What the hell?"
"Cartman has unprocessed grief and this may be his way of exploring that," Kyle says. Stan scoffs.
"You are giving him way too much credit."
"Perhaps, or maybe I'm projecting. But maybe it's not such a bad idea for the four of us to visit the scene of the crime. For closure."
"Closure? Looking at some blood splattered walls in an abandoned house is going to help us get over Kenny's death, really?"
"They're hardly blood splattered anymore!" Kyle peeks at Stan, suddenly sheepish. "I have to admit, some part of me wants to go there. To, I don't know. Certainly not to speak to his spirit, but to atone with our memories of him, or something."
"Dude, you really are starting to sound like you're on Downton Abbey."
"Like you've even watched it!" Kyle smacks Stan's shoulder and Stan shoves him back, friendly-like. They smile at each other. Stan feels it in his gut. Sometimes Kyle still likes him.
"I just think it's crazy," Stan says. "Crazy talk from a crazy asshole."
"Says the person who claims to have seen Kenny's ghost."
"I have!"
"Yeah, yeah."
They reach the end of Kyle's driveway and stop. Kyle is back to shooting Stan huffy looks, his eyes guarded and fierce. Things changed around the time of Kenny's funeral. Stan and Kyle had spent the night together afterward. There was weird pre-sexual touching, which seemed excusable in the midst of their grief. Kyle has been distant ever since, or maybe Stan has. Either way, they still manage to spend almost all of their free time together, when Kyle isn't exploring his sexuality with the only available cock. Stan sometimes thinks his might be available, to Kyle if not guys generally, but he's too chicken shit to put the idea forward.
"So I walked you home," Stan says, feeling stupid.
"What do you want, a medal?" Kyle's voice is inappropriately loud, and it seems to echo down the dark street, making Stan slightly apprehensive about walking the rest of the way alone. Kyle groans and presses his fist to Stan's chest. "I'll see you in school," he says, and he turns for his house in a sassy little pivot that makes Stan wonder why he thinks Kyle is so much cooler than him sometimes.
*
At school the next day, Stan is buying a Cherry Coke from the vending machine when he's approached by Wendy, who looks preemptively disappointed by the encounter.
"What's this I hear about Eric going to the McCormick house on Halloween?" she asks. "That is such a toxic idea," she says before Stan can answer.
"Yes, I agree."
"Stan, please don't take that tone with me."
"What tone?"
"That stoic defeatist thing you do when you know I'm right and you don't want to deal with me."
"I have no problem dealing with you," Stan says, though he would prefer to just head to the lunch room with his Coke in peace. "And of course you're right. I voiced my dissent, but it's not like he's going to listen to me, or anyone."
"How about Kyle?" Wendy makes a queasy face that communicates her shared disgust for the idea of Cartman and Kyle copulating. "He can't put his foot down about this as Cartman's - lover?"
"Wendy." Stan recoils. "No, no, don't -- he's not a lover. God. And actually, Kyle is into this McCormick house thing. He thinks it will cleanse us spiritually or something."
"That doesn't sound like Kyle at all!"
"Well, does receiving sexual pleasure from Cartman sound like Kyle? He's lost his mind, Wendy. What am I supposed to do about it?"
"You know this is just about me breaking up with him," Wendy says. "This is so Eric. I just feel bad for poor Kyle. He'll end up getting his feelings hurt."
"Feelings are not involved."
"Ha! So he says. Kyle puts up this front, but he's actually a tender rosebud."
"Ew," Stan says, flushing, because it's not like he's never thought about Kyle's tender rosebud.
"You know he is," Wendy says, missing this. "And Cartman probably knows it to some extent. But never mind -- this McCormick house thing. I forbid it."
"Kay."
"Stan, really, I'm going to hit you if you keep talking to me that way."
"What way?"
"Like I'm hysterical and you're this put upon everyman douche who has to deal with the various hysterics in his life."
"Hmm," Stan says.
"Don't stand there thinking that's exactly what you are, because you're not blameless, Stanley. You can't keep letting him get away with things like this."
"Who?"
"Kyle!"
"What's Kyle done? It was all Cartman's idea."
"Sure it was," Wendy says. She's flustered, and Stan is beginning to wonder if she's jealous of Kyle for his access to Cartman's crotch. Such a thing seems impossible, but many things that once seemed that way have come to pass in recent years.
They head into the lunch room and join their usual assortment of friends, Stan taking a seat between Kyle and Token. Cartman is sitting at Kyle's other side, launching himself into his school cafeteria cheeseburger with everything he's got. Cartman is massive, and Stan scowls at him, resenting this. Stan is slim and only a few inches taller than Kyle, who is soft and petite, rosebud-like.
"Maybe we'll join you, for the sake of skeptical inquiry," Wendy says. She takes a seat next to Craig, who is eating yogurt in his usual irritating, lizard-like way, licking it daintily from the very end of his plastic spoon in a manner that takes the full lunch hour to complete.
"Join us where?" Kyle asks.
"On the ghost hunt," Wendy says. She scoffs. "Or desecration, I should say."
"Wendy," Cartman says, wiping cheese grease from his lips. "The only thing getting desecrated around here is my balls, okay? We're not even together anymore, so you can quit trying to break them."
"This isn't about you or your balls," Wendy says, and she gives Kyle a meaningful look that Stan doesn't appreciate. "Believe me, I'm relieved that they're being tended to by another these days. This is about our memories of our beloved friend who died tragically and much too young. Leave your goddamn balls out of it."
"Speaking of balls," Craig says. "I bet you assholes won't even be man enough to spend an hour in that house."
"Huh, okay, Craig!" Cartman says. "You want to bet?"
"Seriously, I'd have no problem staying there," Kyle says. "As a tribute. I'm not afraid."
"You're a lunatic," Stan says. "We're not staying there."
"Stan is the biggest pussy I've ever met in my life," Craig observes mildly, as if Stan isn't there or won't object to this statement.
"Not as big as you," Kyle says.
"Right," Craig says. "When's the last time I was scared of anything? I'm a fucking Nihilist, Kyle. That's the whole point."
"My fucking ass you are," Cartman says. "And if you're so above the concept of fear, Craig, why don't you and your little junior skeptical detectives come spend the night with us in the McCormick Death Den?"
"Don't call it that!" Wendy says. "And you know what -- forget it. I'm not getting involved with this on any level."
"Ah, Wendy, like I was even including you. I suppose it goes without saying that you lack balls. You lack balls so much that your ball-lessness creates a vortex which threatens to suck the balls off of even the most virile of men. I should know -- I was almost too late to yank mine back from the void."
"I broke up with you," Wendy says. "And the only reason I won't be joining you on your little quest to piss all over our memories of Kenny is that I think it's repulsive, morbid, and frankly pretty sad."
"Sure, Wendy, sure. We all totally believe that."
"What do you guys think you're going to accomplish?" Token asks. "Some black light footage of old carpet stains?"
"I don't want to see carpet stains," Stan says, suddenly very upset. "Wendy is right. You guys are being gross."
"Okay, excuse me?" Kyle says, whirling on Stan. "Do you even remember what Kenny was like? He was not one to stand on ceremony, or to observe boundaries or tip-toe around feelings. If he were here, I think he would be into the idea. He was really sort of spiritual."
"Do you even half think about what comes out of your mouth anymore?" Stan asks, rearing away from Kyle.
"Do you really need to ask that of someone who has swallowed Cartman's beastly jizz?" Craig asks.
"Why thank you, Craig," Cartman says. "I take beastly as a compliment in that context."
By the end of the lunch period, Stan still isn't sure what the plan is for Halloween. He could always stay home and watch scary movies with his parents, but that sounds like the absolute worst fate imaginable on multiple levels. He wishes he had some friends who weren't insane, and also that he didn't continue to feel responsible for Kyle's well being, despite Kyle having attached himself to the massive man meat that is Cartman and his beastly appendage.
In an attempt to talk to someone sane, if horrible and dull, Stan offers Clyde Donovan a ride home from school. He also does this out of lonely bitterness, because Kyle declined to accept a ride himself, in favor of going off on some foul errand with Cartman. Stan didn't ask for details.
"I'm in kind of a dark place right now," Stan confesses as he pulls out of the school's lot, Clyde beside him in the passenger seat.
"What does that mean?" Clyde asks. "Are you going to crash the car with me in it?"
"Clyde, Jesus -- no. I guess it means I need to talk. Can I talk to you about some things?" He normally confides in Wendy, but she's been making about as much sense as Kyle ever since her breakup with Cartman, which was allegedly brought on by Cartman confessing that he wanted to put his dick on her face while she slept, which she refused to consent to. Now Stan is left wondering if Kyle allows it.
"You can talk," Clyde says after an ominously long pause.
"Well," Stan says, not sure where to begin. "Remember Kenny McCormick?"
"Uh, yeah. Are there people who don't remember him?"
"I don't know what goes on in your head, Clyde. Anyway, Cartman has this idea that we should go ghost hunting on Halloween at Kenny's old house."
"Oh."
"Yeah. So, Wendy says it's immoral, which I tend to agree with, but for some reason Kyle is all into the idea, though he initially said it was bullshit, and I'm just like - why? Why is he determined to destroy himself?"
"Who?"
"Kyle! I mean, as someone who has known both of them for a long time, what do you think about the fact that he's dating Cartman?"
"It surprised me less than when Wendy dated him."
"Well -- yeah, but. No, I think Kyle is more surprising, in terms of Cartman's sexual partners."
"Okay."
"I mean, yes, both instances of Cartman dating these people were shocking, and I'm still a little shocked that anyone consents to let him lay a hand on them -- do you think he's attractive?"
"I don't like men."
"He's not a man, for fuck's sake! He's a boy, and I mean objectively, not as a potential sex partner for you personally."
"Can I get out of the car?" Clyde asks, eying the passenger side door lock.
"Clyde, no, we're in the middle of traffic here. Calm down. Why is everyone in my life a hysterical mess?"
"I don't know."
"And I'm not using hysterical as a gendered slur, or whatever, which is what Wendy would think. I mean it, uh. Neutrally."
"Okay."
Stan has to stop himself for berating Clyde for his cud-chewing tone, suddenly understanding how Wendy felt earlier. He turns on the radio and passes the rest of the car ride in silence, which Clyde seems perfectly comfortable with.
At home, Stan lies on his back in bed and tries to imagine Kyle, sleeping, with Cartman's big wang draped across his nose or flopped onto his cheek. His visions devolve into Kyle, awake, with Stan's cock lovingly tickling against his lips, asking for permission to enter. Stan reaches into his pants with a sigh.
After his beat off and nap, he lies there in bed feeling miserable and waiting for his mother to call him for dinner. He's overcome with a crushing sense of guilt, not because he beat off to the thought of Kyle sucking his dick, but because he's alive and Kenny is not. He's a ghost at best, and he hadn't looked like a happy one when Stan saw him. The first two times, Stan was too scared to move and Kenny just sort of walked off, but the third time he called out to Kenny, who seemed frightened and ran, and the fourth time Stan chased after him. Kenny lost him by veering into the alley behind the mall, which he seems to haunt. Stan goes there sometimes, but he's never been able to find Kenny's ghost when he's looking for it on purpose, just a bunch of food garbage from whichever bum slept there the night before.
In the days that follow there is more discussion about the Halloween plans, but Stan mostly opts out of the debate, resigned to the fact that he'll end up doing whatever the rest of the gang does on Halloween. He feels increasingly depressed about Kenny, and no one but Kyle seems to notice. On the night before Halloween, Kyle shows up at Stan's house after school with a grocery bag.
"Is your kitchen in use?" Kyle asks.
"Uh," Stan says, confused by the question and annoyed with Kyle's timing. Stan was just beginning his afternoon beat off when his mother called to him, saying Kyle was here. He's more in the mood for the soft-lipped Kyle of his fantasies than this real one and his unpredictable moods. "No, nobody's using the kitchen. Why, do you need it?"
"Yes." Kyle shoves around him and heads for the kitchen. "We're making caramel apples."
"Okay," Stan says, slightly more enthusiastic about this surprise visit now. "I love those."
"I know," Kyle says. He throws the grocery bag on the kitchen counter and begins unloading items. "I thought you could use some less intense Halloween fun."
"Less intense?"
"Yes, less so than whatever's going to happen tomorrow night." Kyle looked up from the groceries and met Stan's eyes in the sort of full-on, unguarded way that had been rare even before Kenny died. "You don't have to come if you don't want to."
"Please. Like I'd let you go there with only Cartman and Butters to watch your ass."
"My ass doesn't need your eyes on it," Kyle says, but he's smiling. "Come over here and start unwrapping caramels, please."
Stan thinks of protesting that harvesting caramel from many individually wrapped candy pieces has got to be the least efficient method of making caramel apples, but the unwrapping is actually weirdly soothing, so he keeps his mouth shut while Kyle washes the applies in his usual fastidious bordering on OCD way.
"I heard you gave Clyde Donovan a ride home from school the other day," Kyle says as he's drying the apples.
"You heard?" Stan scoffs. "From who?"
"Craig."
"Wow, well. Craig caught me, I gave Clyde a ride home. This sizzling hot gossip is sure to haunt me forever."
"Why are you being dramatic? I'm just saying, you were in a car with Clyde. That's kinda weird."
"How so?"
"Well, because -- why? Is what I'm asking. Why voluntarily be in the presence of the dimmest person we know?"
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's just that everyone else is so bright. Or glaring, even. I guess I was craving a dim presence."
Kyle gave him a long, piercing look, and Stan grinned.
"Is that supposed to offend me?" Kyle asked. "I don't care if I have a glaring presence. Good! If the alternative is Clyde, well. You have my answer."
"You're not one of the glaring ones," Stan says. "I meant Cartman, and Wendy, and Craig, though he's more like a monotonous droning noise that occasionally gets loud enough to irritate me."
"You're mixing metaphors, Stan."
"Well, sorry, I'm winging it."
Kyle is silent for a moment, and he joins Stan in unwrapping caramels. Stan waits, sensing that Kyle is about to explode for some reason or another. The backs of his ears are turning red.
"How many of these do we need to unwrap?" Stan asks.
"Fuck, I don't know!" Kyle says, loudly. "All of them, I think. Look, I'm just saying -- I'd be saddened if you ended up being friends with Clyde. It would disappoint me greatly."
"Kyle, what the hell? Don't worry about it. Clyde asked me if I was going to kill him within two minutes of getting into my car. He's just not that into me."
"What is that supposed to be, some kind of gay joke?" Kyle glares at Stan, his ears very red now.
"I guess," Stan says. He touches Kyle's back, because this sometimes has a calming effect. Kyle's shoulders lower slightly. "Chill, dude," Stan says. Kyle grunts and resumes unwrapping caramels.
"Nobody says 'chill,' Stan."
"You're still my best friend," Stan says, quietly, after some awkward silence.
"Really? The Cartman clause doesn't forbid that?"
"There's no Cartman clause. Do whatever you want with that fat piece of shit. I'm not going to abandon you in this darkest time of your soul's struggle."
He's afraid that might set Kyle off again, but Kyle just snorts and smiles down at the caramels.
Twenty minutes later, their caramel apples are lined up on a baking sheet, some rolled in chopped nuts, others rolled in M&M's. Stan thinks the idea of M&M coated apples is kind of gross, but he has to admit that it looks pretty. He joins Kyle in licking cooling caramel from the spoon they used to stir it up.
"This was a huge success," Stan says.
"We haven't even tried one yet," Kyle says. "And yet, I agree. They're great." He digs out his phone and takes pictures.
"Are you putting that on Facebook?" Stan asks when Kyle starts tapping around on his phone's screen afterward.
"Of course," Kyle says.
"Can't we even eat one before you memorialize this on social media?"
"Dig in," Kyle says, still Facebooking. "I think they're firm enough to eat."
Stan grabs for one of the caramel-only apples, thinking about other things that are firm enough to eat. His newest fantasy is the idea of licking Kyle's butt cheeks. If memory serves, the skin of his ass is the only place on Kyle's body where he has some light freckles.
They sit out on Stan's back porch with a couple of apples, eating them in companionable quiet, nuts dropping from Stan's and M&M's from Kyle's. Kyle shrieks in protest when Stan picks up the fallen M&M's and eats them.
"Five second rule," he says.
"You're like an animal," Kyle says, and something about the way he pronounces the word makes Stan take it as a compliment. Kyle's phone buzzes, and he digs it out to investigate. "Cartman 'disliked' my apple picture," Kyle says.
"Really? You'd think he'd be in favor of any kind of junk food imagery."
"Well, I think it's the caption he objects to."
"Which is what?"
"'Fun afternoon of crafting with Stan.'"
"Ugh, Kyle."
"What?"
"That word. Crafting. Is it really 'crafting,' even? When you eat the thing you made?"
"I think it is," Kyle says. He sticks what remains of his apple between his teeth so he can compose a message with both thumbs. "I'm telling him he can't have one," Kyle says, speaking around the apple. "I wouldn't want him to think our arrangement includes me cooking for him, ever."
"Arrangement," Stan mutters. Some brandy would be good with these apples. He keeps a fifth of it hidden in the lowest dresser drawer in his room.
"Don't get all grim," Kyle says, removing the apple from his mouth. "You take everything so personally."
"Yeah, I'm sure you can't relate. It's not like you freak out when Clyde rides in my car or anything."
"I was talking about this Kenny thing," Kyle says. "And the way -- I mean, when it happened. You really took it harder than any of us, back then."
Stan shrugs and chews his apple. He doesn't want to talk about that, really. His mind immediately goes to the night after Kenny's funeral, when he and Kyle pressed their wet faces together on Stan's pillow. Their lips never touched, but it felt more real than the kisses he'd had with Wendy, and less scary, until he thought about it the next morning and started to wonder what it meant.
"Well," Kyle says, sharply, as if rebuking Stan for remembering. "It will be interesting, tomorrow."
"Or just sad and awful."
"No, no," Kyle says lightly, but then he can't seem to come up with any reasons why it wouldn't. Stan reaches down to grab another errant M&M and pops it in his mouth. "Kenny used to do that," Kyle says. "Eat candy off the floor."
"I know," Stan says.
Kyle leaves shortly afterward, taking all but two of the remaining caramel apples with him. Stan eats another one after dinner, though his stomach hurts. The sugar overload fucks with his sleep schedule and he ends up tossing and turning for hours, trying not to replay the post-funeral night in bed with Kyle too vividly.
Kyle had of course been upset about Kenny, too, but that night after the funeral it seemed as if it was Stan's bottomless grief was what made Kyle finally break down and cry. Stan and Kenny had gotten closer as puberty progressed, since they tended to be more mature than Cartman and Kyle, who would still come to blows over the last Oreo if they got the chance. Kenny was quieter and more introverted, and Stan could relate to that. Meanwhile, Kyle had announced to everyone who was packed into the Airport Hilton ballroom for his bar mitzvah that he was gay, and Stan felt like Kyle was suddenly speaking in some coded language that Stan could only hopelessly botch. They were still close, but the ease of being together had all but dissipated; they'd had to work at it ever since they were about ten years old and started to develop distinct personalities.
Then Kenny died, not just incidentally but horrifically, violently, and in a way that was endlessly discussed by everyone in town, until all of South Park felt like a funeral. After the actual funeral, after watching Kenny's junior-sized coffin lowered into the ground, Stan truly felt like Kyle was all he had left. Stan had never been close to another friend, had alienated Wendy when he broke up with her the year before, and he was increasingly butting heads with his parents. Suddenly Kyle seemed impossibly, painfully precious, and Stan kept wanting to say, Don't go, don't leave me, but it came out only as wretched sobbing that made Kyle whimper and sniffle sympathetically, his hands pressed to Stan's cheeks as if he had to physically hold Stan together.
There was no question that Kyle would spend the night, and Stan doesn't remember a discussion about it. They just got in Stan's bed together at some point, still wearing their funeral clothes. This seemed to bother Kyle, who held Stan for a while, then sat up and removed Stan's shoes. He took his own shoes off next, then Stan's tie, followed by his own tie. There was another period of just lying together sniffling, Kyle's hand resting on Stan's side, Stan's arms curled against Kyle's chest, and then the fact that they were still wearing their belts seemed to perturb Kyle. He removed them, and after another stretch of quiet and sighing, there was some timid nuzzling, which was the first thing since Kenny's death that had approached real comfort for Stan. It was exactly what he needed from Kyle in the moment: no words and no boundaries, just an extreme but comfortable closeness. The heat of Kyle's breath on Stan's face made Kyle feel so real, and less in danger of being taken away from him. Stan wanted more of him, and it didn't feel sexual in the moment. Taking a cue from Kyle's undressing of the both of them, he began to unbutton Kyle's shirt.
He remembers the way Kyle's chest felt so vividly, soft and warm, the most vulnerable thing he'd ever touched. Stan ran his hands from Kyle's shoulders to his stomach and back again, everywhere, only a thin undershirt between Stan's palm and Kyle's skin. It's not the kind of Kyle memory that makes him hard; it makes his heart ache. Kyle's heart had been positively pounding while Stan touched him, and Stan moaned when he felt it, buoyed by the knowledge that Kyle was alive and safe, right there under his hands. Kyle had started crying again, and Stan thought maybe he should stop, but when he took his hands away Kyle started unbuttoning Stan's shirt.
Kyle touched Stan's chest more cautiously, maybe because Stan wasn't wearing an undershirt. His fingertips were trembling at first, but when Stan pressed his face to Kyle's cheek his hands steadied. At one point, when they were both close to sleep, Kyle toyed with Stan's nipples, which made him hard, but even that seemed like no big deal at the time. How could it be, when Kenny was dead? As long as Kyle was alive and Stan wasn't alone, Kyle could do whatever he wanted to Stan's nipples. Stan fell asleep feeling content for the first time since Kenny's death.
In the morning, Stan woke up with a face full of Kyle's curls, which had happened before, though not for a long time. He felt almost as if he'd been on a bender the night before, his head throbbing from all the crying and his stomach painfully empty. Kyle was still tangled around him, and Stan extracted himself, pulled his shirt shut and went across the hall to have a piss. By the time he got back, he was certain that he wouldn't fall into Kyle's arms again. Kyle was sitting up, groggy, peeking at Stan nervously.
"You want some clothes?" Stan asked while Kyle finished buttoning up his wrinkled shirt. Kyle shook his head.
"I should go home," Kyle said, and he did, leaving his tie and belt behind. The next time they saw each other, they didn't talk about. Stan felt sort of badly about this, but what was there to say?
He's still wondering what he could have done differently, lying in bed and reeking of caramel. Should he have kissed Kyle on the lips? Did he even want to? Does he want that now? There's something about Kyle that makes him seem like an exception to all of Stan's rules. If Kenny were alive, Stan could have talked about this with him. Kenny was open minded and sexually mature. He would have been able to parse Stan's dilemma somehow.
It's been a long time since Stan had a nightmare about the murders. In his dream, he's stuck inside the wall at the McCormick house, unable to help or to turn away from the spray of blood. He can feel it on his face, hot and wet. He wakes up in a panic, looking for Kyle, fumbling his pillow onto the floor. But Kyle isn't here. Stan's room is dark; the house is silent. It's after midnight: it's Halloween.
**