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8
The Friday before they’re let out for Winter break, Kyle asks his mom if he can spend Christmas at Stan’s house. He goes to school, stewing when she tells him very plainly: “no.”
He voices his frustrations to Stan during lunch, his desk squished between Stan and Kenny’s because Cartman always makes fun of him, and Kyle doesn’t sit with him if he can help it. The only comfort he has is the large cookie his mother packed, and even that’s dimmed by the prospect of spending Christmas with his family while everyone is celebrating and opening presents.
“That sucks,” Stan tells him, although he seems more preoccupied with his sandwich than with Kyle’s complaining.
Kenny pats his shoulder sympathetically.
“Why don’t you run away?” Stan asks. “You can stay at my house.”
Kyle pretends to think about it for a second. “My parents won’t let me,” he says, hoping he waited long enough for it to seem genuine. He’s thought about it before, but his mom would go absolutely nuclear.
Stan snorts. “That’s the point,” he says, and Kyle is scared he’s going to realize that Kyle is a coward, but Stan drops the subject when he gets distracted with closing his lunchbox.
Kenny stays quiet. Kyle stopped asking why he doesn’t bring lunch — Kenny never answers, but he always takes food when Kyle offers it to him.
“What presents are you getting?” he asks.
Stan grins. “I asked for a racer truck.”
Kyle stamps down the jealous feeling in his stomach. He’s sure Stan will share it with him.
“What did you ask for, Kenny?” Stan asks. He glances at Kyle when Kenny shrugs and pulls his hood tighter around his head.
Kyle feels bad for bringing it up all the sudden. He breaks his cookie into two pieces, and after a moment of hesitation, hands Kenny the bigger piece.
Kenny doesn’t say anything, but he pulls his hood down so he can eat the cookie, and so Kyle can see his smile.
11
The McCormick’s heating stops working on the third day of Hannukah. Kyle only finds out about it because Kenny’s mom saw Stan’s mom at the supermarket, and Stan’s mom told Stan. Kyle doesn’t like being out of the loop, but he’s more upset that he found out from Cartman rather than finding out last.
“I can’t have anyone over,” Stan says. “We’re spending Christmas with my uncle.”
Kenny hadn’t asked in the first place, and he shrugs. Kyle wonders if he’s just faking his indifference or if he actually doesn’t care.
“You can stay over at mine,” he says. His family won’t be out of town.
Kenny perks up at this, and three hours later he’s sitting next to Kyle on the bus, their shoulders pressed together on the ride home.
Kyle is prepared with a list of reasons why Kenny should be allowed to stay over, but his mom is surprisingly cool about it, although she does scold Kenny for wiping his mouth with his sleeve during dinner.
Kyle lets Kenny borrow his Terrance & Philip sleeping bag, laid out on the floor next to his bed. He doesn’t have sleepovers with Kenny often, and he’s realizing that it might get a little awkward. He doesn’t really talk to anyone but Stan at school — Kenny is mostly there by extension.
He feels a lot guiltier about it than he thought he would, and tries to make up for it by rambling on about things he’d think Kenny would like, starships and meteor showers. Kyle can’t tell if Kenny is really interested, but he stares up at him, wide-eyed, and Kyle ends up falling asleep first.
17
Bebe’s New Years party gets worse and worse every year. Kyle has voiced as such to Stan, who promises they’ll leave early but always ends up getting shitfaced instead.
Stan has started getting wasted at parties ever since he turned sixteen and is no longer ashamed of his habitual drinking. Kyle knows they’re still best friends, but sometimes he feels like he’s just there to be his designated driver. Stan does ‘cool drinking’ now, instead of that stuff he used to do when they were ten years old, the stuff he begged Kyle not to tell their parents.
Usually he would spend most of the party with Kenny, who stays sober enough for half of it to actually hold a conversation, but they’ve been subtly avoiding each other since last year, after Kenny kissed Kyle a minute after the ball drop.
He’d been willing to let it slide that night, but the next day Kenny had started being awkward, and Kyle got pissed off and didn’t talk to him for three weeks, and now they’ve been weird with each other for nearly a year.
Kyle sits on the white couch, nursing a soda that he doesn’t feel like drinking. There are two minutes to midnight, and pretty much everyone has paired off. He glowers at the TV, dreading the official pass of another year, preparing for the same underwhelming ball drop everyone else makes a huge deal of.
One more minute! The announcer screams on the TV.
He startles when Kenny drops into the space next to him, making him spill some of his soda.
“Hey,” Kenny says with a wide grin.
Kyle gives him a tight-lipped smile, not quite ready to let him off the hook so easily. According to Wendy, Kenny hasn’t hooked up with anyone in months, but Kyle isn’t the kind of person to think too much about that.
Thirty seconds! The announcer shouts.
“So, what would you do if I asked to kiss you,” Kenny says, trailing off before he can actually make it sound like a question.
Kyle blinks at him.
Twenty!
“What?”
Kenny winces. “I figured.”
“You’re drunk,” Kyle says skeptically, but he’s seen Kenny drunk enough times to know that he isn’t.
Ten!
“Um. No. But actually, that’s probably better for both of us—”
“You asshole,” Kyle cuts him off, suddenly feeling warm and fuzzy.
Kenny draws back, gaze flickering towards the screen to hide his hurt.
Three!
Kyle grabs him by the collar and pulls him forward.
Two!
Kenny’s eyes go wide.
Happy New Year! People shout around them as Kyle kisses him, and it’s the first time New Years has felt like it’s supposed to.
19
It’s snowing outside when Kyle finishes his econ final. People are still writing as he pulls his coat on and leaves the lecture hall. He’s not technically free — he still has two essays to write — but for now, he’s got nothing to do.
His RA is playing Michael Buble when he walks into his dorm, and the blast of heat blows his hair back when he opens the door. He hardly acknowledges anyone as he takes the elevator up to his room, gracelessly flopping on his bed without bothering to take off his hat, even though snow is soaking into the flaps.
He checks to see if he’s got any texts. Stan has sent him a picture of Sparky decked out in a Santa hat. Kenny sent a message of a rat holding a ‘good luck’ sign. Kyle has no idea where his rodent fixation comes from — Kenny doesn’t answer when he asks.
He video calls Kenny twice a week. His roommate, Derek, makes fun of Kyle when he turns down party invitations, but he honestly doesn’t care what Derek does as long as he gets their room to himself on Friday and Sunday nights.
His first year, he had thought he would go insane without the calls back home, but when things got busy the calls also made it worse. It’d gotten to the point where he had to schedule them, writing times down on his calendar, 9 pm, call Stan, 10 pm, call Kenny — it had worked for a few weeks, until an alarm had went off during one of their video calls on Friday night, and Kenny had realized too fast what it meant.
Kyle tried to explain he had to wake up early tomorrow, he had a huge presentation he needed to do well on, but the only things that came out were baseless excuses that Kenny seemed too hurt to see through.
I don’t want this to be a chore for you.
After thirty seconds of angry silence, where Kyle had tried to figure out how to explain that he was going a little crazy, and these phone calls were the one thing keeping him sane but were also everything that wasn’t, Kenny hung up. He ended up going to bed at 2 in the morning, and woke to zero notifications.
He’d been terrified Kenny wouldn’t call that night or the next or ever again, and felt too sick to even get angry, and when his phone had rung at 10 PM, he’d briefly considered not answering, or telling Kenny to fuck off, and ultimately ended up blubbering on the phone that he was sorry. It wasn’t a chore, nothing with Kenny ever had been.
Kenny had said: babe, it’s okay. I overreacted. I know you’re busy, and they’d never brought it up again.
It’s the first thing that comes to mind when he sees his latest text from Kenny.
Cant call today love u
The ‘love u’ is a small comfort, if anything, but Kyle is more worried that something happened, and he’s too far away to know about it.
He looks up when Derek walks in, shaking the snow out of his hair.
Kyle waves noncommittally. Usually, Derek waves or grunts back, but he actually smiles this time. “I think there’s a package for you outside,” he says.
Kyle frowns. He should have gotten an email for a delivery, and he wonders if Derek is sending him downstairs so he can have a few minutes to himself. Kyle doesn’t think too much about what he would do in those few minutes.
The lobby is pretty much empty, and Kyle scowls. He’s been had. He turns around to go back upstairs and—
“Kenny!”
Kenny grins at him, cheeks red from the cold. Kyle throws himself at him, laughing disbelievingly as Kenny wraps his arms around Kyle’s waist. “When did you get here?”
“Like, ten minutes ago,” Kenny says, sniffling from the cold.
“Did you drive? You didn’t have to,” Kyle says, pecking him on the nose. It’s a five hour drive back home, and the roads have been icy from the recent snowstorms.
Kenny presses their cheeks together, smiling from ear to ear. “I know. I wanted to.”
“You’re gonna have to stay in my dorm,” Kyle tells him.
Kenny looks mildly worried. “Will Derek mind?”
Kyle shrugs, tugging on his hands. “I’m kicking him out either way.” They twine their fingers together, giggling like little kids as Kyle leads them upstairs.
22
Kyle is fairly sure he’s not with Kenny anymore. Fairly sure because he’s not 100% sure they’re done for, but what else is a ‘break’ supposed to mean?
He’d asked Stan, who told him it sounded like “normal Kenny behavior”, which was not what Kyle wanted to hear but exactly the answer he was expecting from Stan. He didn’t know why he bothered asking. Of course Stan thought a quick text that said we should take a break, got some stuff to figure out was enough to suffice, he was the kind of person who would accept “just because” as an acceptable answer.
The last time they’d talked was before Winter break. It hadn’t even been a call. Kenny had texted: u going to wend’s party? Kyle had typed yeah, to which Kenny replied: cool
Kyle had been on his phone when he got the message, but he’d let it sit for another three hours before he said anything, something he hadn’t done since high school. He’d told himself it was okay because Kenny had started acting weird first, but it didn’t make him feel any less petty.
There had been no follow up, no hint as to whether or not Kenny would be going too. Kyle had considered calling to ask if he was coming, but he didn’t want to look desperate, or more desperate than Kenny probably thought he was. Having long distance conversations about what was going on between them always made Kyle feel like he was on a sitcom.
He pulls up to the party, already feeling frazzled, wondering if it’d be better or worse if Kenny showed up before he did.
He pretends he doesn’t see Kenny walking through the front door, pretends he doesn’t care that he walked in alone. He spends thirty minutes planting himself in Kenny’s peripheral vision, another thirty hiding in the kitchen listening to Token’s business internship offer at some big-shot company, and downs two more glasses of cheap alcohol before he works up the nerve to look Kenny in the eye.
“Hey,” Kenny says when Kyle taps his shoulder. He looks mildly surprised, and that annoys Kyle a lot more than it should.
“We need to talk,” Kyle blurts out, much less tactfully than he intended. Kenny dutifully follows him to the same couch they’d made out on five years ago, when Bebe had needed to break them apart. Kyle figures there might be a different kind of breaking this time ‘round.
They’re sitting too close for it to be normal, but Kenny hasn’t reached out to hold Kyle’s hand, or given any indication that he wants to. He’s fidgeting with his hands instead, picking at a bandaid on his knuckles.
“I’ve been thinking,” Kenny says, and he’s still not touching Kyle.
“Thinking what?” Kyle blurts out. Like ripping off a bandaid , he thinks. He wanted answers, but he wasn’t expecting to get them so soon.
“I’ve talked to some people,” Kyle stiffens, “and I might not be the best person for you,” Kenny finishes.
Kyle stands up and walks right out the door, startling Clyde as the door slams open. Kenny cheated on him. Or he realized all this was a joke. Or maybe both. Maybe Kyle has been his long standing sexual experiment.
“Kyle, wait,” Kenny calls. “That wasn’t the best way to phrase it—”
Stan’s eyes are wide as saucers as Kyle shoves past him onto the driveway, the snow crunching under his shoes.
He searches for his van in the stretch of cars wrapping the cul de sac, fishing for his keys in an attempt to distract himself from crying. He shouldn’t have come. He shouldn’t have thought taking a break meant anything good.
“Kyle.”
He hears the sound of Kenny following.
“Ky, you’re getting in your own head again,” Kenny says, and even now, his voice is soothing.
“Just say you’re breaking up with me,” Kyle snaps, turning to face him. “Thanks for taking up five years of my life.”
Rationally, Kyle knows he’s making a big deal and jumping to conclusions. Kenny’s right — he’s getting in his head — but their three-month break has completely scrambled his rationality, so if anything this party is just the detonator on a bomb.
“Are you breaking up with me?” Kenny asks, and no — he doesn’t get to have that kicked puppy look, or to sound so heartbroken.
“Don’t give me that.” Kyle is not going to cry. “Don’t play the victim. You know what? Good riddance! You can run off with your new tits and ass and forget everything you asshole .”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“ What are you talking about? ” Kyle thunders, a repetition and a question at the same time. He backs away from Kenny, who now looks extremely concerned. “I bet she's a real hot snatch,” he sobs. “Thanks for breaking up with me on Christmas .”
It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t actually celebrate Christmas, or that it’s technically Christmas eve. He’s also too incensed to regret unironically using the phrase ‘hot snatch’ — that’s something he’ll remember at three am when he’s trying to fall asleep. He’s going to feel awful after this regardless of whether he makes a scene, and what does he get out of walking away? Dignity? Kenny has probably wiped the floor with it already.
“Ky, you’re spiraling,” Kenny tells him. “Hey, hey,” he coaxes softly, moving forward. Kyle fixes him with a glare that would send practically anyone running, but Kenny’s known him too long to even be fazed anymore, and Kyle doesn’t have the energy to fight when Kenny wraps his arms around him. “Christ, where are you getting these ideas from? There’s no one else. I’m not breaking up with you.”
“Liar,” Kyle says petulantly. He sounds like a toddler, feels like one too, wrung out while throwing a tantrum.
“No, I’m not,” Kenny says with a touch of exasperation. “How did you come up with that?”
“You asked for a break! That’s code for breaking up!” Kyle insists, trying to tamp down his relief, because he really wants to rage.
“No it isn’t I — okay, that was a bad way to phrase it, but I — I just needed to think about some things.”
“Like what,” Kyle demands.
“Like, I dunno. You’re going to grad school, and I’m still here. I can’t leave until Karen has graduated, and you’re gonna meet new people and I — I might not be the one,” Kenny makes a face at the one, like he hates even saying something so sappy.
Kyle gapes. Sputters. Opens his mouth indignantly and closes it again. “Where’d you get that idea?”
“Hey, at least my idea is rational.”
“ No . It’s ludicrous!”
“Guys, you’re outside.” Stan seems extremely regretful that he’s sober enough to be telling them this.
Bebe pokes her head out behind him. “Yeah. Maybe don’t break up on my driveway?”
“We’re not breaking up,” Kyle snaps. He huffs angrily, scowling at Kenny who beams at him.
“We’re not?” he asks endearingly.
“No,” Kyle repeats, and pulls Kenny back towards the house with him.
30
“Clyde got married,” Kenny says, looking at something on his phone.
Kyle glances at him, pouring coffee into his mug. “Really?” He hums as he settles down next to him. There are reruns of the Bachelorette on the TV. Kyle would never admit it, but he’s gotten stupidly invested in it, mostly due to Kenny’s insistence.
Kenny shows him his screen; Clyde is wearing a standard black tux, his wife is beaming. Kyle squints at her picture, he doesn’t think she’s the girlfriend he met last year.
“Good for him,” he says perfunctorily.
Kenny grins. “Wanna get married?” he asks.
“Sure,” Kyle responds reflexively, attention focused on the TV. It’s one of their running jokes. Gay marriage isn’t legal in Colorado, and they used to stay up late whispering about moving to Australia or any place that isn’t South Park, but for some odd reason they’ve never been able to leave for too long.
Kyle figures they’ll finally break their streak when they adopt — he can’t think of anywhere worse to raise a kid.
“Ky,” Kenny says, “think about it for a second.”
Kyle looks at him, slightly annoyed at being distracted, but then he actually does think about it.
“Holy shit.”
Kenny smiles knowingly.
“It’s legal,” he whispers, shifting to face Kenny.
“Yeah,” Kenny says, eyes warm. Kyle half expects him to whip out a ring. They don’t talk about getting married often, just enough so the illegality didn’t sting so much, but it doesn’t matter now.
“I have to call Butters,” Kyle says, fumbling for his phone. Butters is a wedding planner, and he did Stan’s wedding and practically every other person’s that they grew up with. Their friends probably — definitely — expect it, and just like he thought, Butters lets out a glass-shattering squeal when Kyle tells him why he’s calling.
They can’t have the details ready in one night, and Kyle is torn between the urgency and his need for it to be perfect, because they’ve waited for years and what’s a few more months? Kenny tries to calm him down, but they’re both giddy and smiling like fools when they call Stan to tell him.
48
“Dad, do you know where my scarf is?”
Kyle looks up from the dining table. “Which one, sweetie?”
Keller comes down the stairs, her hair curled in ringlets. She’s always wanted curls like Kyle, but she has Kenny’s staticky blond hair instead. “The green one with the pom poms,” she says. Her eyes are a startling blue with the eyeliner, but Kyle doesn’t know enough about makeup to tell if there’s anything wrong with it.
“Have you checked the sofa?” he asks. Keller runs off before replying, and he hears her go found it! from the living room.
The bell rings right as she walks back into the dining room, winding the scarf around her neck. Kyle gets up and follows her to the door, but Kenny beats them both to it.
“Hello, sir,” says the gangly looking boy standing at the doorway. His name is Melvin, and Kyle can’t say he likes him much.
“Hi!” Keller says, pushing Kenny out of the way. “Ready to go?” she asks eagerly, pointedly ignoring the storm cloud settling over Kenny’s expression.
“Yeah. Um. I promise I’ll have her back before eleven,” Melvin says to Kyle. He’s standing completely rigid, also avoiding eye contact with Kenny.
“Do you have everything?” Kyle asks, trying to put on a friendly smile. He’s never been good at acting, but he’s doing better than Kenny, who isn’t smiling at all. Keller nods, already pushing Melvin down the front steps.
“Do you have your gun, Keller?” Kenny asks with no trace of humor.
Keller laughs awkwardly as Melvin goes pale. “He’s joking. I don’t have a gun.”
“ I do,” Kenny says unabashedly, even though he actually doesn’t.
Kyle pinches Kenny’s arm discreetly. “Be nice,” he hisses under his breath.
His expression warms considerably as Keller turns back to hug them, kissing both of them on the cheek. ‘Bye! Love you!” she calls.
They watch as the car pulls out the driveway and disappears around the corner. After a minute, Kenny slumps towards Kyle, grumbling. “I hate that kid.”
Kyle laughs. “He’s not that bad,” he says, which is true. Kyle dislikes him more for having nothing glaringly wrong with him than actually being a boring person. He knows Melvin will actually bring back Keller by eleven. Part of him appreciates it, and the other part thinks that it’s a little ridiculous.
Kenny walks into the living room and falls back onto the couch, raking a hand through his thinning hair.
“Kenny,” Kyle says, pausing to grab a bottle of wine. “You can’t make jokes like that.” He has this talk with him every time Keller brings a boy home.
“I don’t think he’s the right person for her.”
“She’s old enough to make her own decisions,” Kyle reminds him. He says it easily enough — he’s been repeating it to himself in hopes he’ll be comfortable with the idea someday.
“She’s seventeen,” Kenny protests.
“So?” Kyle sighs. “Kenny, we started dating when we were seventeen.”
“Yeah! And now we’re married! Christ, what if she marries him? His name is Melvin .”
Kyle rolls his eyes. “They’re not going to get married,” he ignores Kenny when he adamantly gestures at the two of them, “and Melvin is nice.” He holds back a wince. Kenny’s right. Melvin is an awful name.
Kenny covers his eyes with his hand, the slope of his shoulders tired, and Kyle smiles sympathetically, sinking down on the faded brown couch they’ve had for too long.
“She’s a big girl now,” he says, wrapping his arm around Kenny’s shoulders, even as the thought makes him feel a little hollow. Kenny gives him a look, and Kyle knows they’re both thinking the same thing. He cried the first time Keller told him that, refusing to hold his hand as they crossed the street.
They pass the wine bottle back and forth, falling into a reminiscent spiral. There’s a picture of them hanging over the fireplace. Keller is missing her front tooth, and the photo always hurts Kyle in a soft way.
Kyle has a belly now, and he’s not as fit as he used to be. Kenny has somehow stayed just as lean as he was when they were younger. He would still pick up Keller if she let him. Kyle wouldn’t be able to even if she allowed it; she’s taller than he is.
They murmur quietly, about the time Kyle taught Keller to fly a kite, about the time she scraped her knee riding a bike, the scar on her forehead she got from falling out a tree.
It devolves into more emotional territory once they’ve started on the second bottle. Kyle tears up thinking of their first fight, of having his heart ripped out of his chest. I wish I didn’t have any parents! He’d called his mother and cried, telling her he was sorry for all the stupid things he did as a kid. She’d told him Keller didn’t mean it, and he’d asked is this how much you love me? and had cried harder when she told him of course, bubbeh.
It’s 10 PM. Keller will be home soon, and she’ll go dad, stooooop when both of them smother her with affection, but Kyle doesn’t care. He and Kenny are both going to do it until they die, and someday when Keller’s got her own kids, she’s gonna realize the same way Kyle did.
55
“Be nice,” Kyle says to Kenny, setting the table.
Keller’s bringing her boyfriend of three years over for New Year’s Eve. Kyle has a gut-feeling he’s going to pop the question, and he’s got a feeling that Kenny knows it too. He’s been fidgety all day, rearranging the mantle over and over again.
He jumps when the doorbell rings. Keller walks in, shaking the snow out of her hair. Oliver follows, shaking Kenny’s hand as Kyle takes both their coats. Keller’s told Kyle over the phone that he has his own start-up company. Kyle has talked to Stan enough times to see through that kind of bullshit, but he hasn’t said anything.
He likes Oliver a normal amount, begrudgingly more so than Keller’s previous boyfriends. He’s polite, and Keller’s been with him long enough that Kenny has even stopped (not-very) discreetly threatening him.
Dinner goes by uneventfully enough. Oliver corners him in the kitchen later, when Kenny and Keller are watching the New Years show.
Kyle doesn’t want to hear a long, cheesy script about how much he loves Keller. He’d probably just pick it apart in his head, so he holds up a hand before Oliver can really ask. “Yeah, alright. You have my blessing.”
He’s a little offended by Oliver’s surprise. “Cool. I — uh, thanks,” he says, which is about as eloquent as Kyle expected he would get.
“Good luck with Kenny,” he tells him.
Oliver smiles. “Oh. He already said yes.” This time he looks offended by Kyle’s surprise.
They leave before midnight, Oliver grinning at the both of them like they share a huge secret. Kyle smiles at the two of them, shoulder pressed against Kenny’s as they walk out the driveway.
Kyle leans against Kenny and gauges his expression. He looks calm — content, even — as he rests his chin on Kyle’s head. “You’re surprisingly okay with this,” he comments as Keller’s blue Volvo pulls out of the driveway.
He feels Kenny shrug. “Figured he was here to stay after I threatened him the third time.”
Kyle pulls away and gapes. “ Kenny. ”
“What? She deserves someone who’s willing to get beaten up for her.”
“That’s not the point! Did you do that to all her other boyfriends?” Kyle groans when Kenny gives him a sheepish grin. The least he could do is look a little guilty about it.
“ I never threatened them,” Kenny offers.
“Oh my god. Don’t say it—”
“ Mysterion threatened them.”
Kyle rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “Kenny, you’re fifty-six—”
“Hey!” Kenny cuts him off, wrinkling his nose as he pulls Kyle back towards him. “I resent that. I’m still fifty-five for three more months.”
“Almost fifty-six,” Kyle amends, “and you’re still using that get-up?”
“You didn’t seem to mind last night,” he quips, yelping when Kyle slaps his shoulder. “What? Keller’s not here!”
“Save it,” Kyle laughs, leading them back inside. They watch the ball drop, even though it’s the same pointless drivel every year.
Kyle kisses Kenny at midnight, just like they’ve been doing since they were seventeen, just like they’ll do for every year after it.