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(i.)
Kenny’s going to die. Kenny dies a lot, of course, the poor-ass looser, but this time he won’t just pop up on back the next day. Cartman can feel it. The way everyone actually seems to care this time? Big indicator.
Kenny’s going to die, and Cartman tells himself not to be sad. Everyone leaves you eventually. So whatever, he gets on with his life and goes and makes a new Shakey’s, because seriously, those things are awesome. He kind of forgets about Kenny, honestly.
When Kyle looks between him and the Shakey’s like Cartman’s lost his mind, Cartman doesn’t get it. Why not take advantage of the good stuff in life why you still can?
Kyle’s always been a moralizing little shit. Seriously uncool. Cartman’s got no idea why he hangs out with such a loser.
It was kind of nice to hug him, though, a small voice in the back of Cartman’s mind says, and Cartman tells that voice to fuck off.
*
(ii.)
Cartman doesn’t like challenges. Which is why Kyle really, really pisses him off. Most people would accept two apologies as good enough. But no, Kyle wants Cartman to actually mean what he says when he apologizes, which is seriously, seriously dumb. Who on Earth actually makes sincere apologies? Losers.
He’s laughing inside when Kyle believes him, because for someone who’s known him for so long, he’s amazingly easy to manipulate.
What an idiot, he thinks as he sets Butters up, telling him about the meteor. But part of him does wonder why Kyle believed him.
Whatever. Kyle means nothing compared to the world’s best Mexican restaurant.
*
(iii.)
“Of course Kyle would be the antagonist of your story,” Stan says when they leave class after Cartman’s finished telling his Christmas story. Stan’s looking at him like there’s something confusing about the fact that Cartman hates Kyle, which is ridiculous – Stan may be a hippie, but he has at least a few brain cells, Cartman’s pretty sure. Unlike a certain ginger Jew.
Speaking of Kyle, he’s really annoyed, yelling at Cartman all the way through recess. “Goddamnit, Cartman! You are such an-“
“-Anti-Semitic, stupid bigot with no brain cells left to understand that other people may be different from him.”
Kyle blinks at him.
“I wasn’t going to say that.”
“Yes, you were.”
“...No I wasn’t.”
“Yes you were. You say that every time we talk.”
“No I don’t!” Kyle pauses. “Well...” He shakes his head. “That wasn’t what I was going to say this time!”
Cartman gestures in a ‘go on, Madame’ motion.
“You’re a crap storyteller! Seriously, what type of story just ends like – ‘and they all live happily after, except for this one character, who dies!’”
“-I didn’t know you cared so much about story structure, dude.” Stan adds from where he and Kenny are tossing a ball.
“I don’t!” Says Kyle, who Cartman knows has read at least three books in the last year, which is three books more than any ten-year-old should be reading. “It’s just stupid!” he glares at Cartman. “You’re stupid!”
“Well at least I don’t have AIDS!”
“I do not have AIDS, you stupid fucking-“
“-Dumb shit douchebag who thinks that people with illnesses deserve to be mocked.”
Kyle blinks again. “How do you keep doing that?”
Cartman shrugs. “It’s pretty easy.”
Kyle narrows his eyes.
The next time the two of them get into a fight is in school the next day, over pencil crayons.
“Kahl, pass me the skin colored crayon.”
Kyle rolls his eyes. “It’s not ‘skin’, Cartman. It’s called ‘peach’. Not everyone here has the same skin color as you.”
Cartman looks around. “Dude, the only not-white person here is Token. Who gives a fuck about Token. And besides, Kahl, you’re an-“
“-Idiotic pussy-whipped Jew who still manages to have sand stuck up your vagina, and I really don’t know why I bother to associate with types such as you.” Kyle finishes off for him, his voice perfectly on pitch.
He raises an eyebrow at Cartman. “That good enough?” He tilts his head, a smile on his lips, and Cartman instinctively leans in.
“-Not even close, Jew.” He says, maybe a second later than he should’ve.
“Just admit it, I can imitate you just as well as you imitate me. Probably better.”
“Nu-uh!”
“Yeah-huh!”
It goes on for about two minutes before Mr. Garrison threatens to put them both in the gulag if they don’t shut up. Kyle asks what a gulag is, and Cartman chimes in that it’s like ‘a concentration camp, but not just for Jews,’ and Kyle decides to introduce his fist to Cartman’s face. Cartman quickly forgets about what happened – he got kind of caught up in trying to get out of three weeks’ worth of detention.
But he doesn’t forget it entirely. Sometimes, he likes to interrupt Kyle’s little gay speeches with an almost spot-on imitation. Watching Kyle get pissed off is so worth detention and fistfights.
(He’ll never tell Kyle, but Kyle’s gotten Cartman down to some extent, too. Not as well as Cartman imitates Kyle – seriously, that guy’s a total broken record – but kind of close, if you really squint.)
*
(iv.)
“Shut up Butters, you stupid Jew.”
“Oh alright Eric, I’ll just shut up like the stupid Jew that I am.”
“Goddamnit!” Cartman wants to hit something. Possibly Butters. Probably Butters. Alright, definitively Butters. But also himself.
“Damnit, Butters, why are you such a bad Jew?”
“I- I don’t know Eric, maybe because I’m not Jewish?”
Cartman shakes his head. Stan’s words are ringing in his head; without Kyle to rip on, you’ll find that your life is empty and hollow. Damnit, why does he even care?
Cartman can live without his mom – she’s left him for weeks on end with nothing but huge stacks of Cheesy Poofs and promises that she’ll ‘Bring you back lots of cake, after mommy has herself a little party.’ Kenny’s died so many freaking times that Cartman barely keeps track of whether or not he’s alive now, and everyone from Butters to Stan has run away or left for long periods of time or something, and honestly, Cartman didn’t really care.
So why the hell is it that Kyle’s disappearance is the one that riles him up so much?
He thinks about it as he’s suiting up, when he’s intercomming Butters from the most horrid parts of San Francisco. He thinks about it as he drags Kyle and his family, even his stupid fat bitch of a mom, across the godforsaken town and as he drives the nearest bus through the worst of San Francisco’s smug. He thinks about it as he leaves the family in their living room, and he thinks about it as he storms out to his house to go take a shower and rid himself of the dirty feeling that comes with San Francisco’s existence.
He thinks about it the next time he and Kyle get into a fight, when Kyle’s yelling at him about how they need to respect the school rules or something, fire in his eyes, about to hit him, probably, and Cartman thinks, yeah. I know why I saved him, son of a bitch Jew he may be, even as he wishes that Kyle were dead.
He considers mentioning what he did to Kyle, taunting him about it, but the words stick in his throat. He won’t – can’t let Kyle think that Cartman cares. Because he doesn’t. At all.
*
(v.)
Some part of Cartman will never understand how damned easy Kyle is to manipulate. For all his holier-than-thou rhetoric, the minute Cartman starts talking about Family Guy hurting Muslims’ feelings or getting people killed, Kyle’s a goner. No principles to stand on. (Kyle is full of shit like that.)
He grins meanly into his jacket when Kyle starts talking about how amazed he is by Cartman changing, but he still can’t keep himself from staring.
*
(vi.)
They’re stuck in this shit-ass cave because of stupid fucking Al Gore and his made-up problems, but Cartman’s honestly not too put-up about it, so long as they eventually get out alive and he gets his treasure. And he is going to make sure Kyle does not get a penny of it.
Cartman isn’t an idiot. He’s known Kyle long enough not to fall for his tricks: when he pretends to care about Cartman being sick, Cartman knows he’s just plotting the best way to one-up him, the best way to find his treasure and steal it. Kyle is a money-grubbing greedy fuck; it’s in his genes, really.
Cartman is thinking about this as he kneels over Kyle, muttering to himself.
For one second, he has this strange thought that if he leaned just a bit closer he could kiss Kyle. He has this flash of an image; pressing a hand down on Kyle's jacket and...what? Actually put his lips on him? Gross.
Kyle wakes up, and Cartman forgets all about it.
(He wonders what’s in it for Kyle when he drags Cartman across the water in the cave, but not for long. Kyle is Kyle is Kyle. Cartman’s sure he’s got shitty intentions somewhere back there, that he’ll use it against Cartman in a few weeks.)
*
(vii.)
Cartman’s plan is brilliant. Not only does he get to say whatever he wants at any time, Kyle gets so annoyed that steam is practically coming out of his ears.
He’s weirded out when he accidentally starts telling Kyle stuff that Kyle shouldn’t know, and even more embarrassed when he stops saying cool things and starts confessing actual secrets to huge crowds of people.
It’s even stranger when, the night before his show on Dateline, he’s sitting on his bed, praying, and suddenly he says, “I’m in love with Kyle and I argue with him because I want his attention,” as though the thought’s been jerked out of him on a string. He stares, unblinking, at the wall across from his bed, and he slaps a hand across his mouth.
What. The fuck. So not true, Tourette’s. He can’t even process how dumb that idea is. First off, the only true love is between a man and his Cheesy Poofs. Secondly, if Cartman were going to fall in love, he’d have better taste than a Jew. And a ginger one at that.
(Something in the back of his mind is telling him that all the things he’s spat out since he actually came down with Tourette’s have been true, so logically it doesn’t make sense that this one wouldn’t be. Logic, however, can go shove it up its ass. Seriously, all those atheists were crazy about logic, and look where it got them.)
He hopes that Kyle won’t watch his program out of spite or something, because if he starts saying things like that on live television he might eat an actual gun instead of just a chocolate one.
Fuck, he thinks as they set him up in the chair, crumpling his hands in the fabric of his pants and doing his best to think his most non-embarrassing thoughts. I do not have a crush on anyone. I do not wet my bed. I like Cheesy Poofs. Family Guy is a dumb show.
“Now, we’re just going to get started-“
Then all the pedophiles start shooting themselves, and God has clearly heard Cartman’s prayers.
“Ha! I beat you, fatass!” Kyle’s saying as he steps out from behind the curtains, spotlight gleaming off of his weird black-ops vest. There’s a glimmer of something in his eye, and Cartman is thinking about the fact that Kyle actively made dozens of people kill themselves and doesn’t feel an ounce of regret so long as Cartman is thwarted, and he thinks, didn’t know you cared. He would smile if he wasn’t too busy dropping to his knees and thanking every God in existence, including the Jewish one.
He looks at Kyle, who’s still got that glimmer in his eyes, and for some reason Cartman’s gaze is inclined to drop to Kyle’s lips. He’s too overcome with joy to think much of it, and the last thing he wants is for Kyle to hear any more weird stuff – god forbid, like some of the stuff he said yesterday night.
So he leaves quickly, smiling all the way to speech therapy.
*
(viii.)
“Dude, why do you care so much about me sucking your goddamned balls? For god’s sake, Cartman, Stan is going to die!”
Doesn’t really matter why, he tells himself, Kyle said he would do it. It’d been kind of a last minute thought, thrown out there; Kyle wanted twenty bucks, and Cartman wanted to humiliate Kyle. And he’s going to get what he wants.
And Kyle is going to hit him within the next four minutes, Cartman predicts, but whatever. He can’t go back on his word.
Later, when Kyle gets knocked out on the Pentagon floor, Cartman’s first thought is goddamnit why does that world never give me what I want, life is such a fucking cunt. His second thought it not so much a thought as a series of images: all the times he and Kyle have fought, argued, and bitched each other out, the one or two times that Cartman has looked at Kyle and thought, huh.
He saves Kyle, and he doesn’t think too much about why. Later on, when Kyle’s furious at him, as shown by him repeatedly choosing to eat at salads bars, he thinks that he definitively regrets the decision.
But then he’ll look up and see Kyle taunting him, and he’ll think back to when Kyle moved to San Francisco, and he’ll be filled with this immense sense of relief that Kyle’s heart hadn’t faltered under his hands. He’ll think: life without Kyle would be pretty boring.
*
(ix.)
Kyle gets so pissed about them being mistaken for a couple. Which is stupid. What do you think people will believed when you tell someone he gave me AIDS!
Cartman just kind of laughs at Kyle (internally, because he loves his Xbox), and ignores the weird sort of satisfied feeling those comments give him.
*
(x.)
“Deep down, you’re a monster. But you’re my little monster,” Cartman says, pinching Kyle’s cheek, smiling because – he hadn’t known. Kyle is a ginger Jersey Jew – but Kyle – Kyle cared. Kyle cared about bad things happening to him when so many times in the past everyone else had ignored him – hell, even his mom hadn’t given a shit when he told her about the whole Ben Affleck thing.
Kyle just looks at him weirdly, and Cartman thinks – okay, well, maybe Kyle doesn’t get it. All the better for Cartman, because Cartman does.
Kyle likes Cartman. Cares about him, at least.
Cartman grins.
*
(xi.)
Cartman looks at Kyle, who’s all accounting papers and calculating looks, trying to find the best way to make a margin of profit off of crack babies, and Cartman thinks, I could take over the world, with him at my side.
He pushes it aside, of course, because Cartman knows that Kyle wouldn’t compromise for him like that – it’s one of the things he likes about him, as much as he hates it. Kyle has a moral compass, twisted as it may be – he shows it when he asks Cartman to donate some of their money.
But even moral compasses can be good for something, Cartman thinks. The money will help them keep good face with the public. Kyle doesn’t think that way, but he could. Cartman sees it in his eyes, sometimes.
*
(xii.)
Another thing about Kyle: there are some moments where Cartman knows Kyle likes him. Why else would he join Cartman’s burger-making scheme? Cartman can remember god-knows how many times Kyle’s just straight-up rejected his ideas – but sometimes he doesn’t. Cartman thinks; I’ll remember this next time we fight, as a point against you, Kyle, but some part of him thinks that it’s not about revenge at all. It’s about the fact that Kyle is smiling at him, that they’re hanging out and playing video games and almost kind of getting along.
Cartman has that same thought of I could take over the world, if I had you at my side, and for the first time it almost seems likely.
Things fall apart, of course, but he can’t say he expected it to last. Life’s a bitch like that; you stuff yourself with whatever good things you can get before she slaps them straight out of your hands.
*
(xiii.)
He’s starting to get weirded out by how many times in the past few months it’s been him and Kyle versus everyone: first the thing with crack babies, then the burgers, and now this?
But Kyle’s always been stubborn, and that stubbornness goes as far as siding with Cartman over something like Faith Hilling.
Cartman doesn’t know Kyle’s cheering him on when he finally gets up on that Republican debate stage and doesn’t meme that stupid Taylor Swifting crap, but for a moment, he feels like he’s on top of the world all the same.
*
(xiv.)
When Kyle sees him in the park, Cartman thinks, just for a second, that this might be it. What it is, he doesn’t really know, but his heart’s beating pretty fast and his hands feel kind of sweaty – although that’s probably just the side effects of being chained up and left for sacrifice for a vicious pagan monster.
He knows he’s screwed up when Kyle walks away, because, like it or not, Kyle is the one who never walks away from him. Be it out of hate or some sense of duty, Cartman doesn’t know (Kyle is fucking impossible to pin down, that stupid Jew – every time Cartman thinks he gets him, he turns around and upends his expectations completely.)
So he dreams and of course he dreams of Kyle; that fucking asshole won’t even leave him alone in his dreams. He dreams of Egypt, and he dreams of blood and an ice-cold shiver running down his back, dreams of God’s wrath and people dying.
Then, the dreams shifts. He dreams of someone holding him, dragging him back home, and draping a blanket over his shoulders.
When he wakes up the next day, he thinks, it was Kyle. Then he thinks that’s a pretty faggy thing to think, because Kyle made it very clear how much he was abandoning Cartman, and he thinks then there’s only one other possibility.
It must’ve been God. Jewish God. It is Passover, after all.
He tells Kyle, and Kyle just looks at him, but he says, “Happy Passover, Cartman,” and Cartman smiles back so wide his teeth hurt.
The next day, Cartman buys a cheap copy of the Torah. He decides that it’s bullshit pretty quickly, but he doesn’t throw it out. Sometimes, when he’s had a particularly crap day, he’ll pick it up and read over a passage or two. It’ll cheer him up, because he may be miserable, but at least he’s not Jewish.
It also makes him think of that day, with the sun in the park and a warm feeling in his chest, but he’ll never admit it out loud. And if Cartman drops a loaf a challah bread by the Broflovski household that fall because he read about Yom Kippur once or twice (by accident, of course), well, no one has to know.
*
(xv.)
Nicole is not allowed to get with Kyle. Logically, the only viable answer to this problem would be if Kyle were not available. If Cartman just says that Kyle’s gay, he’ll deny it. There are no girls who would pretend to be Kyle’s girlfriend, even if Cartman paid them.
But never let is be said that Cartman doesn’t how to spin a story.
“Stay away from my man, bitch,” He tells Nicole, and grins into his jacket when she agrees to back off. Jackpot.
He thinks about it, when he’s making his announcement to a basketball stadium full of people, talking about how love shouldn’t be dictated by how other people perceive you – and he thinks, you know, I almost believe this crap, before rolling his eyes at himself.
He really wishes he could’ve seen Kyle’s expression when he started serenading him, though. That’s would’ve been the shit.
*
(xvi.)
He looks at Heidi, and he thinks that finally, finally, he might be able to turn a new leaf. For so long he’s let himself be drawn into these dumb partisan politics, run by hatred and incapable of seeing what’s right in front of him – the beauty of the world, the scientific progress humans will soon be capable of. He thinks that he’s spent too much time with people who are divisive and infuriating, and who drag him down.
He looks at Kyle, trying to convince him to bring people together, to don his old shirt and go back to who he was, and – he can’t.
Something in his chest feels strangely tight when Kyle leans over and tells him “We need the old Eric Cartman back.” Cartman thinks he’s losing his mind, but he could swear he hears I miss you in that sentence.
He ignores it, of course, but – sometimes he’ll look across the lunch table and see Kyle looking at him like he’s lost something incredible, and Cartman has no clue what to do with that. (How did he miss it? Was it there all this time, when Cartman would’ve burned down the whole world just to get Kyle’s attention?)
He pushes the feeling down, forcing himself to look back to Heidi and smile. Being with Heidi makes him a better person. Kyle – being with Kyle is exhilarating, and it makes him feel alive – but he can’t be that person anymore. He can’t.
*
(xvii.)
There’s a damned cat outside.
There’s a damned cat outside and it keep fucking meowing, which is dumb because Cartman is the only one home and he will not be affected by something as pitiful as a rag doll making sad noises. Nope. Not Eric Cartman, who is eleven years old now, a fully celebrated birthday marked by raging fireworks which announced to the whole of South Park that is it officially the BEST DAY ON THE PLANET, ASSH, (he wanted to spell out ‘assholes’, but he ran out of fireworks).
Everyone was impressed, of course, as they always are.
Except for Kyle, sonuvabitch that he is, who just rolled his eyes and told him that he was being dramatic. Which is stupid. Kyle clearly doesn’t understand the importance of one’s eleventh birthday – the dumb Jew celebrated his birthday by playing video games and almost committing suicide on his rooftop before stabbing some Russian guy to death using his birthday present from Cartman. (Cartman does wonder what he did with that thing; he hasn’t seen it since. He knew putting an inscription in German would piss Kyle off, and it makes Cartman grin.)
Anyways. Where was he? Kyle. Right. Idiot. Couldn’t party for the life of him. Didn’t even give Cartman a present, the asshole. Cartman had been more than magnanimous for his birthday – he’d given him a pristine book and everything (the book had been Mein Kampf, but it’s not Cartman’s fault that Kyle’s a pussy.) And a knife! It’d been a nice knife. Cartman had gotten it engraved for him. So it irks him a little, that Kyle does nothing.
And the damned cat’s still meowing.
Cartman rolls his eyes, begrudgedly pushing himself off of the couch and looking away from the TV screen. He opens the door, looks down at the cat, and starts yelling-
“Now Kitty, if you don’t get the fuck offa my lawn in ten seconds-“
The kitten looks at him with wide, green eyes. It’s young – probably less than six months, if Cartman had to guess – with white fur that’s gone gray from the grime, and no collar to be seen. It’s sitting patiently on the stairs, looking at Cartman sadly. There’s something stuck on its fur – it looks like a note.
Cartman falters. “I will kick...you off into...a meat grinder...” He says, kneeling down to pet the little guy, who purrs when he pushes a hand over its head. She walks around in circles indecisively before settling down in one spot and licking her paw, just like Kitty used to, and despite himself, Cartman grins.
He reaches over and plucks the note off her fur.
Happy birthday, jackass. Surprise me.
There’s no name on it, but Cartman knows precisely who sent it (of course Kyle would tell Cartman to surprise him when it’s Cartman’s birthday).
He wrinkles his brow, tempted to pitch the cat into the streets just to spite Kyle, but the kitty purrs like a machine and settles into his lap, and he decides to keep her around, just for a few more minutes. Which turns into a few more hours and then a few more days and a few more weeks until eventually his mom buys the stupid cat special treats and toys and Cartman will occasionally (only occasionally) let her nibble at his chicken pot pie. Everyone else calls her Kitty, but to Cartman, she’s just The Cat. Like there’s only one in the world.
He pretends not to notice Kyle smiling smugly when he sees Cartman giving The Cat a belly rub and smiling when she purrs, because even Cartman knows he’s got no way to argue this one away.
Besides, he kind of likes the look in Kyle’s eyes – because he almost looks proud, he almost looks happy.
*
(xviii.)
Kyle clips him over the head, and Cartman blinks.
His head’s been fuzzy for months, now – everything’s been this complete blur, he can’t even remember what he did yesterday. Or he day before that. Or before that.
But he’s here now, blinking groggily as Kyle yells at him about something or another. Cartman’s about to shrug it off, when he actually starts listening to what Kyle’s been saying.
“-Don’t tell me you’ve given up now, like everyone else!” Kyle’s saying, and Cartman realizes that ow, his head really hurts, and Kyle’s crappy attitude can wait.
“Why the fuck did you punch me, you dumbass Jew?”
“Wha-“
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Seriously, Cartman hadn’t even done anything this time. Or if he had, he couldn’t remember.
“What the hell’s wrong with – what the hell’s wrong with you! The last month you’ve been like a robot – fucking ‘yes, Mrs. Nelson,’ and ‘You guys, we gotta stay safe,’ just marching in line – you didn’t even rip on me when I called you an intolerant fat fuck! What’s wrong with me – what’s been wrong with you, you son of a bitch?”
Kyle’s gesticulating wildly, anger in his eyes, and there’s something about his expression – Cartman can’t quite get a read on it. He looks almost...upset. About Cartman not having done anything.
And-
“You kept my knife,” Cartman says, looking back at the inscription. He remembers taking it to the metal worker, signing out the message. Du gibst mir einen Grund zu kämpfen; you give me a reason to fight. It was the only nice thing he could think of.
He looks at Kyle, whose knuckles are white around the hilt of the knife, who’s looking at him with fury in his eyes, who is mad because Cartman wasn’t acting like himself.
“-I met a CIA guy a few weeks back, they said they needed volunteers to try some new candy...” In retrospect, maybe going up to strangers in white vans and telling them to give him candy wasn’t the genius idea he’d thought it was.
“You dumbass!” Kyle shake his head at him, something strange in his voice, and he turns around, grumbling to himself.
“Alright, fine, let’s go sue some CIA agents for trying to brainwash you,” he says, motioning like he expects Cartman to get going.
Cartman stares after him, thinking that yes, yes he is.
*
(xix.)
“Alright, so all you’ve got to do is light the wick, throw the bottle, and it’ll set basically whatever it hits on fire.”
“Sweet,” Cartman replies, looking up at the guy – Richard Spencing or something- as he rolls up his sleeves, exposing a swastika tattoo the size of a fist.
“We’re going to be fighting those faggots in Antifa today, so we need all hands on deck. Now, I know you’re new to our organization-“
Cartman waves a hand. “Nah, dude, I know the drill. I’ve been fighting Jews for years.”
The guy pauses, looking at him appraisingly in a way that distinctly communicates the word nice. “Well, it’s a start.” He says, handing Cartman an AK-47.
“Want some biscuits?” He asks, offering a tin. Cartman looks at them – vanilla shortbread, Neo-Nazis don’t like chocolate chip cookies (apparently the brown parts taint the pure cookie dough – some sort of metaphor for white genocide made popular and perpetuated by the leftists.)
Cartman shrugs, eating a cookie. It tastes like sawdust, and he thinks that these things could really use some chocolate flavoring, but apparently that’s even worse.
Cartman checks his gun. “How many people do you think will be at the protests today?”
“There’s forty-thousand people in Charlottesville, so.... around thirty-five thousand, maybe?”
Cartman nods, really wishing for a gingerbread cookie, or, even the most heinous of them all – Oreos.
*
“You fascist pig! I’m going to rip your throat out and make you wish you’d never been born, Neo-Nazi scum! There is no place for hate in our country, you worthless piece of shit!”
A bullet just misses Cartman’s shoe, and he starts, turning around.
He knows that voice.
“Kyle?” he says, putting down his Confederate flag, but keeping his hand on his gun.
Kyle pushes back the black balaclava that’s been covering his face except for his eyes and tugs at his jacket, exposing his hair and the yellow star of David badge pinned to his chest. “Cartman?”
“What are you doing here?” They say simultaneously, starting-
“Well, I heard that there fascists were gonna riot and I had to stop them-“
“Well, I heard that these commies were gonna riot and I had to stop them- wait, why are you wearing that pin?” Cartman glances down.
Kyle stops in midway through his tale of burning down the local Chick Fil-A, tilting his head. “Yeah, they made me wear this to acknowledge the genocide of the Palestinian peoples and the imperial Zionist aspirations of Jews in the rightfully Muslim Holy Land.”
“Dude, they made you apologize for the one time in history where the Jews have been badass? Doesn’t that piss you off?”
Kyle rolls his eyes. “Well, duh, but it’s not like I can let people like you go out and discriminate against people based off of their race or religion!”
He pauses, toying with the badge. “...Wait.”
Just then, Spencer Dick, or whatever his name was, pulls up next to Cartman. “What are you waiting for, mein Junge? Kill him!” He brandishes a knife at Kyle’s Jew badge, then looks at Cartman expectantly, as though waiting for him to pass a test.
Cartman looks at him quizzically.
“Why would I kill Kyle?” Seriously, Cartman’s never even killed anyone. And he’s not starting with Kyle.
Dick’s eyes go wide. “Look at him! He’s a Jew! Didn’t you say you’ve dealt with Jews before?”
“Well duh I’ve dealt with Jews, that’s how I know this jerk,” Cartman jabs a thumb towards Kyle, who’s looking like he could glare a whole straight through Dick’s head.
Dick looks flabbergasted. “I thought you were on our side! The Jews must die, mein Junge – they are the ones causing the racial strife in our society! And they have all the money!”
Kyle pauses, murmuring, “Hey, you know, they said that at the Antifa meeting too,” but Cartman’s too busy with Dick to really pay attention.
Cartman waves a hand. “Yeah, yeah, I know, Kyle hoards all his dumb Jew gold in his pockets. Seriously, man, I know my Jew lore.”
Dick looks like he’s on the verge of malfunctioning. “Then you know why these rats need to die!”
Cartman frowns at him. “Nah, sorry. Not killing him.” He pokes at his gun, flipping the safety on and off.
Dick looks at him, immense disappointment on his face. “I had such hope for the next generation when I saw you, mein Junge, but you’re all just a bunch of kike-fuckers!”
He points the gun at Kyle.
It all happens in a split second – one minute Dick’s pulling out his gun, and the next Cartman’s knuckles are aching from punching him in the gut, the safety of his AK is off and Cartman’s got the barrel pressed between Dick’s eyes.
Cartman can barely hear what he’s saying over the blood rushing in his head, the pounding sensation in his chest. “Dude, if I wanted Kyle dead I would’ve done it years ago! I went through all the pain of saving his dumb-ass heeb life when he moved out to hippie central. You think I’m undoing all that hard work? Nu-uh!”
“But you said-“
“Obviously the Jews need to be taken to task, Dick. But we don’t need to murder them. And especially not Kyle. Life is boring without Kyle.”
Dick’s eyes look like they’re about to roll back into his head, and he passes out pretty quickly. Cartman shrugs, dropping him, snickering as he bangs his head on the concrete.
Kyle looks up to him, and Cartman’s left wondering how much of that he caught. His eyes are wide, and when Cartman checks his chest he finds that he’s ripped off his badge.
“You know what? This shit is dumb. Everyone here is an asshole who can’t think straight. Let’s head home,” he says, and Cartman couldn’t agree more. Riots suck ass. Seriously, it’s no fun killing people you disagree with. Much better to yell at them.
They walk out of the field full of screaming anarchists and fascists, dodging Molotov cocktails and bullets as they talk about Cartman’s new favorite video game and some gay book that Kyle’s been reading.
*
They’re sitting in their seats on the plane when Kyle leans over and says, softly, as if he doesn’t want to wake Cartman up from his nap, “Hey, Cartman?”
Cartman doesn’t bother to respond, nuzzling his nose into something soft which might be his pillow, but could also be Kyle’s arm.
“Thanks for – thanks for not pulling the trigger out there. I know you – I know we hate each other, but – but I’m glad that no matter what, you could still see me.”
You see me, Cartman hears echoing in his mind as he nods off, thinking, yeah, that’s about right.
*
(xx.)
“I can’t believe you tried to jump off of the roof again.”
“Shut up, Kahl.”
“No, seriously, you would think, ‘once burned, twice shy,’ but it’s never enough with you, is it, fatass?”
“I got superpowers the last time I jumped off a roof, Kahl! Superpowers! So it stands to logic-“
“-Oh wow, look at you with the fancy words-“
“-Shut up, it stands to logic that it would work again!”
“-Stand to what logic, shithead?” Kyle rolls his eyes; somewhere in the background, Cartman can hear Stan sighing and Kenny getting hit by a drunk motorcyclist. They’ve been standing at the bus stop for twenty minutes now, waiting for the dumbass new bus driver to get her act together, and Kyle has been bitching Cartman out the entire time. Like a total Debbie Downer.
“Logic! Duh! If it works once it’ll work again!”
“And what’s your superpower now, asshole? Gaining weight ten times as fast?”
“Nah. I had a vision of all the Jews getting crushed. It was sweet.” Cartman hasn’t actually had any visions yet, but he’s sure one will show up eventually.
Kyle rolls his eyes. “Those are just your regular dreams, asshole. Predict me one thing.”
Cartman tilts his head, and he gets an idea.
He lifts up his arm. “I predict that you won’t sign my cast.”
Kyle’s eyes go wide, and he looks at Cartman, lips pursed. Cartman grins.
“Well, Kahl? Am I right or am I right?”
“Oh, you-“ Kyle pulls out a marker, yanking Cartman over by the hand, and “Ow, asshole, I just broke my bone!”
Kyle rolls his eyes, uncapping the marker with his teeth. “You deserve it,” He mutters, writing out K-Y-L-E in big, bold letters. Then, grinning smugly, he turns Cartman’s wrist over and scribbles out KICK ME on the other side of the cast.
“That good enough for you?” He grins, and if Cartman didn’t have a broken arm he would beat that asshole into oblivion. As it is, he just fumes all the way to school, yelling at Kyle about what a son of a bitch he is.
He glares at the inscription when he gets back home. It’d gotten him kicked in the ass three times. He curses Kyle, that stupid bastard, twisting his arm around to see if there’s anything else that he’d written without Cartman’s permission.
Right at the base of the cast, just near his elbow, there’s an almost unnoticeable heart.
Cartman stares. Kyle had been the only one to sign his cast today. It’s in the same color as the other inscription he’d written.
Cartman blinks, and for a second, just a second, he thinks, oh.
*
(xxi.)
Of all things for Kyle to suggest they do on a Tuesday night when they had a math test tomorrow, hitting Las Vegas and starting a pyramid scheme had not been up there. But Kyle’s been been acting strange like that, since he turned fifteen, stealing stuff and helping Cartman cheat on tests. He even took up smoking for a while. Cartman thinks that having a bitch mom will probably do that to you, but he can’t say he’s mad about it, really – it’s just kind of strange. Good strange, sort of.
But it still weirds Cartman the hell out.
“Hello, we’ve got an amazing product for you,” Kyle tells customers after customer, and just like that – here’s the amazing thing – they believe him, buy their stupid candy bars and agree that they’ll sell them for a minimal cut of the profits.
Cartman is floored, left catching glances at Kyle, looking at him like he’s become another person entirely. He hasn’t – Cartman remembers all too well all the times Kyle has almost sided with him, only to snap back to his righteous morality at the last minute. He remember the time where Kyle had done the wrong thing, even if he thought it was for the right reason. He remembers the time Kyle arranged fo dozens of people to die just to keep Cartman from going on live television.
He thinks of the look in Kyle’s eyes – the way the light glitters in them when he smiles, how people believe his good-boy act like it’s gospel – and it’s almost like he’s ten again, right after Stan’s birthday. Finally getting the hang of talking to Kyle like an actual person, but appreciating the mercenary gleam in his eyes.
‘Starting a pyramid scheme in Las Vegas’ also apparently entails going gambling with said pyramid scheme money in Las Vegas, so they sneak into a casino. Cartman taunts the guard until he runs off crying, and when he looks around Kyle’s smiling, and God help him, Cartman smiles back.
“Of course you normally suck at card games, but you win as soon as money’s on the table,” Cartman says, snickering as Kyle plays a full house in poker. Kyle rolls his eyes, but when he glances over to Cartman he gives him a blinding smile.
“You wanna test that theory, fatass?” He says, and Cartman reaches over, grabbing a hand.
“You’re on.”
That next day, Cartman goes to school with a headache that could kill armies and the taste of alcohol bitter in his mouth, but he’s still grinning maniacally, clutching a stolen dice in his pocket, glancing over at Kyle and hearing those words he said a few months back, you see me.
*
(xxii.)
So maybe Cartman shouldn’t have sold Kyle out to the Islamic Bureaucracy.
He’s realizing this a bit late, but, well, what can he say? Kyle’s Jewish. How can anyone extend the benefit of the doubt to a Jew? Simple self-preservation dictates that you must assume they’re always scheming about something or other.
But, maybe letting Kyle get locked up by the type of guys who want to religiously cleanse the country wasn’t his brightest idea. Cartman’s realized, over these past few years, that he may have made a mistake or two, and if he gets Kyle killed he’s going to be really pissed.
The terrorists don’t really care about him all that much, so he just kind of slips a key and leaves it with Kyle in a copy of the Quran. The Jew’s a jerk, sure, but he’s not dumb – he’ll catch on.
He does, which is good, because Cartman needs someone to play video games with. He’s just about to head over to Kyle’s house to hang when Kyle pins him up against the wall, a hand braced near his head, fingers just touching his throat.
“If you ever sell me out to terrorists again, I will eviscerate you and decorate the entire city with your organs. Understood?”
The first thing that Cartman thinks is that there’s a reason he respects Kyle, and here it is. But he refuses to let that get the best of him, grabbing Kyle’s wrists and pushing him off.
“As if, Jew. Like you could beat me in anything,” and no, they’re not talking about that time in Libya. Or that time with Bobby Flay. Because Kyle is still really, really, touchy about that thing that happened with the Armenians and Azerbaijanis, and Cartman doesn’t really want to get into a fight. Not now, anyways.
Kyle smiles smarmily, probably thinking about that time with Bobby Flay, the jerk. “Yeah, right,” he taunts as he manhandles Cartman off of his doorstep, proving himself to be World’s Worst Host.
“Imma go grab my wallet,” he says, and Cartman doesn’t bother to inquire, just shrugging and saying, “Whatever, dude, just hurry up.”
Presumably because he’s still pissed about the whole being-sold-off-to-Islamic-terrorists thing, Kyle kicks up a cloud of dust in Cartman’s face and yells at him to hurry on up to wherever the hell they’re going. Cartman has no clue what Kyle’s thinking of doing, but frankly, he doesn’t care. He grabs a handful of snow, runs up to Kyle, and shoves it down his shirt. “Oh, you fucking-“ Kyle starts, grabbing a handful of snow and packing it, grinning as he says, “It’s on.”
Eventually, when Cartman’s gloves are soaked through and his hands are chilled to the bone and his face is entirely numb, they end up somewhere near the pond, lying on the ground and staring up at the clear blue sky.
“You know,” Kyle says after a while, and Cartman thinks he can feel his gaze. “You’re a bitch for getting me captured, but you’re a decent friend for getting me out. Thanks. Asshole.”
Cartman hopes that Kyle writes off his flush as due to the cold. Cartman realizes that he’s on the edge of coming to a conclusion and he doesn’t think he’s gonna like it.
“Forget it, Jew.”
Kyle shrugs. “If you say so. But remember that’s the first and only time I’ve ever telling you ‘thank you’.”
“Liar,” Cartman says, but he’s grinning.
He looks at Kyle, and it’s like he’s nine again, thinking what if I leaned in, what if I kissed him- and his thoughts don’t turn to disgust. He’s horrified, but-
He thinks, that would be nice, and he sees Kyle smiling at him.
*
(xxiii.)
He’s done it. Cartman Enterprises is officially in the trillions, right up there with Amazon, neck-and-neck in the fields of clothes and home appliances and fast outpacing most of Silicon Valley in tech.
Cartman leans back in his chair, kicking up his feet and smiling out at the New York skyline. Sixteen, and he doesn’t even need to finish high school to run the world. Honestly, screw taking a degree in finance; he’s going down to Wall Street and turning his trillions into a gazillion, and he is never setting foot in some dumbass liberal hipster campus in his life. Nope, Eric Cartman is going to live out his dreams of making cold, hard cash off of child sweatshops in Asia, and nobody will stop him.
“What the hell are you doing, fatass?” The door to his office busts in, revealing Kyle, clutching a case of Alan keys and wearing the most righteous expression Cartman’s seen in a while.
Cartman tilts his head. “Running a business, Kahl. What does it look like?”
“You think I don’t read the paper, Cartman?”
Cartman tilts his head. “Well, no one else does-“
“I know what you’ve been doing, asshole! I’ve read the reports about your company colluding with and infiltrating the US government! For god’s sake, you’ve been trying to buy out seats in the Senate!” He slams down the latest edition of the New York Times, taking a step towards Cartman, his fingers twitching. “I swear, Cartman, I am not going to let you ruin American democracy! You can’t be allowed to just – take over the country like that!”
Cartman thinks it over. He can go two ways with Kyle: he can fight him, which will no doubt be entertaining, but will probably end with him getting booted off into the streets and Cartman Enterprises bankrupt.
Or, he can try option two. He uses it rarely, and it makes him bite his tongue, but it’s got a near hundred-percent success rate.
He looks Kyle dead in the eye, and he smiles. “Do you want a job in the treasury?”
Kyle blinks. “What?”
Cartman sighs dramatically, slinging his arm around Kyle’s shoulders and trying not to think of the way Kyle shivers slightly at the touch. “Okay, Kyle, I admit it, you caught me. I’m trying to take over the world, starting with the US government.” He waves his hand at what is inevitably the start of Kyle’s offended tirade.
“Think about it, Kyle. You could do whatever you wanted – fix the world, feed the hungry, institute humans rights or whatever other dumb gay shit it is your wet dreams are about.”
“For God’s sake, I-“
Cartman presses a finger in front of Kyle’s lips, turning to look him in the eyes. “Kahl, we’ll talk about your taste in porn later. For now, listen to me. I’m going to do this. But if I’m going to succeed-“ He pauses. “-I want you at my back.”
Kyle’s eyes go wide. “Cartman-“
“No, Kahl, I’m seriously. I-“ There’s no words for what he wants to say, this weird jumble of words and emotions and memories that pop up into his mind when he tries to define this thing, this emotion that’s been building in his chest since God knows when. He knows he sounds exactly like he did when he was ten, trying to manipulate Kyle, but this time it’s different. It’s different.
“-You’re the best person for the job,” He falters, noticing how his finger is still on Kyle’s lips, noticing how Kyle hasn’t pushed Cartman away.
Kyle blinks, and then he does, grabbing Cartman by the wrist and squeezing so hard he’s pretty sure he’s losing circulation.
“You-“ He starts, then shakes his head. “I can’t let you do this.”
“Why not?”
Kyle pauses. “-Because you’re Cartman, and you think you’re great enough to play judge, jury and executioner, because you’re a racist pig, because-“
“-You don’t understand other people and you’re a sociopath,” Cartman imitates perfectly, and Kyle’s gaze snaps up to him, and he can tell they’re both thinking back to fourth grade, when Cartman made that dumbass story about the Antichrist and gave Kyle AIDS (not for real, that time,) and suddenly Kyle just starts laughing.
Cartman has no idea why, but it’s contagious. Soon his knees have buckled, and he saying through laughs, “You should – try to – beat me, Jew. See if you – can do – any better. Asshole.”
Kyle looks up at him, grinning wildly and clearly forcing himself to breath. He says, “You’re on, motherfucker.”
*
Three months later, they’re in some board room, and Kyle’s grinning smugly at him, his finger hovering over the button that will completely and utterly destroy the million-dollar enterprise that Cartman’s built from the ground up.
Cartman sees him, and for the first time it all clicks.
He thinks, I’m doomed.