Chapter Text
Today was Kenny's lucky fucking day. He finally got himself a 24 count pack of benadryl after months of waiting for cash to find its way to him. While he knew it wouldn't last him longer than two days (if that), he was ready for the high he loved so much.
To any normal person, the words benadryl, high, and love should not be within the same sentence, to Kenny, it was his bread and butter. Call him a masochist but he loved the high that benadryl gave him, he loved how sore his body felt in the morning after a particularly high dosage. It made him feel dead without actually dying and alive without actually living. It was a space in between, much like himself.
The entire week counting towards the weekend was the hardest. He wanted to take them as soon as possible, his fingers itched to tear open the small box, rip the foil off of the plastic packaging, and shove an indeterminate amount of little pink pills into his mouth. Despite that frighteningly strong urge, he waited as patiently as he was humanly able.
Monday was unbearable, the week ahead loomed before him like the final boss in his favorite video game. He tapped his fingers on his desk, bounced his leg at lightening speed, and sighed every so often. He wished he could make time faster, at least that'd be better than immortality. At lunch, he drifted off into space, fantasizing about how it would feel to finally take it again and ignored his friends as they argued about something stupid. When he got home, he instantly went to bed if only to pass the time more quickly.
Tuesday was better, it had its temptations though. That morning he looked at the pristine package laying in his underwear drawer and almost opened it. Keyword being almost. During class, he drew little pills dancing on the margins of his paper. He could wait, he could be patient. After school, he almost let himself get dragged into a plan that would most likely end up killing him but he made a flimsy excuse to get out of it. Normally, he'd come back after a day, but he didn't want to take any chances not when he waited so long for this opportunity to pop up.
Wednesday was easier, he'd come up with a little mantra ('it's almost over, just wait a little longer') and repeated it over and over until he was fine. He looked up the side affects of benadryl on the schools shitty old computers extensively. He knew how much he should ingest after months of not taking it, but due to his self-destructive tendencies, he planned on a higher number.
Thursday was the easiest, he felt like he was on cloud nine. He popped the pills out of their packaging and put them into an old pill bottle he kept for these occasions. Hearing them rattle around was nostalgic for Kenny, bringing him back to when he first developed an actual addiction to it. His stomach bubbled with excitement.
Friday was like Monday but ten times worse. He decided that morning that he'd just take a few that night and take the rest on Saturday, a day was enough to build tolerance, right? The entire day, he was short and irritable, he even snapped at Stan and Kyle over nothing. The bottle that sat atop his old, almost broken dresser mocked him. Still, he waited until his parents were passed out from booze. He waited until Karen was fast asleep, he didn't want her to actually see him like that.
Finally, the time came. His hands shook with excitement as he opened the bottle, he was bouncing on his heels. Kenny shook out four pills at first, stared at his palm, and shook out eleven more out for good measure. He shoved the pills into his mouth, swallowed, and waited.
The final wait was probably the worst part of it all, benadryl often took at least thirty minutes to an hour before kicking in. Doubts littered his mind, reminding him how dangerous this was, how much he romanticized the pink pills, and how awful he felt during the actual high. The sick part of him shoved those doubts down, doubly reminding himself how much he secretly loved how awful it was. He took a deep breath and drummed his fingers against one another.
The high crept slowly throughout his body. He felt it in his legs first, imagining icy, pink lead inching its way through his veins. It got immensely hard to breathe, it was like Cartman had sat on his chest. He steeled himself, knowing what would be next. His eyes drooped with exhaustion, it was three in the morning now but he stayed awake. He needed to feel it before he let himself sleep.
His mouth was dry, his spit formed a paste that he swore could glue his mouth shut for an hour or two.
"Water," he croaked to himself, "I need some fucking water."
Trying to walk was a mistake, but he did it anyway. He reveled in the lack of control he had over his body. more than once, his head swung dangerously close to the sharp edges of furniture, just barely missing by sheer luck. He could not stop himself from tugging his hair upwards, feeling that maybe it kept him standing. He ran his hands over his face four times before he was able to open the cupboard for a cup. Something small and black ran out once he did open it, probably a cockroach or a phantom spider. Either way, he grabbed his cup and filled it with slightly brown tap water. Never before has tap water tasted so good to him, he didn't know how anyone hated it. He downed it within seconds and sluggishly walked back to his room. His heart was beating so fast he thought it was a humming bird.
Once his door was shut and he was in bed, he noticed a figure squatting by the door. He stared at it for a long time, trying to figure out who (or what) it as.
"Kyle?" he called out, that was definitely his green hat. He got no answer.
"Dude, what're you doing here," he slurred, his words blending into one another. Still no response. He was almost to the point of caring when it hit.
He felt like he was drowning, all the side effects hit him at once. He uttered out a string of curses and looked directly into Kyle's green eyes (had they always been that green?). They were almost too green, like the purest form of the word and color itself. Kenny decided someone had melted down the color green and poured it into Kyle's irises.
"Kyle, your eyes..." he trailed, his mouth clamped shut, Kyle was right there, inches from his face. He wouldn't stop staring at Kenny, but the blond stared right back. He found it hard to be afraid of anything after everything he's been put through.
Red curly hair surrounded him like he was in a small raft wading down a river. He was enthralled by that brilliant fucking green. He reached out and tried to touch them, but his wrist was stopped (by his own hand or by Kyle's, he'll never know). Then, the green-eyed boy leaned in, lips touching his, and Kenny promptly lost consciousness.
The next morning, his body felt like he had fallen down the side of a cliff, gotten trampled like Mufasa, and ultimately exploded. Yet there he was, in bed, groaning as he got up. He had woken up with a dry mouth and he was curled around his pillow.
What he saw last night was most definitely a hallucination, normal human eyes don't look quite like that (nor did Kyle's hair move like that). The question was, how much of a hallucination was it? It was more likely that it was purely a figment of his imagination than it be anything else. Still, a small part of him hoped that maybe, for whatever strange reason, Kyle was in his room and would talk to him about it or something. Maybe this was a cry for help and someone answered it. It was a small, very unlikely hope that persisted on despite all odds.
He scratched the back of his neck before he stretched out a little to ease the soreness he felt. He flopped back on to his bed, the mattress noisily protesting being moved, and he glared at the bottle. He only had nine left, he'd unintentionally (though, perhaps intentionally) fucked himself over for the weekend. He'd actually been planning on saving some for a rainy day type situation, to be smart and not blow it all within one or two days. Clearly, his impulses had other plans.
If it had been six years ago, this wouldn't have bothered him. However, South Park had recently become more stringent in child labor laws (who knew they'd be a problem?) and he was stuck waiting for his 16th birthday to start applying for jobs again. Which, of course, had to be an entire year away. He was incredibly frustrated with his current place in life. He could do odd jobs, and he did, but sometimes the residents of South Park think 25 cents was an acceptable payment for his hard work in their driveways or lawns. He still did it, though. Who was he to complain? (He had, it did not work once.) He knew it wasn't because they were inherently bad, they were just stupid and it was what he had to work with.
Kenny forced himself to look away from the bottle and shoved his face into his pillow. He had ruined his own weekend, inadvertently policing himself. He didn't know if he should take the rest now or save it for later, though he wasn't sure if he could wait until later. He could also throw it out, denounce it right now, and avoid it for the rest of his life. He won't do that, but he most definitely could.
That night, he took six of them and saved three. It wasn't how he originally planned it, though it was close. Six pills did not give the same effect as fifteen, but it did seem to kick in earlier and it took off the edge. He's glad six could hit him at all and found it a bit more pleasant than the previous night. His limbs were useless and his heart stuttered every few seconds, he sort of loved it. He saw spiders crawling on his ceiling, he tried to count them, but after he got to twenty, he stopped and restarted. Kenny forced himself to stay awake for the entire six to eight hour high, vowing to sleep once he felt the last of it leaving his system.
Whether it actually did leave his system, he didn't know, all he knew was that it felt like lethargy was seeping out of his pores. His mouth was drier than ever, but moving to get water was unfavorable. So, he just endured the lethargy and dry mouth until sheer exhausted overcame him. That was, perhaps, one of the worst parts of the drug. He never actually felt well rested after taking it, every time he woke up, he was more tired than rested.
When he saw Kyle on Monday, he couldn't look him in the eyes. Kenny knew he couldn't avoid him, hell, he even burned holes through that green hat Kyle wore while sitting in class just by staring. A part of him knew it had been a hallucination, but another hoped it wasn't, stranger things have happened. He tore his gaze away and tried to focus on the paper in front of him. He could only keep away for a second before lifting his eyes to peek at his friend again. He was met with a pointed stare filled with what seemed like anger. Kenny sheepishly smiled (despite it being covered by his parka) and bowed his head back down. Maybe it'd be best if he didn't think about it at all.