Chapter Text
Now that he’d done it for, like, three weeks, Stan hated group therapy. It felt gross to be forced to come out with your deepest darkest secrets in front of people that you’ve barely even known for all three of those weeks, and be forced to witness their emotional breakdowns as they were forced to admit the secret.
But something that was, perhaps, even worse than telling your deepest darkest secrets in front of strangers, is having to tell them in front of your parents.
Especially if the chairs were uncomfortable, which, yeah, the chairs are really fucking uncomfortable, thanks for asking.
Stan sat in one of those chairs, squirming under his father’s terrible gaze. He didn’t want to look at either of his parent; when they’d arrived, he hadn’t exactly been given a warm welcome by them. His mother had almost hugged him, but Randy had grabbed her wrist and held her back, hissing something at her that Stan couldn’t hear. Sharon had glared at him, but hadn’t done anything against it. His grip around her wrist also didn’t loosen.
Stan, after seeing that interaction, had smiled awkwardly. That’s when Randy started glaring at him, and now his parents were on either side of him and he felt horribly stuck and claustrophobic.
He tried to focus on the one who was speaking, Butters, who was trying to explain his “root;” how he’d caught “the gay.”
“Well, uh,” Butters started, his knuckles rubbing against each other. “I- I think that the main reason I’m a fa- gay is because… well, uh.”
“It’s okay, honey,” Linda said, her voice choked. Stan didn’t like Linda. Her tears may have been real, but everything else about her felt so fake. Her hair was obviously dyed blonde, and maybe Stan, who also had dyed blonde hair, shouldn’t really be judging her, but he was a teenager and she was a grown woman. Butters nodded, not looking at her, but he didn’t make a sound. In fact, he seemed to be hunching in on himself even more.
“Just say it already, Butters, we don’t have all day, you know?” Stephen snapped. Stan disliked Stephen much more than he disliked Linda. He seemed like the type of father that would neglect any and all of his son’s needs to teach him a lesson, or maybe even beat him. Stan’s father sucked, but at least he had never beaten him.
“Well, when I was around eight, or so, it was, uh, comin’ up on my parents anniversary, and my mom wanted me to figure out what my dad was getting her,” His voice sounded very un-Butters-y in that moment. It was strained and sad. Stan noticed Stephen’s face tighten, his jaw clenching. “So, uh, I followed him to this bathhouse place, and it seemed real secret, so I thought he was just getting her somethin’ that was real special. So I followed him a bit closer, an’ looked through the window, and I saw-“
“That’s enough, Butters,” Stephen said. Stan rolled his eyes. Butters shrunk even further into himself.
“Yessir,” He muttered.
The silence made Stan squirm even more. He could feel his parents looking at him, but he didn’t want to do anything. He hoped that time would run out and he would end up not having to explain his root.
Mostly because he doesn’t know what it is. There was never really a specific moment that he had realized that he was gay. He’d thought that everyone felt that way, because he thought that it was normal.
The only thing that would come to his mind was the other day when he realized that he liked Kyle a lot more than someone should ever like their friend. Especially since him and Kyle were barely even friends; they were just two people who were forced to talk to each other because their parents wanted grandchildren and couldn’t handle the idea of one of their kids being anything but straight.
At least his parents were. He didn’t know much about Kyle’s parents. He didn’t really talk about them at all, but based off of the fact that he was here, at New Grace, and not back in New Jersey, they probably had a similar mindset.
Sheila and Gerald Broflovski seemed uptight an haughty for citizens of New fucking Jersey. Gerald had come wearing a suit and tie, along with a yarmulke placed intentionally on his head, and Sheila was in a blazer and an a-line skirt. They looked the fanciest out of everyone in the room, and Stan guessed that they had money.
Kyle looked small next to them, not just because his father was tall with a capital T, or because his mother was heavy-set; it was because he held himself so differently around them then when he was just with Stan, or Kenny, or even Cartman.
He was sitting up straight, his posture was amazing, as it usually was, but something about him seemed very different. Like nothing was really genuine, which was jarring because of how genuine of a person Kyle usually was.
Stan realized that he was staring. Kyle looked back at him, so Stan just acted like he was zoned out. Kyle waved a hand, his face twisted into a beautiful kind of confusion, and Stan pretended to snap out of a stupor, blinking a few times and sitting up slightly straighter. He smiled awkwardly at Kyle, who rolled his eyes, though there was the smallest hint a smile on his lips. Not that Stan was looking at Kyle’s lips.
Anyways, the family therapy was still paused. At least, until Laura Tucker nudged her son and he spoke up.
”Oh,” He muttered, his eyes rolling in a much less affectionate manner than Kyle had, flipping his mom the bird. “My ‘root’ was Tweek.”
Once again there was silence, other than a muffled squeak that came from Tweek. Stan turned to see that his face was tinted a bright shade of pink. His dad was staring daggers into Craig’s head.
”Disgusting,” Richard Tweak muttered, placing a possessive arm onto Tweek’s shoulder. “I hate to think that my son is forced to sleep in a room with him.”
Craig flipped him off, and Helen, Tweek’s mom, had to grab Richard’s shirt to keep him from pouncing.
”You realize there isn’t any hope for him?” Richard spat, looking at Thomas. “Not after your son corrupted ours, and ruined his life. He should burn in hell, along with everyone else who takes advantage of people like that.”
”Richard,” Helen hissed. Richard smacked the hand that she had raised to put on his face, and the two of them both quieted down. Tweek was shaking, a small ball of blonde hair accumulating at his feet.
“Would anyone else like to try and explain their root? I promise, it will really make everything much easier if you just cooperate,” Sister Margaret said. Her eyes scanned the room, landing on Stan. He immediately tensed, his hands tightening on the fabric of his pants. “Stanley? Do you have anything that you would like to say?”
“Ah— No, not really,” He muttered.
“Really, Stan? You know the most you could do is fucking try, after all the money we spent to send you here,” Randy said, and Stan bit his tongue to keep him from saying anything stupid.
“This is ridiculous,” Sheila said, and Stan was very grateful for the interruption. “We also paid good money for our son to get fixed, and as far as I can tell, nothing’s happened. It’s obvious that nobody here is as dedicated to turning their lives around as Kyle. All any of you are doing is dragging him down.”
Sheila and Gerald stood, and Gerald walked out of the room. Sheila glared at where he had just left, but stayed standing next to Kyle. After what seemed a moment of contemplation, she grabbed his hand and pulled him outside.
There’s too much going on today, Stan whined in his head. Not for the first time, he wished that he was back in his bed. Or really anywhere that was away from this room, and these people.
He zoned out again, the words of others, forced to speak, losing meaning as they entered his ears. He tapped his foot on the floor, restlessly. He wanted to go outside and figure out what him and his mom were taking about, or what his mom was talking to him about. He wanted to make sure that he was okay.
Thankfully, Kyle walked back into the room after a minute. His face was pinched, red, and his hands were balled into fists, as he sat back down.
Stan looked to him, hoping to send him, at the very least, a bit of encouragement. Stan knew how much Kyle would lose if he didn’t graduate. Even if Stan liked Kyle, and even if Kyle somehow liked him back, Stan wouldn’t let him ruin everything for himself.
Kyle looked at him, then looked down at the floor, dejectedly. He stood, and walked out of the room. Stan would’ve followed him if it weren’t for the hand his mother had placed on his shoulder, and the shiver that had ran down his spine with it.
He couldn’t wait for group therapy to be over, but, alas, he still had to speak up about his root. Otherwise, he wouldn’t get to move on to step 4, which would mean that he wouldn’t move on to step 5, which would mean he wouldn’t graduate, and if he didn’t graduate everything would be ruined forever. He wouldn’t never be able to play football normally again, he wouldn’t be able to keep his promise to Wendy, or even apologize to her because he doubted she would let him anywhere near her.
He had to bullshit something, and he had to do it fast.
”Uh, I guess that it probably happened when I was young,” Yes, yes, this is good, keep going. “I don’t really remember it that well, but at the first football game my dad took me to, when I was like 5 or 6, I wasn’t really paying attention to the game as much as I was to the players. I guess that might be something?”
”That is a very common root, yes,” Sister Margaret nodded, thoughtfully, “A lot of gay children will be particularly attracted to sports where sweaty men wrestle each other.”
Yes! I am such a good bullshitter, fuck yeah, dude, Stan thought triumphantly.
With his little white lie, sorry, “confession,” family therapy was over. When he went outside, he noticed that the Broflovski’s car was gone, and Kyle was nowhere in sight, which sucked because he’d really hoped to have him there when his parents left.
Which they were doing right now, without showing their son any affection. His mom smiled at him sadly, and his dad barely spared him a glance. Funny, considering how much he’d glared at Stan during the day.
Funny.
-
Stan found Kyle on their hill. His head was on his knees. He was staring at the grass as he picked it and skinned the blades with his nails. Stan sat down next to him.
”You okay?” He asked. Kyle shook his head.
”Not at all,” He muttered.
“Are they always like that?”
”Since they found out I wasn’t the perfect son they always thought I was? Yeah, yeah, they are,” He laid back, his knees still up. “I wish I could be that perfect son.”
”Well, hey, you’re almost there, aren’t you?” Stan laid back with him. “More than halfway through all the steps.”
”Like the steps really do anything,” He scoffed. “Really, all we’re doing is shoving that part of us into a box. It isn’t real. We’re just hiding who we are. The only way we could be ‘fixed’ is if we were born differently.”
”Don’t be like that, dude. You just have to believe in yourself,”
”God, that’s such bullshit,” Kyle seethed, “If all that I need to do is ‘believe in myself,’ then why would I even be here? It’s not like I want to be like this. I just wanna be fucking normal.”
”You’re, like, the normal-ist out of all of us,” Stan hoped he sounded reassuring enough.
“Being the ‘most normal’ compared to Cartman and Kenny, or Bebe and Leslie isn’t exactly the most reassuring thing,” Dammit, he didn’t sound reassuring enough.
Stan didn’t really know what else to say. He hoped Kyle did, because he wasn’t really the best at these sorts of conversations. Back home, Gary would usually talk about his stuff and let Stan listen. With Kyle, Stan wanted to do more than just listen. He really wanted to help him.
”I… I just wish that we didn’t have to-“
”There you two are!” Kenny exclaimed, popping up behind them. Stan shot up in surprise. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. How was family therapy?”
Stan shrugged; “Fine, I guess.”
Stan had nearly forgot that Kenny hadn’t been there. Mostly because he spent most of the time he was there staring at Kyle or zoning the fuck out. Kenny’s parents had mainly given up on anything that they could do to degayify him, so they hadn’t bothered driving out here at all.
”What about you, Ky?” Kenny asked. He sat down by Kyle’s head, in between the two of them just slightly in front. Kyle huffed, lolling his head back to look up at Kenny.
Wait a minute.
“Ky?”
”Ya know how my parents are,” He muttered. “So, it sucked.
“You know how my parents are????”
”Booo,” Kenny pouted, “Sorry bout’ that, man.”
Stan flicked his eyes between the two of them.
“Wait, did you two… know each other?” Stan asked. “Before here?”
Kenny and Kyle looked to each other again, and Kenny laughed. Ah, shit, Stan totally read that wrong, didn’t he? They probably just met each other on the day of when Kyle’s parents dropped him off, or something, and Stan was just an idiot.
”Yeah, dude,” Kenny said, “I kinda thought you already knew, because Kyle tells you, like, everything.”
”Oh, shut up, Kenny,” Kyle grumbled, sitting up. It took everything in Stan not to blush at Kenny’s words.
Stan sat there watching, the two of them bickering as he did so. He thought it was weird that he hadn’t noticed. The two of them looked so comfortable together, while everyone else here just pretended like they did while a thin layer of awkwardness hung over their heads.
“How did you two meet?” Stan asked, interrupting Kenny’s wild laughter as Kyle tried to get him to shut up. Kyle immediately tensed. Kenny looked between them, his eyes staying on Kyle after a few quick glances.
Well this is awkward.
”Kyle, you should tell him,” Kenny muttered, like Stan couldn’t hear him even though he was, like, a foot away from him. “If you want to.”
Kyle bit the inside of his bottom lip, Stan finding himself staring more intently than he meant to.
”We met last year at a camp,” Kyle shrugged.
Huh?
”And that place sucked,” Kenny said, face contorting in disgust.
“Yeah, it really did,” Kyle nodded, solemnly.
“You’ve been to other camps?” Stan asked Kyle.
”Just two,” He said. Stan could tell he was trying to be nonchalant about it, but he could see Kyle’s thigh bouncing.
”Oh,” Was all that he managed to say. What else could he say? He felt awkward.
“If you graduate from here, you’re home free!” Kenny said, suddenly, probably realizing that neither him or Kyle were going to say anything more. “You can look forward to that, at least!”
Kyle nodded absently.
“Yeah, I guess I can.
-
Stan hadn’t meant to fall asleep thinking about Kyle. Honestly, he hadn’t meant to fall asleep at all. He liked to stay up thinking about whatever bullshit the could, as of late it usually dumb fantasies about getting back home and talking to Gary or Wendy, or getting congratulations for getting a winning goal. They were dumb, sure, but he liked to imagine them.
Tonight he had no such fantasies. He thought of Kyle, at another camp, the pressure his parents put on his shoulders punching him deeper into a world where he wasn’t welcome. Kyle, never able to see his little brother again. Kyle, drowning in student debt because his parents wouldn’t pay for his law school, or whatever it was that he wanted to do. He thought about how disgusting he was for thinking about Kyle, even if it wasn’t anything inherently bad.
Thankfully, the knot that his stomach had twisted into unraveled with the coming of sleep.
He dreamed of Kyle. It was a happy dream. Him and Kyle, lying in his bed, holding hands, occasionally kissing.
He’d woken with a smile on his face, despite the rapid pace of his heart, the numb sting that he felt everywhere. The smile had fallen when he realized where he was.
It was still dark out. He’d woke up too early. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t stop thinking about his dream.
Stan sat against the backboard, trying to slow down his breathing and the beating of his heart. The picture in his head of Kyle made him feel more disgusting than he’d ever felt in his life.
He was disgusting. He’d never dreamt about anybody like that before. Never for Wendy, never for any of the girls he said that he liked, just this dream. About Kyle.
He felt the acids in his stomach writhing.
He needed to leave the room. He needed to punish himself, somehow. He thought of Cartman, and his shock stick, and felt disgusting again. Was he on the same level as Cartman for that dream?
His breath was coming out weird.
He stood up, feeling lightheaded as he did, and forced himself to stay standing. He wanted to go somewhere private and secluded, where he could beat his head against the wall without waking anyone up, and cry afterwards without getting called a pussy.
With all the stealth he could manage, he slipped out of the bedroom, and into Sister Margaret’s office.
That mahogany desk was sturdy, good for head banging, probably.
He sat down in the same chair as he had on his first day here, and let his head fall directly on the desk.
It didn’t help. At all.
It added to his pain by giving him a headache, and was hard enough that he started hearing voices. They were strangely familiar voices, but that was probably common for hallucinations. Stan didn’t know, he’d never hallucinated before.
To entertain his curiosity, and try to keep his focus on anything but the guilty ache in his body, he focused on the voices.
”—love, I—quiet—okay, honey—“ Said one voice. Stan didn’t have the mental power at that moment to try and decipher the quieter words.
“But—what will—ngh—if we—man? —too young-ngh—“ Said the second. The voice was weird. The pitch changed with almost every syllable, either way too high, or too low for him to make out. He definitely recognized it, but the desperate plead his body made for sleep kept him still. He stayed there for a bit, letting the voices become background noise as he wallowed in his feelings of disgust.
“Do you think he’s gone?” The second voice asked.
“No,” The other one breathed out, “Be quieter. We can’t get caught.”
On second thought, maybe he wasn’t hallucinating. He lifted his head, and, with all yet strength his body would allow, he walked around the desk to see who was there.
He snapped awake when he saw them, falling backwards on to the floor, a loud crashing sound coming as he attempted to stay up by grabbing the handle of a drawer on the desk.
”Craig? Tweek?” He whispered in question, shocked at their position. Tweek was lying on top of Craig, one of Craig’s arms wrapped around his waist, the other over his mouth. Tweek was staring at him in a perfect mixture of shock and fear.
“Stan?” Craig said, incredulous. “You’re who we’ve been hiding from? What the hell are you doing in here?”
“Well I— I could ask the same of you, if it wasn’t so,” He flushed, looking at the disheveled state of their hair and pajamas, “Obvious.”
“What the fuck! Agh, we’re gonna get caught now because of you!” Tweek said, climbing off of Craig, trying to pat his hair down to a normal size. “What the fuck!”
”Honey, calm down, you’re gonna be fine.”
”Honey?” Stan asked, looking at the two in a bit more horror than he’d had on his face before. “Are you dating?”
”Shut the fuck up,” Craig hissed. The two of them stayed glaring for a moment, before the door to the office opened.
”What the fuck was that sound,” Mr. Garrison said, turning the light to the room on. Stan suddenly remembered how he’d brought down the desk drawer, and he felt Craig’s glare increase tenfold. Garrison looked at Stan, the only one who was currently visible from the front of the room, his eyes blazing with the fury of a man woken from a nice sleep, and marched over to him. “Stanley, what the hell are you doing in—“
Garrison noticed a shift in his peripheral, and turned his head to see Craig and Tweek, Craig’s hand on Tweek’s thigh, and Tweek’s hand crushing Craig’s other.
Stan heard Garrison’s jaw pop, and he buried his face in his hands.
-
The next day, before breakfast, Craig and Tweek were taken into Sister Margaret’s office for questioning. Stan was mortified.
He sat next to the window to the office with his face in his hands. Everyone else was there, listening in. Stan wasn’t focused on the words being said right now. He kept thinking about last night, about the fear in Tweek’s eyes. He felt guilty for his dream, guilty for finding Craig and Tweek. He wished he hadn’t fallen over.
“—ever one of you started this is getting kicked out! I cannot have people like you, infecting the other kids, running around like girls with absolutely no shame,” Sister Margaret sounded pissed. Stan tipped his head against the wall, exhaling shakily.
He didn’t know why he felt so guilty, exactly. He had done the right thing hadn’t he? That was what he was supposed to do in that situation. Well, not the falling part, but getting them caught. So why, then, did he feel so terrible for doing just that?
Emotions are way too complicated.
He felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked over to see Kyle looking at him, concerned. His stomach lurched under his gaze, but he managed a weak smile at him. He saw Kyle biting the inside of his lower lip, and shot his gaze to the floor. He looked at Kyle’s lips too much.
God, he’s disgusting.
-
At lunch later, Stan found himself sitting alone on the floor. He hadn’t been cast away, or anything, but he couldn’t stand to sit next to Kyle, across from Kyle, or, really, anywhere in Kyle’s vicinity. It made him want to pull his hair out, which reminded him of Tweek, which made him feel guilty again.
Tweek had received a week in solitary confinement, which was in a doghouse, of all places. Stan could imagine him lying there, cold. hungry, and it was all Stan’s fault.
He didn’t touch his food. His stomach was too guilty to handle other than water.
He slid his tray to the side, putting his head in his knees again. He realized how often he sat in that position, and sunk deeper into himself.
When he heard someone’s shoes sliding over the grout of the floor, he didn’t look up. He let whoever it was sit down next to him. He just hoped it wasn’t Kyle
”You know none of us blame you, right?” They said. It was Kenny, Stan realized, relief sinking into his shoulders. “Other than, like, Cartman, but who cares what he thinks.”
Stan didn’t say anything. Kenny sighed.
”Look, dude,” Kenny started. Stan could feel him picking at the ground. “I’m not one to beat around the bush, so I just gotta ask; Do you like Kyle?”
Stan’s head shot up, surprised. Was he too obvious? Is Kenny gonna yell at him?
”…What?” He finally managed. Holy shit that came out of nowhere.
”Kyle. Dude, I see how you look at him, and you literally sprinted away when he put his hand on your shoulder. You aren’t slick, dude.”
“Shit,” He muttered when he couldn’t think of anything else. He looked at Kenny, who was here next to Stan. Not Kyle, he realized, he was there for Stan. He couldn’t remember if they’d ever actually talked one on one. Kenny was cool, too. Also, he was proud of his homosexuality, right? He wouldn’t care if Stan was gay too. Fuck it. “Yeah, fine, you caught me. I do.”
”You do what?”
”Are you gonna make me say it?”
”Yes, now chop chop, we don’t have all day.”
“Fine, fine,” Stan said. He was laughing, something he hadn’t done all day. “I-I like Kyle. There. Happy?”
”Ecstatic,” Kenny replied, grinning. “You gonna tell him?”
”What? Fuck no,” Stan said, “Why would I? That’d fuck everything up. He’d hate me.”
”Nah, Kyle’s not, like, homophobic or anything. To other people, at least. It might be good to just tell him.”
”Well that doesn’t matter. I’m still not gonna tell him anything,” Stan said. “It’s better just to leave it be. Get over it.”
Kenny looked at him, pensively.
”Whatever you say, man,” Kenny shrugged. The two sat a moment in silence. Stan was horrified that he’d fucked things up, and now Kenny wouldn’t talk to him, which would suck because Kenny, even if they’d only talked for a moment, was easy to talk to. Kenny stood, then looked down at him. “Ok, this is, like, super secret so don’t tell anyone, but tomorrow night me and a few others are gonna sneak off the property and go to a bar. You wanna come with?”
Stan looked up at him, a bit shocked.
”Uhh, sure?” He said after a moment. “Who all’s gonna come?”
”Sweet,” Kenny grinned, “It’s gonna be me, Bebe, Henrietta, Butters, and I’m trying to convince Kyle to come. Oh, and Cartman trying to come but imma make sure he doesn’t.”
”Butters?”
”What. Do you have. problem with that?”
”No it’s just… I thought he, like, hated himself for being gay?”
“Oh, yeah he does. I’m trynna convince him otherwise though. He’s pretty cool when you get to know him.”
Stan nodded.
”You gonna come back to the table, or sit here brooding?”
”I was not ‘brooding.’” Stan said, taken aback. He stood up and grabbed his tray, Kenny guffawing as he did.
”Right, right. C’mon, before Kyle yells at me.”
”Kenny?” Kyle called. Stan looked over Kenny’s shoulder to see him, where Kyle was looking over his own. They made eye contact and Stan swore that he felt his face flush.
”Aaaand that’s our cue,” Kenny said. “Hurry up, don’t wanna get yelled at again.”
“Right, yeah,” Stan muttered. He was still looking at Kyle, though Kyle was turned away from him. Kenny rolled his eyes, and grabbed his wrist.
“You can ogle at Kyle at our table, hurry up.”
Stan flushed, following Kenny’s lead. He sat down, and for the rest of the day, he didn’t pay Tweek or Craig any mind.