Chapter Text
Clyde Donovan was the type of guy to wear his heart on his sleeve about ninety percent of the time. Feelings out in the air without a barrier to be seen– he’s not Craig, dude, he can express himself pretty easily. Against his will half the time, even. He’s an open book!
Excluding that ten percent of the time– that’s the time he actually tries to keep secrets and junk. Secrets like the one that had decided to appear very suddenly on his skin one day.
Now, it’s not like Clyde didn’t have other tattoos. Marks of love he’d experienced scattered along his skin just like anybody else- those of his parents, his sister, Bebe Stevens (that hadn’t worked out, but what can you do? Sometimes girls discover they’re lesbians and tell you they’re actually in love with their best friend and break up with you to be with her instead, leaving you and the other girls ex way confused about what the hell just went down, but that’s totally chill! Bebe seems happy with Wendy, and Clyde only cried about the breakup for a three days instead of a week.)
Physical manifestations of his love for others is absolutely nothing new for Clyde to experience.
What is new, is who’s symbol it is.
“Dude.”
He speaks like his own thigh could hear and respond to him. Like the jagged symbol that had manifested onto him would speak up and explain itself to him. All ‘Oh, hey Clyde! Yeah, you didn’t realize? You’re totally in love with your best friends boyfriend! Crazy, right? You’ve never even liked a dude before, but now you totally love one. Congrats man! Good luck!’
What the fuck do you mean “good luck,” tattoo– no, what the fuck do you mean he’s in love with Tweek? That can’t be right.
Sure, Tweek can be kind of charming, and he’s a little cute in a totally platonic bro way, and he gives Clyde free hot chocolate and discount pastries and makes him feel all welcome and cozy, and he has a nice smile, but Clyde’s never even liked a guy, let alone loved one! And one that was already dating somebody? AND that somebody being his best friend? Bro, pick a struggle if this is real.
Which it’s totally not. I mean– how could it be?
“Dude.” He echoes himself, blinking at the tattoo like that will change it or make it go away.
But there it stays, in all it’s spikey glory, even after Clyde rubs at it to see if, like, maybe somebody had snuck into his bedroom that night and drawn it on as a prank? (No luck, by the way. It’s definitely a real tattoo.)
“No way.”
‘Yes way.’
“This is a dream.”
‘So you’re just dreaming about being in love with Tweek?’
“Dude.”
The tattoo makes a point there, but still. There’s way too much information coming in with this tattoo appearifying, and Clyde still hasn’t gotten around to processing a single bit. The most important bit probably being the fact that, like– he likes guys.
Obviously there’s nothing wrong with that- his best friend is gay! His ex is a lesbian! Hell, half the people in South Park are some form of gay, probably. But Clyde? Clyde’s been a lady’s man since fourth grade. Clyde’s been pulling pussy since the day he was born– so why would that change now? He’s like, the yin to Kenny’s “everybody and the kitchen sink” yang. You can’t have two yangs. Then that’s just a yang fest.
Kenny.
Duh, duh! Kenny! Clyde sits up fully, slams his hands down into his blanket in search of his phone. Kenny could help him figure this out– dude, Kenny knows everything.
He almost drops his phone once he does finally find it, fumbling until he can hold it like a normal fucking person and go to his texts as fast as a teenage boy can manage.
the donoman: dudhe bri dude inneed ur help
kenzilla: sorry dudhe bris not in rn
the donoman: bro fr
kenzilla: ok man, what’s up?
the donoman: r u alone rn
kenzilla: ?
kenzilla: im omw 2 the bus stop, why?
the donoman: no bro ill pick u up tbh this is srs shit needs irl talk
kenzilla: u good clyde?
the donoman: bro go home ibthere in 10
kenzilla: i have to go with karen though
kenzilla: clyde
kenzilla: clyde, dude
the donoman: she can come if she desnt lisen
kenzilla: dude
the donoman: bro plz
kenzilla: okay man, fine
the donoman: Thx!
—
Karen is wearing headphones and tapping away at her phone as soon as she sits down in the backseat of Clyde’s truck, and he fully believes she can’t hear him when he greets her and she doesn’t respond. That sweet little girl would never not return a greeting- she would probably explode. Which is a great reassurance, because it means he can talk openly with Kenny- Kenny is good at keeping secrets. He hasn’t told a single person about the “milf-milk” event (even though that may be more for his own sake than Clydes-)
“Okay dude, what’s up?” Kenny asks as soon as he sits down, shutting the door behind him and pulling his scarf down so he can look at Clyde properly.
Clyde opens his mouth– and promptly shuts it, exhaling hard through his nose and turning to face forward, fingers tapping on the wheel.
He presses his lips together, shifts gears instead of saying anything, and… doesn’t take his foot off the break.
“Clyde?”
Man, it’s a lot harder to bring this up than he thought it would be. He trusts Kenny, too– Kenny’s, like, his second-level confidant (Craig of course gets the first, but he can’t very well talk to Craig about this now, can he?), so why is it so hard to say?
“Um,” He swallows, and he’s pretty sure that just made his throat dry? That’s so fucked up, dude. Today’s gonna be a fucked up kind of day.
“Okay, like. So. Like.” He clenches the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white, makes a few weird faces like maybe that will help him get the nervous energy out and he can just talk.
“Hooowww did you know that you like guys?” Yeah, okay. That’s a good start, probably.
There’s a second of silence, and then Kenny is letting out a laugh, shoving Clydes shoulder playfully.
“Dude! That’s it? Man, you had me thinking you were in serious trouble or something.”
Clyde pouts, glancing over at Kenny.
“Dude, it’s serious to me.”
“Alright– okay, my bad man.” Kenny’s quick to sober up about it, raising his hands and nodding. He bats at Clyde and points towards the road, signalling him to start driving, before he continues talking.
“Uh, man. How did I know. I think it was after Kelly and I broke up– the one from the choir or whatever? Man, that shit hurt, I really cared about her. Anyways, Stan and Wendy had their billionth breakup around then so he and I started hanging out more. Y’know, heart broken bros. After a while I realized that he kinda gave me that fuzzy feeling I got from Kelly,”
Fuzzy feeling from an ex that’s hosted in a new person? Tweek was really comforting.. And sweet… and cozy…
“And I started really wanting to kiss him. So I did, and realized that it was pretty much the exact same as every girl I ever liked. Gender and shit meant nothing to me, it’s all about who they are. And how hot they are.”
Would he want to kiss Tweek? Thinking about it…
“If that doesn’t help though, if you ever need somebody to experiment with.”
Kenny elbows Clyde, grinning and winking when Clyde glances away from the road.
“Dude, I don’t need a lab partner, I just–” He pauses, glancing into the rearview mirror to make sure Karen isn’t so much as looking at them, let alone listening.
“Check out my thigh.”
“With my sister in the back seat? Bro-”
“Not like that, Kenny. Just–” Sigh. “I got a new tattoo.”
“Oh? Ooohhh!”
Kenny leans across the center console, pushes the fabric of Clydes basketball shorts up until he sees the tattoo Clyde was referencing, inhaling sharply at the sight.
“Dude.”
“Yeah.”
Clyde pulls into the parking lot of South Park Middle (or rather, the middle school extension of the elementary school, but still,) and smiles at Karen as she hops out, wishing her a good day along with Kenny, and only once she’s out of sight does he deflate in his seat.
“Tweek?”
“Apparently. I guess I’m, like, bi or whatever?”
“You managed to fall for a guy without noticing?”
“I dunno! I guess? I mean he’s really nice and I like being around him ‘n shit, but I could say that about anybody!”
“I mean, clearly not.”
“Dude, what do I do?”
Silence reigns in the truck for a while, Kenny staring down at the tattoo and Clyde frowning out the window.
“I mean, either you tell him-”
“I-”
“or you keep it to yourself and don’t get closure. Trust me, dude, it’s way harder to deal with that way.”
Clyde stares at Kenny, eyes beginning to tear up and lip to quiver.
“I can’t do that to Craig though, dude. He’s my best bro. The fact I even have this feels like a total betrayal.”
“It’s not, man. It’s just emotions. And you don’t have to figure all that shit out right away. You kinda just got forced into realizing you even like guys. Deal with that first, okay?”
Clyde sniffles and rubs at his face until it’s mostly dry (with a bit of help from Kenny, pointing out the fact that he had some snot- ew- dripping,) nodding in acknowledgement to Kenny’s advice.
“Okay.”
“Alright. Congrats on finding out, man! I’m honoured to be the first person you tell. Starting to think I might steal Craigs spot as your best friend, huh?”
Kenny grins, lightens the mood by elbowing and poking at Clyde until he’s shoving the blond away, laughing at the absurdity of anybody ever replacing Craig.
“Yeah right, man! Craig’s been my best bro since kindergarten, nice try.”
“Things change~” Kenny sing-songs, and Clyde rolls his eyes, shifting his truck back into drive.
“I’m gonna leave you on the street, dude.”
“Ouch, calm down dad.”
“Dude!”
He, of course, doesn’t actually leave Kenny on the road, and the two of them goof off together until classes start for the day, wherein they go their separate paths.
Until lunch, of course.