Work Text:
Finally. The time had come.
Kyle was at the Denver Nuggets game, Nichole, sweet and giggly, at his side. As they got their popcorn and drinks and found their seats, Kyle’s mind was rushing with more than just the constant excited rabble of the crowd around them. He was finally with the girl he liked, and they could have this moment of fun and closeness uninterrupted. No Cartman to get in the way, and no Token to bring Nichole’s spirits down.
Kyle was happy.
He was watching his favourite sport, featuring his favourite team, and the pre-game excitement building in the stands was pure electric in his veins. Most importantly, he was with Nichole, the girl who definitely liked him, and he definitely liked her too. He liked her… right?
Of course he did. Where did that come from? She was nice to him, and had feelings for him, and accepted him before anyone else after her break-up with Token. Of course he liked her. There was no reason not to.
He watched her wiggle in her seat, taking an excited nibble of her popcorn as the game finally kicked off. With a smile, his attention was drawn to the players down below. The tip-off, a roaring cheer, and then…
“Attention! Attention, please!”
A familiar, unmistakable voice cut through the stadium, silencing the cheering crowd and halting the players in their tracks. Up on the Megatron screen, the face of Cartman appeared in full view.
What was he doing here? And why was he interrupting the game?
“This is a message for all of you who have just ended a relationship. Sometimes, love is hard. But you can’t just run away from it! When you start to have something special, you have to work at it!”
The crowd was stock still, a jarring shift from the wild energy that had been pulsing through the stadium not seconds before. They stared at the screen in confusion and curiosity, not a word uttered. They were enraptured in Cartman’s speech, as many had been before. Cartman had that effect on people. And as much as Kyle hated to admit it, he himself was no exception. Cartman knew how to make people listen, and even more concerning, he knew how to make people believe.
From across the stadium, Token was fighting an inner battle with his heart and his head.
Cartman continued his speech. His speech on love, of all things. What did he know of love? The only person he loved was himself. He was incapable of loving anyone else, Kyle thought.
“Even though it might seem like the world is against you, you still have to hold on. With both hands.”
Of fucking course. Somehow Cartman found out Kyle had gone to the game with Nichole, and he probably had a terrible plan (complete with a segment on how best to humiliate Kyle, which was truly becoming Cartman’s specialty) to make her get back together with Token.
Cartman’s perfect couple.
He couldn’t believe how much of a racist, bigoted ass Cartman could be sometimes. Why did Kyle even insist on putting up with it? And why couldn’t Cartman just let this whole Token and Nichole thing go? Why did it matter so much to him who Nichole was in a relationship with? Why couldn’t he just let Kyle have a moment of happiness for once? A moment of happiness with this girl, who liked Kyle, and who Kyle liked… too…
Much like Kyle’s thoughts on the matter, Nichole faltered beside him at Cartman’s words, and from the far recesses of his mind Kyle could feel her slowly slipping out of his grasp.
“Don’t let society dictate who you can and can’t be with.”
Hypocrite. If only they knew what he was doing. If only Nichole realized that she didn’t need to be with Token to be happy. Kyle could make her happy. Kyle could… Kyle could…
“Kyle.”
Kyle’s gaze shot up to the screen, and his blood ran cold. Oh shit. Here it comes. The humiliation. The degrading. The insults. The words that would set his frozen blood to a boil, the words that would be heard by all these people, and Kyle would be helpless, unable to fight back while Cartman hid behind a screen. This is just what Cartman wanted. The perfect scenario to unleash his revenge on Kyle. He could say anything. Anything. Kyle braced himself for the next words.
“I love you, babe.”
Wait.
Huh?
Did he really just… Say that? Did he really…?
In that moment, the world around Kyle fell away. Nichole was nothing but a memory beside him, and the bag of popcorn fell from his hands and scattered to the floor in a salty, nasty mess of burnt kernels and artificial butter. But Kyle couldn’t see. All he saw was the Megatron screen, with Cartman’s giant face looking right at him. In that moment, with the high definition and scale of the screen, he could see the twinkle in Cartman’s eyes (one brown, one blue, and Kyle always remembered which colour was where, and were they always that pretty?) and at once he was lost.
Cartman had just confessed to him. Cartman had just confessed to him. Surely he was dreaming. Surely he’d wake up in his bed and this would all be just a distant thought imagined by his stupid mind. His stupid mind that, deep down, had feelings for Cartman. Kyle didn’t. That was for certain. But sometimes… Sometimes his mind wandered, and sometimes his heart interfered. Sometimes he thought things he shouldn’t, like how it might feel to hold hands with him, or how it might be to spend more quality, genuine time together, or why he thought his eyes (one brown, one blue) were pretty in this light.
“You can run all you want,” Cartman continued. “Try to pretend you like girls…”
Kyle woke from his daze sharp and sudden, like he’d just stuck a fork in an electrical socket. His gaze flitted to Nichole, who thankfully didn’t seem to notice either his glance or Cartman’s words. She seemed stuck in a daze, as Kyle had just been. Pretend you like girls. Kyle wasn’t pretending. He liked Nichole, just as he had liked Rebecca. They were girls, and they had feelings for him, and they were nice. Wasn’t that enough? Was there something missing? What colour had Rebecca’s eyes been? Nichole’s? She was right next to him. He could just look. But he shouldn’t have to, right? He should know this. After all, he… liked her?
He did.
He liked her.
So then why did he feel the need to confirm that with himself all the time?
Why did it always feel like a question?
Why couldn’t he take his eyes off the screen?
Oh god. The screen. Cartman wasn’t just talking to him. The rest of the crowd was cooing and gazing softly, curiously, at Kyle. He panicked. They couldn’t know. He couldn’t let them know. If they knew, if she knew… What would they think? They'd hate him. They'd think he was disgusting, vile, impure. They'd keep their distance. He'd lose his chance. He’d lose her. He’d lose her?
From across the stadium, Token was fighting an inner battle with his heart and his head. And from this side, so was Kyle.
Token could treat her better. Token could treat her right.
Cartman’s voice, amplified and echoed by the speakers, continued once more.
“…But dammit, when we kiss there’s magic! Don’t let it go, Kyle.”
Kiss? But we haven’t…
Oh.
The crowd “awww”ed at Cartman’s sickly sweet words. Kyle heard none of it. He could only hear the pounding of his sinking heart.
This wasn’t real. None of this was real. It really was just a ploy. Cartman really, truly just wanted to get Nichole and Token back together. That was the plan. That was always the plan. Kyle didn’t know why he expected anything else.
His heart sank. And then it burned.
Cartman really was an asshole. Toying with everyone like this, as if they were his puppets. And Kyle fell for it once again. Of course he did. Cartman had that effect on people.
Kyle looked back up at the screen, and he silently cursed the boy that filled it with his dumb stupid fat face. He thought he saw a glimmer of something in Cartman’s eyes. Delight? Expectance? Love? No. Not love. Cartman couldn’t care less about love, just like Kyle couldn’t care less about what colours those eyes were.
“I want to hold you every morning and love you every night, Kyle. I promise you nothing but love and happiness.”
Fake. Fake. Fake. He didn’t mean a word he said. None of it mattered. He could never feel that way. Especially not toward Kyle. No matter how much sincerity and love Cartman seemed to pour into those words. It meant nothing. It meant… nothing…
Right?
As Cartman broke into song, Kyle tried his best to shield himself from the hungry eyes of the crowd around him, but inside, his heart and his head were fighting once more. It was a battle waged whenever Cartman would give him a sense of hope. He didn’t know which side was winning anymore. Sometimes he felt like both sides were fighting for the same beliefs, confused and angry and raging on despite the unnecessary casualties. His heart burned. His mind sank. Everything was upside down. He didn’t know what to believe anymore.
He gave Nichole one last warning about Cartman before walking out of the stadium, alone.
His mind burned.
His heart sank.
As much as he tried to forget, two colours engraved themselves in his head. One brown, one blue.