Chapter Text
After a full day of adventure, violence, and being a hero, Stan had made his way into his garage to carefully as to not be seen by his father, intending to put back all the tools he’d ‘borrowed’ from his father that morning.
“Hey Stan!?”, Randy shouts as he pokes his head in, one hand holding a beer and his other grabbing the doorframe to lean halfway in, looking around.
Stan stands up iron rod straight, goggles still on, and wearing the toolbelt, knowing he’s totally screwed for losing those drill bits yesterday.
“Oh there you are. Any idea where I left my phone? I asked your mom to call it but I can’t hear it.”, Randy asks as he fully enters the room, taking a sip out of the can.
“Nope.”, Stan replies as he shakes his head, feeling relieved but still tense, “You sure it’s not on silent again?”
“Huh. Yeah that’s probably it.”, Randy says as he feels up his pockets, finding it in his back left pocket.
“Yeah, that was it.”
“Glad to help.”, Stan says as his dad looks down at his phone, shimmying out of the toolbelt and yanking the goggles off to toss them onto the shelf behind him, “What’s for dinner?”
“Hey what happened to you and that little Wendy girl you used to pal around with?”, Randy asks after a few seconds of staring at his screen, putting his phone back into his pocket.
“Nothing happened dad, she’s still my girlfriend.”, Stan answers back, annoyed.
“Then why did you have a different girl over today?”
Stan furrows his eyebrows in complete confusion, “What girl?”
Randy smiles and rolls his eyes, taking another drink of his beer before he walks closer to Stan, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“Listen, there’s nothing wrong with liking multiple girls at once but you gotta be honest with Wendy first. Is it that new kid that moved in a couple of months ago?”
Brushing his dad’s unwanted hand off his shoulder, Stan silently clears his throat and reaffirms what he just said.
“I didn’t have any girls over, and the new kid is a boy. What happened to you being all woke anyways, mind your gender roles.”, he says to try and deflect the awkwardness of being approached by your parent to discuss liking girls.
Randy’s eyebrows shoot up for a second before he stands back up, fingers squeezing the side of his can in small waves, “Well I never said it was a bad thing Stan. Gaw, just trying to.. Y’know.”, he mumbles to himself as he turns and leaves, not having a way out otherwise.
Stan just stays in place for a moment as he tries to figure out why his dad would assume the new kid is a girl.
How could he make that mistake? They’re clearly one of the boys, the outfit they were wearing wasn’t exactly something a typical girl would wear. … Right?
It takes him a second but he realizes that he’s never actually heard the new kid say a single word. Maybe a grunt or two during a battle but the noises are entirely androgynous.
Wouldn’t they be playing with girls if they were a girl? What kind of girl wants to play so rough?
The dilemma followed him through dinner, while he was trying to sleep, still itching at the back of his mind as he approached the bus stop, brain fogged over with thought as he takes his usual place beside his friends.
“New Kid is a boy, right?”, Stan asks, breaking the silence.
“Well duh.”, Cartman says.
“I mean we’d probably have figured that out by now if they were.”, Kyle adds.
“Okay, right, right. It’s just my stupid dad asked why I had a girl over and argued with me when I said it was the new kid. He’s just retarded then.”, Stan says as he feels more at ease.
“... Would it be the worst thing in the world if they were, though?”, Kyle asks with a shrug, “If they’re so cool as a girl we can’t even tell then it’s like they’re not one. Plus it shouldn’t matter anyways.”
Cartman raises an eyebrow and turns to look at Kyle, eyeing him up and down.
“What’s that supposed to mean? It sounds like you’re actually hoping the new kid is a girl.”
“No I’m not!”, Kyle shoots back with his hands up, “I’m just saying that it doesn’t really matter anyways, they’re good in a fight so what difference does it make.”
“The difference is that a girl would’ve infiltrated our group you stupid jew!”, Cartman shouts as he points a finger in Kyle's face.
“Shut up you fucking fatass why would a girl wanna join us anyways! You’d really tell them they can’t help us out because-”
Cartman interrupts Kyle abruptly, “Hell yeah I would! Even one girl in a group ruins the whole thing! … Wait, you don’t like the new kid, do you?”
“What? No! They’re a boy for one, and unlike you I’m not gay!”, Kyle smacks Cartman’s finger away, “And for two it doesn’t fucking matter!”
“Ohhhh you guys hear this? John over here wants to Yoko all over our franchise!”, Cartman says as he turns to Stan and Kenny, grinning as he gestures back towards Kyle, “He’ll take down Coon and Friends AND Freedom pals! That’s his big plan, involve a girl so she’ll ruin everything so he can jew it up in the background!”
Stan rolls his eyes so hard that they almost pop out of his head.
“Will you shut up? I agree with Kyle for the record - it doesn’t matter. Kenny was a girl when we we were playing just a few weeks ago and it hasn’t changed anything.”
“That’s different because that’s Kenny. The new kid actually being a girl is entirely different. Kenny can turn off how gay he’s being, girls just live that way!”, Cartman says with a rising level of stress in his voice, “And I would’ve been able to tell by now! So we can just all agree they’re not a girl! Why would I lie about that you guys!”
Kyle squints at him for a second, wanting to question the suspicious way he’s acting, but choosing to swallow it since he got close to revealing the new kid’s secret himself.
“They aren’t a girl, so yes we can agree on that. Now can we just wait for the bus? It’s way too early to listen to your bullshit.”
“Oh so that’s bullshit? But a holiday called ‘hanukeh’ isn’t.”, Cartman lowers his tone back to a regular volume, facing forward with his hands under his bookbag straps.
“For the last fucking time Hanukkah is a real holiday fatass! If it was made up why would the school acknowledge it and why would stores have stuff for it every single year!”, Kyle yells back, once again fired up by Cartman's never-ending stupidity.
Stan and Kenny simply listen to the two engage in their morning ritual of pissing each other off, though they do seem more intense about it today.
That is until Kenny sees something, waving his arms wildly to get their attention.
“Mm mphm mm mphm phm!”, Kenny tries to loudly yet not too loudly say, causing the boys to stop bickering, pointing to New Kid stepping off their porch, reminding them of how loud they’re being.
They all try to stand as normally as possible, Kenny waiting until New Kid gets reasonably close to wave with his cheeks pushing up into his eyes from his smile.
New Kid waves back, picking up the pace to get over to them quicker, having no idea what nuclear bomb they just narrowly dodged.