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He snored. Stanley Marsh, who in Kyle's opinion gave every impression of being the perfect man, from his striking eyes to that one tuft of hair on his head that was perpetually out of place, snored. And uproariously at that. The funny thing was, Kyle had failed to even take a passing notice of this fact prior to their moving in together. It was possible that back then when they slept in the same bed he was too tired due to, one might say, 'physical exertion', upon falling asleep to notice that his boyfriend was emitting sounds akin to that of a freight train. But there was another possibility that kept Kyle up at night. Or at least it would, were Stan's nocturnal nose music not already performing that task quite efficiently.
What if he was falling out of love? He had always been given to the opinion that when one was in love, the faults of the significant other disappeared. Like love was a sort of acidic compound melting away all the instances of belching and leaving dirty socks all over the floor to leave only a beautiful, shining image of everything that was so wonderfully perfect about that person. So how was it that Stan's snoring was immune to this solution? Kyle could think of no other explanation than that it was weakening. And it was this thought, among others, that dug itself thoroughly into Kyle's sides and remained there, tormenting him as he stirred milk into what could not have been any greater than his fifth or any less than his third cup of coffee.
“Good morning,” Stan crowed, grabbing a bowl from the cupboard on his way over to the fridge to retrieve the rest of the equipment necessary to his bowl of cereal.
“Morning,” Kyle murmured back, just coming off a yawn. He glanced sideways at his boyfriend, who was animatedly pouring cornflakes into the bowl, and a good deal onto the counter as well.
“Sleep alright?”
“Fine.” Kyle hid his somber expression behind his cup of coffee. It was possible that his frustration over Stan blithely going about his routine every morning, completely unaware of the effect his snoring was having, was greater than that caused by the snoring itself. Stan turned and whisked over to the table, giving Kyle a casual good morning kiss.
“Mm, you taste like French roast,” Stan murmured idly, taking his seat.
“Would you rather me taste like sunshine dust?”
“Someone's grumpy.” Stan smirked through a mouthful of cereal. Kyle grunted incomprehensibly in response.
Stan finished his breakfast rather quickly, voraciously shovelling it into his mouth while he glanced over the headlines on the paper. Kyle's nose twitched once or twice as he watched bits of milk and cornflakes cover a story about a dead body discovered in a dumpster downtown.
“Stanley,” Kyle chirped in a sing song tone, “please chew your food. I'd hate to have to resuscitate you so very early in the morning.” He was rewarded with a momentary pause in the cornflake massacre before Stan returned to his meal, with an amused expression. It was at this point that Kyle was very certain it would be a long day.
At some point Kyle was jolted out of his early morning daze by the clattering of dishes in the sink. Stan had disappeared into the bedroom and now appeared to be noisily getting dressed. Upon the sound of a mouthful of toothpaste being spat half into the sink and half onto the faucet, Kyle braced for impact. Stan came bounding into the room shortly after, still buttoning his shirt which had somehow become half tucked into his jeans, and promptly grabbed a banana in a maneuver that seemed to defy several laws of space and time. Shoving the fruit into his mouth, the dark haired boy snatched his bag off the kitchen counter and in one swift movement threw his arms around Kyle's neck from behind.
“Mm goin' class,” Stan purred, his words moderately maimed by the banana in his mouth.
“I know, Stan.”
“Gon' miff me?”
“With every fiber of my being, I will await your return to me.”
“'Unch. Dun' forget.”
“I know, Nick's at noon.” For a brief moment Stan then removed the banana, and pressed his lips firmly to Kyle's cheek before turning and exiting the apartment in a manner very similar to the one he implemented to enter the kitchen.
Kyle sat at the breakfast table for several more minutes, holding his head tilted slightly to the left and smiling into his cup of coffee. The warm sensations he felt where Stan had touched him were reassuring in a curious and familiar way. He felt himself become less stressed about the situation, but his concerns only remained abated for so long.
He was walking to Nick's some time later, pulling his coat closer as the tail of an autumnal wind tugged gently at him, when he happened to pass a small drug store. The present window display happened to be comprised of three things: baby powder at ridiculously reduced prices, crazy deals on fridge packs of Coke or Pepsi, and a brand new, just released onto the market incarnation of nasal strips. Kyle paused and cocked an eyebrow at the display. Perhaps if he just...
“Would you like a bag for this?”
“I'm sorry?” Kyle snapped out of the trance he had been drawn into by the headlines on Soap Opera Digest, and returned his attention to the frizzy haired, slightly overweight woman running the register.
“Do you need a bag for the nasal strips?”
“Oh,” he found himself laughing in that curious, false way that often did when confronted with a joke he didn't find all that funny or some constructive criticism he didn't care to take seriously. “I think I can manage on my own, thanks.”
The rest of the way to Nick's Kyle found himself thinking about the nasal strips. He wasn't sure what exactly he should say. 'I'm sorry, Stanley, but that horrible, guttural, cat-right-before-it-meets-its-demise-at-the-hand-of-a-woodchipper noise you make while you're sleeping? It has to go'. What if the strips didn't work? Kyle squirmed at the idea of making that sweet idiot feel guilty for the rest of their lives together because he couldn't stop something he had no control over. He was frowning heavily upon entering Nick's, so much so that Stan seemed concerned when he flopped down in the booth opposite him.
“Is something wrong?”
“Oh?” Kyle glanced up from the menu he had been falsely engrossed in. Nick's only had four dishes, and they had eaten there almost every other day since they got the apartment.
“You look sad.” Kyle felt his insides flinch at the sight of the earnestly worried expression on Stan's face. He couldn't possibly tell him.
And he didn't. All through his gyro, laughing and smiling with the boy he loved over a girl who ran crying out of his eight o'clock class upon receiving a break-up text and the little blonde haired freshman boy who stared at him so intently in his Biology lab that he spilled some acidic compound all over his data logs, he kept reminding himself: this is it, this is your unflinching love for this man. Through everything that has happened and would happen, this whole snoring thing would soon become just another part of the Stan that he loved.
Unfortunately, it looked as though that becoming was going to take some time. It was 11 PM or so later that evening, and Stan had just nodded off, mouth slightly open, hugging his pillow and looking very adorable. Just the same, it began almost immediately. Like a horrible beast emerging from its lair, it started off as a low rumble and grew into an outright roar. Immediately Kyle's mind went to the nasal strips.
“Where the hell did I put those things?” Kyle walked swiftly into the dark kitchen, glancing around for any signs of his school bag. He caught a good part of his foot on one of the legs of the table and cursed it vehemently while wandering into the living room.
Finally managing to locate his bag beside the sofa, he quickly retrieved one of the nasal strips. He returned to the bedroom and frowned, not entirely sure how to put the thing on. Easing himself down onto the bed, and shifting close to Stan, he delicately attempted to place the strip across the bridge of his nose. He noticed only shortly afterward that he had been holding his breath in anticipation.
“Well?” He whispered to no one in particular. He was rewarded with a long, luxurious snore from Stan. Groaning softly and placing a hand across his face, he slipped back out of bed. He was an idiot to think that some dinky piece of band-aid material was going to make any difference when facing a powerful snore such as that.
Kyle marched, defeated, into the living room. He flopped down on the couch and sighed into the fabric of the pillows. After a moment or two of half suffocating, he sat up, pulled the covers off the back of the sofa and wrapped them around his shoulders. He stared out into the crisp autumn night, admiring the stars that floated idly in the black, murky ether of the sky. He thought about the first time he and Stan had slept in the same bed.
It was right before they were scheduled to head up to the university for the first time. He and Stan had spent the night out at Stark's pond drinking cheap wine and giggling into each other's mouths. They had somehow made their way back to Stan's house and crept drunkenly up the stairs, shushing one another excessively and holding hands as though afraid of becoming lost. They tumbled into Stan's bed, wrestling playfully and laughing as they did so. At some point Stan's lips left Kyle's and trailed kisses down his neck, nibbling along his collar bone.
Even now it made Kyle squirm, and before he knew it there had been hands in places where previously only his own had gone and there was a warmth that seeped into his body that had been there ever since. Thanks to the wine and various other factors, they had fallen asleep, wrapped up in one another, not to mention the sheets, covers, pillows, and everything else occupying Stan's bed. At some point the sun had risen, and the dull light that crept in through the blinds woke Kyle, who, after licking his dry lips, sat bolt upright in panic.
“Stan, wake up!”
“I'va halfa sleep,” Stan had grumbled into a pillow.
“Get up you idiot!” He yanked the pillow out from under the groggy, dark haired boy, sending him tumbling to the floor, which in turn alerted Kyle to the fact that both Stan and himself were very naked.
“What'd you do that for?” Stan moaned from his crumpled position on the carpet below.
“We fell asleep! We fell asleep in the same bed, I mean, what's my mother--”
“Kyle.”
“I didn't call her or anything, and she's going to know that I've been drinking, I mean, she's my mother, how could she not!”
“Kyle!” Stan was now standing, sans clothing, in the middle of his room. A faint blush painted Kyle's cheeks and Stan continued. “We told your mother you'd be sleeping here.”
“Oh, right. But what if somebody heard something or--”
“My parents went with Shelley to help her move into her apartment,” Stan had smiled and slipped back into bed, kissing Kyle lightly.
“Oh. Then I guess we're...”
“Just fine.” Stan kissed him again before falling face first into the pile of pillows at the top of his bed. “Now, I don't know about you,” Stan murmured, half muffled by various bed linens, “but I'm going back to bed. And I suggest you do the same.” Kyle's face felt imbued with a permanent smile as he remained trapped in his reverie, until a voice shook him from it.
“Kyle?” Blinking, startled, the red-headed boy turned to see a frowning Stan, outlined dreamily in the moonlight. “Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing, I just... Couldn't sleep.”
“Oh. Well the sheets get really cold when you aren't there.” He smiled weakly in a way that caused Kyle's chest to tighten. “Also, I was kind of wondering,” he crossed the room and joined Kyle on the couch. “What's this?” Upon producing the nasal strip, Kyle covered his mouth with his hand.
“Um, it's one of those nasal strip things. You know, the ones that open your nasal passages--”
“And make you stop snoring?” Kyle bit his lip.
“Yeah, that's the one.”
“So,” Stan slipped his arm around Kyle's waist, “you can't sleep because I'm snoring?”
“It's only been really recently, I mean, I'm sure I'll get used to it.”
“Why didn't you tell me before?”
“I just didn't want you to worry about it.” Stan frowned. “Come on, Stan, let's just go back to bed.”
“But how can you? I mean, won't I just wake you up again?” Kyle hesitated for a moment, then took the nasal strip and placed it back on Stan's nose, pushing it up and on.
“This feels kind of silly.”
“Yeah, it kind of looks that way too,” Kyle murmured through a tired smile. “Come on, then,” he stood and grabbed Stan's arm, pulling him to his feet.
“So this is your solution, huh?”
“For the time being,” Kyle said through a yawn, slipping under the covers. He slid up behind Stan and nuzzled his bare back.
“We can talk more about it in the morning, I guess.”
“Mhmm.” Kyle's eyes fluttered shut, and everything seemed to move far away.
He awoke several hours later to a sort of purr. Far from a miracle cure, but better than nothing, it seemed as though the nasal strips were making a marginal difference. Kyle lie there, contemplating the noise for several minutes before drifting back to sleep. He imagined that in time, that gentle sound would become just another wonderful element of the familiar--like the hiss-pop of a soda can or the way one hand can so perfectly fit another. And this, Kyle imagined, could be nothing other than one of many proofs of love.