Chapter Text
Tweak bolted past the iron gate into the graveyard. There had to be a good place to hide from Cartman's wrath here.
He heard someone scream his name as he chose his destination: a large tree near a corner of the yard. Ducking down to crawl on his hands and knees, Tweek hurried behind the headstones.
He muttered apologies to the dead he crawled over. He just barely knew how to handle when the living picked on him. He had no idea how to pacify the dead!
Finally, Tweek came to the tree. He dared a glance over his shoulders.
Cartman stood on the sidewalk, but he hadn't spotted Tweek yet.
Pressing his back to the bark of the tree, he looked up. The branches were low enough he could easily climb up.
Stan and Kyle came shouting up to Cartman. They were mad at Tweek, too, but at least they didn't have an aluminum bat in their hands and murder in their eyes.
Cartman opened the graveyard gate, and Tweek was on his way up the branches.
The branches scraped his arms. On the fourth branch up, his shoe fell from his foot and landed in the snow below. He stifled a squeak of panic.
There was no going back for it now, so Tweek kept climbing.
If he got high enough, they couldn't see him amongst the evergreen needles, thanks to his dark green shirt.
Or that was what he hoped.
Tweek pressed himself against the trunk, taking shallow breaths through his nose.
Cartman walked right under his feet.
“Do you guys see him? Tweek! Tweek, come out!” He bellowed.
Not a chance, man! Tweek thought.
Kyle marched up, hands on his hips. “I told you he went to the right.” Kyle scowled at a nearby grave.
Stan followed Kyle. His hat balled up in his hands.
“Fuck this,” Stan snapped, “and fuck Tweek. All in favor we kick him out and find a better fourth friend?”
Stan raised his hand. Kyle and Cartman followed suit seconds later.
Throwing the bat over his shoulder, Cartman took a deep breath to shout, “Tweek, if you're here, know that you're a fucking bag of dicks and you were a terrible Kenny! You're kicked out! We hate you! Have fun sitting alone at lunch, you twitchy weirdo!
“Yeah!” Stan and Kyle chorused.
Tweak flinched. A lump formed in his throat.
His gut told him being friends with those three would be nothing but trouble, but Tweek had been so desperate for a permanent friend group, he ignored the feeling.
Stupid, stupid, stupid!
If Tweek had a time machine, he’d go back before the friend tryouts and punch his past self in the face.
Sitting at any empty seat at lunch was so much better than all the bullshit he went through with those three! He should have left after everything that happened with Spielberg, but no, against his better judgment, he stuck around!
“Come on, you guys. I bet we can talk Cartman's mom into making us some cookies or something.” Stan waved his hand.
“Yeah, I guess.” Kyle's shoulders fell as he followed along.
Cartman screwed up his face into a determined expression. He looked up and down a row of graves then took a few steps towards the tree.
Tweak stiffened. If he looked behind the tree, Cartman would see his shoe and know he was here.
The setting sun glinted off the bat like an executioner's blade.
A step from the tree, Kyle called to Cartman to hurry up. Cartman heaved a sigh before turning around and walking towards his friends with the bat dragging behind him.
Tweak waited nearly twenty minutes before he found the courage to start down the tree.
When he put his weight on the final branch, it snapped out from under him. Thinking fast, he ducked and rolled onto the snow.
His skull struck against hard stone. The world doubled. His head spinning, he sat facing the tree with his hand against the tender lump forming on his head.
When he finally blinked the stars from his vision, he found himself face to face with a boy that Tweek knew was dead.
Kenny tilted his head to the side, eyebrow raised.
“You were falling really well until you hit the ground,” He told him. “Seven out of ten.”
Tweak stared at him, frozen with eyes wide.
Then he screamed.
Tweek tried to scramble back, but he found a wide rectangle of stone stopping him.
His fingers brushed against the letters carved into the stone as he pressed against it: “Kenny McCormick."
“Oh my God. Oh my God...” Tweak gasped. “I'm dead. I sn-snapped my neck when I fell!”
Kenny laughed and shook his head. He floated over Tweek and twisted his body so he laid on his stomach.
“No, you're not dead. You're still in your body. Weird you can see me, though.” He tapped his chin. “Maybe because you smacked against my headstone?”
“You're dead,” Tweak whimpered. “You died in December.”
Kenny nodded. “I am. I did.” He rolled over to look up at the star-flecked sky. “It's not so bad, you know, being dead. Hurts a lot less than when I was alive and sick.”
Tweek’s heart skipped a beat.
That's right. Kenny died because he was sick. He didn't know what Kenny had. It seemed like no one ever talked about how he died, but he overheard Butters say Kenny looked bad in his last days.
“His face is all skinny and pale like a sheet of paper, ” Butters had claimed with a frown. “I hope he gets better soon so we can play together again.”
Kenny didn't look skinny now, or no skinnier than he was before he got sick. If not for the ghostly transparency, he would have looked perfectly healthy.
Tweek swallowed hard, standing up and trying to carefully walk around the ghost. “Oh, that's, um, good. I'm glad you're not, urk, hurting anymore.”
Kenny spun back around. “Nope. Ghosts don't feel anything like that, actually. It's weird, but you get used to it.” Resting his cheeks on his knuckles, he asked, “What was with you and my friends, by the way? Cartman looked out for blood. Also, you should go get your shoe. It’s cold outside. Don't want to lose your toes to frostbite.”
Tweek winced, backpedaling a few steps towards the tree to retrieve his shoe. “I, um, I fucked up. They won the drawing at Lolly’s for the all you can grab raffle. I lost the ticket.”
Kenny furrowed his brows. “I think I had the ticket. I put it in my lockbox so it would be safe.”
“Y-yeah, i know. Your sister told me when we went to talk to your mom. She, ah, your mom I mean, showed us your urn and everything.” Tweek still didn't understand why they kept an urn around for Kenny. He clearly had a grave right here. Did his mom want to keep him around that much she pretend they put him in there?
Kenny frowned. “They cremated me?”
Tweek didn't know what that meant.
Kenny looked down at the headstone, confused, then made a sound of understanding. “Ah, ok, ok. I think I get it. Probably. Continue.”
Without asking for an explanation, Tweek went on, “So, we got the ticket, and those idiots handed it to me to hold! Me! I'm the worst person to hand important stuff too!” He threw his hands in the air at the memory.
“Did you rip it?” Kenny asked
“I tripped,” Tweek slumped down, “and dropped it in a puddle. Lolly wouldn't take it since the numbers were smudged, so Cartman started chasing me. He even stole a bat when I ran through the park.”
Kenny sat up with his legs crossed. “A reasonable reaction to me.”
Tweek glared. “It was not! It was an accident! I wanted the candy, too, man!”
Kenny half shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. Why were you hanging out with them?”
“I’m you, or I was you. Your replacement.” Tweek twiddled his thumbs. Kenny didn’t look particularly offended, just disappointed.
“They replaced me? With you?” He asked incredulously.
Tweek nodded. “Um, yes. Well, first they tried with Butters, but it didn’t work out so they had auditions and everything. I don’t think I was a very good you, though.”
“Well of course not!” Kenny burst out. “I’m me! I’m the only me there is!” He sighed. “Those bastards...They couldn’t have waited...never mind. Doesn’t matter.” Kenny scowled at his headstone. “Still, they replaced me with Butters? He’d make a horrible me!”
“He did, that’s why they kicked him out for me. I think because he started wearing tinfoil and playing with this second grader.” Tweek pushed himself into a more comfortable sitting position as he put his shoe back on. He supposed he should be scared. After all, he was talking to a ghost, but after the first shock, Kenny wasn’t all that scary
“My death really shook him, didn’t it? Poor Butters.” Kenny mused.
“They all miss you. We all do.” Tweek offered as a condolence.
Kenny smiled at that. He looked up at the sky. Tweek followed his gaze. It would be night soon.
“You need to get home, don't you?” Kenny asked.
Tweek stood, dusting off his pants. “Yeah, I do.”
Kenny hummed, wagged his head side to side as he thought. After a moment he moved so he was standing as well, though he was floating off the ground, putting him a little taller than Tweek.
“Would you mind coming back here to talk to me sometime?” Kenny requested. “You’re the first person I’ve talked to in a long time. It's boring here.”
“Aren’t there other ghosts around?” Tweek looked around. “It’s a graveyard.”
“Well, there is one other ghost around, but she’s old and doesn’t respond when I call to her,” he shook his head, “and none of the people around my grave are ghosts and I can’t go very far. So, please? If you want, anyway.”
Tweek chewed his lip. With Stan, Kyle, and Cartman kicking him out, it’s not like he had any other friends to hang out with after school. The other boys only invited him when they needed an extra for a group game.
“I guess I can.” Tweek nodded.
Kenny beamed so brightly, Tweek almost forgot he was dead.
“Awesome! Thank you, dude!” Kenny exclaimed.
Like an infectious disease, Tweek found himself smiling right back at the ghost before he waved and headed towards home.
By some stroke of luck, Cartman’s rage had waned by school time. He still glared at Tweek and tried to trip him in the lunch line, but he didn’t threaten his life with a blunt instrument. Stan and Kyle, on the other hand, refused to look at him. Tweek preferred that.
After the final bell rang, Tweek waited at the crossroads. If he headed straight, he could cut through town and go to the shop, or he could head to the church and the graveyard.
Shifting his weight from foot to foot, Tweek ran over what happened the day before in his head. Did he actually see Kenny’s ghost there or did he dream it? There was still a tender knot on the back of his head from the fall, so that was real at least.
But if it was real, he did promise he would come back. Kenny would be disappointed if his first companion in months didn't show--or maybe he would be mad. Tweek knew enough to know mad ghosts were the worse. What if he cursed Tweek to a life of always finding a pointy rock in his left shoe? What if he entered Tweek’s dreams and wailed 'The Song That Never Ends'?
Tweek squeezed his eyes shut, tensed his body, then spun towards the church.
Kenny sat on his headstone, knees to his chest, singing a song that Tweek didn’t know. It sounded classic and old, like the songs that floated down from mass during children's church.
He didn’t seem to notice Tweek as he walked up, so Tweek waited with fingers tapping against the straps of his backpack.
Kenny had a good voice. Tweek didn’t know that. It was oddly operatic and rich and resonated around the graves, giving life to the graveyard.
When he finished, Kenny looked up. He jumped.
“Tweek, you came back.” He dropped his legs so they draped over his headstone.
“I said I would,” Tweek stepped closer. “What was that song? It sounded pretty.”
“It’s Mozart!”
Tweek furrowed his brow. “So it’s...Polish?”
“German,” Kenny corrected, “The song is ‘Leck mich in Arse.’ Guess what the song is about.”
Tweek shouldered off his bag and sat beside the headstone. “No idea,” He replied, unzipping his bag, “What does it mean?”
A crooked grin spread across Kenny’s face, revealing the gap in his teeth where one was missing.
“‘Lick my ass.’” Kenny cackled.
Tweek snorted, nearly dropping his pencil. “No way! What does it mean, really?”
“It does mean lick my ass, but I was read that a better translation would be ‘kiss my ass,’” Kenny kicked his legs.“It’s, like, a party song Mozart wrote. Isn’t it weird to think people in powdered wigs had fun?”
Tweek settled his math homework on his lap. “Where did you learn that song? I know some Mozart from my piano lessons, but I never learned that song.”
“A tape on music from the library. I didn’t know you played the piano.” Kenny leaned forward to look at Tweek’s homework. “Is piano hard? Do you like playing it?”
“It’s ok. I like doing things with my hands.” Tweek wrote out his first math problem in the space under the question.
‘If Johnny has two dozen apples, and he wants to share his apples with three friends, how many apples with everyone have? Please show your work.”
“I think most people like doing things with their hands. It’s easier than using your feet.” Kenny pulled his legs up to sit criss-cross but paused halfway to let one leg stay down.
Tweek shook his head. “No, I mean, I think bett—nevermind. It’s not that important.”
Tweek turned his attention back to his work.
Why was he so chatty? Maybe because Kenny wouldn’t be able to get other students to gang up on him? Was it because Kenny was safe to talk to? No, that wasn’t it. He just felt weirdly comfortable. Did all ghosts make people feel like this?
It didn’t matter. He wasn’t going try to explain all his weird quirks to Kenny, who probably didn’t care anyway.
“Two dozen = 12 + 12 = 24.” Tweek wrote.
As he drew out the division diagram, Kenny waved his hand in front of his face. He’d slipped off the headstone and sat against it with his head cocked to one side.
“Did you hear me? I asked what you meant.” Kenny dropped his hand to his lap.
Tweek spun his pencil nervously. “It’s nothing. You’ll laugh.”
Kenny puffed out his chest, then crossed his heart with his finger, holding up one hand. “I swear not to laugh. Boy scouts’ honor.”
Tweek put his pencil eraser in between his teeth and chewed on it. He bit off a sliver of rubber and swallowed it.
Hacking, Tweek fished out his thermos from his bag. He ran out of coffee around lunch time, so now it only had water with the faintest coffee taste. He chugged it.
“Hey now, don't die on me!” Kenny laughed at his own joke.
Tweek wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Sorry, I, um, I think better when I have my hands doing something. I get full of e-energy when I, urk, just sit around, but at least I multitask well.”
Kenny pursed his lips. “So you can’t stay still at all? I noticed you fidget in class a lot.”
“I can, but, it’s hard sometimes.” He explained, working through the problem. “But sometimes it’s not. Sometimes I get so into something, I don’t move for hours. I once made an entire city of Legos on a Saturday. I didn’t leave my room once to go to the bathroom or eat until Mom got me for dinner.”
“That sounds kind of weird,” Kenny stated, but not in a judgy way.
“I know,” Tweek replied, circling his answer. “I’m a freak. Everyone says so. A freak, a, argh, a spaz, a w-weirdo.” He sighed. His chest felt like someone dropped a thousand-pound anvil on him. He swallowed the lump in his throat then shoved his homework in his bag.
“I need to get home.”
“Wait, Tweek!” Kenny scrambled to his feet. “I didn’t mean—”
Tweek didn’t zip up his backpack before darting down the hill. If he lost something, he didn't care. From the grave, he heard Kenny shouting at him, but he didn’t turn around or wait to listen.
Tweek stared up at his ceiling and all the glow in the dark stickers he placed above his bed. He felt terrible for running away. He knew Kenny wasn't being mean to him. It was true. Tweek wasn’t normal. He was a disorganized mess of a person who couldn’t sit still for more than three minutes or could only sit still for three hours. He twitched and made weird, little noises. He was a complete freak for all those reasons!
Among other things...
Tweek rolled to his side, pulling his blanket to his nose, to stare out his bedroom window. The snow drifted softly down, illuminated from below by the street lamps. Were there lamps close Kenny’s grave? Could he see the snow too? He couldn’t feel it, of course. Maybe he was listening to it, to the soft sound of it gathering on the tree branches above him.
Tweek slipped out of bed and walked to the window. He placed a hand against the cold glass, leaving a handprint in the condensation. Guilt gnawed at his stomach.
“I’m sorry,” Tweek whispered. “I’ll come by tomorrow right after school and stay until it gets dark. I promise.”
This time Tweek found Kenny curled into a ball on his side. His eyes had a faraway look to them and his mouth set in a pout.
Tweek cleared his throat a few times before Kenny stirred. He sat up.
“I’m sorry,” He said before Tweek could speak. His words sounded rehearsed. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I don’t think you’re a freak or weirdo. I really like your company and—”
“It’s ok.” Tweek cut him off. “I don’t usually tell people about my problems like that. I didn’t know how to react to your answer, I guess.”
“No, no, I shouldn’t have called you ‘weird,’” Kenny told him. “I don’t really think that’s weird. It’s cool you can get so super focused on projects.” He rubbed his chin. “Imagine if my friends and I were like that. Usually, we get distracted halfway through and have to have someone, remind us to get back to work.” Kenny set his fists on his hips. “Imagine if we could work that hard. The town would have been blown up four times less than it already has been.”
Tweek burst out laughing. “Don’t you mean four times more?”
Kenny relented with a shrug. “Speaking of my friends, how are they? How is everyone in the class? Did anything big happen while I've been gone?”
Tweek sat down. “You’re friends are fine. They took your death hard, from what I can tell. They played it very safe for the first month or two because they didn’t want to lose another friend.” He rolled his eyes. “Not that that lasted too long. Those fuckers almost got me killed, you know! I pointed a bazooka at Steven Spielberg! We nearly had our faces melted off! I became a god and genocide happened in my name!”
Kenny chuckled. “Well, that’s just a day in the life of me and my wacky friends!” Raising his eyebrows jokingly, he made a move as if to jab Tweek in the rips, but caught himself before his elbow touched Tweek’s side.
His smile faded after a moment. “Well, I guess that would just be my friends now...”
Tweek felt his heart twist in sympathy. Kenny’s friends might have been major assholes, but they were still his best friends. He needed to get Kenny’s mind off of them!
“Ah, oh, and, Bebe! Bebe started to get her, you know,” Tweek waved his hands over his chest, “boobs!”
This got Kenny's attention. He stared, wide-eyed, at Tweek with his mouth slightly agape.
“Boobs? Like on her chest? For real?” He jumped up. “Tell me about them! Were they huge? Did they jiggle when she walked? Have you touched them?”
Tweek blushed. “What? Urk! Touch! No! Hell no! They’re not huge. If she wears a thick sweater, you can't even tell she has them, but they...they do weird things to us, man.” A shudder ran down his spine. “All the boys started fighting each other over being her friend.”
“If I was still alive, I’d want to be her friend too...” Kenny smiled to himself.
Tweak shook his head. “No, dude, they really made all of us act nuts! We fought each other like animals.”
Tweek didn’t add in that he still didn’t really understand why all the other boys acted like it was such a big deal. Stan had tried to explain it, but he just didn’t get it, so he pretended that he did and his involvement in the fights hadn't been in self-defense. So she had some bumps on her chest. So did Tweek after he got some mosquito bites last summer. All the boys didn’t beat each other up over him.
“If Bebe let me be her boyfriend, I’d definitely kick every boy in our class’s ass,” Kenny proclaimed. “Next school picture, you have to bring me the class photo so I can see her.”
“I will, if I can,” Tweek promised.
“What else?” Kenny bounced. “What else?”
Tweek spent the next two hours recalling funny or interesting school happenings to Kenny. He got the ghost to double over, roaring in laughter, three different times. Kenny’s voice even caught in his throat when Tweek told Kenny about seeing his sister playing with some girls in her grade.
Kenny drummed on his knees. “Wow, damn, I’m missing out on all sorts of fun stuff at school. Never thought I’d say that.”
“Man, at least you aren’t having to do fractions.” Tweek shuddered.
“Would you mind if I helped you with your homework some time?” Kenny requested. “I might be a ghost, but I don’t want to be one of those uneducated ghosts.”
Tweek didn’t think it mattered if a ghost knew fractions and long division or the history of America or what the difference between a metaphor and a simile was, but maybe Kenny just wanted an excuse for Tweek to keep coming around. He didn’t think he minded that.
Without his stupid friends around overshadowing and talking over him, Kenny was a really nice and interesting person.
“Ok, I can do that.” Tweak stood, adjusting his backpack. “I'll come back in a few days, and we can work through my homework together.”
Kenny's face fell. “In a few days?”
“I have to help at the coffee shop at least three days a week to earn my allowance,” Tweek explained.
Kenny nodded glumly. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.” He shook himself before smiling at Tweek. “I'll see you then, alright? Bring me some really good gossip, ok?”
Tweek visited Kenny more often than not for the next few weeks. He brought what little wisps of gossip he heard passing by in the cafeteria and hallways, then Kenny would try to predict what he thought would come of the news.
“If Red is going to wear the same dress, then she and Annie will get into a fight over it, or at least talk behind each other's backs — which for girls, is the same thing as fist fighting. They’ll make up before look long through.” or “I know Cartman, dude. If he can show up Kyle as the golden child, he will.” or “Stan and Wendy broke up? I give it a week before their all over each other again.”
He was right every single time.
“That's amazing!” Tweak exclaimed. “You have a superpower, Kenny!”
Kenny scoffed. “I have a better superpower than understanding how my classmates think.”
Tweak took a bite of the snack cake he brought with him. “You do? What is it?” He asked around the heavy cake and creme filling.
Kenny looked down at his lap as he sat on his headstone.
“It's that....it’s...I can't...” Kenny shook his head. “I don't think it works anymore anyway.”
His voice held something Tweek from Kenny since meeting him as a ghost: fear.
Whatever this superpower was, it must have been a big loss for death to take it away.
Tweak wanted to pry, but Kenny jumped to his feet and clapped his hands.
“Tweek, I need a favor.”
Tweak swallowed his cake. “What?”
Kenny had asked for favors before. Little things like how a particular sports team was doing or news on a celebrity he either admired or despised.
“Can you check on my sister?” He requested. “Karen? You don't need to talk to her if you don't want to, but just get a good look at her. Make sure she's doing alright.”
Tweek shoved his wrapper into his pocket. “Um, I can try. Why? Are you worried about her?” His eyes wander to the half-eaten snack cake, then widened. “Do you think your sister is starving? That she's not getting enough food?”
Tweek took the wrapper back out to wrap up the snack cake. He felt guilty eating right now.
Kenny laughed. “Oh, no, I'm not worried about that. With me gone, she gets enough.”
Sorrow twisted Tweek's gut. Sometimes Kenny's dark humor over his death made him uncomfortable, but Tweek didn't think it was his place to tell the ghost to stop if it made him feel better.
As Tweek stored away his snack, Kenny explained, “I just want to make sure she’s happy. Kevin’s a good enough older brother. He can protect her when Mom and Dad argue, but he’s not so good at comforting.” He shrugged. “That fell on me, but since I’m not there...”
Tweek didn’t need him to finish to understand, so he agreed. Tweek didn’t have recess with Karen, but her class left the cafeteria at the same time as Tweek’s came in. Maybe he could look at her then.
Deciding to figure out a plan of action later, Tweek zipped up his backpack.
“Tweek,” Kenny beamed, “you’re the best, dude.”
Something about Kenny’s bright smile made Tweek’s heart stumble in its beat. His ears grew hot as he scrambled to his feet.
“I have to go.” Tweek pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. “I’ll be back on Saturday, though.”
“Aaaah, that’s a whole four days,” Kenny whined. “I thought you only had to work three days to get your allowance.”
“It's supposed to rain and sleet all day Friday,” Tweek told him. “The weather might not make you cold, but it does me.”
Kenny sighed. “Alright, alright. I understand. I’ll see you later then.” As Tweek walked away, trying to keep his pace even, Kenny called, “Remember, find out if Karen is happy, ok? Stay warm until I see you again!”
The moment Tweek left the gate, he ran, his heart pounding and stomach twisting.