Chapter Text
In all honesty, Stan had not expected Craig and his tweeker boyfriend to be the one dragging him out of the library.
Stan and Craig weren’t particularly close, they’d hung out a lot as kids—them being cousins, and all—but that had sort of faded out once they got to the age of eleven. Craig had become more distant from his family and his friends, realising that he was in genuine danger because he just so happened to like boys.
Stan had witnessed his own family erupt and tell him to ‘stay away’ from Craig, claiming he was infesting his innocent mind with sinful thoughts.
He’d believed them, really, completely under the impression that Craig was dammned to eternal suffering for his love for another boy, even at such a young age. But he soon learned that it was bullshit, and that he was just being forced into a bigoted way of thinking. Yet his family didn’t know that, they thought he was a perfect little Christian man, with a lovely girlfriend. Wendy Testaburger.
Truth be told, they weren’t actually dating. Sometime in year 7, timid little 12-year-old Stan Marsh had gone up to his girl best friend and admitted that he liked both girls and boys, she was the first to know. In year 9, his father had began pressuring him into ‘becoming a man’ and finding a girl to ‘settle down’ with. So, 14-year-old him had found his girl best friend again and he’d asked her to pretend to date him, just until his father stopped pestering him. She’d agreed, but the pestering hadn’t stopped, not over a year later.
The only people who knew these secrets were Wendy, Kenny, Craig, and Tweek. The only reason Craig knew was because Stan had broke down one summer night, crying in his cousin’s arms and admitting everything. Somehow, Tweek found out, but it didn’t bother him; Tweek wasn’t a snitch.
For a few minutes, the three just walked through the halls absentmindedly and in silence, until Craig finally spoke up.
“At some point you have to stop this whole ‘fake relationship’ fad with Wendy, people are gonna find out one way or another.” As usual, his voice was flat and nasally, sounding so incredibly bored.
Stan took in the words, it’s not like he hadn’t considered just admitting the truth, but he didn’t want people thinking he was… well, queer. He’d be spat on and beaten, never living to hear the end of it. “You know I can’t do that. It’s different to what you have. You actually have a boyfriend, I don’t. I can’t be into dudes *and* single, I’ll be fucking tormented!” he rasped, a hand rubbing his cheek, tears threatening to spill from his eyes.
“You can’t just—ngh—keep it in forever! I tried that and– and it made me mental, dude! You’ll loose your mind!” The blonde sounded like he was gritting his teeth with every word, whispering with urgency. He sounded scared for Stan. “Please just– just take my—ngh—advice, dude. It’s better to just get it out the w-way!”
Maybe he should, maybe he should finally admit what he’d known since he was eight, what he had known since he’d began to see his friend in a new light, one that would make people hate him.
He came to a halt in the hall, realising he’d been walked to his next class. “I’ll think about it.”
Craig sighed, the couple finally walking off together.
Stan knew that if he came out, his parents would be so pissed off. His family would deny ever word, saying that he was just confused. Maybe he was just confused. Maybe he should just push down the sinful thoughts and focus on what really mattered in life; becoming successful and starting a family, being a good *husband* and a good *father—* a good *man*.
Everything he didn’t want to be.
That night, Stan tried to text Kenny about his doubts, but his messages didn’t send through. That wasn’t particularly out of the ordinary, just annoying. He placed his phone on the nightstand, willing himself to sleep.
—
The next morning, Kenny woke with a jolt, chest heaving. His stomach felt like it was being ripped open with a blunt, shitty knife. Which, well, it had the night prior. Stupidly, he’d been wandering the streets late at night, after putting Karen to bed, hoping to find a girl, or a dealer, or something. Instead, he’d found himself face-to-face with a grown man in a balaclava, holding what seemed to be a kitchen knife.
He’d tried to run, not wanting to feel the pain of dying again, but to no avail. He was stabbed and torn open, left to bleed out and die.
Often, this happened. He’d get into some sort of trouble, die, then wake up perfectly fine the next morning. Rarely, one or two things would be slightly different. Today was one of those rare times.
Kenny rolled onto his side, clutching his stomach. He felt pressure on his chest, and when he looked down—
Oh, for fucks sake.
This had happened before. A handful of times, he’d woken up after a particularly bad death and his anatomy would be completely different. To put it in simple terms, he was now a bloody chick. A girl!
Kenny wasn’t complaining all that much, though. There had been times in his life where’d he’d wished he could be a girl—or something different—but there were also times when he loved being a boy. This quirk of being able to change really did make him feel happy, he didn’t have to pay to get anything done to his body, life—and death, he supposed—just worked out for her.
Reluctantly, she rolled out of bed, grabbing her neatly folded up uniform and slipping it on, not bothering to tuck in her shirt or tie her tie properly. The uniform policy could suck her—currently non-existent—balls.
Not bothering to grab breakfast, she shoved her needed books into her backpack and quickly went to brush her teeth, before calling for Karen. Kenny loved her younger sister. She was the pride and joy in her life, one of the main reasons she hadn’t fallen into a raging, angry depression. The young girl skipped into the living room, grabbing onto her older sister’s hand as if nothing had changed, because, to her, nothing had.
Another thing about Kenny’s deaths was that nobody, except for Eric and Tweek, knew she’d died. Everyone else would never questioned how she came back, because it had been completely erased from their minds. The changes in the world or in her never clocked to the majority of people, too. Only ever Eric and Tweek.
The two sisters walked down their stairs of their block of flats, out onto the pavement and towards the elementary school, which was quite close to Kenny’s bus stop, exhanging a brief hug before the ten-year-old happily ran off to her friends.
As expected, when she arrived to said bus stop, nobody said anything about her long, shaggy blonde hair or her small, perky tits, to them nothing had changed. Cartman eyed her, glaring because he knew something that Stan and Kyle didn’t.
When they were on the bus, no one else noticed, not even when she was walking to her class, none of the teachers that greeted her and none of classmates that quickly asked about homework or tests noticed the change. It made her so happy, to know that people knew nothing; that they were completely oblivious to everything. If a normal boy in their school dressed like a chick, he’d be called all sorts of names, but Kenny never was. She always had her security.
The second person to notice was, obviously, Tweek. He was in English literature with Kenny, and when he saw the new look, Kenny could tell he almost screamed by his shaking hands and wide eyes.
During break, he was suddenly cornered by the twitchy blonde.
“Dude! What the fuck? You keep—ngh—changing! I swear, you die all the time!! I remember it!! Why don’t you ever-ugnh—stay dead!!?? What is WRONG WITH YOU??!?!!” Pale, thin hands desperately crumpled her shirt sleeves, Tweek grabbing at her shoulders and shaking her violently.
“Why do you look like—mnnngh—a GIRL? WHY? WHY DO YOU KEEP CHANGING!!?!?? YOU MAKE ME SO CONFUSED, DUDE!!!” The boy was twitchy like crazy, tears pooling up in his eyes. Tweek looked so hysterical, it really did make Kenny feel bad. But she understood why he was always so shaky and sensitive.
A few years back, when they were all only eleven and just about to leave primary and go into secondary school, Tweek’s parents were found to be lacing their son’s coffee with meth. They also had him taking pills—dangerous ones that Kenny never cared to remember the names for—bottles of them, every day. Thing is, Tweek had been drinking that coffee since he was four and taking those pills since he was seven. He was always so messed up, his hair fell out often, his skin was so pale it was almost transparent, he was so skinny that you could seen the bones poking out of his wrists and face. Whenever they had to do physical activity in P.E, he’d almost pass out. He bruised so easily and never stopped moving, Kenny had always felt that his parents were lunatics.
Not to mention, Mr. and Mrs. Tweak were also found to have been abusing their poor son, manhandling him whenever he had a panic attack, hitting him when he shook too much, beating him until fell unconscious whenever he tried to speak up or complain about things.
Naturally, child services had to step in and he was sent to live with his cousin—aka the fittest girl Kenny had ever laid her eyes upon—Bebe Stevens. Slowly, he got better. Sure, he vaped and smoked now, but at least he wasn’t consuming meth on the daily. He had gained a healthy amount of weight, his hair had become thicker over the years, his meltdowns happening less and less often, and him finally being able to speak without sounding like he was shitting himself. Sure, he still ticked and grabbed at his hair and ground his teeth, but he was much, much better.
Despite having improved, Tweek still could be an absolute nightmare at times. Like currently.
The boy was almost sobbing, clearly extremely confused with… well, everything. None of this was normal at all, things were so wrong.
“Okay, okay… just, uh, calm down. Alright? I swear, I’ll explain everything. How about we go find your boyfriend, yeah?”
Finding Craig wasn’t particularly hard. Most of the boys were out on the muddy field, playing football and acting like idiots. Kenny spotted Craig almost instantly, his tanned skin standing out from everyone else. It wasn’t long before he was being dragged away to a very twitchy Tweek.
“Can you, like, sort your boyfriend out? He’s fucking mental.”
“Bloody hell. Fine.”
They’d ended up on a bench at the far end of the field, Craig sitting between both blondes, an arm around his boyfriend. His brows were furrowed, deep in thought as he stared at the ground, trying to process everything that was dumped on him.
“I always thought something was off. You’d be… different, every few days. I never questioned it.”
“Yeeeeaaaah. You know, you’re the third person who actually knows. Not even Kyle or Stan do, it’s just you two and Eric.”
“Hold up, Cartman knows about this? What the fuck?”
“Mhmmmm… I really don’t know how. But he casually mentions me dying and everyone just brushes it off as him being a massive cunt, but he definitely knows.”
“Fuck, dude.”
Craig ran his free hand through his hair, cringing as he stared up at the sun. Today, the weather change had been so incredibly drastic compared to the previous few weeks. It was sunny, almost a clear sky, and there wasn’t a puddle in sight. It was honestly mind-boggling how different the weather could be. “So, like, do you always become a chick or change your… sex when you die, orrrr..?”
Kenny scoffed, running her hands up and down her thighs in a repetitive manner. Curse this damn school for not letting girls wear skirts, she was fucking boiling these damn trousers. “No, it’s rare, only ever happened, like, six times. But it’s bloody awesome cause I have tits now!”
“How can you be—mngh—okay with *any* of this?!?! How do you not—agh—freak out all the time?? I don’t get it!!” Tweek tugged at his hair, fingers curling at the roots and gripping on for dear life.
“Calm down, honey.” *Aww, how cute.* Kenny thought. “I’m sure he– uh… I’m sure Kenny is used to it by now. It’s been happening to, ah… hi– um, th- them all their life. It’s normal to… them by now, I’m sure.” Craig stumbled over his words, occasionally glancing at Kenny to try and get a read on the whole… idea of addressing her properly.
Kenny only smiled at him, grinning as he stumbled over his words.
“But— but what if one day, he never—arh—comes back? What if he stays DEAD FOREVER!!?!??”
“That’s not going to happ—“
“AGHHHHHH!!!”
Craig flinched back, retracting his hand from boy’s shoulder and frowning deeper. Kenny took this as her cue to leave, swiftly pushing herself up and aimlessly wandering over to the astroturf.
She passed all the boys playing football on the pitch and screaming at each other , all their girlfriends sat on the grass gossiping, and Clyde, who was leaning against a tree and vaping. Kenny wondered how the boy hadn’t been caught, despite being out in the open, clear in view of any passing teachers or year sevens that were bound to tattle. She really wouldn’t have cared or given much attention to it; but the bastard threw his pathetic pen at the back of her head. The blonde spun in her heel, glaring daggers at Clyde.
“You gonna give me back my girlfriend or what, ya dyke?” He spat, smirking as if he’d come up with the most original and life-changing insult ever.
*How creative.* “Not unless you kill yourself first, bellend.”
“You’re funny, Ken. How abouts you let me have both Bebe and you, eh?”
*Ew.* Was really all that was running through her mind, watching Clyde slowly approach her. Even in him time as a boy, he’d flirted relentlessly with her, and many other guys, but got so incredibly pissed off when anyone even mentioned the thought or idea of him dating a dude; it was comical.
So many of the teens that Kenny knew were obviously gay or queer but they all just conformed to the towns twisted bigotry, denying any trait that would make them stand out in the slightest. It was sad to see, and even sadder to go through. Kenny herself, in all her forms, was belittled constantly. For being poor, a woman, dating someone the same gender, not fitting into the norms of society in any way. No matter what life she was randomly chosen and selected to live in that day, people just seemed to hate her.
But Clyde was one of the worst. Sure, occasionally he and Kenny could smoke a fag and bond over chicks, but most of their interactions was either Clyde saying some sort of slur, or trying to grab her tits or chest, or both. Today seemed like one of those ‘both’ days.
“It could be fun, y’know. I know I wouldn’t be objecting. Even if I could just watch you guys, I’d be happy. But I would looove to get in on the action.” He tilted his head up, eyes hooded and his hand reaching out. She slapped it away immediately, not holding back when he pouted and tried to speak again, giving him a hard right-hook.
“Awh, you arsehole—“
She spat in his face as he stumbled back, holding his cheek in pain. “Fucking perv.” Teenage boys were disgusting, she knew from being one herself, so dealing with them was a habit she’d easily picked up.
But she wasn’t all that surprised when she had ended up in the Head-teachers office in period four.
“I am incredibly disappointed in you, Kenny. I thought you’d know better by now that violence doesn’t land you anywhere but in trouble.” Mrs. Victoria had an incredibly stern voice and a hard glare, one that scared most students, and staff, shitless. But not Kenny, she couldn’t give two shits about being seated in the too-familiar office for the nth time.
Clyde was sobbing next to Kenny, holding his face as tears ran down his chubby, red cheeks.
“He provoked me. He threw a vape at me and called me a dyke!” She gritted out, nails digging into her arms. Of course he went and snitched, of course he couldn’t keep his fat fucking mouth shut. It was typical, Clyde would act like an idiot, get hurt, then act the victim. It pissed her off.
“Is that true, Clyde?”
“No! She just— just came up to me and thought I was- upset with her because she’s ‘dating’ my ex-girlfriend! So she punched me and spat in my face!”
“No I didn’t—“
“Yes you did!”
“Didn’t!”
“Did!”
“Did not—“
“SILENCE!”
Both teenagers flinched back, sinking into their respective chairs. Kenny gripped onto the edge of her seat, shifting uncomfortably in the awkward silence. Clyde’s face only flushed a deeper shade of pink.
“Both of you are acting extremely immature! I’ll pull up the security footage now and make a decision. Then, I can make a decision on what the consequences will be. Now stay silent.”
For a few minutes, the only sound was the click of the teachers mouse and the hum from the broken AC unit on the ceiling. Then, Mrs. Victoria sighed, turning away from her computer to look at Clyde and Kenny with disappointed faces. “From what I’ve just seen, you both deserve a punishment. Clyde, you’ve been reminded time and time again that vaping on school grounds, especially during school hours, is against our policy! Also calling another student derogatory names and throwing things in their direction is extremely inappropriate!”
Her gaze slowly shifted to the blonde.
“Kenny, you know that attacking another student and spitting in their face is completely out of order, you should know better by now. You both will have after school dentition today, and I’ll be calling home to both of your parents. Go back to your remaining lessons for today, but on Monday you’ll both go the ISS room and sit as far away from one another as possible. Understand?”
Two muttered *’yes miss’*’s could be heard, and they both walked out of the office. Kenny sneered at Clyde once they were out. “If you’d had kept your mouth shut we could’ve been out of trouble, perv.” Clyde didn’t say anything, just headed off in the opposite direction to his lessons. Fuck, this sucked.
The after-school detention flew by and Kenny went home, the only acknowledgment she got when she walked through the door was her dad saying something about the school calling, but his words were slurred. She just went straight to her room.
Once she’d flopped down onto her bed and scoffed into her pillow, Kenny rolled over and grabbed her phone, squinting as the light from the bright, cracked screen flooded her vision. There a few notifications, one from Eric about revision homework, one from Jimmy about some festival happening in a few towns over, and one from Stan. Hesitantly, she clicked on it.
They hadn’t exactly spoken that much since the whole Kyle and Tolkien thing begun a couple days back and he needed someone to rant to.
*’apparently ur in iso for the next week?? wht did u do??’*
Kenny bit her lip, sitting up against her headboard.
*’punched clyde, no biggie’*
Three dots appeared, then disappeared. Then the came back and went again as she bit deeper into her lip. Finally;
*’r u gna bail school or just face it?? u know ur gna get put back on report soon lol’*
*’idrc its not like my parents are gonna get upset’*
A metallic taste filled her mouth, her sharp canines sinking into the plush skin of her lips. She didn’t soften her bite, her eyes fixed on those jumping dots.
*‘ok just don’t get suspended’*
Shit, was that all he had to say? Was that the extent of Stanley’s fucking conversational skills? Kenny got nothing out of that. All it was was a few exchanged words, nothing. The boy had no social skills and couldn’t hold a conversation to save his life it seemed. This bloody sucked. She was never gonna score a dude at this rate! She had Bebe, yeah. But all that girl was good for was making out and having a fit chick to hang off of.
She needed some release. Suddenly, the blade in her drawer called out her name.
—
Stan had regretted everything the moment he stepped out the shower. His hair honestly didn’t look that bad, it wasn’t falling out at all or ripped off from its roots, he just… wished he hadn’t done it. Carefully, he rubbed the towel through his hair, drying it with caution. He knew that his parents would be really, really pissed off. But he was a teenager, he had to learn to rebel at some point.
After a minute or so of scrubbing at his scalp, his hair was pretty much dry. He quickly checked his phone and responded to a few messages, trying to out of seeing himself. Eventually, he looked in the mirror, the blonde taking even him by surprise.
At first, Stan had only planned on doing the roots of his hair so it was easier to hide from his parents, but he’d messed up along the way and just decided to dye his full hair. By himself. For the first time ever. He hesitantly ran a hand through a section, the blonde standing out against his tan skin. Jesus, his mother was going to be so disappointed.
A bang on the door, then; “Stanley? You’ve been in there for a while, is everything okay?”
*Fuck, fuck!*
“Uh, yeah! Everything’s good!” God, he really should’ve thought this through.
“Well can you hurry it up? I need to do my make up, me and your father are going out soon.”
Oh, right. It was their wedding anniversary.
The bathroom was already quite clean, Stan just had to shove the box dye and scissors into the cabinet quickly, wrapping a towel around his waist. He knew that there was no escaping his mother seeing, so he unlocked the door and walked out as if things were normal; like he hadn’t just dyed his whole head of hair and cut it by himself without permission. Everything was as it had always been.
“Stanley.”
Fuck.
“Y-yeah, mum?”
“You didn’t ask if you could dye your hair, young man.”
“Oh… I didn’t? I thought I did, uh, sorry…” He hadn’t asked. Never in his life had he asked if he could dye his hair, because he knew that the answer was probably *no.* But not asking was better, because then his parents couldn’t bitch about him disobeying them.
“You should’ve asked. Oh Lord, the people at Church are going to think my son is a delinquent, that I don’t know how to raise my child! Honestly, I don’t get you teenagers…”
Thank god his mother had walked away at that point, Stan wasn’t sure how much of her nagging he could take. He was just glad it wasn’t his father that had been there.
His dad had always been… confusing. All his life, the only things that Stan had heard out of his mouth were things about God or petty arguments with his wife or children. There was the occasional pat on the back when Stan’s won a tournament, but that was about it. No matter how high his grade, no matter how impressive his number of points at school, nothing ever came.
Randy always preached about his faith and how amazing it was that he had been blessed by God. But Stan called bullshit. At his core, the man was heartless, violent and fucking stupid. He’d hit his own kids and wife, smashed bottles when in a rage and shout absolute obscenities whenever something went wrong. Stan hated him.
He thought about all the times he’d come home with a smile on his face, excited over a grade or good comment from a teacher of something he did with his friends. He thought about, most of the time, his father would just grunt from his place on the sofa and take another swig of his beer or drag or his fag. Every moment Stan spent in his presence made a new migraine come on.
He rolled over under the covers, trying to get into a comfortable position. These days, sleep came less and he had to fight to not stay awake. Everything was awful. So, Stan decided to do the single most stupid thing ever and text Eric bloody Cartman.
*‘eric i messed up :( im blonde now lol’*
It took a few minutes, but the message was eventually marked as read and his phone buzzed.
*‘at least you fit the dumb blonde shit ya fuckin fag’*
Of course. Eric was always the first to insult, first to throw a punch, but Stan knew it was all in good spirit. It always was.
He put his phone on his nightstand and settled under his covers, eventually falling to sleep.