Work Text:
The moment Karen McCormick turned eighteen, she moved away from South Park. She had saved every penny from every job she ever had to be able to live on her own, comfortably. She had to make sure her grades were impeccable in high school so she could qualify for a scholarship -- her family would never be able to afford to send her to college and she wanted to outdo Ike Broflovski. She didn’t, but rode his coattails til the end, graduating salutatorian.
Kenny and even Kevin had made names for themselves but neither of them decided to go to school, instead using their street smarts to make a living. Karen respected them, but she didn’t want to be like them. She wanted the whole college experience and wanted to be something big: bigger than her surname. She wanted to be better than their reputation. A first-generation college student.
Stuart had stayed behind while Kenny and Carol went with her to load boxes into her apartment, within walking distance of the community college. It wasn’t the nicest place, but it was hers and she could finally be her own person.
Finals were fucking brutal and she didn’t quite understand how grueling taking eighteen hours was going to be until she did it. She looked around her studio apartment and when she saw it, she burst into tears.
The beat-up off-brand Barbie doll Kenny bought her with his first-ever paycheck. Sure, it was literal child labor, but the fact that Kenny used all his money to buy something for her still got to her. Her heart was fit to burst as she held the doll in her hands, stroking through her hair. She’d been so happy to receive it, not quite realizing at the time the lengths Kenny had to go to get it for her.
The more she thought about it, the more she cried. Kenny had always been her Guardian Angel, back when they were being abused in the foster system and through everything else in her life. He sacrificed so much and she was always the first thing on his list, on his mind. Except for when she was so lonely she had to become a vampire to get her brother to pay attention to her. He did after that, though. He always did. And he never acted like it bothered him. He’d watch movies with her, have tea parties with her, make pop tarts for them to share…
She pulled out her phone and stared at the broken screen, her thumb hovering over the home button. Kenny had gotten her a pay-as-you-go phone for her birthday when she was sixteen so she “wouldn’t have to be stuck with a shitty-ass-fliphone” for her high school career. Honestly, she wondered why more people didn’t go this route. Her phone was actually really fucking cute and she only had to pay $35 every couple of months to top it off.
She still worried about calling her brother, like now that she was on her own she shouldn’t need him. And she didn’t, not really, but that didn’t stop her from wanting his company and missing him.
She hadn’t been invited anywhere this weekend so it wasn’t as if she was “skipping out on the college experience.” Her homework was done already, anyway.
She squeezed the doll in her free hand while she hit speed-dial with the other hand, her brother’s voice on the other line within a matter of seconds. “No, no, Kenny, I’m fine. NO, no one is being mean to me, I just fucking missed you, okay?” She burst into tears again, laughing when Kenny changed the subject. There was a little bit of a pregnant pause and she smiled into the receiver, “Can I come hang with you and Butters this weekend?”