Fic: "Adventures in Impaired Judgment" - Stan/Kyle - Part 1/4

[whyamisoclever]

Title: Adventures in Impaired Judgment
Author: whyamisoclever
Pairing: Stan/Kyle
Rating: PG-13
Word count: ~18,000
Summary: Stan trades Kyle a shirt for his sobriety.  Unfortunately, the plan doesn't exactly go how Stan expected it to and things...get weird.  Written for renpop's prompt on southparkkink.



A/N: This work, in its original, lj-commentish glory, can be found at southparkkink (it's fill #09 under Stan/Kyle). This may be of interest to you because there is also some really freaking amazing art that inspired this whole thing and you would definitely be doing yourself a disservice if you didn't look at it! Seriously, it's awesome. Go look at it and give major props to renpop, for real.

#

When Stan opens the front door, he only barely manages to catch it with the tips of his fingertips as a gust of wind whips across the porch, threatening to knock the door off its hinges. Around him, the whole house shakes. He knew it was raining like a motherfucker outside, if the sound of rain beating on the roof and pouring out from the gutters in rivers was any indication, but he's taken aback enough at seeing the veritable monsoon outside his door that he doesn't really seeKyle until he's elbowed his way into the house, dripping all over the Marsh's welcome mat.

"Jesus Christ," Stan says as he takes him in, one hand still firmly on the door. Kyle is pressing his old green ushanka to his head with one hand, flaps fluttering around his ears, and Stan can see a few wet curls poking out from underneath it. He shuts the door quickly behind them.

For a moment Kyle just stands in the dull glow of light spilling in from the living room, looking a mixture of relieved and drowned. His hair is dark from the rain, enough that it looks more red than orange. Stan's eyes linger on it for a moment, but then Kyle brushes a hand across his forehead, pushing the escaped tendrils back up under his hat.

"Dude," Kyle says, lifting his eyes to Stan's as he dumps his backpack next to the coat rack, "please, pleasetell me you've done laundry recently."

Stan's mom stopped doing his laundry at the beginning of the year, ostensibly because he'll need to know how to do it for himself by the time he leaves for college. Stan's own approach to laundry consists of calling his clothes clean as long as they aren't noticeably stained and don't smell like complete ass; it disgusts Kyle, apparently enough that he'll sometimes do Stan's laundry for him. In fact, Kyle did Stan's most recent load of laundry, and his shirt still smells vaguely of evergreen forest or whatever weird-ass detergent it is that Kyle insists on using. Even though it smells totally gay, Stan sort of doesn't mind it. "Sorry," he says, a little ruefully. "I haven't since the last time I took it over to your house."

"Sick, dude, that was over a month ago," Kyle says, making a face. Kyle actually looks sort of sick himself, cheeks that had been pink from the wind or cold or whatever starting to lose their color enough that he mostly just looks pale and clammy. His clothes are completely soaked through, and they cling to him in a way that makes Stan feel uncomfortable on Kyle's behalf. "The last time I had to borrow one of your shirts I smelled like Axe for, like, three days. I think your sweat makes that shit extra-long-lasting."

"Shut up, you love it," Stan says, but he ducks his chin down and sniffs in the area of his armpit as surreptitiously as he can manage anyway. "Why'd you walk here, anyway?"

"My parents grounded me. No car for a week."

The twist to Kyle's mouth has turned ugly and his hands are balled into fists at his side. Stan guesses, "The fatass?"

"The passenger seat smells like straight-up urine, dude!" Kyle growls. "I don't care how drunk you are, you can't legitimately confuse a Honda for a bathroom. That shit was premeditated."

"Fuck that fucker. Kick his ass, dude."

"Oh, I would," Kyle says murderously, and slight as he's built they both know that he's perfectly capable of breaking Cartman's nose if he's pissed off enough. "Except he was too much of a pussy to show his face at school today."

Stan narrows his eyes. "You didn't wait out in the rain for him after school, did you?" Stan generally considers Kyle to be the most sensible person he knows after Wendy, focused on test scores and perfect attendance and avoiding detention like the plague, but when it comes to Cartman, Stan wouldn't put anything past him.

"No, I had to make up a physics lab," Kyle says with a shrug, the anger beginning to drain from his features. "I texted you, by the way. To see if you could stick around and give me a ride."

Stan raises his palms and glances away. He saw the text, but there's nothing that he finds more uncomfortable than hanging around in the science wing after school. The last time he did, he sat on top of one of the desks in the chem. lab while Kyle silently fiddled with beakers and a Bunsen burner behind him, fielding awkward questions from the chemistry teacher about why he wasn't in science this year and what his college plans were. "Hey, that AP shit is your problem," Stan says. It could have been worse, this time: what if Wendy had been there, soliciting for college recommendations or extra credit? "I'm not obligated to, like, bail you out when it screws you over or whatever."

Kyle rolls his eyes, peeling off his jacket and putting it on the coat rack. Underneath it he just has on a faded green South Park basketball T-shirt from, Stan's pretty sure, junior high, and he rubs his hands over his bare arms, shivering. "You know what, I'll take any shirt you haven't beat off into over dying of hypothermia," Kyle tells him, giving Stan a sideways grin like he knows that that's the ultimate fate of at least half of Stan's wardrobe.

Stan can feel a flush starting to creep into his cheeks, so he turns away toward the couch, grabbing an old wool afghan and tossing it over his shoulder at Kyle. "I've got a couple of clean shirts," Stan offers. "Pants too, I think."

"Really?" Kyle asks, raising an eyebrow. He shakes the blanket out and wraps it around himself like a cocoon.

"Yeah, but, uh - " and suddenly Stan is struck by an idea, and he has to fight down the grin tugging at the corners of his mouth, "there's something you're going to have to do for me if I let you use them." In a way, he feels kind of guilty for what he's about to ask of his friend, but then, this is just the opening he's been waiting for and he's not going to pass it up. He can't help it: Kyle is his best friend. It's only natural that he's curious.

Beneath his sodden hat, Kyle eyes Stan warily. "Oh hell no, dude, I know that look," he says, crossing his arms. "No fucking way."

#

"The whole thing?"

Kyle worries his bottom lip between his teeth as he kneels on Stan's floor, the bottom drawer of the dresser open in front of him. On his right, Stan is crouched down beside him, a bottle of Jack Daniel's balanced on one knee.

"It's like eighty percent empty," Stan says, feeling through the drawer with his free hand to make sure there aren't any errant bottles tucked away in the corners. "You'll probably only get a buzz."

"Dude, I weigh 140 pounds. I'm diabetic. I'm pretty sure that I'm the definition of 'lightweight'."

Stan snorts, acting like this is news to him. Kyle is sensitive as hell about a lot of things, but his weight battles it out with his hair for the top spot. "140, for real?"

Kyle swats at the back of his head. "Yeah, soaking wet," he says, and they both laugh. "So, like, right now," he adds, shooting Stan a pointed look.

Stan groans and turns his attention back to the small pile of clothes he's hauled out of the drawer, some of which date back to elementary school. "The thing is, I don't have anywhere else to put that stuff," he tells Kyle, shaking out an old Broncos T-shirt he caught at a game when he was twelve. It's an XXL and he's only worn it once, on the car ride back to South Park after the game. "Like, I know my mom doesn't snoop through my shit like yours does, but sometimes she'll look through my desk or dresser or whatever. The only reason she stays away from this drawer is because she thinks it's just full of a bunch of sentimental crap. That kind of shit's sacred to her. If I move it, though, suddenly it'll be fair game."

The whiskey slips off Stan's knee when he shifts his leg reaching for another shirt, rolling onto the carpet between the two of them. Kyle sighs, leaning toward Stan to pick it up for a closer inspection. He tilts the bottle to one side and squints at it, as if he's trying to figure out a way to redistribute the liquid so that there will be less for him to drink. "So put it in your closet."

"Yeah, that's how she found my porn collection, no thanks." Stan looks up, holding the Broncos shirt in one hand and his old 'Getting Gay with Kids' T-shirt in the other. "Which one?"

Kyle glares at him. "You think I'd fit into a shirt you wore when you were eight?"

"You don't?"

"Hey, fuck you, give me that other one," Kyle snaps, and Stan laughs as he puts it in his outstretched hand.

"Whoa dude, mellow out," Stan says, raising his hands in a 'slow-down' gesture.

Kyle breathes out harshly through his nose, but the tension in his shoulders eases a fraction. He shakes his head and shoots the Jack Daniel's a look, as if he's planning to continue this conversation with it instead of Stan. "If I get drunk," he says, pulling his wet shirt up over his head, his face disappearing inside of it momentarily, "you have to promise to finish whatever I haven't yet."

Stan laughs again. "Dude, seriously, it'll be fine." He pokes under Kyle's ribcage; he really is too skinny. "Hey, I bet you I could count all of your ribs."

Kyle folds his arms self-consciously over his chest and frowns. Maybe it's because he's a redhead, Stan's not sure, but when he blushes, it reaches down past his face, neck, shoulders; every part of him Stan can see is pink.

"Stan, goddammit," he hisses, snatching the Broncos shirt off the floor and struggling into it, muttering curses under his breath when the collar catches on his hat. "I'm serious. I mean, look." He gestures toward the drawer. "How long have you had this stash?"

"Uh," Stan says, and now he's blushing. "Since I was ten?"

"Exactly," Kyle replies, and he spreads his arms wide like this proves some kind of point.

"Hey, so what?" Stan says, stung. Somehow, he feels like whatever Kyle's implying here is supposed to be an insult.

"So - Stan, do you remember the first time you got drunk?"

"Um," Stan says. He's not sure where Kyle is going with this. They talked it about it once, a few years afterward, and established that Stan's memory of the event is hazy at best. From what he could gather, things were pretty trippy on Kyle's end, too. "Didn't - wasn't there something to do with the Matrix? Was it a game we were playing?"

"I don't know. Sort of. Not really. That's…not really the point."

Stan frowns. "Oh," he says. He scratches his chin and feels faint stubble there, doesn't know what else to tell Kyle. "Uh, okay."

Kyle rubs a hand across his face and blinks a couple of times, then seems to refocus. "You were ten, dude. And, okay, I know it's not really the same thing, but it was - I know it wasn't your idea, you know? I've always sort of thought it was awful - I mean, I feltawful, like, that I wasn't there for you and then you had to go through that. Forced inebriation or, or…whatever."

"Oh," Stan says again, rubbing the back of his head. He's suddenly struck by a terrible possibility. "Wait, do you think that's what I'm trying to do to you?"

Kyle considers this question carefully, fidgeting and tugging at the hems of his borrowed shirt, but he doesn't look away. "I trust you," he says finally. "I mean, Stan, you're my best friend. But…I think that day kind of messed me up, too. So, just. Don't let it go too far, okay?"

Suddenly it seems very important that Stan be able to recall any detail of his interactions with Kyle that day, but even though he tries to remember more intensely than he ever has before, he still comes up blank. "Was I really that bad?" he asks.

Kyle looks away; Stan can tell he's feeling guilty now. "Dude, no. I mean, were you totally out of it? Absolutely. But it wasn't anything you did, it was - I think it's just me. I take shit too seriously, that's all."

It's precisely for this reason that Stan thinks getting drunk would probably do Kyle some actual good, but he understands now that reassurance isn't just something Kyle wants, it's something that Stan owes him. "I won't let anything happen to you," he says, making sure Kyle makes eye contact with him before he continues. He needs Kyle to know he's telling the truth. "I promise, okay?"

"Can you promise I won't say anything I'll regret?"

Stan reaches over and tugs on one of the earflaps of Kyle's hat. Kyle flinches at the contact, but relaxes after a moment and knocks his shoulder companionably against Stan's. "Hey, if you say anything that dumb," Stan tells him, "I promise I'll get so wasted I won't even remember my name, let alone whatever it was you said."

"Okay," Kyle says, still leaning against Stan a little. He sounds like he's come to some kind of decision. "Deal." He uncaps the bottle and takes a drink all in one swift motion, as if all this was his idea from the very start. His head tips back when he swallows, and he looks like a pro, Adam's apple bobbing as the drink goes down.

A second later, however, Kyle's shoulder is shaking against Stan's and he's clutching at his throat, practically coughing a lung up. "Jesus, what the hell?" he chokes out. "How can you drink this stuff?"

Stan pounds Kyle's back a couple of times. "Years of practice, apparently," he says, giving him a wry smile as he waits for his breathing to even out. When it does, Kyle tries to lift the bottle to his lips a second time, this time pinching his nose shut for good measure. Before he can take another drink, however, Stan grabs the neck of the bottle and slides it out from between Kyle's fingertips. He opens his mouth to protest, but Stan keeps the drink well out of his reach as he climbs to his feet. He feels compelled to do something lame like pat Kyle on the head, so he takes a step toward the door instead. "I'll get you some Coke."

#

There's a half a liter of Diet Coke in the fridge and an unopened bottle of Pepsi in the pantry. Stan is fairly certain that Kyle will want to put more cola in his drinks than is strictly necessary so he opens the freezer to chill the Pepsi before he remembers that, duh, Kyle doesn't drink pop with sugar in it.

Stan sets the Pepsi on the counter and opens the refrigerator back up again to look for any other potential mixers, but unless Kyle wants whiskey and milk or whiskey and beer, it's a bust. Stan wouldn't mind a beer himself, but at this point he feels like it would be irresponsible to take one, to in any way compromise his ability to look out for Kyle.

Of course, as he opens the cabinet under the sink to see if there are any cups left from the post-game football get-together he had here last week, Stan can't help the thought that if one looked at this situation from a different angle, well. The fact that he's staying sober while basically asking someone else to get shitfaced could be construed as taking advantage. But that could only be the case if he happened to have, like,intentionstoward the other person. Which he doesn't: Kyle is his best friend and they're not gay, no matter how many fag jokes Cartman wants to make about them.

Stan shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair. There's a half-empty package of red plastic party cups behind the dish soap; he grabs a few and flips off the kitchen light, a flash of lightning illuminating the room a second later. This storm isn't going away anytime soon.

With one foot on the stairs, though, Stan seriously considers returning to the kitchen for a beer. He suddenly can't shake off a slightly dirty feeling about the whole thing; if word of this somehow got back to Wendy, he'd never be able to convince her that she's wrong about him. And if it's turned out that she's even a little bit right, it's only because she put the idea in his head in the first place, and these thoughts are just more proof that he takes her seriously as a person. After what she said when she broke up with him, she should consider herself lucky.

But no, Stan decides, on second thought, Wendy is just as full of shit as Cartman is. He takes the stairs two at a time, tucking the bottle of soda under one arm while he grips the railing to gain leverage with the other. The carpet feels solid and familiar under his feet. Sure, people do stupid things when they're drunk, but Stan promised Kyle that he wouldn't let him, and they'll probably just play Gamesphere and watch crappy movies all night. Nothing will happen except they'll laugh about a bunch of stupid shit until 4 a.m. and Stan's curiosity about how alcohol affects Kyle will finally be satisfied. It's not like he's getting Kyle drunk to get into his pants or anything.

At the top of the stairs, Kyle's jeans lay draped over the hallway radiator. Stan nearly trips over the landing. That can't be right. He's only been gone five minutes, tops, and Kyle didn't seem very interested in drinking any more of the whiskey straight. Is he really that much of a lightweight? Stan squints at the clothes. Upon closer inspection, Kyle's shirt, socks, and shoes are also arranged neatly in the vicinity, and it certainly doesn't look like the handiwork of someone drunk enough to start stripping.

Still, as Stan pushes open his bedroom door, he does so with caution. He's relieved to see Kyle sprawled out on the bed, cell phone pressed to his ear, and wearing a pair of shorts that Stan recognizes as some of his middle school track warm-ups.

"No, ma, I couldn't take the bus, I had to stay after school. Stan's house is just closer, so - uh huh, yeah, I know, ma. Hang on, he's right here, I'll ask him." Kyle covers the receiver with one hand and looks across at Stan. "Dude, when are your parents going to be home? My mom wants to know if it's okay for me to crash here tonight; they're in Denver with Ike and I guess all the roads are flooded or whatever."

"What, you weren't planning on staying anyway?" Stan asks, clearing a spot on his desk and setting the pop and cups there.

Kyle makes a helpless gesture and holds up his phone. "You know how she gets, just humor her."

"Uh, okay. My parents are out of town too, though."

"That's fine," Kyle tells him, picking his phone back up. Stan sits down in his computer chair and watches him. The shirt Stan lent him keeps sliding off his shoulder, and his legs are long pale things poking out of the green track shorts. "You still there, ma? Okay, he says they'll be home before dinner and I'm welcome to spend the night. Yeah, I'll be sure to thank them, don't worry. Uh-huh. Seriously, I'm sure Stan's parents say don't mention it. Okay - yeah, I will, okay. Love you too, tell Ike I said congrats. Okay, bye."

"Nice shorts, I wore those when I was twelve," Stan says when Kyle flips his phone shut and tosses it on the nightstand. "What'd Ike do, discover the Higgs boson?"

"Nah, it was some geography thing. And shut up, you were clearly a total fatass in seventh grade," Kyle informs him, twanging the elastic of his waistband with one finger. He swings his legs over the side of the bed and leans down to pick up the Jack Daniels from where it sits next to his feet. "Are you gonna mix me a drink or what?"

Stan grins. Kyle's hat is on crooked, and even though he has on fresh clothes now and otherwise looks comfortable and warm, his hair is still wet. "Yeah, but only because you just lied to your mom and I'm sort of proud," he says, pulling a single cup free from the stack on his desk.

"Shut up," Kyle says, tugging on the flaps of his ushanka. "I'm grounded, she'd make me go over to Butters' or something if she knew there were no adults here." Now that Cartman and Kenny are no longer Kyle's "little friends," Cartman now anti-Semitic in a way that can't just be ignored because he's ten and doesn't know any better, Kenny old enough now that Sheila Broflovski suspects he knows where to find (and can provide Kyle with) the drugs in his house, he's forbidden from going over to either of their homes. Kyle still goes over to Kenny's sometimes, but as far as Stan knows he's never had a reason good enough to defy his mother on Eric Cartman's account.

"Tell me if it's too strong," Stan says, passing Kyle a cup. "You can add more Coke if you want, but don't add too much or you'll run out before the whiskey's gone."

Kyle sniffs dubiously at the drink, then takes an experimental sip. He coughs, but only once, not nearly as bad as the first time. His nose is wrinkled in disgust, and Stan can't help but laugh when he pours in a generous measure of Coke. "What? It tastes like shit, okay? I'm not going to pretend to like it just for your sake."

"Dude, I would never expect you to," Stan says, taking the cup out of Kyle's hand and trying a little. It goes down smooth, so diluted that Stan can't tell there's anything but soda in the cup. "You'll taste it less after a couple of drinks, though, I promise. I just don't want you to run out of Coke, this is seriously all I've got."

Kyle looks at the pop bottle, now only about half as full as it was before he made his drink. He sighs and adds a couple more drops of whiskey to his Jack-and-Coke. "When am I supposed to start feeling this stuff, anyway?"

#

"I just think," Kyle says, fingers tucked into the collar of Stan's shirt as he follows him down the stairs, "that you're supposed to put ice in these things. And maybe it'll make the bottom part more watery and less, you know, fucking disgusting? The bottom of the drink sucks, dude."

Kyle is already slightly unsteady on his feet, knuckles pressing against the nape of Stan's neck as he tightens his grip on Stan's shirt. He doesn't let go, even when they reach the bottom of the stairs, and Stan doesn't ask him to.

"I can get you a real glass, too," Stan tells him. He turns his head to look over his shoulder at Kyle as they pass through the living room and into the kitchen, and his nose nearly brushes Kyle's cheek. It surprises Stan enough that he jerks away a little, but not enough to break contact. When did Kyle's face get so close? "You know, since you want to get all fucking fancy."

"Uh, good," Kyle says firmly. He uses Stan's shoulder to lift himself onto one of the stools at the kitchen island, face retreating. "Those red ones are for douchebags."

Stan laughs at how serious he sounds and turns toward the freezer. "I think Cartman, like, seriously stole them from a frat party."

"What a cheap bastard." One and a half drinks in, yet there's no mistaking it - Kyle's tone has taken on the sort of transparent sincerity that only alcohol can produce. "Remind me to tell him that the next time he tries to talk shit about Jews. Then I can say, 'uh, no, you're cheap, fat-boy!'"

The ice trays are buried somewhere behind two frozen pizzas and a box of Eggos, and it takes Stan a minute to dig them out, knocking the waffles on the floor in the process. He bends down to pick them up.

"Which cabinet are your glasses in?" Kyle's voice calls out from above him. There's a rattling noise and then the sound of dishes clinking together. "Because, uh, these are bowls, dude."

Stan is still crouched down next to the fallen waffles, but he looks up at this. "Are you serious?" Kyle has climbed onto the counter and thrown open all of the upper cabinets, which he is staring into with a look of deepest confusion.

"What?"

"Okay, first of all, don't fall." Stan feels like he's already preparing himself to catch Kyle, like a fireman holding a tarp open underneath a burning building while someone readies themselves to jump from a window ledge.

Kyle scowls. "I've climbed the shit out of this counter since preschool. I think I've got it."

"Yeah, dude, so - point two: you know where we keep our glasses."

Kyle's scowl becomes a frown. He slides down from his knees but stays on the counter, crossing his legs Indian style. One of his knees is half in the sink. "Fuck. It's sort of hard to, like. Focus."

"Hey, okay," Stan says, reaching up into the bank of cabinets on his side of the kitchen and pulling out a tumbler. He sort of thinks he might be enjoying the taking-care-of-Kyle part of this more than the drunken-antics part. "When was the last time you ate?"

"Oh, fuck, is there food?" Kyle asks, perking up instantly. "I want, like, a pizza. A ham-and-bacon pizza."

"Dude, what?" Stan says, laughing. "I don't think they even make those." He turns back to the freezer, which is still hanging open, to inspect the selection of frozen pizzas. "There's, uh, pepperoni. And meatlover's, if you're trying to get as anti-kosher as possible."

Kyle leans forward, squinting at him. "What's in your hand?"

"What, these? Fuckin' Eggos, dude." Stan squeezes them into an empty space in the freezer door. "So, meatlover's or pepperoni?"

Kyle's stomach growls and he brings both hands up to rub it, looking at Stan with wide eyes. "I totally bailed on lunch, dude. Can I have, like, both?" It's no wonder he's already past tipsy, Stan thinks; he knows Kyle skips breakfast most days, so it's entirely possible that the only thing he's consumed today, in addition to these drinks, is a cup of coffee. "Hey, do you remember that time we ate frozen waffles at Kenny's?"

"Yeah, sort of," Stan says, scratching his head, trying to recall. "Weren't our parents trying to make us catch chickenpox or something?"

"Yeah, but we didn't. My mom kept taking me back over there trying to infect me, it was so retarded."

Kyle uncrosses his legs and lets them dangle over the edge of the counter. Stan pushes them out of the way with one hand as he sets dial on the oven to preheat. "If you don't want to wait for the oven, I can nuke some of the pizza for you instead. It'll probably be all soggy and shit, but I kind of like it that way sometimes." Stan actually only likes soggy microwave pizza when he's drunk, but he supposes this works for Kyle's situation. There's a reason places like Taco Bell and McDonald's are havens for drunks, after all, and it's not the high quality of their food.

Kyle nods, nudging Stan toward the microwave with his foot. "Did I ever tell you about this weird-ass game my mom made Kenny and me play while I was over there?" he asks. "I mean, it was really fucking weird, dude."

"No," Stan says. He throws a few slices of the pepperoni pizza into the microwave.

"It was called ooky-mouth - like, she actually made up a name for this bullshit game - and you were supposed to let the other person spit in your mouth and say 'ooky-mouth' at the same time." Kyle makes the same face he makes when he catches a whiff of one of Cartman's farts, like this is the most disgusting thing he's ever done.

"Hey, don't lose your appetite, dude," Stan says. The pizza has a minute and a half to go. "You seriously need to eat something."

"I think Kenny kind of liked it," Kyle continues. "Fucking perv."

Stan shoots Kyle a bewildered look that he apparently completely misinterprets as jealousy, because he says, "Don't worry, dude. I wouldn't have minded if you spit in my mouth."

"Uh," Stan says, "thanks?" Thankfully, the microwave starts beeping at this point, saving Stan from having to worry about why Kyle thinks he should, and he oddly sort of does, find this particular piece of information reassuring. "I made you three pieces of pepperoni for right now, but I'm going to put the other pizza in the oven for both of us for later, okay?"

Kyle nods, looking prepared to accept whatever Stan tells him.

"Do you want to eat in here or take it in the other room and see what's on TV?"

"Are you going to make me another drink, too?" Kyle asks. "I don't really want to have to, like. Carry stuff? Or walk, really."

"We can stay in here, then," Stan says, grabbing a couple of napkins. "I'll just get you water for now and wait until after you've eaten to make another drink."

"But, dude." There's a hint of a whine to Kyle's voice, and his eyes are big and puppyish in a way that should seem pathetic but somehow doesn't. "Top Chef is on."

Maybe it's the way Kyle's sitting, leaning forward a little with his arms almost (but not quite) outstretched, or maybe it's another one of these weird protective urges Stan keeps having - he doesn't know. But he hears himself saying, "All right, come here then," balancing a plate of pizza in one hand while the other guides one of Kyle's arms around his neck. "Try and keep your legs up at my waist, I don't want to drop you."

Kyle laughs, a sort of contented little giggle, sliding forward on the counter and wrapping himself around Stan without question. His chin is pointy, digging into Stan's shoulder a little. "Whatever you say, dude."

#

Continued here