Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Craig has a camera. Craig has a camera that he uses to take photos, because he likes to take photos.

The good thing is that with his camera, Craig can take photos of everything, he can take photos of Stripe, he can take photos of the sky, he can take photos of Clyde's ugly crying face. That’s the good side of his camera, which he really enjoys.

The bad thing about his camera that he doesn’t like -at all- is that before he can see what his photos look like, he needs to send them to the shop that’s on the other side of town to reveal them, then he has to wait at least three days before he can see them. Another thing he doesn’t like at all, is that he needs to pay for it, and the camera rolls. 

So the whole deal is that Craig has a camera that he likes, a lot. And uses it to take photos.

On november 26 of 2019, Craig is outside and he carries his camera with him. Craig takes pictures of some of his favourite places in town. 

He takes a picture of the cinema, he takes a picture of an old cool car he finds parked on the street, he takes a picture of a guy with a finger up his nose.

Another interesting thing that Craig does, because he has a camera, is walk. He walks a lot, well not a lot really since South Park is a small town, but he knows the town like the palm of his hand. Craig often walks around South Park, around the woods, around the buildings, around everywhere he can walk by. 

Then once again, on november 26 of 2019, Craig is outside and he carries his camera with him, while he walks around town. Craig takes pictures with his camera. 

He walks around town, takes a few pictures, and then walks round the woods, he walks around the snow, he trips once and is grateful that no one is around to see what happened. Later, when he keeps walking around, he notices that he has only five pictures left on his camera roll. Craig doesn’t like that about his camera. 

Still, Craig keeps walking, he snaps a picture of the trees. He has four pictures left.

He snaps a picture of a squirrel. He has three pictures left.

He snaps a picture of a deer. He has two pictures left.

He hears a gunshot, and out of surprise, he takes a picture. He has one picture left.

He hears someone scream something, and with the lens of his camera, he searches where it comes from, he sees something he doesn’t like. Out of instinct he snaps a picture. 

He has no more pictures left.

On november 26 of 2019, Craig is outside and he carries his camera with him while he walks around town. Craig takes pictures with his camera. He ends the whole roll, and he takes a picture of something he doesn’t like. On november 26 of 2019, he runs back home, he has a panic attack, he doesn’t leave his room, and he cries himself to sleep like he never had done it before.

When Craig wakes up, on november 27, he wonders why the fuck does his head aches so much, he wonders why the fuck is he so tired, and he also wonder when did he finished his last camera roll. Still, on november 27, Craig goes to a store that’s on the other side of town, he pays 10 dollars to the guy on the counter and he tells him he can come back in three days to get his pictures. He also tells him that he camera rolls are not 3 dollars anymore, but 5. Which is why he flips him off.

On november 30, Craig walks back to the store, he pays the guy five dollars, for a new camera roll, and asks for the picture he revealed for him. The guy gives him a package that has all the photos inside. Craig walks back home, he gets to his room, sits on his chair, opens the package, and starts looking at each one of the pictures.

He finds a picture of the cinema.

He finds a picture of an old car he likes.

He finds a picture of a guy with a finger up his nose. 

He finds a picture of the sky.

He finds a picture of the trees.

He finds a picture of a squirrel.

He finds a picture of a deer.

He doesn’t like the last two pictures.

He finds a blurred photo of someone in the snow.

He definitely doesn’t like the last picture.

Craigs finds a picture of Kenny bleeding in the snow, a hole of a bullet in his head. 

The thing is, Craig noticed,  that he remembers seeing Kenny at school yesterday, and the day before, and the day before. 

But for some reason, Craig doesn’t remember what happened the afternoon of november 26.

Chapter Text

“Is he still staring?” 

“Yeah dude I told you” Kyle said “he’s been doing it all day”.

“Come on, we need to come up with a plan” Cartman was still glaring at their stalker that was sitting a few tables away, not even bothering to be discrete “I say we kill him, we need to come up with a good story though, I know the place to hide the body, Kinny, we need your stupid truck to move it, if we’re fast enough-”

“We’re not murdering Craig, you dumb fuck” Kyle protested.

For some reason none of them knew Craig Tucker had been glancing, no, forget that, not glacing but staring, straight out observing them for a while now, and even if they were used to Craig and those other guys glaring at them, given their undying rivalry, it was getting weird now. Even Kenny thought it was weird, they were used to the scowling, the glares, even the yelling at each other and arguing and fighting, but this? This wasn’t something they were used to, this was something more.

“Why the fuck no?”

Kyle’s eyes never left Craig, “because I’m not going to prison because of him, fatass”

“Woah, dude maybe we shouldn’t do it because it’s also wrong?” Stan asked, glancing nervously between their two friends.

“Don’t be a pussy, Stan, '' Eric replied.

It wasn’t like he, in particular, had a problem with Craig; he didn't really mind him, it was indifferent to him. Yeah he could be an asshole most of the time, but so was Cartman, and Kyle, and most of the people of South Park. Even though Kenny was good at getting along with people, he was great at that, everyone loved him, but Craig? Craig was allergic to social interactions, he never talked to anyone who wasn’t his friends, and even then he never really seemed to actually care about them, only Tweek, and that sometimes, if you squinted maybe.

That’s why as soon as they noticed the strange behavior they started to prepare for the worst.

“M-maybe someone should ask him what’s wrong” Butters proposed, he was the only one that wasn’t glaring at Craig.

“Yeah, Butters great idea” Eric said bitterly, before adding “then we can all go and suck each others dick”

Kenny grinned at that, yeah, Eric was an asshole but at least he was funny. 

“That wouldn’t be so bad” he said, making his friends take their attention off Craig and turn it to him, all three of them scowling and fake gagging. 

“Ugh, can’t you just quit being gay for a minute?” Cartman asked “It’s like you can’t just go a day without pleading for someone to stick two inches of their tongue in your ass”.

At that Kenny couldn’t help but laugh.

“Well, he’s not unnactravice so…” he jokingly suggested. 

At that, Stan punched him on the shoulder, while he grinned. It was also at that same instant that Eric’s face became more serious, shifting in his seat while straightening his back, as he started right into Kenny’s eyes.

“Don’t, Kenny, just don’t fuck Craig, I swear I can take it if you want to fuck Token or even Tweek, but for the love of god don’t fuck Craig”. Eric pleaded.

Kenny shrugered, pretending to be thinking about it, even if he wasn’t, the idea of making Cartman so worried and panicked over him fucking someone he didn’t like was hilarious, so he played along for a second.

“I don’t know, man” he said, and Kyle gave him a small smile, knowing quiet well he was  just fucking with him. “He does look kind of hot when he’s mad”.

As if it had been scripted that’s when everyone on the table noticed that someone else had joined them, and of course, Craig Tucker was standing there by their table, his expression turned into one of pure anger and hatred, as if they had done something horrible to him, something bad, but for their record the week had yet started again and they hadn’t done shit. 

“McCormick” he said, and that just made them all more confused.

The four of them just stared at each other, not knowing what was going on, mostly confused because whatever Kenny had done, they didn’t know, mostly because they spent all their weekend together, so it didn’t make sense to them. 

“Yeah?” Kenny asked, unsure of what was supposed to go down next. 

Kenny and Craig had a weird history, not a really warm one, or a bad one, they just had a strange history. It went from having fun as kids, to throwing rocks and fits at each other during their last period of middle school, to sharing secrets cigarettes and detention during their freshman year, to ignoring each other as much as they could the rest of their time, Now, in senior year, there was nothing major going on, but Craig didn’t hate him, he just hated his friends.

“Need to talk to you” he simply said, his eyes only focusing on him.

Of course, Eric chose that moment to interrupt.

“What the fuck you need to say to him that you can’t say in front of us?” he dared. 

Not even for a second Craig moved his eyes off him, not bothered by the words that Cartman had said to him, almost as if he had never even opened his mouth.

“Yeah, what the fuck are you doing here?” Kyle also asked.

And Kenny would have been really greatful for his friends standing up for him, if it wasn’t because Craig didn’t look like he was having fun, no he looked like he was planing murder, also, when he glaced at Craig’s table, he also noticed that his friends were staring at them equally confused as he felt, almost as if they didn’t know what Craig deal was either.

“I didn’t ask, McCormick '' Craig spoke again, snapping him out of his thoughts. 

This time, he took a second to stare at all his friends, he knew what they were all thinking, he just had to say the word, or make one move and they would all stand up. That also meant that Craig’s table would stand up, and there would be a huge fight, and they were all going to end up in detention again, and that would just develop into another fight. Kenny didn’t feel like having two fights on a monday, so he just turned to Craig and nodded.

Standing up and giving a reassuring nod to his friends too, he made his way behind Craig who started walking outside the cafeteria. Once they reached out the hallway, he was quickly being pinned to the wall behind him, not even giving him the time to process what was going on, before Craig’s hand was already on his neck, and he was giving him a look that he had never seen on anyone in his life.

“What the fuck is your problem?” he asked, tightening the hold on his neck a little, making Kenny’s own hand move instinctively over his, praying for a little bit of release “you think this is funny? You think this is some kind of twisted joke?”.

Kenny was having a huge problem trying to understand what was going on, there was a lot going on in one moment, one second he thought he and Craig were going to have some sort of argument or talk over who knows what and then he was being pushed against a wall, while Craig tried to choke him to death -which me was really looking forward to not happen today (it was a monday for god’s sake)- while accusing him of doing something terrible apparently.

“W-what?” Kenny tried to ask, wide panicked eyes staring straight into Craig’s murderous ones, as he tightened the hold on his neck a little more.

This time Kenny’s nails dug into his hands, because now he was seriously doing some damage.

“You think this- What kind of fucked up thing you think you’re doing? Is your fucked up group of friends behind this as well?” he kept on asking, and Kenny just kept on understanding less and less.

“I don’t understand” Kenny said once again, he could barely make those words out.

During five seconds, Craig just stared at him, not moving, not punching him, not asking him anymore questions, just staring at him, almost as if he was trying to understand if Kenny was being serious or if this was just him trying to act his way out. Kenny just felt like he was about to start choking for real at any moment if Craig didn’t release him soon.

Luckily for him, he did.

Kenny dropped to his knees, as he started coughing, his eyes watering a little over the lack of oxygen that was going inside his body, while staring up at Craig, confused and scared of what was going to happen next.

Craig just turned around for a second, grabbing some of his hair under his chulo, and muttering slurs under his breath before turning around to stare down at Kenny once again, who was still trying to catch his breath and staring up at him.

“I don’t know what the fuck you and your fucked up friends are doing” he said this in a low voice, before lowering himself so he was face to face with Kenny, pointing at him with his index finger, desperation and anger in his voice “but fucking stop it, cut this shit out for good, before I fucking kill all of you”. He said before making his way into the cafeteria once again, leaving Kenny still on the floor with both of his hands on his own neck where Craig’s hands had abused him.

Well, that didn’t make sense to Kenny at all.

It was only a moment later that the bell rang that students started making their way out, while he standed up from the ground and stared at the door confused as his friends made their way out, looking for him.

“So, what did he want?” Stan asked him.

All of them were expecting him to answer, but before he could open his mouth, Craig and his friends were already making their way out, while Craig stared at him with the same murderous look as a moment ago when he was strangling him.

“I’ll tell you guys later” Kenny said before making his way to the next class.

Luckily for him he didn’t have more classes with Craig that day, he just had English left, that he had with Butters, and Cartman. Still, there was also Tweek and Clyde in that class, but none of them seemed to pay him any mind, so that just cleared it out for him that this wasn’t a ‘Craig and those guys’ kind of problem this was just a ‘Craig’ kind of moment, which, wasn't any better to be honest.

Once they finished, and picked all of their stuff, they left the classroom to meet with the rest of his friends outside, once they reached Cartman’s house and made their way to his basement, was when someone finally asked the question.

“So what did he want?” Stan asked, as he sat on the couch, while he laid his legs over Kyle who was seated over the other end of it.

Kenny stopped to think for a second, what had Craig wanted? He wanted answers he wanted to murder him, he wanted to choke him to death aparently and not in a good sexual way. But still, he didn’t really know what teh fuck did Tucker wanted.

“I-” he started meeting the expecting glances of his friends “I don’t know” he finally said.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Eric asked. “Did you fucking kncked your head or soemthing?”

“Yeah dude, what happened?” Kyle insisted too.

There was silent for a second, Kenny didn’t know what to say, really, he had no idea of what the fuck had happened, he didn’t know what had Craig wanted or what the fuck did he meant with all he said. So honestly, he had no idea of what he was supposed to say.

Well, he had an idea of what he could say, he could say the truth, but did he want to? That was the actual question.

If he said the truth, it was most likely that the guys would get mad, and so revenge would happen, which also meant hat a fight would happen, which also meant that Craig would get even more pissed off at him, because he would think that Kenny actually understood what he had told him, even if he didn’t which mean he would have to fight with him on a regular basis at least for a while, while his friends got in trouble for something he could have avoided.

If he didn't , well, he could just say some random shit, and they guys would most likely roll with it and none would have trouble, and hopefully, Tucker would forget and he would be happily left alone and without being choked to death at random times of the day.

Kenny shrugered, acting as if it wasn't as important “I don’t know man, someone made him a prank, and he thought I was the one who pranked him”. He said before taking a cigarette and lighting it up.

“Why would he think it was you?” Stan asked, curious.

Kenny took a drag of his cigarette shrugging again, hoping that his friends would leave the subject alone.

“Don’t fucking smoke that shit here” Eric said, from behind him, smaking him on the back of his neck.

Kyle, who was eyeing him suspiciously, asked.

“Yeah, why you? I mean, you’re like the least problematic out of all of us” he pointed out.

“No, actually that would be Butters” Kenny argued, pointing at their friend who was silently listening to the conversation and smiled at him.

Eric huffed “Nuh-uh, Butters is the pussy of the group, Stan is the classic american white boy” Stan frowned at that, “Butters’s a little freak deep down, he just doesn’t know it yet”.

“Aw jeez” he mumbled under his breath, color rising in his cheek.

Kenny took a deep breath before taking another drag of his cigarette completely ignoring what his friend had told him about smoking there.

“Well, I don’t know,” he simply said, before dropping his feets on one of the arms of the couch he was sitting on, and throwing his head back on the other arm just to face his friends backwards. “He just said to stop fucking with him and I said ok” he turned to look at Cartman who was still staring at him as if he knew he wasn’t telling the whole truth. “Anyway, can we order pizza?”.

Just as he expected everyone left the subject, and quickly turned to argue about what types they should order.

The rest of the day was quite normal, like nothing had happened, and luckily for him so was the next day, with the exception that Craig still glared at him every time they crossed paths. It wasn’t until Friday that it happened. They were hanging out just making their way downtown, Kyle and Cartman arguing while Stan and him just rolled their eyes, and talked quietly over some other stuff. 

It was then when he noticed Craig on the other side of the street, he was holding a camera, and snapping a picture of some buildings. Kenny turned to stare at the building that Craig had taken a picture of, it was just like any other apartment building in town, he didn’t see the appeal to take a photo of it. But then Craig turned to look at him the camera still in his hands, he glared, Kenny just gave him a confused look, and just as they started to cross the street, a car appears out of nowhere, and before he could react, he was pushing Stan out of the way and soon after he was hit by the upcoming car.

For a second everything turned black, and he hoped he was just dead, like finally dead.

But as he started to feel all the pain at once, he noticed that, no, today wasn’t one of those days were he would die quickly.

“Oh my god, they killed Kenny!”

“You bastard!”

Honestly it had been a long time since he last had heard that line, it almost made him laugh. As they grew older, sometimes the guys would just scream or curse, or just panic when he died. Except for Cartman because, well, obvious reasons.

When he finally opened his eyes, he was found with the worried and panicked faces of Stan, Kyle and Craig, they were all saying something he didn’t understand. He could form out something like ‘stay awake’ and ‘don’t close your eyes’ and ‘ambulance’ or some shit.

Kenny couldn’t care less, he just fucking wanted all of it to be over for once and just wake up alive once again. He knew that Cartman would hear him bitch about it as he always did.

He closed his eyes.

He woke up on monday, he sighed in relief once he noticed he was laying on his bed. He got up, got dressed, and made his routine as if it was any other day. Once he passed by the school door, and found his friends, he smiled at both Stan and Kyle, who smiled and waved back at him. Cartman gave him a firm nod, making him know that he understood, and would hear him bitch about his latest death any time he wanted, probably that same day when he and Cartman were alone.

Before he could finally reach out his friends, once again he was being pinned on the lockers by his side, and there was a hand around his neck once again. 

“What the fuck did I fucking tell you?!” 

Right in front of him, was Craig-fucking-Tucker, staring at him with that murderous look on his eyes, this time not even bothering to be careful with the strength with which he was holding him by the neck, making him instantly choke as his nails digged into his hands, pleading for release.

Craig took notice of the panicked look of the blue eyed blonde he was currently choking, he was gasping for breath. He honestly didn’t know where the strength came from, but he was currently pinning Kenny on a wall filled with lockers holding him a few inches off the ground just with a hand on his neck as the other was right beside his face.

“The fuck you think is funny?! You think this is a fucking joke to you?!”.

Right at that moment, Stan, Kyle and Cartman came to interrupt, Eric pushed him off Kenny. Lucky for him his own friends came rushing to side with him, he stumbled but released Kenny, as the blond started coughing for air desperately, while soothing his own neck with both hands, still staring at him with panic in his eyes, scared that Craig would actually kill him.

“Hey!” Eric yelled at him, “what the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” 

Craig couldn’t talk, he was too busy, trying to calm down, his eyes still focused on Kenny. He was breathing hard, and having a problem trying to control himself to just punch him in the face.

It was Clyde who talked “What the fuck did he do to him?” Clyde asked, referring to Kenny who was also busy staring at Craig.

“He didn’t do shit, asshole!” Stan said, with narrowed eyes.

Clyde let out a huff, still glaring at them “and what are we supposed to believe that?”

Now, to be honest, Craig didn’t want to drag his friends into this, he was glad, yeah, that no matter if they didn’t know what was going on they still sided with him, but still, he just wanted to kick McCormick’s ass so he would just leave him alone, but apparently now this was everyone business, because people were now starting to surround them, expecting for a fight.

“He didn’t do shit!” Kyle exclaimed he took a step forward, and Token did the same “piece of shit over here just attacked him out of nowhere!”.

Craig’s eyes left Kenny’s for a moment and focused on Kyle.

“Call him that again” Clyde said, also taking a step forward.

Before he could react, Craig took his opportunity and punched Kenny on the face. It was then when everything turned into a mess, everyone fighting everyone, Tweek and Kyle, Stan and Token, Eric and Clyde, Craig and Kenny. It was a mess, everyone was on everyone, Kenny managed to kick Craig in the stomach, and also punch him in the face a few times, but Craig also managed to punch him twice in the face too, and throw him on the ground while kicking him on  the ribs a few times.

When everyone was bleeding at least from somewhere, that’s when a teacher finally broke the fight down, sending them all to the principal's office. One by one, they went in, told their side of the story, and went to class, everytime one of them left the room they scowled at the other friends.

It was when Kenny was writing down what the math teacher had written in the blackboard, sitting next to Cartman, when the door opened revealing Craig Tucker being followed by the same teacher that had broken up the fight. Not leaving his eyes off him, Craig made his way towards one of the desks that was on the other end of the classroom. Even if Craig hadn’t stopped staring at him with a murderous look, Kenny couldn’t help but stare back with a bit of confusion.

Craig had a split eyebrow and a split lip, he had some bruises forming on the same eyebrow that had now stopped bleeding and on his jaw. Kenny on the other hand, also had a split lip, but a bloody nose, a bruise forming on his left cheek and he was definitely going to have a black eye.

He was angry, of course he was angry since he just had been assaulted for no reason at all, the day he came back to life, he needed a fucking breath, stil he didn’t really understood why that had happened, why did Craig Tucker, out of all people. had suddenly declared him guilty of some crime he didn’t know about nor committed?

Next to him, Cartman, who was in no better state than he was, also glared at him, but Craig didn’t seem to care, too busy focusing on Kenny.

It was also at that same moment when the teacher that had scolded him, announced that only Craig and him were going to have detention together. Because that seemed like a good idea.

During the rest of the school day, both groups of friends stayed together as much as they could, Jimmy and Butters who joined them later, not being there when the fight had happened, were quickly noted about the current situation, keeping an eye open for the next attack. No one really asked neither Kenny or Craig what was the problem, just stuck together and supported them.

It was at the end of the day, when both groups of friends turned to them to say their goodbyes, goodlucks.

Cartman asked him a few times if he was going to be ok? Kenny answered every time with a nod and a small smile. 

“Ok, no cell phones, no talking, no arguing, no fighting” the teacher that was in charge of their detention said as he sat on the front desk “if you want to go to the bathroom, go now, do your homework or something but don’t talk.”

Craig and Kenny were both seated as far away from each other as they could. Kenny on one of the corners on the front rows, and Craig on the opposite corner of the last row, Kenny could feel his eyes on his neck.

During the first ten minutes, everything was fine, he could get past this, only fifty minutes more to go and he would be free.

But because he was Kenny McCormick, today wasn't his lucky day, because soon after, the teacher yawned, and told them that he was going to be making a call ‘outside the classroom’ and to be quiet, which mostly meant that he was going to leave but they needed to stay in there for the rest of their detention.

As soon as the teacher left, Kenny could already feel himself starting to sweat, he was staring down at his desk, playing with his hands, and staring at them as he prayed for Craig to just leave him alone. His knuckles were red. For the first ten seconds nothing happened.

Then the sound of someone getting up from the chair filled the room.

Out of insitc Kenny shut his eyes tight, letting out a deep breath as he prepared for the worst, he held both his hands together tightly. He then heard the steps, getting closer, closer, closer.

It was when he felt them stop right in front of him as something was dropped on his desk that he opened his eyes and looked up at him. Craig was staring back at him, eyes narrowed.

“Care to explain when the fuck did break into my house and took those?”. He said, gesturing with a movement of his head to the pictures that were on his desk.

Kenny followed the movement and picked them both up, confused at first. 

Then he stopped breathing. His eyes widening into a shocked expression.

It was his both most recent deaths. Craig had managed to take a picture of his death, twice. He didn’t know it looked that horrible from Craig’s angle, but it was horrifying, all that blood, the details of pieces of his brain on the snow, his awful lifeless expression, or the awful position of his body when the car ran him over, he could see all the bone of his leg popping out, he could see how awful it was.

Then it dawned on him,

Craig had pictured his deaths.

Craig Tucker, had pictures of him dying.

He looked up at him, with a glint of light in his eyes. Craig just kept on glaring at him.

Kenny gasped.

Kenny’s more than thankful for Craig’s patience, yeah he did punch him in the face again,but he did listen too. Even with blood flowing down his nose once again -thanks to Craig’s fist- Kenny couldn’t help but smile at him, which only made Craig frown even more. At some point during his monologue, Craig had picked up a chair and set in looking in the opposite direction in front of Kenny’s desk, Craig sat on it, his arms crossed over the back of the chair, as he listened silently to whatever Kenny had to say. And what Kenny had to say was a lot.

For a second, Craig was mad, he was pissed off, he wanted to punch him in the face, wanted to kick his ass and swipe the floor with it, but for some reason, for some annoying and unknown reason, Craig doubted.

He doubted because Kenny, the guy who was grinning at him like this, was one of the happiest moments of his life. But also Kenny had a good point, he didn’t remember friday’s afternoons, he also didn’t remember what happened the afternoon of november 26, so Craig doubted.

“Fine” he said after a moment of silence, still staring at Kenny “Let’s say I believe you, what now?”.

Kenny blinked, right, he didn’t know, what happened now? He shrugged before wiping his bloody nose with the back of sleeve.

“Nothing” he simply said.

Now it was his time to look confused “Nothing?” Craig asked.

Kenny nooded, as he relaxed on his seat, still smiling at him “Yeah, I mean, you’re the second person to actually know about this” he said “but there isn’t really much you can do”.

Craig was… Amused to say the least, he was confused, pissed off, surprised, he was feeling way too many emotions at once than what he was used to.

“So I just go on” he started saying “like nothing had ever happened”.

“Yep”.

“As if you don’t die on a daily basis”.

Kenny scratched the back of his neck, smiling sheepishly. “It’s not like I die every day, you know?” he admitted “just sometimes, I used to do it more often as a kid, only Cartman remembers, really”.

Now Craig felt kind of sorry for him, not that he was going to show him. But dying at least once a month, having no one to remember, except for a  fat bastard, and not being able to do nothing to stop it? Not having anyone believe you? That was fucked up. 

Wait a minute , Craig thought to himself, do I really believe him?

He was being ok with this far too soon for his liking.

“What proof do you have?” he demanded.

Kenny just blinked at him, confused.

“Dude, I don’t that’s what I’m telling you, no one fucking believes me” he explained, with a sad look on his face “everyone fucking forgets, only Cartman remembers and we don’t really know why. It’s not like I want everyone to forget about it, but I don’t know dude, it just happens” he said the last part shrugering.

There was something that Craig just couldn’t put a finger on.

“And so what?” he asked “Fatass just-” he struggled with his words “is ok with it?”

Kenny shrugged once again.

“I guess?” he said, Craig just blinked at him, still staring at him with a confused expression “look I don’t expect you to believe me, I don’t expect you to do anything about it, hell you can never talk to me again for all I care about, but this here?” he said, picking up the picture of him with his brains blown up in the bloody snow. “This here is the only proof I have”.

Craig cringed at the photo. 

He still couldn’t quite believe it, but the photo was a really strong evidence that what Kenny was saying was true. Not only it was because, well, Kenny was clearly dead in the picture but alive and talking to him right there, but also because the details, the sight of it was nothing like one of a horror movie.

It was awful, disgusting, horrid. He didn’t have enough adjectives to describe it. It was so wrong.

He threw up the first time he saw it.

“So?” Kenny asked.

Craig didn’t know what to say, so what? Was he supposed to hang around him now? Was he supposed to say ‘be careful’ every time they saw each other from now on? What was one supposed to do when you found out that your classmate/rival/guy you just punched in the face multiple times, was inmortal? He had no idea.

“Ok” Craig said, he didn’t know what he was saying ok to.

Kenny seemed pleased at that, he was smiling at him once again. That was when the teacher opened the door, phone still in his hand.

“What are you doing here? Hour’s up, go home” he told them, with a hand on the speaker as he turned around to keep talking.

Both Craig and him looked at each other before picking their stuff up, Kenny finished first but waited for Craig to take his backpack up to start moving. They were out the door making their way outside the school, before Kenny handed him the pictures of his deaths.

“You don’t want them?” Craig asked, staring down at him.

It was then when Craig realised the height difference, it wasn’t that Kenny was short, he was just really tall. Currently, Craig was 5’9 and he was sure he was going to keep growing until being at least 6’1, while Kenny was a good 5’6, he wasn’t short for someone their age, Craig was simply really tall.

Kenny shook his head “Nah, keep them” he said as they kept walking.

“It’s nice to know someone else knows” he said once they reached the door, Craig pushed it open, while staring down at him with a raised eyebrow “even if you don’t remember, and there isn’t shit you can do, it’s nice to know that someone knows”.

Kenny smiled at him, in the same way he had done it when he had finished telling him the truth.

“I guess” Craig simply said, not really knowing what to do in that situation. 

Kenny simply nodded at him, “well, see you soon, Tucker”. He waved at him.

Craig just watched him go, before letting out a deep breath, holy shit.

He took out a cigarette, god knew he needed it.

What the actual fuck was he going to do now?

Chapter Text

The next week was… interesting, at least for Craig. He was still mad, pissed off, but he kept it to a minimum. 

He wasn’t mad at Kenny, he was mad because he was curious, and he didn’t want to be curious. Kenny now waved at him when they saw each other at school, the idiot actually smiled and waved at him. Craig simply frowned and looked away.

At first everyone was confused, both of their groups of friends had asked about the change of attitude, and even if Cartman was the only one who actually knew why they were on the terms they were, he still glared at him. Mostly because both groups still hated each other, they just didn’t fight again.

Craig had stopped going out to take pictures during the first two days, scared of taking a picture of another one of Kenny’s death, and choosing to join his friends over at Tweek’s cafe. It was nice, he didn’t usually go there anymore, at least not as frequently. Even if he and Tweek were on good terms after the breakup, both of Tweek’s parents still worked there and stared at him curiously every once in a while, and he didn’t like that at all.

The point was that Craig was still curious, and he hated everything. It was not normal for him to be curious, he hated that he was curious, he didn’t want to deal with McCormick's weird twisted life, he wanted to be left alone, and live an average boring, nice life. Of course when Friday rolled around, he couldn’t help himself, and just straight out went after Kenny.

They were all going inside the classroom, another math class, when he spotted Kenny and Cartman chatting, before he could chicken out, he made his way over there and took the seat next to Kenny before Eric could.

“What the- Hey! That’s my seat!” Eric protested. 

Kenny, who was already sitting beside him, gave him a questioning look.

“Now it’s mine” Craig pointed out, not even bothering to stare at him as he started to take his stuff out of his backpack.

Eric started between Craig and Kenny, expecting for his friend to do or say something.

To be honest, Kenny was kind of curious to know why Craig had suddenly decided to sit next to him, since the last time they had talked, Craig had made a point to ignore him as much as he could. Kenny stares at him for a second, he still had a some kind of scar over his eyebrow, where Kenny had split it, Kenny had his own in his lip. 

Eric glared at him when Kenny shrugered.

When Cartman left to sit besides Stonley, Kenny was already expecting Craig to ask him something or maybe just randomly say something, but it didn’t happen, instead Craig was busy searching for something in his backpack to pay attention to him.

Kenny didn’t really understand what was the deal, so he just rolled with it, taking his own stuff out for the class. That was until Craig actually did something.e

It was when he suddenly slammed a tiny object on his desk that Kenny turned his attention to Craig who was now staring at him with a straight face before raising an eyebrow.

“When I go to reveal this, and take a look at the pictures” he said “I won’t find anything disturbing, right?”.

It took a moment for Kenny to realise what was going on. Right in front of him, there was a tiny cylindrical tube, a photography roll. Great, Craig was asking if he had died recently and if there was a chance that he got to take a picture of him. The thing was, that as far as he remembered he hadn’t died, so he wouldn’t. But even if he didn’t have died recently, that didn’t mean that in the future, Kenny wouldn’t die and Craig would take a picture of him without him knowing, it already happened that time in the snow.

“Nope” he said and gave him a small smile.

He was disappointed when Craig simply nodded and proceeded to ignore him as the math teacher finally entered the room and started writing on the board and explained stuff. If he was going to be ignored by the rest of the class he would have told him to leave and made Cartman stay, at least then he could at least distract himself from the boring class.

“That’s all?” he asked anyway, Craig was still ignoring him, looking straight ahead and not paying him any mind. “You don’t have any more questions? No doubts?”

At least this time, Craig had the nerve to turn to look at him for a moment, before turning to stare right ahead.

Well, that was just mean. He was at least expecting something, surely Craig hadn’t just chosen to sit beside him so he could ask him that, no, right? It didn’t make sense, if Craig genuinely wanted to just ask him that and then ignore him again, he would have just asked him at another time right?

“Stop staring” Craig said.

If Kenny didn’t think Craig was a real asshole before, he surely did now.

“I wasn’t” he mumbled before turning to look ahead.

During the first twenty minutes, they didn’t say anything. Kenny simply started writing down stuff and solving his math problems efforsely, Craig, on the other hand, the dude had been glaring at the first exercise since five minutes ago.

“Need a hand?” Kenny asked, with a smirk.

Now Craig wasn’t dumb, he knew he wasn’t dumb. He may not be the brightest crayon on the box or whatever, but he was fine, he could defend himself, the only problem? Math. Craig was shit at math, he had tried and he had given up, it was like a completely new language for him, he didn’t understand anything about it, he didn’t understand why, how, or what. It was a lost cause that he had given up a long time ago.

“Fuck off” he grunted at him.

Kenny grinned to himself.

“You know, if maybe you would-”.

“Fuck. Off”.

Kenny rolls his eyes before focusing back on his own paper, Craig Tucker could go fuck himself for all he cared about. He was not going to make small talk with him, no way. Of course he wasn’t going to talk to him, no, no way, there was no way he was talking to him, Kenny? Attempting conversation with Craig? Here? No way! No way in hell there was a chance that Kenny would be trying to-

“It’s twenty five” 

Craig exhaled, he was seriously regretting sitting next to McComirck right now. Still, that didn’t stop Kenny from leading over and pointing out his mistake.

“You wrote down minus twenty five, but because there is another minus over here” he signed with his pencil, “it turns into twenty five, and the square root of twenty five, which if you-”

“Yeah,yeah, ok, I got it,” Craig interrupted him, pushing his pencil away.

Kenny smiled to himself.

“Why did you sit here?” he finally asked.

“Why do you never stop talking?” Craig asked back.

He couldn’t help but grin, it had been.. Quite a change to be honest, after all those years of being the quiet, shy kid with a parka, just to come out of his shell when highschool began. 

“Depends,” he said, glancing at him, while Tucker did all in his power to pretend he didn’t exist. “Are you going to answer my question?”

Yeah, Craig knew he had made a mistake, he let his head fall down and knocked it on his desk twice, clearly irritated by the blond’s… everything if he was being honest, because Kenny? Kenny had fucked the only thing he was good at. 

Indifference, Craig was good at being indifferent.

If he was being honest, he wasn’t just good at indifference he was the best, he was the most infierent person in South Park, probably in the whole state of Colorado. But of course, of course Kenny had to go and ruin the only thing Craig actually enjoyed about himself.

Craig was the best at minding his own business, he didn’t care nor wanted to know what the others were doing, talking about, he didn’t give a shit about the latest rumours, who cheated with who, who slept with who, he couldn’t care less, but then Kenny had to go and die in front of him like the asshole he was. Fucking idiot.

 “I wanted to know if I was going to find another picture of your fucking corpse in my camera roll” Craig answered with a cold tone.

Kenny did took offence on that “Well, for your information, I didn’t know you were there when I got shot in the snow” he said, while making a finger gun with his hand and making it shot straight to his head “so I wouldn’t necessarily be aware if you did take a picture of me dying, however” he quickly added once he was found with the irritated look on Craig’s face “for your information, no, I didn’t die this week, thank you for asking”. 

He grumbled the last part while turning his attention to his paper. 

Craig wanted so, so badly to mind his own business, he really did.

“Great”.

“Good”.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, none of them daring to talk first, Craig was busy thinking about how the fuck did Kenny managed to just die and come back, and just act like everything was ok.

Kenny was busy thinking that Craig was born without some muscles in his face that made him never smile. 

To his surprise, it was Tucker that broke the silence this time.

“Don’t die when I’m around”.

This time, Kenny was pissed. 

“You think I do it because I want to?” he asked him, raising his voice and making everyone’s attention turn to him “you think it’s fun for me? You don’t know shit, Tucker”. He spat as he angrily took his backpack and left the classroom, ignoring everyone’s looks.

Now Craig had a feeling he may not have said the right thing. He didn’t mean it like that, he just kind of wanted it to sound like ‘hey be careful next time’ or ‘i don’t want to see you die again because i’m sure it sucks ’ but no, he had to fuck it up.

And now everyone’s attention was on him, great. 

He banged his head on his desk once more.

Now he was sure the tables had turned, Kenny was ignoring him, no, he wasn’t he was avoiding him which was worse, why? He didn’t know, but wanted it to end. He had avoided him at lunch, during free period, it was when he ditched science to go to the back of the school to smoke that he found him. Laying with his back on the wall, and with a cigarette in his mouth.

Once he noticed him, Kenny closed his eyes before letting out a “are you fucking kidding me?” under his breath.

Craig just rolled his eyes, before lighting his cigarette, and searching in his backpack before throwing at Kenny’s feets the things he had forgotten to pick up in math class. Kenny cocked an eyebrow at him.

“You forgot those,” Craig simply said.

This time Kenny didn’t answer, instead he picked his stuff off the floor as he put them back in his old rusty backpack. 

“Ever tried to?” Craig found himself asking before he could stop himself “Not dying I mean”:

Kenny huffed a laugh, that was a dumb question, but at least Craig seemed to be sorry for what he said before, even if this was his weird Tucker way of showing it, and also, he could vent to someone about his shit withouth them calling him insane, so that was a plus.

“I mean, yeah” Kenny answered before taking a drag of his cigarette “but it’s not like that, I mean, it’s almost always so sudden, and when it’s not, when you think you can maybe manage to avoid getting yourself killed by whatever, it stills happens” he said turning to look away. “It’s not like I don’t try to avoid it, it’s just when I manage to move away fast enough to avoid getting hit by a car, then a truck comes from the other way and kills me instead”.

Well that was… That was fucked.

Craig wanted to say something, not friendly, not something cliche, but something to make him know that it was… ok? He guessed? He didn’t really know what to say, instead he simply nodded and stayed silent.

Kenny left a few minutes later, once he had finished his cigarette, just as the bell rang and everyone made their way home.

But Craig didn’t, instead he took his usual route to the small store on the other side of town, and handed the guy his camera roll, and paid him the money, not before buying a new roll. 

The three days after that were much less uneventful, now Kenny ignored him, he was not waving and smiling at him, but onoly blankly staring at him every once in a while, his friends still asked what the fuck was going on, and he still ditched some of his classes to go for a smoke break, all those times, he was alone. Not that he was expecting someone there.

Then on Wednesday, he went back to the store again, this time, he went before the school had started to pick them up. The guy in the store cocked a curious eyebrow at him which was quickly downed by Craig flipping him off.

He decided to actually check them out during science class. He started to stare at them one by one. A picture of Stripe, a picture of Tweek’s cafe, a picture of the night sky at Stark’s Pond, a picture of the mountains, pretty normal.

He was kind of annoyed.

There were other cool pictures too, like the one of Token and Clyde hugging and laughing, a picture of Tweek peacefully drinking coffee, a picture of- 

Well fuck him.

There were all normal photos, none of them were weird, or had someone dead on it. Which was good, hell he was a little relieved, he had a new roll now, he was going to take some awesome photos, At least that was the plan, but then thursday rolled around, and just as he finished put back some of his stuff in his locker, as he closed the door he was found with a familiar face looking up at him.

Still he wasn’t expecting him there, so he took a step back, startled at the sudden presence.

“Hey” Kenny said with a sheepish smile.

Great, he was going to have to deal with this again. Just as he was starting to forget, fuck his life.

“What” Craig demanded, since it wasn’t really a question.

A few students who were passing by stared at them, since the rumor of the fight had spreaded and so was the one about the math class, everyone was surprised to see Kenny and Craig in the same space without throwing fits at each other. This just spoke volumes about how the other students saw them as.

“Um” Kenny scratched the back of his neck and glanced to the side, avoiding eye contact at all cost “Yeah, so, you may not want to see the pictures you took yesterday”:

For a second Craig just stared at him confused, but then when he tried to remember what pictures he took yesterday, he realised he couldn’t really remember that wednesday evening, then it dawned on him. He casted his eyes up to the ceiling ,’you had to be kidding me’, he thought to himself.

“You’ve got to be kidding” he said as he let his head knock his locker.

Kenny gave him an apologetic smile.

“Look, I’m sorry it’s not my fault that you had to take a picture of it” Craig slightly turned his head from where it was just to glare at Kenny.

Technically, he was right, the problem was that Craig would rather kill himself than to admit to it but still. So Kenny had died again, which was not great? Yeah not great, and he, for some reason, had taken a picture, even if he didn’t want to see Kenny’s dead body again. Great.

“What is it this time?” Craig asked, his voice sounding more boring than he actually felt.

At the question, Kenny just stared and blinked for a second.

“U-um, well, you see” he started saying, clearly not used to people asking about his deaths “you know how Tweek’s parents were, well, are now, going to change the windows from the shop?”.

Yeah, he didn’t want to know anymore.

“Ok, that’s” he said as he ran a hand over his face, fuck, this was not something he was prepeared for “yeah that’s enough”.

“Yeah” Kenny said weakly, shifting in his place. 

Well this was awkward.

“Yeah so” Kenny cleared his throat “I just wanted to give you a heads up, so you know” he said making some gestures with his hands “don’t freak out or whatever”.

He was so going to freak out anyway. Kenny died because he was crushed or whatever by a gigantic window? And he took a fucking picture of his body with all the glass on him? Yeah, he was surely going to freak out about it. 

“No,” Craig blurted out before he could stop himself.

Kenny, obviously confused, stared at him “No?”

“No, I mean” Craig sighed, god he couldn’t believe this was his life now “I still have like ten pictures left, and I’m not going to waste my money just because-” there is a picture of your dead body on my camera , went unsaid “so you know, I’ll call you when I can get them back so you can, you know” there was no subtle way of saying this “take your picture?”.

Was that the polite thing to do? Ask the dead guy if he wanted to take his picture before he could see it? Maybe it was not polite, maybe he was offending Kenny in some way, but wait, why did he care if he was offending Kenny? Yeah, he had a picture of his corpse but still, he didn’t really need to care. 

“Yeah man” Kenny agreed “no problem, just tell me when you have them and I’ll pick mine up”.

For god’s sake, they were talking about trading murder pictures, on school, holy fucking shit how fucked up was that? When did his life become this just awful mess?

Kenny nodded at him as he left.

“Bro, what the fuck was that?” Clyde asked from behind his shoulder.

Craig let out a deep breath. “I have no idea”.

It wasn’t that Kenny had minded, really, he didn’t know how to feel about it, but it messed up with him a little. Craig had found out about his ‘super power’ and pretty much made more than clear that he was disturbed by it, not by his ability, but at the fact that he had actually seen his dead body. But for some reason, past Craig had still done it again.

The million dollar question was, why? Why had Tucker (the CRAIG TUCKER that didn’t give a shit about anything) had taken a picture if he knew he was going to be disturbed by it later? 

Maybe he wanted to start to take notice when he died, maybe he had some really fucked up fetish, nah he didn’t think so. He may have a thing for choking people though, Kenny pushed those thoughts to the side. The biggest problem though was that for some reason he had died 3 times in less than a month already, and that was, well, not normal.

It was normal when he was younger, but not now, he hadn’t died this often since he was ten. He wasn’t the only one that noticed.

“What the fuck is wrong with your death count Kinny?” Cartman had asked that same afternoon.

They were hanging in Cartman’s room, since he didn’t feel like going home, and he wasn’t in the mood to face Stan and Kyle like nothing had happened, he wanted to just bitch about his problem for a while and just have someone who would listen. Thankfully for him, he had Cartman.

“I don’t know” he groaned, pressing the balls of his hands into his eyes “I don’t fucking know, man”

Eric frowned, there must have been something that triggered it or something.

“Look” Kenny started again, staring at his friend upside down, from being lying down on his back with his head hanging from the edge of the bed “all I know is that since incident in the forest, this thing just fucking-” he made some movements with his hands.

“You mean since the fag pictured you?” 

Kenny narrowed his eyes at the slur. “Yeah, since Tucker , pictured me”

Eric rolled his eyes, spinning on his desk chair. “I still think we need to kill him”.

“No”.

“Why the fuck not?”.

“Because” Kenny rolled on his stomach, so he wouldn’t have to see him upside down anymore “he knows, he actually believes it, and I-'' he hesitated “I want someone to know, other than you”.

Cartman made some kinds of protesting noises, “even if it’s Craig?”.

Kenny exhaled “Even if it’s Craig”.

Even as Cartman huffed and cursed under his breath, Kenny knew that he would leave him alone for now. 

He didn’t really know how to describe the feeling of someone else knowing.  Cartman? He was used to it, he was glad about it, it made some things easier for him, but Craig? That was a whole new different deal. Craig knowing made not only the possibility of other people believing, but with his camera? They could have proof, actual proof about it. 

Of course that option was quickly left aside once he realised how horrible the pictures were, and how horrifying it would be for everyone else to see those. He already felt bad enough for Craig.

Who would have thought, not Kenny, that’s for sure.

He had almost forgotten about it all, when on Sunday, while he was playing videogames with his friends at Stan’s, he received a call from an unknown number. Hoping it was someone who had mistakenly called him, and would make a good prank material, Kenny answered.

“Hello?” he asked brightly, Kyle eyed him curiously while trying to stare at the screen at the same time, as his character was being beaten up by Cartman’s.

“McCormick”

Oh, it was him.

“Yeah, is something wrong?” 

Maybe he shouldn’t have asked that, because as soon as he did, Stan also turned to stare at him, a worried expression in his face. Kenny tried to dismiss it waving a hand in his direction.

“I need to go get the pictures”.

“What, now?” 

“Yeah, now”

“Can you just wait until-” 

“No, be at my door in ten”.

Before he could protest, Craig had already hanged, he frowned at his phone, but saved the number as ‘ cocksucker ’ and shoved it in his pocket.

“Who was it?” Kyle asked, before groaning when his character was brutally murdered by Cartman, who let out a loud ‘Ha!’ before giving Kyle his middle finger and turning to stare at his blond friend. Kyle scowled.

“It was-” shit he couldn’t just say it was Craig, Kyle and Stan would start asking questions he didn’t have an answer to, and Cartman would be pissed since he hadn’t told him about how he was going to pick his picture up. “It was Karen”.

At that everyone’s expression relaxed.

“Yeah, she’s uh, staying at a friend's house and wanted me to pick her up” he said getting up from the couch “So yeah, I better leave, I’ll see you guys tomorrow”.

“Bye”

“Goodbye Kenny”.

“Don’t die asshole”.

Kenny grinned at Cartman’s comment.

Since South Park wasn’t exactly the biggest town in colorado -more like the biggest shitwhole- no one really lived that far away from each other, they also knew where everyone lived, since everyone knew everyone, and there wasn’t much either. Still, once he finally reached the Tucker's household and knocked on the door and Tricia opened the door, the words that left her mouth surprised him.

“You’re late” 

Tricia Tucker was the younger of the Tuckers, also Karen’s best friend, and one of the baddest kids in freshman year. She was following the steps of her older brother, getting into fights, being as cold hearted as Craig was, smoking cheap cigarettes that she stole from her mom or brother, and giving everyone at all costs their iconic middle finger. 

Everyone except for Karen, that’s it. 

“What’s up Trish” he greeted.

He didn’t hate Tricia, they got along pretty ok, he knew she thought he was cool thanks to Karen, but he also knew that he would never hear those words come out of her mouth. Still, it was nice.

“You’re one minute late” she said this time before glancing behind her shoulder “are you and my stupid brother friends now?”.

Kenny wanted to laugh, yeah, sure, friends .

If she was another kid, he would have told her that yes, sure, but because she was Tricia, he didn’t “Not really” he shrugged.

Tricia studied him for a second. “Fine” she finally said, “I’ll go call him” she said before closed the door, leaving Kenny outside.

He sighed, great. It was finally December, there was only a week before the holidays, which meant no clases, and incredible amounts of snow everywhere as well as a nut-freezing weather. Biggest problem? The humble McCormick household didn’t have the correct furniture to survive those kinds of winters. Of course, they dealt with it anyway. 

And by dealing with it, Kenny meant leaving Karen to sleep at her friends house as much as he could, trying to search for blankets with not so many holes on it, crashing at his friends as often as possible and searching for a job that would pay him enough to afford for a Christmas gift for Karen or a new blanket he guessed. His parents? He wasn’t a hundred percent sure.

Craig finally appeared a few seconds later, smoothing his dark blue jacket, as he closed the door. 

“Well?” Kenny asked.

Craig cocked an eyebrow at him, before taking out a cigarette “Let’s go”. He ordered.

Kenny was perplexed for a second, he froze in place for a moment before jogging his way next to Craig who was peacefully walking down the street. 

“Wait, the pictures?” he asked, Craig ignored him as he took a drag of his cigarette. “Hello? Earth to Tucker, didn’t you want me to take the picture of my death?”.

Craig pretended that the mention of it didn’t just send shivers down his spine.

“We need to pick them up first”. 

Now Kenny was confused, he blinked at him not understanding. Craig had called him about the pictures, but he didn’t have them? He acted as if he hated him, as if his simple presence made him want to projectile vomit all over the place, but he called him to walk him to the store? That didn’t make any sense!

“You don’t have them?” Kenny asks.

Now Craig does look at him. 

“No, I told you I need to pick them up,” he said, flatly.

Wait, wait, wait, hold on a minute, that meant that he had ditched his friends, for nothing? He could be spending more time playing video games and just hanging with his friends, drinking cheap beer but he wasn’t because Craig expected him to walk with him to the store to pick up the pictures? Unbelievable.

“Well, where is it?” Kenny asks, turning to look at the street they are walking on.

“On the other side” 

“Of the street”

“Of town”.

“Dude!” Kenny exclaimes, which only makes Craig scowl at him.

“What?” Craig demands.

Kenny can’t help but let out a frustrated groan “You could’ve called me when you had already picked them up”.

Yeah, Craig had thought of that actually, but.

But.

He didn’t.

“So?” he shrugged and kept walking as if that conversation had never happened.

“So?!” Kenny squawks “so we have at least a forty minutes walk, just so we can pick the pictures, and then we have to go all the way back, just to go home” he was protesting as Craig simply stared blankly at him “Oh my god, I could’ve driven us there! What the fuck?”

Maybe, just maybe Craig should have thought of it.

But he would rather die than to admit that Kenny was right.

He shrugged instead and kept on staring right ahead.

Kenny could only stare at him horrified, this dude was insane.

After ten minutes of walking in complete silence, Kenny opened his mouth again,

“Are we there yet?” 

“No” Craig deadpanned.

Not even five minutes later Kenny asked again “Are we there yet?”

“No” he answered this time, sounding a bit more irritated.

The next time Kenny asked, there hadn’t even been 2 minutes since the last time.

“Are we there-”

“Shut the fuck up” Craig groaned, throwing his head back, pleading at the sky for him to just shut up.

Kenny huffed “this is your fault”.

Glaring at him Craig asked “You’re always this annoying?”.

“You’re always this bitchy?” he retorted

“I swear to god McCormick I’ll punch you in the face” 

“You punch like a little boy,” Kenny replied with a smirk.

“You whine like one”.

“Hey!”.

This time the corners of Craig's mouth twitched a little, but he managed to stop himself before a smile could appear,

“God, this is so boring” Kenny says, throwing his arms up dramatically “you always do this when you need to pick them up?”  

Well, it wasn’t like he had an option, given that he didn’t have a car nor a drivers license, a bike was way too dumb for him so no, he didn’t have an option. 

“Yes” said, but not before adding “now shut the fuck up for five minutes”:

Huffling, Kenny did, not because Craig asked him too, but because he wanted to. Speaking with Craig was like trying to talk to a wall, like trying to make a pig fly, it was impossible. He was sure that Craig was allergic to any human emotion too, the guy never smiled, or expressed any emotion other than boredness, annoyance or anger. 

Maybe it was because he had been so immersed in his own thoughts that he didn’t notice, or maybe it was because the place was actually nearer than he thought, but finally they made it. Kenny knew the store, it was an old shop that looked like it would fall apart at any given second, it was far away from downtown, far away from mostly everything. Once they went inside, Kenny noticed that it really looked like it was falling apart. There were two aisles and there were various products in no order at all.

As Craig made his way towards the cashier that looked like the definition of lifeless, Kenny decided to explore a little, there were different magazines, they were all old, like from 2015, he found some cookies, some chips, -god he was hungry- there were all kinds of stuff, just old. 

“Come on” he heard Craig call him, and just like that, they exited the place.

“Dude, that place was morbid,” he pointed out.

Crag was well aware of that, but it was the only place that sold camera rolls and revealed pictures, which he couldn’t do, because he didn’t own the chemicals that were needed and also he didn’t own a dark room, so yeah, this place was the only option for him. 

He shrugged noncomentally.

During the first five minutes Kenny tried to restrain of saying anything, but he couldn't. It was just so goddamn boring  there was no one on this side of town, it was just snow, the road, and trees, nothing more.

“So, you do this a lot?” he asked,

Apparently, he had made the right choice of picking the whole photography subject, because this time, Craig did acknowledge him, in a non-irritated way. He had glanced at him, an unreadable look on his face, before turning to stare back at front.

“Come here, or take photos?”,

“I don’t know, both I guess” he said, not really caring about what Craig was interested in talking about just whatever that would mildly entertain him.

There was a moment of silence where Kenny honestly thought that maybe Tucker hadn’t heard the question, but just as he was about to give up his plan of talking, Craig decided to open his mouth again.

“I take photos almost everyday” Craig says “I come here when I can, I have to pay for the rolls and for that dumb fuck to reveal them”.

That raised a bit of suspicion on Kenny.

“Hey how come he didn’t react to the-”.

Before he could finish his sentence, an old and rusty Chevrolet 3100 that was coming from their direction stopped right beside them, sensing that something was definitely wrong, both Craig and Kenny glanced at each other, before the owner of the old truck rolled down the window to reveal his face.

It was an old man, not old like seventy something or whatever, but old enough to be their parent, the guy had gray hair and a short beard, he was white and had blue eyes. Kenny didn’t like this one bit.

“Well, look what we have here” the man said “what are you, pair of youngsters doing in this part of town?” he asked.

Youngsters? Who even used that word anymore? Craig had decided that the guy was definitely fishy, something was off with this dude and he didn’t like it.

“Heading back home” Kenny answered, as he started walking once again, with Craig by his side. They shared a look that said exactly what they both were thinking.

The problem was that the owner of the truck also started driving at a slow speed, matching their steps.

“This is a dangerous place, kiddos” the man said, his eyes on both of them while they tried to ignore him as much as they could “A pair of young lads like ye, shouldn't be walking home alone” he smiled at both of them, Kenny noticed that he was missing a tooth “Watcha say I take you there, huh?”.

Yeah, there was no way that was happening. It took them one look before they knew what they needed to do, they shared one look and in an instant both of them started sprinting. 

Neither of them turned to look back; they just started running, as fast as they could,barely passing each other. None of them stopped for anything, not at least until they finally reached the town, or well, where the town had more than one hose on each side of the road. They were in town, they were safe.

As soon as one of them stopped running, the other one stopped too. Both of them breathing fast and hard while hovering over themselves and wiping the sweat off their foreheads.

“What… the fuck… was that?” asked between deep breaths.

Between the fact that none of them actually did any sport now, and that both of them were smokers, it was bound to happen that they would be out of breath pretty fast, thankfully they managed to escape from the weird guy just in time.

“No idea” Craig answered, before straightening himself, still breathing hard “never seen that freak in my life”.

It takes another second for Kenny to finally catch his breath, for a moment he thinks about what would have happened, what if the guy had like randomly pulled a gun on them? What if he had followed them with his truck, why didn’t he? He wasn’t complaining that he didn’t but it was weird,

Just as his thoughts started to become darkers and darkers, Craig’s voice snapped him out of it, making him come back to reality. “Come on, we are near my house” he said as he started marching once again. “We can drink something there and get this over with”.

Kenny nooded, he couldn’t be more on board with the idea.

By the time they finally reached Craig’s house, the sun was already almost down, which meant that Kenny would have to probably walk home in the dark, which meant danger, but well, it was his own fault for not bringing his truck.

Once Craig opened the door for him, he was quickly pushed upstairs, almost as if Craig was avoiding him meeting his parents, which he was, but still. Kenny just let himself be pushed, he didn’t want anymore problems, just to take the damned picture and go home. 

When he finally reached the second floor and by default Craig’s room a second later, he was surprised. He honestly didn’t know what he was expecting, he didn’t even know if he was actually expecting something, but it still managed to surprise him. Craig’s room had a lot of blue, he noticed that. He had a big drawer, a nice bed, a few posters and some glow in the dark stars up on the ceiling which he thought was cute -not that he would ever tell him- and then there was the desk.

Craig’s desk was filled with shit, it went from pencils, to a notebook, to a few pieces of paper, right in the wall in front of him there were a bunch of pictures, he thought those were pretty cool. 

He also noticed the huge amount of clothes that were on the floor, the old tv that was in front of the bed, and of course, Stripe’s cage, with Stripe in it. 

“Woah, dude this rat’s still alive? That’s so cool” Kenny said as he reached out for the cage.

In another scenario he would have pushed him off, maybe even kicked him out his room and down the stairs, but he felt tired, he just wanted to be alone in his room, check out his pictures, and not see the dead and deformed body of Kenny McCormic.

“It’s not a rat you dipshit” Craig pointed out to him, as he reached and passed him the package with all the photos. “Come on, take your disturbing portrait out of my sight”:

Kenny chuckled, but accepted the package as he sat on Craig’s desk chair, while Craig waited patiently on the bed.

As he took out the photos, he started to check them out, they were really good photos, he really liked them. He passed his fingers softly over each photograph, admiring how beautiful they were, even if South Park was a shithole, for some reason, Craig was able to make it look less shitty with his camera.

Then he found his picture. Yeah it was bad.

He remembered how it felt, to have all that glass cut his skin off, to have it burn, bleed, to have a piece so big in his leg that made him bleed so much that it caused him his death. He remembered how much his face hurted him, with all the tiny pieces, how awful it felt in his left eye, that he couldn’t see with it in the moment. He remembered the pain, so much pain, everywhere, at all times. Yeah, he wasn’t so fond of this picture, still because he made a promise, he tucked it out in the pocket of his old parka.

“They are really good,” Kenny said, once again staring at the newly revealed pictures.

Craig wanted to tell him to keep his nasty fingers off them, but given that he had in fact complimented him and went through all that trouble because of him, he was going to let it pass.

“You throw away some of these?” he asked gesturing to one of the pictures in his hand,

“Nah” Craig said, shrugging “I always keep all of them, I have them organized in my closet by month”.

He wasn't an organised person, he was actually more of a unorganised person, he hated cleaning his room and taking his trash out, but it was a good system that Tweek had come up with, keep them in tiny piles of boxes by months, then if he was searching for a specific date he would only have to search on them since the picture already had the date they were taken.

Kenny nodded, that was interesting.

“Well, I already have my, huh, you know” he said standing up, “I better get going”:

Craig had wanted to invite him at least a glass of water, but he pushed those thoughts away as he heard Kenny’s voice, right, the dude had to leave. Craig made his way with him to the door, once again making sure that his parents (who were in the kitchen at the moment) didn’t see him.

“Well, it was an interesting day”. Kenny said with a small smile on his face “see you tomorrow Tucker”.

Craig waved at him. He didn’t say goodbye, neither did he smile, but he acknowledged him, and that was enough for Kenny, who made his way back home.

None of them noticed the rusty Chevrolet 3100 that was on the other side of the street.

Chapter Text

“No”. 

“Wha-?! Come on, bro!” 

He looked up, finally paying attention at what his friends were saying. After having a seat on the table and hearing Jimmy say that he had thought about a new and better joke, Craig had decided to zone out. He was in the middle of touching his food with his fork -making sure that it wasn’t, in fact, alive- when he heard the current discussion going on with his friends.

“No, dude” said Token, shaking his head “you’re not having sex in my bedroom”.

“What about-”

“Neither in my parents' bedroom!” Token continued speaking louder so his best friend couldn’t finish that sentence.

Clyde groaned, letting his head fall in the palms of his hands “I hate you”.

Everyone knew it wasn’t true.

He felt someone poking him on the arm, he turned to stare at Tweek, who sat besides him.

“So, are you coming?” he asked.

Oh no, he didn’t need to ask where he was supposed to go, he also didn’t need to ask about the conversation to know what was going on. On thursday the christmas break started, and of course, as every christmas, Token would throw a huge party because his parents would leave to spend it with some family outside the country. He had the option to go, but Token decided to stay. 

Every year Token threw a party, every year he then proceeded to regret having said party when something was stolen, broken or someone ended up hurt. 

“I don’t know,” he said, as he glanced away.

Before he could stop himself, he turned to stare at a table that was on the other end of the cafeteria. Cartman, Kyle, Stan, Butters and Kenny. Cartman seemed to be having some kind of heated argument with Kyle, next to him Stan was looking at them with an irritated look. Butters was too busy typing something in his phone, and Kenny, well he was smiling at his friends, almost as if he found the fight amusing.

He hadn’t made direct contact with him since that sunday. Monday had passed by, Tuesday, on the other hand, it felt like the longest day he had ever had. Because he couldn’t stop thinking about it, not only the whole ‘Kenny-not-dying’ situation, because that certainly hunted him every night before he could fall asleep, but the fact that he had took a picture when he swore he never would, and the car accident, there was something about that man he couldn’t put a finger on. 

“Are you ok, dude?” Clyde’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

He turned to find the worried stares of his friends, shit he had zoned out again.

“You’ve been staring at Stan’s table for like the past 2 minutes” Token pointed out “did something happen?”.

He needed to get the fuck out of there. 

Craig stood up, pushing his almost untouched tray of food aside.

“No, nothing at all” he mumbled before turning around and leaving the cafeteria, feeling the eyes of his friends and some curious people on the back of his neck.

He headed directly to the back door of the school, he needed to smoke, he needed to stop thinking. The hall was so empty that his own steps sounded too loud for his own ears, he felt everything too loud. The closer he got to the door, the louder his own breath and heartbeat became, he felt like he was suffocating, the tension and anxiety forming inside of him

He felt like the walls were closing on him. Everything seemed too big suddenly.

He was almost there. His head was spinning, he couldn’t breath. Was he going insane?

When he pushed the door open, it felt like instant relief.

The cold wind slapped him right in the face, snapping him out of his trance. He took a few deep breaths as he stepped outside, small steam clouds coming out of his mouth as he did so, he was fine, he was ok, he was ok. 

With shaky hands, he didn’t notice he had, he pulled out one of his cigarettes, setting it between his tight lips, and lit it up with desperation. He focused hard to take a long and powerful drag that burned his lounges, before letting his head fall on the wall behind him as he exhaled the smoke.

What was wrong with him?

He didn’t want to admit it, but he was having dreams, dreams about Kenny’s death, not really how he had died, because he didn’t really remember nor completely knew, but some nights, when he went down the rabbit hole of his own thoughts, he would dream about walking alone in different places, finding a closed door, only for him to open it a second later and find the death body of Kenny McCormick in a pond of blood. Just like in the first picture. 

When he woke up, he couldn’t breathe.

“Shit” he said to himself, as he took another drag.

McCormick had officially fucked him up, and not in a good way.

“-such a little shit, I swear” someone said from inside the school.

“-not so bad dude” he managed to hear the other person say, and oh no, if he knew that person.

“I swear he doesn’t understand privacy” the voice became louder and more louder “Sometimes I just want to push him down the stairs but-” before he could finish his sentence, Kyle opened the door and stopped himself right in his tracks when he saw him smoking.

“Dude, what’ the-” Kenny peered from behind his redhead friend and smirked when he saw him there.

Craig only cocked an eyebrow at him, ignoring the way Kyle was staring at him.

“Sup Tucker” Kenny greeted him as he pushed past Kyle, who glared at his friend for a second before carefully staring at him “taking a little break already?”.

Craig looked away before answering “fuck off”.

As he tried to smoke the rest of his cigar in peace, Kyle and Kenny lit their own. It had surprised him when he found out that Broflovski was now also part of the smokers club, not that he cared obviously, but out of everyone in the group aside from Kenny, he guessed that Cartman was the one who would end up some kind of bad habit. Even though almost the whole class smoked once they had a beer or two.

“Big party this saturday, huh?” he heard Kenny comment, it was directed at him. “Token’s gonna blow up this year”.

Maybe it was because he was finally growins fonder of McCormick, maybe it was because he really hated his own life, but instead of elling him to go fuck himself or ignore him, he shruggered, focusing his glance on his own cigarette but acknowledging him none less.

He heard Kenny grin, god he was annoying.

“Maybe we will pass by” Kenny commented once again “you know, just to say hi or something”.

He could almost laugh at the joke, there was no way Token would invite them, he knew that they would most likely show up, but not because Token wanted them there.

This time, he didn’t give any sign of having heard what he had said. The presence of Broflovski made him tense.

He dumped the tail of his cigarette on the ground before stepping on it, avoiding both of the guys eyes he exited the room, hearing the ‘the you later, Tucker’ from Kenny. He also didn’t miss the ‘he’s so annoying’ from Kyle. 

Kenny was still staring at the door when Craig left, leaving only him and Kyle alone to smoke.

“Why does he have to be such an asshole all the time?” Kyle asked before taking a drag of his own cigarette.

It was colder than Kenny had expected, he was used to the freezing weather of South Park, but he always was more of a summer kind of guy. Given his lack of money and thrift shop ‘new-old’ parka that Kevin had brought from him from one of his visits to Denver, he was always cold, but today he was sure he was going to freeze to death. He knew that wearing fingerless gloves wasn’t a good idea.

“Cartman is an asshole all the time” he couldn’t help but point out.

That gained a curious glance from his redhead friend.

“Are you defending him?” 

Kenny shrugered. “Depends on how you define ‘defend’”.

Kyle only glared.

“Cartman’s going to murder you if you sleep with him”.

Not that Kenny was intending to, but yeah, Cartman would murder him if he did.

“Nah dude, he’s invited to the threesome” 

Kyle choked on the smoke that was filling his lungs at that moment.

“You can come too” Kenny said giving him a cocky smile “If you want to that is”.

Kyle blushed before giving him an irritated look. 

He knew that Kyle hated when he did that, his subtle not-so-subtle gay references, ever since a drunk make out sesion on junior year, and a emotional conffesion the day after, Kenny was the only one who really knew about his secret. He knew he shouldn't test his limits given that he was being trusted enough to know that part of him, but still it was funny to pick on him every once in a while.

“Idiot” Kyle said before turning to look away.

Kenny grinned “I didn’t hear a no”.

Kyle groaned.

Craig did the best he could to avoid facing his friends or anyone who would likely talk to him (Kenny), that cigarette break had done what a xanax didn’t -not that he had had a xanax- but still, it had made him feel better, even if it was just for a few hours and didn’t exactly turn down his nerves. He didn’t feel like the walls were closing on him anymore at least.

Once he finally managed to get through the last period, as the bell rang he made his run through the door, it was when he finally stepped outside, and felt like finally relaxing again that he saw it. Right on the other side of the street that truck.

That rusty ass disgusting truck was there. It was fucking parked there.

He froze instantly, not taking his eyes off it, not even as the other students made their way out past him. Not even when he felt someone tugging him softly from his elbow.

“Craig?” Tweek asked with a worried look on his face “are you meeting with us?”

He couldn’t look away, he just couldn’t, it was there, it was right fucking there. Involuntary, his eyes immediately darted towards the orange parka. Kenny didn’t seem to notice, he still hadn’t noticed the Chevrolet 3100 that was on the other side of the street. Kenny was laughing and talking animatedly with his friends, he was marching with them towards his own truck and getting on it. Kenny hadn’t fucking notice.

“Craig?” he heard his friend ask again “Are you ok?”.

He watched as Kenny’s truck started moving, he also notice how the owner of the Chevrolet started the engine, and after Kenny’s truck was already a few meters away, the Chevrolet left behind him, at a not obvious distance, they were following him, someone, that weird ass dude he had never seen in his life was following McCormick.

“Craig?” 

He finally snapped out of it, his eyes fell on his shorter friend.

“Yeah” he said almost without breath, “Y-yeah sure”.

He followed his friend, feeling like something was crawling out of him, probably panic, probably vomit. He didn’t want to think about it.

Kenny was having a good day, he was with his friends at Stark’s pond, he was lying on the hood of his truck, smoking a cigarette while Cartman and Stand threw rocks at the frozen lake, trying to break it. Kyle was leading on the hood besides him, watching as his friends competed against each other.

“How long do you think is going to take them to realise that they can’t break the ice with those tiny ass rocks?” Kyle asked, not tearing his eyes away from their friends.

Kenny raised his head to stare too, “I bet they’ll try to throw each other in the next ten minutes”.

Kyle frowned at that, yeah he didn’t want none of them to die of hypothermia any time soon. “So” he said after a second of silence, turning to stare at him “are we crashing at Token’s this saturday?”.

It was a dangerous thing to do, now that both groups were on bad terms again, after the fight they didn’t threw punches again, but Kenny had heard from their friends that they still bickered non less when they shared classes, but no punches were thrown at least.

“Yeah man” Kenny answered, before raising a brow at him “unless you’re scared”.

Kyle smirked “As if dumbass” he replied but there was no venom in his voice “the only pussy of the group here is Cartman, bet that fat bitch will want to crash in his own basement right before leaving”.

Kenny laughed at that.

They all had changed, while Kyle and him became leaner and not so ‘to the bone’ type of skinny they both got sharpen jawlines and high cheekbones, both of them filled with freckles, but maintained their own characteristic features. Stan and Cartman on the other hand, they became more built, even if Cartman wasn’t ‘fat’ perse anymore, he was still the bigger one in the group, Stan was just on his way to becoming every girl wet dream if he kept his puppy like expression and kept on working out. 

“Hey!” they heard Cartman call “stop making out and help us throw this rock” he said pointing at a big rock that was on their side, while Stan smiled at them.

Kyle rolled his eyes but still got off leading on the hood “you two can barely lift it together, what makes you think that we will help?”.

“Stop bitching and come here, jew!” 

Kenny grinned as he got off the hood as well, he only got to make his way around the car to meet with his friends when he saw it. His cigarette immediately dropped on the ground.

That truck. He had seen that truck.

“We need to leave”.

Kyle stopped on his heels and turned to look at him, a questioning expression “What?”

Finally Kenny turned to look at his friends, the three of them held the same curious expression. 

With panic in his eyes, Kenny said once again “We need to leave” this was bad “ now ”.

He didn’t wait for his friends to start moving before rushing over to the driver's door of his truck, as he started to buckle his seatbelt, the rest of the door opened while his friends got in, not questiong why Kenny was suddenly so startled.

As soon as he made sure his own seatbelt was on, he turned the engine on and drove out of there as fast as he could, not giving the chance to his friends to get ready, he was all sharp moves and constantly checked his mirrors to see if the truck was following him.

“Kinny, what the fuck was that?!” Cartman asked, more like demanded as he looked outside the window to see who Kenny was searching for.

“Yeah dude, what happened?” Kyle asked, more worriedly.

“Is someone following us?” Stan asked, trying to see what was going on behind them.

Kenny was used to be the calm one, the chill one that nothing would really make him mad or nervous, but because this situation came out as a surprise to him, and it seemed to taken out of a horror movie, he couldn’t help but get even more panicked and stressed out by the comment of his friends, he was breathing fast and heavy as he leaned close to the steering wheel, so he couldn’t help but scream.

“I DON’T KNOW!” he said still not staring at his friends but running a hand through his hair with franatic eyes all over the place, “I don’t fucking know, b-but” he was so panicked that he couldn’t form the words “FUCK!”

For a second no one said anything, never having seen Kenny in such distress.

“Ok, let’s all calm down” Kyle started saying from the backseat, more to himself if he was being honest as he took a deep breath, Kenny imitated nonless, keeping on driving “now, what happened?”.

All eyes were on him now, and Kenny never felt so much pressure in his life, even if the ones staring were his most closest friends.

“I-I” he struggled once again “Fuck! That truck, dude, that fucking truck” he said filled with rage and fear “I’ve seen that fucking truck before, I swear I’m not even jocking that fucking -fuck!”.

For his relief Stan spoke up immediately once he finished “Ok, ok we believe you” he said also leaning forward from where he was sitting besides Kyle “You’ve seen that truck before, a-and what? Is he following you, is he one of your dad’s drug dealer that he owns money or-”

Kenny would have thought that if this wasn’t the first time he had seen that truck, if that creepy situation with Tucker hadn’t happened before he would have even gone were the truck were and told him to fuck off, that if he had a problem he could go and beat his dad for all he cared about. But no, this wasn’t the case.

“No, no, no, no” Kenny said as all his friends listened “I-I saw that guy and this is no drug dealer, not someone anyone in my family owns money or shit. This is some kind of freak, or whatever” he took another deep breath “I’m telling you, that guy? That weird ass dude? Something bad, I’m telling you, something bad is going on”.

During a minute no one said anything, everyone was silent, thinking of what to say, what to do. Cartman was awfully silent for Keny’s taste, he was frowning hard, but his eyes were focused on the front, he was thinking of something for sure. 

After his blow up, Kenny was able to relax a little, slowing down the car a little, once he was able to see that the truck was not following him anymore. He sighed.

“L-look, I’ll drop you guys all home, I’m sorry for the way I reacted, I swear I don’t want you to-”

“No” Cartman interrupted him, all eyes were on him now but Cartman maintained serious and firm expression “We are going to my house, and we’re going to figure out who the fuck was that.

“Eric, dude-” Stan was taken back for a moment, knowing that when Kenny called Cartman by his name, things were serious.

“Shut the fuck up Kenny” Cartman said again, this time glaring at him “we are not backing out of this, we are fucking meeting in my house and we are fucking figuring this shit out”.

It was a mixture of reassurement, annoyance and fondness, he knew that even if Cartman was being kind of an asshole over this, it was his way of showing that he cared.

“Ok” he said after taking another deep breath to relax “ok”.

Once they reached Cartman’s house, they all made their way towards the basement not even bothering to take off their coats or backpacks, they all just rushed, even when Liane asked them if they wanted something to ear, Eric blurted out a ‘not fucking now, mom’ which was a surprise since Eric always accepted the food that his mother cooked or brought for the.

“Now” Cartman said once they all settled down in the basement, Kenny sat in the middle of the couch with Kyle and Stan by his side, both of them wore worried but determined expressions on their faces “Spill” he said with narrowed eyes.

And so Kenny did, he didn’t mention the whole ‘Craig had pictures of me dying’ but explained that he did said he meet with him to help him pick up some pictures, but gave Cartman a pointed look who catched up immediately what kind of pictures were.

“Wait, wait, wait” Stan said, confused “you went with Craig? Craig Tucker? To help him pick some pictures ?”

Yeah, maybe he shouldn’t have told them it was with Craig, but if they were going to solve this then he needed to be as honest as he could.

“Yeah dude, what the fuck?” Kyle asked, with a pointed look “and also, did you lie to us?”

Fuck, he had compleatly forgoten that he had told them that it was Karen who had told him to go pick her up. 

“Look, I know, I know it sounds bad, I know that I shouldn’t have lied, and I know that you all hate Craig” he said rubbing his eyes with his hands, “I know”.

Even if he wanted to say something else to make things sound better, he couldn’t he really couldn't, what else was he supposed to say? He didn’t think that it was going to be a huge deal, he didn’t know everyone was going to find out about it, but it did. 

“Fuck! Ok, fine, whatever” Eric said as he started walking around the room, thinking what was going to be the next move “so, you say you meet the freak near the cryptid shop where fucktard do his gay shit” he was frowning really hard “and this shitface appears out of fucking nowhere, gets all rapey and shit, you both run away to fag bomb house, you go home, and today he’s there again”:

After a second of silence, Keny nods “Yeah”.

Is Kyle who clears his throat and proceeds to ask “Is there any chance, any possibility that it is just” he shrugs “a coincidence?” 

If it was possible, Cartman’s eyes would have been able to see his brain by how hard he rolled them “For fuck’s sake you stupid jew” he said making Kyle glare at him. “Oh go fuck yourself”.

“Say that again, pimpsqueak”

“What the fuck did you just call me you fat cunt?!”

“GUYS!” Stan was the one who called the quits. “Stop arguing for a fucking second!” his voice filled with distress.

The two of them stopped but glared at each other for a while before finally giving up “Fine” said Kyle.

“Thank god” Stan sat straighter on his seat before turning to stare at Kenny who looked tired of hearing his friends fight. ”Now” he continued “how do we get this dude to stop following you or to know who the fuck they are?”.

Kyle shrugered “Maybe you should tell Craig about it”.

Cartman frowned at him, Kyle took full offence on that. “What? You have a better idea, shitface?”.

As he expected, they both were back at it again, fighting over nonsense, as Stan tried to get them to stop. Kenny sighed before taking out his phone, he thought that maybe texting Craig about it wasn’t a bad idea, even if he would probably get beaten up by him, the last thing he could do was give him a heads up.

From: +1 720 xxx-xxxx

hey u notice anyting weird?

Craig had finally started to relax, he was sitting in Tweek’s cafe with his friends, Clyde was telling them another story about how he almost died when he fell down the stairs. Token was interrupting telling them that he only fell on the last tread and there was carpet on the floor. Once he felt his phone vibrate, he took it out to check who it could be, since the only people who messaged him were on that table with him.

He saw the message was from an unknown number, he thought about deleting the message before answering, but once he opened the chat he saw that it actually came from Kenny’s phone number which he hadn't saved when he texted him on sunday. He saved the number as ‘ nut sack’

To: nut sack

why

Kenny frowned, trying to mute his friends mentally before texting back.

To: cocksucker

some1 following me.

Once Craig saw that text, he immediately went still, before exiting the cafe, excusing himself saying he needed to smoke. As soon as he stepped outside, he took out a cigarette while he texted back.

To: nut sack

truck guy?

“Guys?” Kenny called but was ignored as his friends kept on arguing.

To: cocksucker

yeah

how u know?

Craig tensed, his nerves coming back as he took a drag.

To: nut sack

saw him parked outside school

“What the…?” Kenny asked himself before glancing for a moment to his friends as he called them once again “Guys?!”

To: cocksucker

WTF?!?!

dude 

fucker followed me from there?!

why tf didnt u tell me

To: nut sack

didnt think it was importan

wait

what u mean from there?

To: cocksucker

saw him in parks

shit who tf is that guy?

“Guys!” Kenny called once again, this time his friends stopped and turned to look at him “I texted him”.

The three of them quickly moved to stare at his phone as they read the conversation, Stan snorted at the contact name.

“Dude” Kyle said “he knew?”

Just as he was about to reply another message came in.

To: nut sack

shit 

where r u 

“Do I tell him?” Kenny asked, looking at his friends for answers.

Stan shrugered “I mean, why not?”.

“Wait, wait, wait” Kyle said, before Kenny started tipping. “Maybe you should tell him that, you know, we know too?”.

Kenny took a second to think about it, he didn’t know how Craig was going to react to him telling his friends about the whole situation, shit he would probably have to warn him about not talking about the real reason he had been there with him in the first place.

“Or” Stan interrupted him “we could go meet him instead” the three of them stared at him waiting for an explanation “What? Do you honestly think he’s going to come here? To Cartman’s basement?”

Kyle sighed “Yeah, you’re right. Tell him we’ll meet him instead” he said as he stood up and picked up his backpack.

y

To: cocsucker

im meeting u

tell me where u r

be there in 10.

Craig cursed, before throwing the butt of his cigarette on the ground and stepping on it.

To: nut sack

tweeks bros

my friends r there

Just as they started making their way upstairs and Liane asked them once again if they wanted anything to eat, to which Cartman answered with a ‘no fuck off mom’ Kenny texted him back, warning him before it was too late and his friends saw the messages.

To: cocksucker

k

the guys know btw

tell ur friends if u want

dont tell them bout the picturs

only fatass knows

cant textt 

dirving

“Shit” Craig said to himself as he stared at the text.

He turned back and pushed the door open, he walked over to the table as his friends stared at him with wondering expressions.

“What’s up dude?” Token asked, “what took you so long?”.

Shit, he was really going to do this.

“I've got something to tell you” and so he spilled everything.

Just as he promised, Kenny’s truck parked outside ten minutes later, just as Craig finished telling them everything, apart from the fact that Kenny was in fact with him just to pick some pictures of his death of course, but the worried and curious expressions of his friends were there no less.

The four friends hurried inside the coffee shop, making the other group glance up at them, the distress on their faces palpable..

“We need a plan” was the first thing Kyle said once they finally reached the table they were sitting on. 

It was a strange situation, not only the whole scenario and the reason they were all together, but the fact that they were all together, the both rival groups at Tweek’s Bros. Craig never thought he’d see the day, but there they were, because Kenny fucking McCormick was being followed by a creep that may also follow Craig in the near future if not now.

“Yeah, we figured as much genius,” Clyde said, even if he had not in fact, figured it before Kyle had said so.

“Wait a second” Token spoke up, staring at the new group that was present with them “You said he followed you from Stark’s Pond, and he saw you get in your truck” he paused waiting for someone to realise what he was trying to say, the only one who seemed to catch on was Kyle who’s eyes widened and threw his head back in distress “and you drove all the way to Cartman’s and then all the way here, with your truck that he now knows you own?”

There was a second of silence from all of them.

“Well, when you say it like that...” Kenny said.

“Great” Tweek protested “Now they fucking know where I work” Craig turned to stare at him “I’m going to get fucking kidnapped, I’m going to die and so are my parents, they’re going to know where I live, shit what if they are here right now? Do you think they may have installed cameras? Do you think-”

“Calm, the fuck down” Kyle said staring directly at him “no one is kidnapping no one”.

“How can you be so sure?” Token asked, with narrowed eyes.

“Because no one would want to kidnap a fucking adhd freak”.

“Hey!” Clyde stood up, ready to defend his friend.

“Mind your own business dumbfuck” 

“What the fuck did you just called him?” Token asked, also rising from his seat.

Just as things were starting to heat up, Kenny locked eyes with Craig, both of them clearly not wanting to deal with their friends' bullshit right now, given the fact that the possible victims of abduction -If, and only if they were to get abducted- were them. Kenny finally decided to break the tension.

“Guys!” he yelled, everyone stopped arguing and stared at him “plan?”.

“Right” Stan said, scratching the back of his neck embarrassed because he was about to punch Clyde in the face. “So, how do we do this?”

It took them about an hour to finally come to a middle ground, where a few fights almost broke apart, and more than a thousand insults were thrown around.

“Ok” Token said, his arms crossed around his chest as he watched Tweek pass a cup of coffee to Kyle “how do we get ride of Kenny’s truck?”

“What?” Kenny asked, there was no way he was getting rid of it “No, no way dude, my truck? Really?”

Kyle was the one that spoke up.

“Well, he has a point” Stan, Clyde and Jimmy turned to look at him, perplexed by siding up with him “What? It’s true! Look, he already knows where you study, he may not know where you live, but he knows that truck is yours for sure”.

“So what?” Cartman asked “We just set that thing on fire or-”

“Nope” he was so not board with that “we are NOT setting my truck on fire”.

“Or” Token spoke up, driving everyone's attention towards him again “we could just hide it? Or I don’t know give it to someone else?” 

Well, even if it wasn’t setting it on fire, Kenny was not on board with the idea of someone else driving his truck, he had worked hard for that thing, he had paid good money for it, money that came from his wallet.

“No way dude” he said, “I’m not giving anyone of you my truck”

“Maybe we could-”

“What if-”

“Ok, but we can-”

Everyone was starting to come up with new theories, ideas and plans to either get rid -or not- of Kenny’s truck, he was so tired already, he didn’t want to deal with this, why couldn’t he just live a happy, unproblematic life? Why did this kind of shit always happen to him? 

He felt like he was going to blow up, like he was going to have a full blown panic attack, someone tapped him on the shoulder. Kenny looked up with tired eyes, and saw Craig standing there, with a cigarette in his mouth and another one in his hand, offering it to him. Without saying a word he stood up and followed him outside.

Craig lit up his own cigarette before passing the light towards him.

“Thanks” Kenny said, before lighting it “shit’s fucked”.

Craig hummed in agreement. He was staring ahead of him.

“I mean” Kenny said, puffing smoke, his cigarette still in his mouth “Why? You know, why?”

Craig hummed once again.

There was a moment of silence. Kenny just let everything sink in for a moment, he was so pissed, so tired, so scared, what was going to happen? What if they followed him home? What if they found out where he lived? What if they already did? What about Karen, what if something happened to her?

“You could leave your truck somewhere” Craig started talking, still not looking towards him “for a few days, just to see the fucks going on” he took a drag before he kept talking, Kenny listened “and if no one’s following you just take it back”.

This time it was his turn to hum in agreatment. 

During a few seconds, neither said anything.

“I’m so fucking scared” Kenny said softly. Craig felt his hand twitch before glancing at the blond guy next to him, surprised by the sudden conffesion “I’m so fucking scared”.

He couldn't agree more, even if they weren’t following him, the guy had seen him together, he had seen his face, if he wasn’t following him now they might do it later. 

“What the fuck did I do?” he asked, Craig just keep staring at them, Kenny looked distressed he looked older even if he was only seventeen years old “I mean, fuck man, this is so fucked up I-I don’t want to get fucking murdered, I don’t want to get kidnanapped I- I mean what about Karen? What if they figure out where I live? What about my friends, what about Kyle, Stan, Eric? What about them, what about-” he stopped himself, a shaky breath came out of him. “This is so fucked”.

Craig took a moment to process it all. He wasn’t good with words, hell, he was shit at words. He doesn't know how to be reassuring, not even with his closest friends, he would usually just stay there for them but neither of them ever had to go through a situation like this one. Before he could regret it, he spoke up.

“Come on” Kenny looked up at him.

“What?” 

He threw his cigarette on the ground before he started walking towards Kenny’s truck.

“Come on” he repeated “let’s get the fuck out of here”.

Kenny looked back towards Tweek’s Bros for a second, from the window he saw how everyone was still talking but it seemed like the original subject had changed because it seemed like everyone was arguing again, he sighed before turning to follow Craig.

He unlocked the car and both of them went inside, Kenny on the driver's seat, Craig besides him on the passenger seat. 

“Where to?” Kenny asked as he started the car.

Craig shrugered. It made Kenny smile a little.

He drove, he didn’t know where, but he drove through all of South Park, he drove with Craig’s window down, he drove as they smoked and Craig played with his radio, he drove while the cold wind slapped him in the face, making him relax but also feel more awake than ever. Neither of them said a word for most of the time. At least until Craig broke the silence.

“I’ll get a car” he blurted out of nowhere.

Maybe if he wasn’t so relaxed, Kenny would have been more surprised, but he simply cocked an eyebrow at him but kept his eyes on the road, just like Craig.

“Awesome?” he tried, not really knowing what to say to that.

“For christmas” Craig said again “my parents are going to get me a car” he waited for a moment, since Kenny didn’t say anything he continued “I don’t know how to drive”.

“You want me to teach you how to drive?” He asked, catching on where this was going on “me? Teach how to drive, to you?” he couldn’t believe Craig was actually asking him that.

In return, Craig shrugged before turning to stare out of his window, not wanting to face Kenny who was glancing at him from the corner of his eye “You know how to drive, don’t you?” he asked as if that was enough explanation.

“Yeah but-”.

“Well then” he interrupted “I can drive you when I get my own” he was still avoiding staring at him “I mean shouldn't be much of a problem” .

Kenny couldn’t suppress the soft smile that appeared on his face.

“I’m not paying you”.

“Aw man but-”.

“I’m not fucking paying you McCormick”.

Chapter Text

After the mess that had been that Tuesday afternoon, Kenny had dropped Craig off -not wihtouth having checked on both sides of the street to see if nothing suspicious was going on- he went home and consumed by the paranoia, parked the car three blocks away from his house. Once in, he made two calls, to Karen, to ask where she was staying and asking her if she could stay the night at her friends house, to Kevin to know if he was coming home anytime soon, after having both of his siblings stay somewhere else, he finally let himself panic, turning off his phone.

That night Kenny stayed awake until four am, because of the paranoia, he couldn’t help but shriek every time he heard a sound, he couldn’t help but stare out the windows every ten minutes, he couldn’t help but bite his nails until they were bleeding. The cold of the night kept him awake, and alert.

After about 3 hour of sleep, he made his way towards his truck and headed to school, he was trying really hard not to fall asleep while he drove.

Once in school he tried to avoid his friends for as long as he could, but because he wasn’t so lucky their first class of every Wednesday morning was English class, and everyone in his group was in that class.

“Dude” Stan said as he sat beside him, while Cartman and Kyle took the seats behind him “where did you go yesterday?”

Kenny loved his friends, he really did, but he was having a bunch of mixed feelings about them since yesterday, maybe it was for the lack of sleep, maybe it was because he couldn’t think clearly, but he couldn’t help but be a little bit annoyed at the fact that they had been all to busy arguing over some dumb shit, that they forgot the real reason of their meeting yesterday.

He yawned and stretched his arms while he let out a “went home” which sounded more like a “wen ho”.

“What about Tucker?” Kyle asked from behind him.

He rolled his eyes, great, of course Kyle would notice and bring the subject out like that.

Trying to not make it seem like a big deal, Kenny shrugged before answering “dropped him off too”.

“Why?” Kyle asked.

Even if Kenny wasn’t the brightest person in the room he couldn’t help but be thankful by Cartman’s silence, he knew that even if the guy was an asshole, the reason he wasn’t asking all those questions or making all the comments he would normally do, it was because he knew that he and Craig weren’t hanging out together for the fun of it, but because of the fact that he was mortified and Tucker’s real photos.

Kenny frowned “because he asked me to drop him there?” he said as if it was the most obvious explanation on earth.

Which may be with someone else, it would be, but this was Craig Tucker, they hated Tucker, well, Kenny didn’t really ever hated him perse, but he wasn’t also his biggest fan.

“Yeah, but-” Stan looked troubled “why?”

He wasn’t in the mood to say anything sarcastic, he just wanted to sleep, he wanted to not be there and just sleep until all his problems went away. But no, he couldn’t have that because his stupids friends felt like it was a really good time to interrogate him even though it was definitely not. 

And because apparently the universe still liked him a little, their English teacher finally decided to make an appearance before he could snap at his friends to just let him be for a second.

“Alright class” she said with a way too happy smile “today we are going to be analyzing some text, more specifically biblical texts” some of the students groaned including Kyle “now, now, no more groaning, this would be a nice exercise for all of you, to understand the history of beliefs and the meaning behind the actual words, see it as a mental exercise”

“Fucking psycho” Cartman whispered just for them to hear “bitch wants to convert us into pedophiles enthusiast”. Kenny snorted.

“I’m going to give you a few verses and, or, paragraphs and you’ll have to write down the true meaning of them”. She explained as she made her way through the classroom and gave them pieces of paper with biblical references on them, he watched as some of the students squinted at the papers, some of them seemed to relax once they read how easy it was, some of them didn’t even bother to look at it. 

Once the teacher reached them, she smiled at them, but Kenny couldn’t help but notice how her eyes seemed to light up when she looked at him, he gave her an awkward smile not really sure what he was supposed to do. As soon as she left he felt Cartman laughing in his back.

“Bitch wants to fuck you Kenny” he said snikering “I bet she gave you an easy one, just like you”.

“Fuck off Cartman” Kyle defended him.

He was too tired to deal with any of that, he grabbed the piece of paper and read it.

“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. And I will raise them up on the last day, for my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink and whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood will remain in me, and I in them.” — John 6:51

“Dude what the fuck is this supposed to mean?” he heard Stan say as he read his piece of paper too.

Eternal life, he thought, what a bunch of shit that was. What big fucking pile of shit that was, who would want eternal life? At what fucking cost? He sure as hell didn’t want it, if he could give it away he would, oh he totally would, but he just couldn’t do that, because he also never really asked for it first.

Too tired to really do anything he decided that it would be best for him to just take a fast nap on his desk, he could do it later.

Craig wasn’t really trying to avoid his friends this time, but he wasn’t going to deny that he was fine if they didn’t bother him that day. He had a lot in his mind at the moment, he was angry, angry at the fact that he had been dragged into this situation because of a photo, a fucking photo. He understood McCormick, even if he didn’t want to, because fuck his life, why him? Why, what the fuck did he do to be dragged into this mess? Maybe it was karma after all of shitty actions, he could try to be a better person, but fuck that, the universe was shitty enough for him to try to do something so stupid.

“What’s up dude” yeah, he knew peace wouldn’t last forever, he took a deep breath before closing his locker door and turning to look at his friend “how’s it going?” Clyde asked.

What a fucking stupid question to ask, he thought to himself.

“Fine” he answered non less as he started marching to his next class, Clyde followed by his side.

“Hey I know that you don’t want to talk about it” but apparently they were going to talk about it “but like, bro” Clyde continued “what’s your deal with Kenny?”.

If  he could throw himself off a bridge at that moment Craig would have totally done it.

“I don’t have a deal with McCormick” he made enfasis in the ‘deal’ because he knew where this was going, and no, he had no intention of following that path of a conversation.

Clyde seemed to have other ideas.

“Look, I know that we hadn’t been really nice to him, and that after you and Tweek” he trailed off “whatever, but even if we don’t like him, we support you and we’ll be fine with it”. Clyde then proceeded to put a hand on his shoulder as a sign of support and Craig had never wanted to punch his friend in the face as much as in that moment.

“I’m not fucking dating him” Craig snapped at him.

“So just sex then” Clyde continued but dropped his hand, he seemed relieve at the revelation “Thank god dude, I mean, I know I just said that it was fine, but you and Kenny dude? That would be weird, but I get it” he said with a smirk “dude blond and pretty hot”.

It always amazed him how when he thought things couldn’t get any worse, they did. He may have a thing for blonds, Thomas and Tweek were the clear example of it, but god, not Kenny. And also, did Clyde just admit that he found Kenny hot?

“I’m not fucking him” he deadpanned as he entered the classroom.

At that Clyde seemed more confused “then why did you ask him to go with you to pick your photos?” he said as he sat on his usual desk next to him. “You never ask us to go with you”.

Craig hated when his friend gave him that look, as if he had just kicked a puppy. He didn’t want company when he did his things, because this was his and just his. He would have never asked anyone, less alone McCormick if it depended on him, but it didn’t because Kenny couldn’t stop fuckin dying, and for some fucked up reason he couldn’t stop picturing his awful corpse every time it happened.

“Because” he simply said. Not really wanting to continue the conversation.

And apparently that wasn’t enough for his friend because she arched an eyebrow at him, curiosity all over his face.

“Because?” he tried to get him to continue.

Craig pauses, he needs to think of an excuse, he needs to find a reason that would help it all make sense. The excuse of having an adventure with him was off the table, that’s for sure, they were becoming friends? As if, he still wasn’t really fond of McCormick’s guts. Weed? Nah, then they would all think that the weird dude in the truck was just an undercover police or something.

“Because it’s none of your business” he finally decided to say.

Clyde was about to protest, already opening his mouth and everything to start whining about how he was a bad friend, how he was drifting away or some shit. But thankfully, they had a class to pay attention to, because they were both failing at it.

“Good morning class” their teacher finally spoke up, Craig never loved a teacher as much as he did in that moment. “Open your books on page 20, Timmy start reading for all of us”.

“Timmy?” Timmy asked.

He regretted what he had just thought, this class was going to be a nightmare.

“Yes Timmy, please start”.

“Timmy, Timmy Timmy, Timmy. Timmy Timmy Timmy, T-Timmy?!” 

He really wanted to die.

When Kenny woke up, he was alone. Everyone in the classroom had left, he was the only one there and none of his friends had even bothered to wake him up. Shit , he thought to himself, as he took out his phone and noticed that he had missed a class, well almost completely missed a class, there were 10 minutes left until the class where he was supposed to be ended. He contemplated going back to sleep until the bell rang for their next class,  but decided not to as he started picking up his stuff and putting them back in his backpack, that was when he noticed the paper again. Before he hadn’t had the energy to properly analyze it, but now that he was more awake, he read it again.

Why the fuck is the bibile so fucking violent? , he thought to himself before stuffing the paper in his backpack.

“Ah, you woke up”

Kenny jumped off his seat, almost knowing the chair out, he looked up to see who had entered the classroom and scared him to death, he was glad that he hadn’t cursed out loud since it was his creepy English teacher. She still wore that Cheshire like smile on her face, she looked pleased that he was finally awake.

“Sorry” he said, as he put the chair back on its place “I was just leaving”.

The woman waved a dismissive hand at him as she made her way towards her desk “Oh don’t worry, I didn’t mean to scare you” once she reached it, she sat and started eyeing some of the papers she had on her desk. “Your friends wanted to wake you up, but I told them to let you be, you must be tired to have fallen asleep like that” she gave him a cheeky smile “a young and healthy boy like you need to rest, you have big things coming”.

Yeah, Kenny definitely didn’t want to be there right now, she was a creepy woman. She had long gray hair, and light blue eyes, she seemed like a hippie with the way she dressed too, but all the good vibes that the way she dressed gave off she lacked it on her face. 

“Well, thank you…” he trailed off, not really remembering her name.

“Philips” she said with a smile, she didn’t seem bothered by the fact that he didn’t remember her name “Miss Philips, but you can call me Julia”. 

No way, there was no way he was staying there anytime longer, he needed to leave.

“Yeah, well, thank you Miss Philips, shit, I mean Julia” he corrected himself, wincing at the curse that slipped, he was nervous. He didn’t like that woman. “Well, I’m… I’m gonna go now”. 

He was slowly making his way out of the room when the teacher spoke up again.

“Oh and Kenneth” she said her eyes never leaving his “read the paper I gave you” it was like she never stopped smiling “It’s a nice passage, truly a delightful revelation for the christians at the time, there’s such hope in that passage” it send shivers down his spine when she said that “truly an astonishing moment at the time”.

Kenny swallowed hard before giving her an awkward smile and leaving the room as fast as he could , what the fuck was that?

Once he left he made his way towards the cafeteria, the bell rang once he had reached it and a sea of students filled the halls. He never felt more grateful to have so many people around him. He grabbed his tray of food and sat on his usual table, waiting for his friends to show up while he took out his phone and texted Tucker.

To: cocksucker

when u want me 2 teach u

Thankfully, the answer came not too long after.

From: cocksucker

whenever dont care.

For someone who had asked him for drivers lessons Craig didn't seem to be so excited, he frowned at the text. When was a good time, it wasn’t like was doing anything important at the moment, probably not even the day after that, aside from trying to not get murder or whatever. Plus he could totally use a break from his friends.

To: cocksucker

fine

meet me after school

know a place.

From: cocksucker.

no.

pick me up at home

friends will see

Well fuck him, whenever didn’t see like whenever after all.

“Hey, asshole” he heard Cartman call behind him, he looked up to see the three of his friends coming his way with trays of food in their hands “finally stopped being a lazy ass?” 

He didn’t take offence to his friend's comment, instead he went right into the topic as his friends started to sit.

“Man, that woman?” he said while he shoved his phone in his pocket, “total psycho”.

“Ha!” Cartman was delighted by his answer “told you that bitch was insane”.

Kyle rolled his eyes, not really buying it. “She’s not insane idiot, she’s just eccentric”. He defended.

Since the first day that the woman had presented herself as their new English teacher, Cartman had gone on and on about how that woman was crazy, that she was insane for sure, maybe she was into some kind of weird meds, or that she had some kind of mental issues but that there was something wrong with her for sure. They all had called bullshit on him every time.

“Yeah dude” Stan backed up “she’s just a hippie or something, you know? Like those crystal girls or whatever”.

“The only crystal that bitch has is meth, Stan,” Eric said, frowning at him.

Knowing that he wasn’t going to change his opinion, Kyle sighed before changing the subject. “So, my house today?”.

“Sure” Stan said, shrugging “I’ll tell my mom to not wait for me”.

“Nah, dude” Kenny said, making all three of them turn suspicious at him “not really feeling it today, I might just chill out today”.

“But what about that creep following you?” Kyle asked.

“Yeah Kinny” Eric parroted, giving him a pointed look as if he knew what he was actually going to do “what about the plan?”.

“We don’t have a plan” Kenny said exasperated already, the subject made him nervous, it drained all the energy he had left on his body. He knew he should actually start thinking of a plan too, but he could do that tomorrow, right? He just wanted to ignore his problems and for all to go away for once.

He was tired, really fucking tired.

“Look, I don’t know dude” he said before glancing away “maybe Kyle was right, maybe it was a coincidence, I don’t know” he shrugged “look I don’t really want to talk about it, so let’s change the subject”.

Cartman huffed, clearly pissed off at the fact that he was not telling the complete truth. He knew that out of everyone in the group, Eric was the only one that would most likely understand what was the problem, he was also the only one that he could be completely honest about. But at the same time, just because he could tell him everything that didn’t mean that he would either respect it or differ. 

“Fine,” he said after a second of silence.

“Hey” Stan said, “have any of you seen Butters today?”

It had been a really stressful day for Craig, it seemed like he could never catch a break, their friends had asked him all kinds of different questions about Kenny. How long has it been going on? Was it after or before the fight? Were they going to have to be civil with his friends? Was it serious or it was just a thing? He had denied everything, and even if they all had agreed that fine, they believed him, he could still see that Jimmy and Clyde were not on that boat with him.

Once he was home, he made his way to his room, after greeting his mom who was making phone calls about work. He took his camera out and prepared it, great he had 4 pictures left before he needed to buy a new roll. Even if he didn’t want to admit it, the idea of making his way back to that shop scared him, because what if the creep appeared again? What if this time he didn’t have time to run? He needed a car soon. 

From: nutsack

u ready?

Shit, he was really going to do this wasn’t he?

To: nutsack.

K.

It took 5 minutes until a text that told him that he was outside, he took his camera and opened the door, only to find the youngest of the McCormicks staring at him with a smile on her face.

“What are you doing here?” he asked her.

Craig liked Karen, she was sweet, not like his sister who he believed was a monster. Karen was the exact opposite of Tricia in some ways, but even if she wasn’t as mean or straightforward as Trish was, he had seen her stand up for her more than once, and that was enough for him.

Karen grinned “I’m meeting up with Trish, is she here?” she asked.

And right on clue, his little sister was pushing him out the door to greet her friend “move out of the way, asshole”.

Given the fact that he was a whole foot taller than her, and much stronger she had barely moved him with her tiny hands, but still managed to pass by him to meet with Karen who never stopped smiling. 

“Yeah, well, have fun” he said, staring down at both of them before also making his way out of the house to see where Kenny was parked. He saw his truck not so far away from his house.

Noticing that her brother was not going to stay inside today, and was also making his way towards Kenny’s truck, she couldn’t help but ask.

“Where are you going?”.

He didn’t even bat an eye at her, he could only deal with the McCormick questions once a day, and his friends had already asked him enough questions for like, three whole weeks, he didn’t need his little sister to get involved in his business. If he didn’t ask her questions about her life, she didn’t need to ask questions about his life. 

Still, he did hear the ‘asshole’ that came from his sister as he climbed to the passenger seat of Kenny’s truck. And because the universe fucking hated him, not only Kenny was smirking at him with that annoying look in his face, but the asshole also had the radio on and was listening to ‘Proud Mary’. 

“Ready to be part of the ‘Kenny McCormick drivers academy’, Tucker?”.

He had a serious debate to either punch Kenny in the face, or simply leave and go back to his room.

“Fuck off, McCormick” he opted to say instead.

Kenny grinned satisfied, before starting the car once again, and beginning to drive.

It wasn’t a long drive towards their destination, it was a good 30 minutes drive. They didn’t talk the entire time, Craig was fine with it, he could just stare out the window, watch how the trees passed by, watch how the scene changed from an urban one to a more rural one.

Once they finally reached the place, Craig noticed that he had neve seen this place. Probably because he didn’t have a car and didn’t really leave town enough to know where these kinds of places were. It was a bunch of nothing, well, not really. There was the road, and on one side, where they had parked, there was just dirt, and some trees maybe, but there was not much more, there was  huge empty space where none seemed to ever go.

On the other side, there was corn, like everywhere, a huge wall of corn that went for miles and miles and in the very far away end, there was an old looking farm that he didn’t even know existed in the first place.

When Kenny parked the car, he turned off the radio, and slapped both of his hands on his thighs, before rubbing them there for a second and exhaling. He looked at him.

“Well” he said “step one, let’s get high”. He said while reaching for his pocket and showing him a tiny bag with weed on it.

Now Craig was not someone who would really say no to weed, less if it was for free, but, BUT. He was about to learn how to fucking drive for fucks sake.

“No”he said firmly, glaring at Kenny “I’m not fucking smoking that before driving”.

“Dude, it will make your nerves go away and it will help you relax” Kenny insisted.

“Fucking no” 

“For real, trust me-”

“I’m not getting high before-”

“What’s the worst that can happen?”

“I said not-”

“But-”

Now he was for real losing his patience, Craig glared at him for a couple of seconds, his nostril flared out. Kenny stared back at him, they were having a contest, Craig was not going to lose, he was going to break McCormicks kneecaps if it was required, but there was no way he was going to learn how to drive for the first time while high.

Apparently when Kenny cocked an eyebrow and Craig narrowed his eyes even more, Kenny finally gave up. 

He rolled his eyes before letting out a “Fine”. He opened his door and Craig followed right after, changing seats so Craig could be in the driver's seat and Kenny beside him to guide him through. “You could have asked your friends if you didn’t want me to teach you, you know?”

He had only been in the driver's seat of a car a few times, but never to actually drive. Craig made himself comfortable as he looked around, he slowly let his hands touch the steering wheel, feeling the material under his hands and tightening the hold before softening it a little.

“Fuck no” he answered, his eyes still investigating the car.

At that, Kenny’s curiosity spiked up a little.

“Why not?”, he asked, knowing that it was most likely that he would tell him to go fuck himself but he tried anyway “Doesn’t Clyde own a car?”. He asked, remembering the 2010 Ford Ka, that Clyde drove everywhere.

“He’s a danger on the road” Craig answered, “fucker drives like shit”.

Kenny grinned at that, yeah, rumor has it he only got his driver's license because he had actually cried for a good hour until the instructor finally gave up and told him he had passed the exam.

Then Kenny remembered Tweek, who even if he didn’t really own a car, he still drove his parents every once in a while, and he wasn’t complete shit at it. “What about Tweek?” he asked, “he can drive”.

Craig leaned back on his seat, arms stretched over the steering wheel, as he pressed his body to the seat, frowning to himself, even if he knew that Kenny was looking at him, he didn’t stare back.

“Yeah” he agreed, because true, Tweek knew how to drive, he was a decent driver, “he can’t teach though”. 

The simple idea of his ex teaching him how to drive was a big no. It would stress the shit out of Tweek, he would be so paranoid of every little thing he did, and he would also irritate the shit out of him, so for both of their own good, he would never ask Tweek.

“Ok” he said, feeling ready and comfortable on his seat “are you going to teach me or what?” he asked.

Kenny grinned before he started speaking.

It was a disaster.

“Keep going, keep going, no, don’t do that, check your mirrors”.

“I’m fucking doing it, can’t you see dipshit?”

“I said keep going Tucker” Kenny sighed, before sounding more demanding “You can go more than ten here, you know?”

“I don’t feel ready!”

“Then at least turn the- no! What are you doing?!”

“Shut the fuck up!”

It was a nightmare.

“I told you to press the-”

“I heard you the first time!”

“Then do it!”

They were at it for 2 hours. During two hours, they had done almost no progress, Craig had almost hit a tree -twice, but he said that the second time it was Kenny’s fault- he never got to actually go over the road but maintained on the side, and he had failed at all his attempts to park. So yeah, things were bad.

After two hours, they found themselves in the car, but this time neither of them were talking, they just sat there in silence, the car parked, while the two boys tried to calm themselves down before they actually tried to kill each other. 

Kenny seemed tired, tired of the yelling and the stress that it was to teach something completely new to someone who had no idea of what he was doing, and what was even worse, was that he wasn’t just teaching someone, he was teaching Craig. And Craig didn’t like to admit when he was wrong, he argued back at him and had a really short temper. 

Craig on the other hand, he was fucking pissed, glaring at the steering wheel, not wanting to make eye contact with McCormick, knowing that if he did he was going to beat the shit out of him. 

After five minutes of silence, Kenny finally spoke up again, “Ok, you know what? Fuck this” he said and reached in his pocket to take out the weed.

Maybe in another situation, Craig would have told him to go fuck himself, or something along the lines, but he was tired. He was fucking stressed out, so yeah, he could agree with McCormick in this one, fuck this.

Kenny took the first drag and let it in for a few seconds, he closed his eyes as he felt the smoke burning his lungs as he tried to hold it as long as he could, before finally releasing it and coughing a little while passed the joint to Craig. He, on the other hand, took three small drags of it, making a face when he realised that it was a much better quality than he had thought. 

It went like that for a while, until finally, Kenny started to feel the effect of the drug, making him lightheaded and relaxed, he felt his eyes heavy as he let himself relax on his seat, staring ahead of him while his head started doing what it always did when he was high. 

“Dude,” he said after a few minutes of silence. Craig made a sound, indicating to him that he was listening. “Being a fish must fucking suck”.

For a moment, there was silence. Kenny thought that maybe high Craig was nothing like him, maybe high Craig was like a much quieter version of himself, maybe he was just as tired of his bullshit as sober Craig would normally be.

But Craig, who had been also relaxing on his seat, and was also staring ahead of him, finally answered. “Shit, you’re right”.

Kenny hummed in agreement before dissolving into giggles.

That caught Craig’s attention, he turned slowly to glance curiously at Kenny who  was still laughing to himself, to the point that he needed to cover his mouth with one of his hands to try to keep it down. “What?” Craig asked him.

Kenny didn’t answer right away, slowly shaking his head before taking his hand off his mouth while he still laughed, after he finally calmed himself down a little he managed to answer “N-no, nothing dude, just-” he said between giggles before laughing loudly again “Shit, it’s just… so fucking stupid to be a fish man”. 

It took Craig a moment to process it all, Kenny was now staring at him expectantly for his answer. But Craig thought about it, he looked all funny to Kenny, brows drawn together, as he stared into the nothingness and thought to himself, finally he heard him snort -which what!!! Kenny didn’t know he could do that!!!- and answered.

“It must fucking suck” he agreeded.

And Kenny lost it.

Then he rolled another joint.

Kenny discovered that high Craig was nothing like sober Craig. High Craig didn’t shut his questions down, well at least not like sober Craig would. High Craig would take a moment to think about the question before answering, so when Kenny asked something that Craig didn’t want to answer or didn’t like, he would give him a one word response with a frown, but when he asked something he might find interesting he would take a moment to actually think about it and give a response that made sense to him. 

They were both too high.

“Not in the closet thought, that would be cool though” Kenny said,

“Really?” Craig asked, almost surprised at the new revelation of McCormick.

“Yeah, dude, never got the chance,” he said. And before he could stop himself he asked “What, have you, with who?”

Craig shrugered, but answered non less “Once” he said, and now it Kenny’s turn to look surprised “ with Tweek, before we broke up”.

“Shit, Tucker” Kenny said amused, “Didn’t know you had it in you”.

Craig smirked, to himself “you don’t know shit, McCormick”.

Kenny rolled down his window and as the smoke started to go through it, he lit himself a cigarette before passing his almost empty box to Craig.

“Yeah” he said before taking a long drag of his cigarette “I guess I don’t”.

He didn’t mean to sound so melancholic or sad, but for some reason it came out that way. He knew that Craig had also noticed the change of the air, tensing a little. For a few moments neither of them said anything, Kenny was about to break the tension, saying some stupid joke or coment that would most likely make Tucker mad, but he didn’t care as long, he had fucked the mood, and he really wanted to repair it but Craig beated him.

“Does it…” he began, but stopped. Kenny had heard him though. Craig dropped his gaze towards his shoes, frowning at them as if they had offended him. Kenny could only stare expectantly, waiting for him to finish the question. Eventually he did “does it ever… you know, not hurt?”.

Normally, Craig wouldn’t ask that question, because first of all, it would show that he was curious, it would reveal that he cared, in some way, but he did.

However if there was a chance to change the mood of their previous conversation, Craig had already killed that chance. Kenny had sulked in his seat, he didn’t look as relaxed and happy as he did a few moments, this time Kenny’s stare had turned into a serious one. He looked away too, staring out the window as he thought for an answer.

“No” he finally said, Craig turned to look at him, still frowning, but Kenny didn’t bother to look back “It always does”, he was busy noticing how it was getting late, the sky was getting darker and it filled with clouds “it’s always a different kind of pain, sometimes it hurts like a bitch” he remembered all those time where he would actually just pray for the pain to end, to just die already and stop suffering for once “it sucks, I mean, the pain, knowing that you can’t fucking stop it or do anything about it. And the people man, god that’s the worst part of it all” he rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands, maybe that way he could stop the memories from blinding his mind “you know how many times I had to see Kyle and Stan faces when I just fucking lied there and- shit dude, it fucks you up, that’s for sure” he said, as he took a deep breath, the intese stare of Craig was still on him. “You see people rushing to you, talking, saying some dumb reasuring bullshit that you know its not true, but I can’t just tell them to shut up you know? So I just have to lay there and hear all that bullshit, and-” he shakes his head “shit I’m sorry I fucking killed the mood” he said with a sad chuckle.

Craig didn’t look away, maybe it was because he was baked as shit, but he just didn’t, McCormick didn’t stare back. 

He felt like he maybe should say something, but what he was supposed to say? I’m sorry? It’s going to be ok? Nah, he couldn’t just say some lame shit like that. 

He was almost startled when Kenny clapped his hands and turned to stare at him with a more relaxed smile on his face, almost as if that conversation had never happened, almost as if it was nothing. Craig wanted to protest.

“Well” Kenny said, before rubbing his hands together “come on, start the car” he said making a gesture with his head as if telling him to go on. “We don’t have all day and I want to get something to eat”.

This time, Craig started the car and actually drove without a problem.

He blamed it on the weed.

An hour later they found themselves in the parking lot of a burger king that was in the town, they both had burgers and fries -paid by Craig, of course- as they ate silently. It was the best thing Kenny had ever had in a month, he even licked his fingers after picking a fry, Craig didn’t seem to care so it was ok, he was busy eating his own burger, staring at it as if trying to figure out why he hadn’t thought of eating there when he got high before.

“Pass me a napkin?” Kenny asked, when he had squeezed his burger and a bit of ketchup had spilled in his hand.

Noncomentally, Craig did, as he took another bite. 

He was proud of himself, he had driven them up all the way there, and only had failed at parking two times before finally doing it right.

“This is the best fucking burger I had in my entire life” Kenny comented, his mouth filled with food.

Craig hummed in agreement, taking another bite of his, It was really the best thing he had ever had at that moment.

Kenny looked away from his burger to stare at him, “do you think that- Holy shit!” he said and that made Craig stop chewing to stare confused at him. 

Kenny started sliding down his seat, dragging Craig by the arm to do so, he obliged, not thinking it twice as he tried to swallow the piece of burger he had not fully chewed yet, while trying not to drop the rest that he was still holding in his other hand. He didn’t know what was going on, but the startled look on Kenny’s face didn’t give him enough time to really discuss the matter until he was already twisted down in his seat.

“What?” he asked Kenny, who was in the same position as he was, but trying to look through Craig’s window as discreetly as possible, trying to not let himself see.

He then slipped down again to stare at him from his crouched position.

“Truck guy” he whispered. Craig’s eyes opened widely.

“What?” he said again, and tried to get up from his hurled position to stare out the window, but when he tried, Kenny was already dragging him back down and slapping him in the arm.

“Shh! Stop!” he hissed before glaring at him “What the fuck are you doing? He’s going to see you!” He reproached him.

Craig glared back, but tried to stare out the window again, this time, trying to stay curled, and only peeping the top of his head only to find that yes, in fact the truck that had been stalking them was parked on the other side of the street. He went back down and stared back at Kenny. “Shit, do you think he saw us?”.

Before answering, Kenny took another bite of his burger, he shaked his head “Don’t think so” he chewed but kept his eyes on the window even if he couldn’t really see if the guy was still there “I think he just parked there” he said before swallowing.

Kenny’s eyes darted back at Craigs who was firmly looking at him. 

For a few seconds they just stayed there, it was dark outside, the only thing illuminating the road were the yellow lights from the street. They stayed silent, except for when they took another bite of their own food, but still tried to chew as silently as possible. “Is he still there?” Kenny asked Craig after a few minutes had passed by.

Craig turned and did the same motion as he had before, only peering a little from his window, he didn’t see the truck anymore. “No, I think he left” he said before properly sitting in his seat.

Kenny followed slowly, still staring out trying to see if there was any trace of the truck but no, it was gone. “Shit, do you think he’s been following us?”.

Craig shaked his head, but his eyes were still on the window “no” he said “I think he just saw the truck when you noticed”.

Kenny exhaled, a bit relieved but still scared because at the end of the day the truck had stopped because he thought he was there. “Shit, dude”

And yeah, Craig couldn’t agree more, shit.

What the fuck was going on? Why was that guy following them, or Kenny for the metter? It was fucked up, what if the guy had seen them? What would have happened if he had spotted them there? He didn’t want to know. 

“We need to leave,” Craig finally said.

“Where?” 

He wasn’t sure, he just knew they needed to get the fuck out of there, if the truck came back and decided to actually check inside of it, then it was over. He thought for a second what were the best options they had, maybe they could just ran away? Yeah, that worked last time, hell they could just leave walking out of there, maybe they just needed to hide their faces and that was all. 

At least he thought so until he glanced back at Kenny who was staring at him expectantly, and frowned. Yeah that wasn’t going to work, not with Kenny like that.

“Take it off” 

In another scenario, Kenny would have made a really funny joke, but it wasn’t the time, well… no, bad timing.

“What?” Kenny blinks and makes a really funny confusing face.

Craig rolled his eyes before extending a hand to him and making a sign for him to drop something there. Kenny looked from his hand to his face, trying to understand what he was waiting for him to hand him, maybe he wanted to hold his hand? Was he expecting him to pay for his food? Because then he was going to have to wait for a long time since he had no money.

“What?” he asked again.

This time Craig glared at him “Your parka you stupid ass” he said “we need to leave and that thing is the most striking thing ever”.

“What? No way man” Kenny protested, crossing his arms over his chest “did you fucking see the weather? It’s fucking freezing out there!” 

“We don’t have time, asshole!” Craig insisted “is either that or you stay here and I leave”.

Kenny grunted something in response before irritably taking his parka off and shoving it on the backseat of his truck “There, happy?”. He asked while he wrapped his arms around himself, feeling cold already.

Craig stared at him, Kenny was wearing a pair of black skinny jeans, and a white shirt with a stain of something on it, just that. He wondered if that orange parka of his was really warm or if it was just that he couldn’t afford anything else, still he knew that he was definitely going to freeze his balls if he stayed like that outside for way too long.

“Shit” Craig said, well at least he had gloves, no wait they were fingerless gloves, that didn’t help at all. “Look, just- fuck follow me or whatever” he said stepping out of the car, not really giving him a chance to say otherswise. 

Once he stepped out, he knew that if they were going to do this, they needed to be fast, because it was cold as fuck outside, and even if he hand’t really prepare himself for the weather, Kenny had it worst. Once he saw that when he exhaled a cloud of steam came out of his mouth, he knew this was going to be a bitch for Kenny.

And he confirmed it when Kenny finally opened his door “Holy shit! Dude my fucking-” he closed the door and started jumping up and down while rubbing his arms, tryng to get some heat out of it “my fucking balls are freezing” he said as he started shivering.

This time Craig couldn’t help but wince at the sight. 

“Come on” he said as he started walking, they were almost already out of the parking lot when he remembered “Wait” he said and Kenny stopped beside him.

“What now?” he asked with his arms still wrapped around himself.

He really, really didn’t want to do that, but he knew that if he didn’t the risk of Kenny being recognized was high. 

Craig sighed, he took off his chulo and put it on Kenny’s head instead. Staring down at him with a frown on his face, he noticed how surprised Kenny looked. Wide light blue eyes staring at him, as if he had just told him that he was giving him a million dollars. His mouth was slightly open and he had completely stopped moving. It was an interesting sight.

Finally taking his eyes off him, Craig groaned and started walking, Kenny following close behind.

This time, Kenny didn’t bother speaking, he simply followed Craig close to him, looking at the street, making sure that truck guy wasn’t there or that no one suspicious was staring at them. 

It was when they were two blocks away from Craig’s house when a truck passed by them, they both stood still hoping for the worst, preparing for the truck to stop and for the guy to come out of it with a chainsaw or something to kill them. 

But that didn’t happen.

Thank god it didn’t happen because the truck just passed by them but never stopped.

Kenny thought he was going to pee himself.

“Come on” Craig urged as he walked faster “We are almost there”.

After basically running towards his house, Craig opened the door and waited as Kenny rushed inside with him, before closing and locking it. They both sighed in relief then. Kenny was still shivering though.

“Follow me” he ordered as he made his way upstairs, Kenny did, he was too tired to even protest.

Once they finally reached the second floor, they could hear voices from the room besides his, both their sisters were still there it seemed, and the shower was running which meant that either his mom or dad had come back from work. 

They made their way inside Craig’s room, and he closed it behind him, not even sparing McCormick a look as he made his way towards his wardrobe. He opened the doors and frowned, what the fuck could he give him? He decided on a long sleeved black shirt and a green hoodie with a white hood. Yeah he never wore that thing anyway.

“Here” he said, handing him the clothes “put on this”.

Once again, Kenny gave him that unreadable stare, but nodded non less, for a moment he saw Kenny stare at the clothes that were lying on his hands as if those were the most precious thing he had ever held. 

Kenny turned around and laid the pile of clothes on the bed, before taking his shirt off. 

Now, Craig hadn’t meant to look , but- BUT!

Ok, he didn’t have an excuse, he was definitely staring at Kenny’s torso. He was skinny, really skinny, but still managed to have some muscles on his abdomen, he also had a firm back, he noticed he also had freckles all over it, but not as much as he could have had, the spine wasn’t really defined on his back but he could still somehow see it, and how it went down, down and-

No, he was not going to keep looking, he turned around at that instant trying to make his blush go away as fast as possible so Kenny wouldn’t notice when looked at him once he finished.

A moment later, Kenny called for him “So?” he said as Craig turned around “how do I look?”.

Craig stared. He looked… he looked good, he looked comfortable, the hoodie a little big on him given their height and size difference but it still looked good on him, he had a small smile on his lips, and opened his arms a little. Craig did not fin that cute at all, he didn’t.

No, absolutely no.

“Like shit” he answered, and was glad that Kenny understood that it was a joke and grinned.

“Kenny?” someone said from behind him. 

Craig turned around as Kenny tried to look past him, both of their sisters stood on the doorway that Tricia had opened of course because she had no sense of privacy. They both looked surprised, given the fact that they knew their brothers weren’t the biggest fan of each other, so why was Craig lending him some clothes? 

“What’s up Kare-bear?” Kenny asked, smiling widely at her now.

Karen blushed at the nickname, it made Kenny’s heart ache a little, she was older now, she wasn’t a little kind anymore, of course she would be embarrassed of the nickname he had given her when she was five. 

“N-nothing” she said “are you here to pick me up? We didn’t hear your truck pulling up”.

Both Craig and Kenny stared at each other at the mention of his truck that they had left on the parking lot of a fucking Burger King. Shit.

“Yeah, bout that…” he mubler scratching the back of his neck nervously.

“Mom and Dad are home,” Karen said suddenly. 

The comment went almost unnoticed by Craig, he guessed that maybe they were going to be late to curfew or whatever that their parents did and they may have some problems. He knew that Butters had a curfew, so he guessed that maybe with Kenny was the same, but when he saw Kenny tense a bit and clench his jaw.

Maybe it wasn’t much about the curfew.

“Yeah so...” he said, glanced at Karen, Tricia and Craig, all eyes were on him now, shit “you want to stay the night?” he asked with a fond smile.

Karen frowned “but what about-”

But she never managed to get the full sentence out, because Kenny was already waving a dismissive hand at her and moving to get out of the room “don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine” he said passing past Craig and the two girls “just a five minutes walk” he said, and turned to stare at Craig “open the door for me?”.

Craig narrowed his eyes, but obliged, following from behind as they made their way downstairs once again. He wasn’t going to push, it wasn’t his place either.

Once they reached the door, Craig opened it, as Kenny stepped outside, this time not as cold as before by the new layers he had on, still, before making his walk back home, he sighed and turned to look at Craig who was waiting for him to leave.

“Look, I’m sorry for thrusting Karen to you like that” he said “but It’s really cold out, and my truck is-”

Craig shook his head “don’t” he said “I get it”.

Kenny nodded, he sighed once again before shoving his hands on the pockets of his jeans “Well, guess I’ll be going now”. He was already halfway towards the street when he heard Craig call for him.

“Hey!” Kenny turned around, confused “text me when you get home” he said.

Because yeah, he may be an asshole, and a cold son of a bitch, but he wasn’t a monster. There was someone outside that was specifically searching for Kenny, and if the guy was going to have to walk to his home alone in the middle of the night, the least he could do was ask him to text him when he got home safe.

Kenny seemed to think more of it than how Craig looked at it, because he gave him an awfully fond and sweet smile, before nodding and walking away.

Craig wanted to punch that smile off his face. 

It was when he was back in his room when he noticed that Kenny’s shirt was on his bed, and it was when he passed by a mirror that he had also forgotten to ask back for his chulo. Fucking McCormick.

On his way back home, Kenny maintained his head low, he kept thinking about their encounter in the parking lot. That had been scary, it had genuinely frightened him, he needed to be more careful now. He wished that Craig’s parents could give him the car already, because he was seriously going to need a ride now if he wasn’t going to be able to take his own car.

Ten minutes later, Kenny stood outside his house, he didn’t want to go inside. Both his parents were in, and even if overall his mom was not that bad, his dad… Stuart McCormick was a whole different deal, maybe if Kevin was also inside he would be fine, but he was sure that Kevin would be somewhere else, he would choose to sleep in the sewers than to sleep home.

Kenny got it in some way.

Before going inside, he took his phone and saw that it was already at a 10%. Shit, he was able to send a quick message.

To: cocksucker.

home safe xo

thx 4 the clothes

Because Kenny was well mannered, well, most of the time, but still.

He took a deep breath and made his way inside, the yelling from inside the house becoming louder and louder as he made his way in. Shit.

Chapter Text

“Hey!” he heard someone call behind him “where the fuck is Kenny?”.

Craig turned around to see Eric Cartman with a furious expression behind him, he was fuming with anger, but Craig didn’t bother to react, he didn’t have shit to explain, he had let Kenny go home, he even texted him saying that he had made it ok there. 

“The fuck you talking about?” Craig asked.

Before he could react he had Cartman over him, pushing him to the lockers behind him, a bunch of students that were passing by stopped to stare at the scenario. 

He didn’t want to start the Christmas holidays by staying in detetion because Fatass wanted to start a fight for something he hadn't even done, but he wasn’t going to let him get what he wanted either. Cartman might be bigger than him, but Craig was taller and he knew how to fight. 

Craig struggled but eventually got Cartman hands off his grip on his shoulders. He pushed him off before throwing a fit to his face. Craig snarled as his attention turned towards his hand, he spread it open before closing it again, inspecting it, his knuckles were red by the force of his punch.

He could barely hear the comments that his classmates were whispering.

Cartman took a step back as he grabbed his face with both hands “FUCK!” he yelled as he took his hands off his face. His hands were bloody, he had a bloody nose, again. 

For a moment, neither of them moved, they just stood there scowling at each other, waiting for the other to make the first move, people were expecting to see more.

When Cartman took a step forward, Craig was already in position, hands  formed into fist as he tensed. But the punches never came, instead Eric held his index fingers right to his face, and said in a low voice just for them to hear, but still managing to sound like snarl.

“I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re doing” he said, Craig bared his teeth at the implications, but Eric didn’t stop “but if you even think doing something to him I’ll fucking kill you”. He didn’t turn away immediately, but instead he kept their eyes locked.

It was a threat, Cartman was fucking threating him, but Craig knew better than to actually feel scared by him, he knew him since they were kids and even if he had been witnes of Cartman’s spychophat tendecis that dind’t mean he was scared, no, he was going to beat him up until his face was unrecogniceable if he even tried to touch him.

“Get. The. Fuck. Away. From me” he managed to get out between clenched teeth. 

Cartman stepped away after a few seconds, cleaning the blood from his face with the back of his sleeve.

Craig could only stand there watching him leave. He hadn’t noticed but his heart was beating hard against his ears, and his breath had become heavy. What the fuck had happened?  He snapped his gaze towards the students that were still there watching him, but that also looked away and kept on walking once his gaze met theirs. 

Great what a great fucking way to start the holidays. 

He took his phone out, and sent a quick message. He needed an explanation for having been assaulted like that by Cartman, was he supposed to wait for the same exact kind of treatment from his friends? He hoped not, he could only be lucky enough to not go to detention for punching Cartman in the face, if he even touched Kyle he was sure he would have to wait there for at least three hours.

To: nutsack.

tf r u?

It only took ten seconds until the response came.

From: nutsack.

home why?

He glowered at his phone before typing anyway.

To: nutsack

fat bitch came at me

Punched him in the face

From: nutsack.

oh shit.

I'll text him

To: nutsack

u better.

Craig was in a bad mood for the rest of the day, he wasn’t going to admit it, but he felt kind of sorry for his friends. The past week he had been in an awful mood and he had treated them like shit, well, shittier than usual. During a few of his clases, which he shared with Cartman, they both glared at each other. He felt satisfied though when he saw the dried blood on Cartman’s left nostril, good, he deserved it. 

What had weirded him out the most though, was that neither Stan, Kyle or Butter for the matter had come for him, they just stared confused at Eric, who apparently hadn’t told them anything. He was fine with it, he didn’t need to deal with their bullshit too. 

Then when he finally started to actually feel in a better mood, because the day was over and he hadn’t been called to detention, and was walking with Tweek by his side.

“It does look better,” he had said.

Craig didn’t think so, he had missed his chulo, he was never good at doing his hair, and every morning when he woke up from bed it was always a mess. He had tried to do a decent job with it, trying to brush it down and even applying water on it, but he hadn’t really succeeded. Tweek at least didn't seem to think the same.

“It sucks” he simply stated.

Tweek smiled softly at him, “I think it looks good” he turned his gaze back ahead of him as they passed by the school door, finally free until the next year. “It’s new, and you never really- oh my god! Is that Kenny?!” he asked.

It took a second for Craig to follow his gaze, and yeah there he was. 

Kenny stood outside the school, waiting for his friends apparently, but he was wearing the hoodie he had lent him, his chulo was nowhere to be seen but what was there to be seen was the gigantic purple bruise on his right eye. His split lip and his stupid smirk, as if everything was normal, as if he didn’t look like absoulut shit.

“Holy shit!” he heard Kyle yell from somewhere behind him.

It only took him a second to see him run towards him, Stan and Cartman close behind him.

Kenny didn’t seem bothered, instead waving their concern off with a dismissive hand, and saying something that made Stan and Cartman frown. He couldn’t hear what he was saying. He watched as Kyle touched his face with both hands, inspectionationg for more damage, and Kenny winced notably when Kyle had apparently touched a soft spot.

“Dude, he looks like shit, '' he heard Clyde say. Both Tweek and him hadn’t moved from where they had been standing, his other friends had apparently stopped by their sides, admiring the situation with him “do you think that truck guy did that to him?” he wondered.

For some reason, Craig didn’t think so, they had already escaped truck guy, and Kenny had even texted him saying that he was able to make it home safe, not only that but it was ten minutes away after he left, so if truck guy had actually had done that to him then there must have been the fastest fight ever.

“Nah” he said, his eyes never leaving as Kenny lips moved saying something else that made Kyle roll his eyes and Butters smile softly at him.

Maybe he should ask, but he felt like it wasn’t his place. They weren’t even friends, he didn’t want to think about what had actually happened to Kenny, even if he had a feeling of what it was, he didn’t want to confirm it, it was better that way. 

“Come on” he said, making his friends' attention turn to him “let’s go to Tweek’s or whatever” they started walking towards Clyde’s car, he gave Kenny one last glance, but the guy seemed to be already laughing at something they had said “I need a coffee or some shit”.

Successfully, Craig managed to not think about Kenny that day, he didn’t even cross his mind for a second, he completely forgot about him, he was with his friends he was having an amazing time, he was in the best of moods. 

He was.

No, he wasn’t, Craig was a terrible liar.

He hadn’t been able to think about anything that wasn’t Kenny related. He was pissed off the whole time, he had been glaring at his coffee since it was served in his hands, and he couldn’t help but glance at his phone every ten minutes, waiting for a message from Kenny or something. But why? He didn’t need to explain anything to him, he didn’t need to tell him shit.

But he did though. He hadn’t really fully learned how to drive, he still needed classes, right? He needed to successfully park without trying at least two times, he needed to be reminded to use his mirrors, and that he could in fact go faster than 20. He needed his fucking classes and Kenny was an asshole for no having text him about them. Yeah, that was the problem, not that Craig wanted to see Kenny or know what the fuck had happened to his face.

To: nutsack

tomorrow 4pm

From: nutsack

??? what??

Craig huffed, making Clyde shot a curious look at him.

To:

drive lessons.

From: nutsack.

oh right

yeah sure.

“Dude” he heard Clyde, still glaring he turned to stare at him “what are you so pissed off about?”.

Pissed off? Him? No, he fucking wasn’t, he wasn’t pissed off and if he was it wouldn’t be because of Kenny, he didn’t have that effect on him, he was just an asshole that had dragged him into a fucked up situation and now he had to learn how to drive because if not then bad things could happen.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about” he mumbled, as he shoved his phone back in his pocket.

Token and Clyde shared a look “you've been acting strange for the past week” Token pointed out.

Craig looked away, before taking one last sip of his coffee.

“You can talk about, you know that, right?” Clyde insisted.

Ok, that was it, he wasn’t going to deal with this, this was off limits. It was too uncomfortable, too much, he didn’t want to deal with it, not now. 

“Fuck this, I’m leaving” he slammed his coffee on the table and got up from his seat. He didn’t bother to turn around when his friends started calling after him, he just wanted to go home. 

It took him ten minutes to get to his house, he tried really hard to not think about Kenny on his way there, he tried to keep his mind on something else instead. Obviously he failed.

Once inside, he discovered that there was no one there. He knew Tricia would most likely be with Ike and Karen, being that the three of them were best friends now, and were going to be the next ‘problematic kids’ once they all left for college. 

His mom left a note saying she was going to come home late. His dad would too. Probably.

He went to his kitchen, drank a glass of water and moved to his bedroom. It’s only when he finally opens the door that he remembers. If he wasn’t annoyed before, he definitely was now. He had forgoten his fucking camera, he had fuckig left it inside of Kenny’s truck. What a great fucking day.

Craig fills Stripe’s food container before laying on his bed, he puts some music on his phone and just lays there.

 It’s about an hour later, when he’s listening to some song, he doesn’t even remember the name, but the sweet sounds of a guitar is the only thing that he can hear and that’s enough for him, maybe it’s one of those stupid indie bands that Tricia likes so much, he hates that they have to share an account, still an hour later he hears someone ring on his door.

He thinks about not answering, maybe if he doesn’t answer and waits long enough they would leave. He checks from his window and when the person that is waiting for him waves at him, he pushes all his thoughts away. 

Craig doesn’t know how he feels about Tweek coming to visit him at a time like this. 

“You already know where everything is” he greets once he opens the door to let him in. Tweek simply grins at him as he cleans his shoes on the carpet. 

The two of them make their way towards his kitchen, Craig takes out two cans of soda and passes one to his friend. Tweek accepts it and cracks it open. None of them says anything for a while, Craig feels glad about it, until he doesn’t.

“Ok” he hears him say “what’s the deal?”

Being friends with Tweek is way different than dating him, Craig thinks. When Tweek and him used to date, aside from all the cute bullshit and everything, they had arguments, and having arguments with a friend is different than with a partner. When they used to date Tweek wouldn't insist, he wouldn’t say anything when Craig was mad, sad or anything, then Tweek would proceed to be mad at him because he never trusted him enough to say what he was feeling to him. 

It wasn’t about trust. However, Craig understood, Tweek needed someone that would tell him shit, not someone he needed to insist on, someone that couldn’t open up about what he was feeling unless he was being held at gunpoint. 

Being friends with Tweek was different because he would insist then.

“There’s no deal” Craig simply said before taking a sip of his soda. Tweek frowned at him.

“Don’t fucking lie to me” he prostested “I hate it when you do that”.

And I hated it when you broke up with me , he doesn’t say. He didn’t love Tweek anymore, well, not like that anyway, but the pain and grudges didn’t go away easily.

Instead Craig shrugs, Tweek sighs.

“Look” Tweek starts, and Craig can’t meet his eyes. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I know you and something is up that you’re not telling me, us” he says. Craig swallows but doesn’t allow himself to stare at his friend in the eye “We are worried about you” his voice is soft then.

First, Craig takes another sip, then he takes a deep breath. Guess they were doing this now.

“Fine” he says “somethings up”.

Tweek smiles a little at that “good, what is it?”.

“Truck guy” he says, Tweek shifts uncomfortable with the information “it’s following him, Kenny '' he clarifies.

Tweek only nods, “Butters thinks he should tell the police”. 

And that was the reason he loves Tweek, he didn’t push about the fact that he mentioned Kenny, he didn’t bother him with the questions his other friends would, instead he accepted it and asked the important questions.

Craig frowns “what the fuck would the police do?” he asks, pissed off at the suggestion “it’s not like they can just follow Kenny around too”.

“I know, we told him that” 

That confuses him “Who?”.

Once again, Tweek shifts uncomfortably “Us, you know” he says, but when Craig arches an eyebrow at him he continues “Kyle and Butters contacted me last night, I told the guys and we started thinking of a plan, I know you didn’t tell us for a reason but still”.

Internally, Craig has a debate with himself, on one side he feels touched that his friends didn’t just brush the topic off and instead decided to think of a plan to protect him and by extension Kenny too. 

On the other hand, he feels annoyed that neither of them had told him anything. 

He chooses to just hum in agreement. Tweek keeps talking.

“Butters managed to think about something” he says, “Kenny told him about, you know, the car plan or whatever” he can’t help but feel a bit embarrassed about it, Tweek offers him a reassuring smile “he says he thinks he know who owns the truck and who drives it”.

“Who is it?” Craig asks impatiently.

Sadly, Tweek shakes his head “He didn’t say, he’s not sure, but he says he’s going to ask Cartman to help him investigate”.

Great, fatass was going to get really involved in this too.

“We are meeting tomorrow” Tweek says “Stan’s gang and us”.

They all must really care about him if they are willing to put up with those guys to help him solve this problem, he feels touched for a moment, then he just feels bad. He’s been treating his friend like shit, he’s been the absolute worst to them, and they all just seemed to want to help, but he had pushed him away.

He drags a hand to his face “Shit” he lets out “I was an asshole to them”.

Even if he’s not staring at him, he can feel Tweek smiling at him “Don’t worry” he tells him “they get it you know. Still you should apologize to Clyde, you know how he gets, and Jimmy says he’s not helping you with your History homework until you listen to his new monologue".

Craig groans, “Fine, I’ll do it”.

Tweek grins at him, he takes one last sip of his soda “Come on, let’s do something else, this way too depressing”.

Craig let’s himself smile and follows Tweek to his living room, ready to put on some video games that he knows he would beat him at. When the rest of the Tuckers come back home, neither of them says anything about Tweek being there laughing with him, they give him pointed looks though, and Craig just knows he’s going to hear about it.

They ask Tweek to stay for dinner, he denies politely and says he needs to go home. Craig knows that he doesn’t but he doesn't want to stay because things might get weird with his parents. He doesn’t blame him, he would do the same, hell he wouldn’t even stay for dinner at his own house if he could.

The next day, he wakes up late, since school is over until further notice, and Christmas is only around the corner.

At two in the afternoon, he gets a message from Tweek.

From: Tweek

come to the shop in 10, assholes coming at 3.

To: Tweek

k 

Annoyed, Craig puts on a jacket and leaves walking towards Tweek Bros. When he gets there, all his friends are sitting on their usual table, they are all laughing at something Jimmy had said, and a wave of guilt slaps him in the face. He manages to erase the pained look on his face in time for his friends to notice him, his feets carrying him to the table. 

At first, no one says anything when he reaches the end of the table, he doesn't sit on his usual seat next to Token, instead he just stares at them and tries to form the right words he wants to say.

“Sorry” he manages to say, he turns to look at the table too ashamed to look at his friends in the eye “I was an asshole”:

And because Token is the best person in the entire world, he smiles up at him “don’t be” he tells him “we pushed you even though we know you hate that”.

Craig thought that even then that wasn’t an excuse to be an asshole. 

“Yeah dude” he hears Jimmy say “I mean It wasn’t cool but we get it”.

For a moment no one said anything else, Craig turned to stare at Clyde who was pointedly avoiding looking at him, he had his arms crossed over his chest and was frowning to himself. It wasn’t until Token cleared his throat that he rolled his eyes and sighed.

“Fine” he said, defeated and finally staring back at him “I forgive you but only because Token’s party is coming up and I really want to get drunk with you”.

That was enough for him, he gave him a weak smile and proceeded to sit beside Token. “Well” he said, all attention on him once again, he saw Tweek smile at him from where he was preparing them all their usual orders “someone said something about a monologue”. 

Clyde and Token groaned, Jimmy beamed and started talking.

It felt nice, hell it felt great to finally be able to relax and just hang with his friends like he used to. It felt like being normal again, when he didn’t really have to worry about much, he felt all the anxiety leaving his body, all the tense emotions and worries leaving his body for once. He felt great, he was able to laugh at Jimmy dumb jokes, he was able to make fun of Clyde when he protested about being the only one that had actually being bothered by Craig’s attitude, he even managed to return Tweek’s smile. 

He was finally feeling great.

At least until the door opened and a group of people made their way in towards them.

“Hey fags” yeah, his mood was officialy ruined “make some room we are here”.

It took them about ten minutes to finally settle, between Cartman bitching that he didn’t want to sit next to Craig or Clyde, Butters asking Tweek about all the different varieties of coffees he had and then Kyle arguing with Eric when he said something offensive about him. In the end, Craig sat between Token and Kenny, and Stan sat between Cartman and Kyle to prevent chaos. 

“Well, what do we got?” Kyle asked.

“We know he’s only following Kenny so far” Token said “Craig didn’t notice anything weird unless he was with him, and the plate is ‘WD 476814 and-”

“Wait, wait, wait” Clyde interrupted “did you say 476814?” 

Everyone turned to stare at him, confused by the question and the sudden incredulous look on Clydes face.

“Um? Yes?” 

Clyde frowned “that’s weird” he said “do you know where the plate is from?” he asked.

They all stared at each other for a moment until Butters finally spoke up “U-um” all eyes were on him now “I-I took a picture of the plate yesterday” he said. That released the chaos on the table.

“What? How?”

“Dude, where did you eve-”

“Butters what the fuck-”

“Guys,” Kenny said.

None paid attention.

“Do you even know what could-”

“How do you even-”

“Fucking hell if-”

This time it was Craig who spoke up “Hey!” he said.

Kenny seemed to relax when everyone stopped talking “Butters” he said when everyone shutted up “when and how did you take a picture?”.

Butters who had just been attacked by a bunch of questions, and snarls from everyone in the table, curled in his seat but spoke non less “I-I was doing the groceries with my mom a-and I saw the truck you guys had described and I-I decided to take a picture, j-just to be sure” he said as he took his phone out and set it on the table for everyone to see.

Craig leaned over and took it before anyone else could, watching carefully as Kenny leaned on his side to also look at it. Yeah, that was the truck that had been following them, and the plate was exactly the one they had mentioned.

 “Yeah, this is the truck” he said as he passed the phone to his friends to check it out. Kenny nodded in agreement.

Craig felt him tense beside him, he didn’t comment on it.

While the phone was being passed around, Kyle started roaming through his backpack, taking out a notepad and a pen, he started writing some things down while frowning. “What did you say was the plate of the truck?”

Cartman, who was now staring intensely at the picture, answered “WD 476814” he said before turning to stare at Clyde “It says here that it’s from Texas”.

That caught Clyde's attention, he made a face of confusion “See, that’s what I don’t understand” he said.

“What is it?” Kyle asked, now focused on him.

“See, those trucks were only produced around 1950 or something” everyone nodded at him, not really knowing where this was going but paying attention non less “And it says there that the truck is from Texas!” He said like that was the most obvious thing in the world.

“And what the fuck does that have to do with anything, dickass?” Cartman asked, clearly annoyed that he didn’t understand what Clyde was trying to say.

Clyde gave Cartman an pinched look before explaining “Texas plates in the fifties only had four numbers top” he explained.

Everyone stared at each other, it was Kyle who was staring intently at his notepad that broke the silence “and this truck has six” he hummed to himself, thinking about what could that mean “maybe he had it changed on purpose” He tried to guess.

“Nah dude” Stan said shaking his head “usually when people buy customised plates they usually put something on them like a name or a word”.

“Or” this time it was Kenny who spoke up, his eyes wide open in anticipation “or maybe those numbers might mean something”.

“Yeah, but what?” Clyde asked.

“I don’t know,” Kenny said, “maybe each number is a letter? Maybe it forms a word or something”.

Everyone started counting with their hands which number would represent which letter, when Kyle managed to write it down he shook his head, displeased with the results.

“No dude” he told them “It forms nonsense”.

“Why? What does it form?” Kenny asked.

Kyle turned his notead towards everyone in the table to see, scribbled down, under every number was the letter that corresponded to each number it formed ‘DGFHAD’. They all stared at it confused until Kyled put it down and stared at it, trying to descifrate what it could mean, or what else it could be.

“Maybe it’s an acronymous?” Token asked.

“A what now?” 

Token rolled his eyes at his friend, but it was Cartman who spoke up again 

“An acronymous idiot? Do you not know what that is?” Clyde blushed and didn’t say anything, Cartman huffed but explained either way “an acronymous it’s a word formed by each initial of a sentence”.

“Like the N.A.S.A” Tweek offered Craig a quick smile, which didn’t go unnoticed by anyone.

They all pretended to not hear the ‘ugh gay’ that came from Eric.

“Ooh, ok, I get it now,” Clyde said, proud of himself.

Kyle sat straighter, and stared around “Ok, so does anyone know of something that could belong to that acronym? Anything?”.

They all stared at each other in silence, and shrugered. No one had anything great that didn’t help at all. Kyle started rubbing his temple, gile Stan rubbed his shoulder to try to help him calm down. 

“Great, so we have nothing,” he said,

Kenny, who tried to make things better said “Well, not nothing ”

Kyle glared at him “no, Kenny, we have nothing” he snapped at him, Craig felt Kenny curl a little on his seat in shame “we just have fucking nonsense, we don’t even fucking-”

Without thinking of it, Craig interrupted him, he was having a good day and these assholes had ruined it. He had absolutely no patience and he wasn’t going to let Kenny get treated like shit because he at least tried to dissolve the tension or to make things less shitty.

“Ok, that’s enough” he said standing up, and grabbing Kenny by the hood to drag him along “we are leaving”.

“What?! Why?!” Kyle asked.

Craig turned to stare at him, he stopped when he met Kenny’s eyes first. 

He still had that awful bruise on his right eye, he was staring at him with wide eyes, well as wide as his right eye could open. His lip seemed to be better, they were chapped though, he had heart shaped lips, and what the fuck was he doing staring at McCormicks lips. He stared at Kyle.

“Because this is enough for today” he said, he could feel Cartman's intense stare on him, but didn’t say anything “if you want to keep investigating or whatever fine, do it, but we are leaving” he said as he grabbed Kenny by the arm this time and dragged him along. H

He heard someone else stand up behind them, he thought it would be someone trying to stop them and get them to stay, but was shocked to see that it was Cartman along with Butters behind them.

“We are going to see if we can track that bitch down,” he said, his eyes firm on Kenny. After a moment, he spared him a menacing look “watch your backs' '.

If he wasn’t in his ex boyfriend's coffee shop, and next to someone who was already beaten up, he would have probably punched him in the face already, but he contained himself and didn’t. Instead he flipped him off before dragging Kenny along with him, still holding him by the arm.

Once they were already a block away from Tweek’s Bros, he let go of his hold as Kenny asked him “Hey, where are we going?”.

Craig didn’t answer right away, instead he kept on walking but handed him a cigarette and took out one for himself. “Burgers King parking lot” he said, before he lit his cigarette he passed his light to Kenny, who accepted it but was still staring at Craig with a frown in his face. “You’re teaching me how to drive, remember?”.

For a second, Kenny didn’t answer and Craig had to actually stop in his tracks to check if he was still following him or what since he hadn't said anything. Instead he was found with the intense stare of McCormick, who was looking at him as if he was a puzzle he was trying to solve.

Eventually, Kenny snorted while he shook his head and said “You’re a strange guy, Tucker”.

Craig rolled his eyes and turned to keep walking again “Says the guy that comes back from death”.

Thankfully, Kenny found that funny rather than offensive and laughed.

“Yeah” he heard him say “I guess I did”.

When they finally made it to the car, Craig went instantly for the drivers door, as Kenny occupied the passenger seat, he smirked to himself but didn’t say anything about it, he also didn’t say anything when he started the car and managed to get out of the parking lot without a problem. And also without weed in his system, which he was proud of. He managed to catch Kenny trying to suppress a smile. 

He was killing it today. 

Instead of asking for instruction, Craig drove with no direction whatsoever and Kenny didn’t seem to mind, every now and then reminding him to turn the turning sign, or to check his mirrors, not as much as before, and this time Craig didn’t bickered, he just did as he was told. 

After a good twenty minutes of driving to nowhere in particular and having passed by the cinema twice, because Craig had forgotten that had already turned that way, he heard Kenny grin but because he didn’t say anything Craig didn’t slap him. They were silently driving around when Craig finally asked.

“So what happened?” Craig tried to act natural; he kept his eyes on the road when he spoke.

Kanny, who hadn’t catched the question, was too busy playing with the radio, trying to change to a station that actually played good music but failing at it. “What?” he asked, his eyes still focused on the radio, he was even sticking his tongue a little in concentration.

Craig shifted in his seat and thought that maybe he could not ask him, and change the subject, but he was curious, and he wasn’t curious about much in general, of course that was until Kenny decided that he needed to change that.

Well, technically Kenny didn’t decide to do that, but still, you get the point.

“What happened?” he asked, and this time Kenny did turn to stare at him, waiting for him to elaborate, Craig just glanced at him once before turning his eyes back on the road. Feeling uneasy, he clarified “to your face, what happened?”

Instead of replying right away, Kenny stopped. He literally froze his movements which made Craig send a worried glance in his way but kept driving anyway. 

For a few seconds, his eyes stayed still on the radio in front of him, but slowly he started to slowly move away from it, and sit correctly in his seat, his eyes focused on the road too. That made Craig even more uncomfortable than before, but still he waited.

Kenny seemed as if he had been drained of emotion, all the life and joy from a few seconds before turning into blank expression, void of emotion.

“I got into a fight,” he finally said.

It surprised him for a moment, not because he believed him, of course he didn’t. 

What surprised Craig, was the fact that even if Kenny wasn’t telling the truth, he wasn’t acting as if it was nothing, as if he didn’t even care if Craig realised it was bullshit, almost as if he wanted him to call him out.

Kenny wasn’t a bad liar, he could act his way out of any situation he had witnessed last morning when Kenny had appeared after school and he managed to keep a smug look on his face and say whatever bullshit he had said to his friends to make them not worry as much. 

Still, Craig hummed in response, neither of them daring to break the silence, until Craig spoke again “why did the fight start?” he asked.

The reaction was inmediat “because it did, check your mirrors” Kenny snapped. Craig did without questioning. “Can we change the subject? I don’t wanna talk” Kenny asked, this time he looked away to the passenger window, he wrapped his arms around himself and his foot started bouncing up and down.

Craig wasn’t going to give up so easily. Instead he pushed the subject “then why did you lie?”.

Kenny still didn’t look away, still Craig managed to catch with the corner of his eye how he seemed to flinch a little and curl in his seat. He looked smaller, vulnerable even, he wanted to push.

“Because I did” Kenny answered “now stop it, turn the sign”.

He cringed as he turned the turning sign at the last minute “why?”.

He didn’t count on Kenny absolutely losing his patience “stop the car” he said still not staring at him, Craig directed him a confused glance before Kenny turned to stare at him with a furious look on his face and spoke louder. “Stop the fucking car!”.

“I’m not going to stop the car!” Craig said in the same tone, because the fuck? 

“Stop it!” Kenny protested, already taking off his seat belt “I want to get off, stop it!”. He tried to go for the handle, but Craig was faster and locked the door. “What the fuck?!” Kenny yelled at him, “Stop the fucking car!”.

Frustrated and angry at Kenny’s sudden behaviour, Craig yelled back, his eyes still on the road but his uncomfortable expression had turned into a scowl “I’m not going to stop the car!”.

“Stop the fucking car!” Kenny yelled again, this time louder, sounding more demanding. 

And because if he didn’t he was sure he was going to punch Kenny in the face, Craig stopped the car. There was no one on the road, just them, and this time he stopped just in front of a red light. 

“There! Are you happy now?!” Craig screamed at him, this time turning to properly look at Kenny. 

Kenny was flushed with anger, his eyes were narrowed. Craig didn’t miss the way his hands seemed to tremble with rage. He could see the way that fury twisted inside of him, he saw the darkness and panic in his eyes.

“Yes!” Kenny shouted “Yes I fucking am!”. Then he stopped.

They both stopped, still burning with anger the tension palpable in the car but neither of them dared to look away. Their eyes firmly staring at each other, in some moment Craig’s breath had quickened because he felt his own heartbeat beat faster as he tried to slow down his breath, to relax. Kenny wasn’t much better. 

They could just stare, Craig didn’t know how long it passed since the staring contest had started, but after what seemed to be an eternity Kenny broke his gaze away.

“Fuck this” he mumbled as he sat properly in his seat and crossed his arms around his chest, his gaze back on the road.

Craig forced himself to take a deep breath and try to relax “McCormick-” he said this time softer but still firmly.

“Shut the fuck up Tucker” Kenny said, still not staring at him.

Craig groaned, he was seriously going to punch him in the face, god how he wanted to just kick him in the stomach and beat his stupid face up. But no, he needed to relax.

“I’m not shutting the fuck up until you talk, McCormick” he demanded, his scowl long gone but a firm expression still on his face as he stared at Kenny, waiting for him to stare back.

Instead, Kenny turned his gaze down and mumbled “funny how the tables turned”.

Oh, he was so going to kick his ass as soon as he stopped having that dumb black eye. “McCormick,” Craig said again.

“My dad beated me up!” Kenny finally confessed, throwing his hands up in the air and letting them drop on his knees as finally stared back at Craig, irritation clea on his face. “There, I said it, are you happy now? Is that what you wanted to know? That my fucking dad beated the shit out of me? Huh?” Craig tried really hard to maintain his expression and not flinch as Kenny shouted at him “Is that what you wanted to hear?!”

He was unable to talk, he didn’t know what to say. And that the problem, he knew this was going to happen, he knew the real reason behind Kenny’s black eye and split lip, he knew it but he wanted to hear it coming out of his mouth. And now that it was out, he didn’t know what to say.

When Craig didn’t answer right away, Kenny let out a short laugh before turning to look away from him once again “that’s what I thought” he said. Craig didn't move “take me home” Kenny ordered.

“McCormick-” Craig tried even if he wasn't sure of where he was going with it.

“I want to go home” Kenny repeated louder this time.

And because he had known that he had fucked up badly, Craig sighed and started the car once again, driving towards the McCormicks residence. During the fifteen minute ride, no one said anything, Kenny pointedly looking away from him, his body curled in the corner of his seat, his legs close to his chest and his chin on his knees. Even from the corner of his eye he could see that Kenny hadn’t stopped frowning. 

Once they arrived, neither of them made a move. Craig had turned the car off, parked right in front of his house, he could see the trashy front of the house. Kenny made no movement to leave, he was still curled and frowning at his house. 

Craig sighed and let his hands drop from the steering wheel, he closed his eyes for a moment and thought of something to say. Shit, he sucked at words, why couldn’t he just say what was on his mind. He tried to organize his thoughts, he tried to find the right words, the courage to say them he found anxiety instead.

He let himself open his eyes before speaking again. “Kenny” he said, and maybe it was because it was the first time he had actually said his name to him out loud, but Kenny didn’t tell him to shut the fuck up so that was something  good, right? “I’m sorry” there he said it, it was out.

For the few longest seconds, Kenny didn’t say anything, he didn’t even move, almost as if Craig had never spoken, as if he hadn’t heard his words. Craig was about to give up when suddenly Kenny's muffled voice said “You’re such a fucking asshole”.

“I know” Craig agreed, because yeah, he fucking was.

Kenny sighed, and finally let his legs drop to the floor so he was in a properly sitting position. He dragged both hands through his face before finally turning to stare at him “look, it’s ok, just don’t fucking- “ he strugeled with his words “don’t fucking tell anyone, it doesn’t really matter”.

Craig was about to protest, but Kenny shook his head “No, stop, it doesn’t matter” he insisted “look just, pretend you don’t know or whatever, I don’t care. Just, don’t say anything and don’t do something dumb”.

Pretend that he doesn't know? What kind of twisted minded freak would do that? Not him, that’s for sure.

“Kenny-” he tried again, but he wasn’t going to let him talk today aparently.

“No, stop that” he said with an exasperated movement of his hands and closing his eyes tightly for a second before opening them back again “just- stop ok? Stop”. 

Finally, Craig nodded and turned to look away. Nobody moved until Kenny took a deep breath and opened his door, which had his window rolled down. Craig just sat there, staring at the road and thinking of something that maybe he could do, thinking of what he could have said. That was, until Kenny turned around and stared at him through the window, Craig just turned his head and stared back.

Kenny took a deep breath “Look, I’m sorry too, you didn’t know” he said, and Craig was about to disagree, but Kenny continued talking “thank you for taking me out, and thank you for the ride” he said “you need to pay for the gas though” he said and pointed to the sign that he hadn’t notice that said ‘low gas’, Kenny grinned. 

That fucker.

“Well” he said “See you later, Fucker”.

This time, he managed to smirk back at him before adding “Goodbye, McWhoremick”.

Kenny laughed louder before turning away towards his house. 

Great, what was he supposed to do with the truck now? Shit.

Turning the engineer on, he was about to drive away, when he remembered to look through his mirrors. Kenny’s voice still present in his mind, when he did, he saw a truck guy there. Parked only a few meters away from him, he wondered if he had seen Kenny go in, he hoped not, since he hadn’t seen him when he first parked there.

With his eyes still on the truck, Craig started driving. Truck guy followed not so far behind. Ah, so he didn’t know then.

Or maybe he did. There were equal chances.

Craig tried to lose the guy moving past some street, but it was getting late now, there weren't many people in the street, and he was running low on gas, shit, he needed to get to the gas station as fast as he could. Truck guy turned in the same streets he turned, he made lights at him, Shit he was being followed and the guy wanted him to know that. Shit, shit, shit, he was so fuckin fucked.

His eyes darted from the road to the mirror every five seconds, and yeah, truck guy was there, he was following him, close behind.

That was it, this is how he was going to die, he was going to get murder by a weirdo with a shitty truck, he was fucked he was so, so fucked. 

Then he saw it, yes. Not bothering to look both ways, Craig speeded up, truck guy did too, he was close, so close, he knew that if truck guy wanted to, he could hit him, he could collide with him and make him a victim of a deadly car crash. He was so close.

But then, Craig turned as fast as he could and stopped. The sound of the wheels of his truck turning so abruptly making him wince. But truck guy was gone, the dude had just kept going. Craig stared as the truck disappeared in the distance, he was safe, he was finally safe, he was in the gas station, he was-

“Welcome sir! how may I-”

“Holy shit!” Craig yelled, turning to stare startled at where the voice was coming from.

He held a hand against his chest as he tried to relax, he felt like he was going to have a heart attack, his chest heavily going up and down by his quick breathing. Shit he was sweating too.

“Uh, sir?” he heard the employee say “Uh- do you need-?”

“No! No, it’s- it’s ok” he said taking a few deep breaths, the employee kept a concerned look on his face “just, gas I need gas”.

“Um, how-?”

Waving a dismissive hand and finally catching his breath Craig interrupted him again “Fill it, just whatever.

The employee nodded, not sure of what was going on, but proceeded to do his job, leaving an hypervelanting Craig trying to calm himself. He took his time, trying to process what had happened.

Holy shit, he was chased, he was fucking chased by a freak that wanted to murder him, well not him, Kenny aparently or maybe he knew it was him? Whatever he had just survived an awful death. Once he was able to finally catch his breath a little, he searched for his phone, he noticed that his hands were shaking and all sweaty. Once he finally found it in the back pocket of his jeans, he pulled it out and tried his best to call Clyde as fast as he could.

Once he pressde the call button, he started to beg to himself “please, please, please answer the fucking phone” he tried to take a deep breath as he looked from his mirror to see if truck guy was coming back, “please, fuck! Answer the fuckin-”

“Hello?”

“Clyde!” God, Craig had never been so happy to hear his voice.

“Yeah, what’s up dude?” Clyde said, and heard him chew through his phone, probably with a bag of hot cheetos in one hand, “hey, did you know that-?”

“CLYDE, Clyde listen” Craig started trying to be as fast as he could since he didn’t know if truck guy was coming back. “I need your help, look I need you to meet me in Stark’s Pond, right now, I’ll explain later but I need you to drive to-”

“Is that Craig? Hi Craig!” he head Bebe say from the other side.

He groaned “Clyde!” he yelled, his heart was beating fast again, he was sure he was going to have a panic attack at any given moment “meet me at Stark’s Pond, NOW, I need you to drive there NOW! You hear me? Now!”

“Yeah! Yeah, I heard the first time dude” Clyde said, “I’ll meet you there in five”.

Hanging up, Craig sighed in relief, shit, he was going to be ok, he was totally going to be-

“Your total would be-”

Without letting him talk once again, Craig stuffed his hand in his pocket and handed the guy all the bills he had, not caring to check if it was enough. “Yeah, yeah, keep the change” not waiting for an answer, Craig took off and drove as fast as he could towards Stark’s Pond. 

When he finally reached it, he saw Clyde’s car already parked there. He didn’t bother to park like a decent person, instead leaving Kenny’s truck in the first place he saw and running towards his friend's car who was staring confused at the situation.

“Whoa dude, are you-?” Clyde was asking, turning around to watch his friend sit on the backseats of his car.

Craig didn’t bother, he threw himself in the backseats, since Bebe was occupying the front seat, also staring at him with a confused expression on her face. 

“Drive, DRIVE!” he ordered, and Clyde turned around and did so, the panicked tone on his best friend being sign enough that they needed to leave the place.

“What? Why?!” Bebe scared, too “What’s going on?!”

“Go, go, go!” Craig ordered, Clyde wincing at the sound that the wheels of his car did, drove as fast as he could.

“What the fuck was that?!” Bebe kept asking.

“I’ll explain later, now, just go!” 

“Where to?!” Clyde asked desperately, staring at through his mirrors to see if someone was following them.

“I don’t care, just drive!” Craig ordered.

And so he did, Clyde drove into town as fast as he could, he was sure he was going to get a ticket, he was so, so sure of it. After a few minutes of driving into town again, they parked on the street of Craig’s house who was still trying to catch his breath.

“What the fuck was that?!” Bebe demanded.

The couple turned around their seats to stare at him.

Maybe it was because he had just been through the scariest situation in his life, maybe it was because he was just too tired, or maybe it was because he really didn’t like Bebe. But despite the concerned and terrified expressions of his best friend and his girlfriend, Craig couldn’t help but roll his eyes, still panting, and make his way out the car towards his house

He didn’t bother to turn around when they called after him. He just wanted to go to sleep.

Chapter Text

There was someone nudging him, pushing him softly but firmly, but he was tired even if he went to sleep early when Craig had dropped him off. He groaned when the person started nudging not so softly anymore. 

“Leave me alone” he said moving to the corner of his bed and covering his face with his pillow. He just wanted to sleep until ass in the afternoon, he didn’t have classes anymore, why couldn’t they let him sleep in peace?.

The person huffed, but then insisted once again “wake up sleeping beauty, coffee is going to get cold if you don’t”.

 He immediately rolled off the bed, hissing when his back pressed into the cold floor of his room, but recovered in a second to turn to look at his brother who was standing beside his bed with a funny expression on his face.

“Kevin?” he asked, still not believing he was there. 

Kevin simply nodded and gestured to the door with a movement of his head “come on, Karen is here too, I bought coffee and three bagels from the gas station”.

Maybe to another person, that would have sounded like the worst breakfast ever. The gas station coffee was always kind of burnt and the bagels had barely any taste, but when you were a McCormick, and you were used to have tap water and a whatever left over was in the fridge -IF there was any- then that breakfast seemed like the best gourmet food you could have ever thought of.

Kevin McCormick, the oldest of the McCormicks siblings, had dropped out of highschool when he was fourteen. Since then he’d been working in any place he could to have some money to be able to provide for their younger siblings. Just as the rest of them, he didn’t really got along with their parents, he had left the house when he was sixteen, sometimes he would sleep at one of his friends house, sometimes, he would have enough money to pay for a motel room where he would sometimes bring his siblings with him, sometimes, Kenny didn’t know what or where did he sleep. But Kevin never told so Kenny never asked.

“Coming! Coming!” he said as he tried to untangle himself from his sheets that he had dragged with him when he fell on the floor.

When Kenny finally made it to their kitchen, he saw a really sleepy but smiling Karen drinking some hot chocolate from a tiny cup and talking softly with his brother. It was when her eyes fell on him that her smile dropped.

Right, shit.

She didn’t know what their dad had done to him.

Kevin, who was more than used to their dad violence, didn’t react but he knew that he didn’t like what he saw.

“Hey” he tried to sound as positive as he could, so the worry on his sister's face would fade “so, what do we owe this gourmet breakfast for?”.

Kevin shrugered, but her sister’s eyes were still on him “figure I could pay my favourite asshole a visit” he said.

Kenny grinned and sat on a chair beside them, he reached for his tiny cup of coffee and took a sip from it, ah yes, just slightly burned, just as he liked it “shit’s good”.

“What happened to your face?” Karen asked.

The three of them fell in silence. Kenny slowly put his coffee on the table, sending a quick glance towards his brother, who was staring at him expectantly. Then he turned to Karen.

“Do you remember that episode from SpongeBob where squidward tried to-”

“Don’t lie to me” Karen interrupted, a more serious look on her face.

Yeah, that was a problem, Karen wasn’t a little kind anymore, she wasn’t as naive and innocent as she was when she was five, she wasn’t just going to believe or let it slip like she used to when she could be easily distracted by his brother's dismissive comments.

“Karen-” Kenny tried.

But thankfully for him, it was Kenny who interrupted him so he could take care of the situation.

“Hey” he said smiling at Karen “why don’t you go finish your breakfast in your room and get dressed” Karen was about to protest but Kevin stopped her “I’ll talk to him, don’t worry, and we can go to the park together later”.

Unsure of herself, Karen sent a concerned glance towards Kenny, who gave her a reassuring smile, telling her to go, he would be ok.

“Fine” she finally said, “you own me” she said to Kevin.

“I’ll make it up for you” he said “I promise”:

With one final look, Karen left for her room, her hot chocolate in one hand and her bagel on the other one.

Neither of them spoke for a moment, waiting for their little sister to leave the room so they could speak with more privacy, even if the walls from the McCormick household were thin as paper, it still gave them the illusion that Karen wouldn’t hear too much of their conversation. 

“Stuart still an asshole, huh?” Kevin asked, with an arched eyebrow and taking a sip of his own coffee.

Kenny chuckled with no joy behind it “you have no idea”.

Because Kevin was Kevin, and he knew how things were at home better than anyone, he didn’t push. He did have an idea, he was once too, victim of Stuart's abusses. He had been yelled at, he had been punched, he had been kicked, he also had dealt with the comments and humiliation of his dad's actions. But because Kevin was Kevin, he didn’t push, instead he told him about his new job at a mechanics shop not so far away from town.

“You could bring your truck” he commented in one point of their conversation “I could take a look at it, maybe repair it if it's damaged”.

Kenny smiled “maybe” he said “I’m also thinking of getting a job, you know?”.

Kevin’s smile disappeared then “Kenny-”

He sighed “I know, I know, but think about it this way, if we both have a job then we can maybe pay for-”

But Kevin was’t having any of it “no '' he said firmly, an annoyed look on his face “you’re not dropping out, you hear me? We made a deal”.

“I know, I know” Kenny said, fuck, why had he done that “I just think that Karen could actually-”

Kevin slammed a hand on the table, the sound of it making him wince. “I don’t care” he said firmly “You’re finishing high school, you’re going to college and that is that. You can pay me back when you get a decent job with a good salary”.

He knew this wasn’t a fight he could win. When they were younger, they made a deal that if Kenny didn’t drop out of highschool, and got into college, then Kevin would stop paying for his shit and instead take Karen to an apartment with him, he had been saving money since then. 

“Ok” Kenny finally agreed “not dropping out then” he mumbled “I still could get a part time job, you know?”.

Kevin hummed, and relaxed a bit, he took the last sip of his coffee “that’s it if they accept you”. 

Kenny grinned, he knew that his brother didn’t want him to get a work, he wanted him to be teenager, he wanted to not fuck up and to be someone normal, to have an actual childhood, to have the life he couldn’t have. But Kenny knew that even then, he couldn’t really ever have a normal childhood, he couldn’t ever really live his life as a teenager when he had to worry about when their parents would come home and when they weren’t. Making her sister sleepover at her friends house more often than on her own.

“Where’s your truck by the way?” Kevin asked, “didn’t see it outside”.

Ah, right. He was going to have to text Tucker about it, since he was the one that drove it last. 

The memories of the last afternoon drive came back to him, shit, he really had done that, huh? It wasn’t so much the whole panicking and yelling but the fact that he had admitted the real reason behind his awfully looking black eye. The whole deal was that if the wrong person knew, then it was over. Child services would do their thing and separate them, Kevin wouldn’t be able to gain custody of either of them since he didn’t have an actual decent job nor a place to live, they would send them to another state or another city, and he would most likely never see his siblings again. So no one had to know.

“Ah yeah” Kenny said “I did a favour to a friend” he simply said, scratching the back of his neck as he finally took a bite of his bagel.

Kevin smirked “you? Doing favours for free? I don’t believe it”.

“Ha, ha, you’re really funny” Kenny said rolling his eyes “so what’s up, you’re staying here for christmas?” 

Kevin shook his head “nah, mom and dad are most likely to get real fucked up and crash here” he commented, which was true and the main reason why Kenny avoided staying home during christmas “you going to a party?” he asked.

He was, in fact, going to meet up with his friends and go to Token’s, he still needed to pick his truck up though, since he was the one that would drive them all there.

“Yeah, probably” Kenny said as he chewed on his bagel “what about you, doing anything?”.

“I’ll take Karen with me, rent a room for a day, spend it there” he shrugged “we can meet at ten for church”.

Kenny wasn’t particularly religious, he didn’t really care about that stuff. But the South Park church, during christmas had a mass and then they had community lunch where there was all kinds of food, and sometimes, they gave clothes or stuff for the poor, aka the McCormicks and others.

 He would usually just sleep at mass, and wake up when her sister would elbow him to go to eat. 

“Sure” he said, he figured he could crash at Token’s or at Stan’s and make his way then, almost everyone went to mass on christmas anyway “I’ll meet you there”.

 “Cool” Kevin, brushed a hand through his hair, he needed a haircut “I’ll take Karen with me today, I’m taking her out for ice cream or something”.

Kenny smiled “Fancy” he winked at him.

Once Karen made her way out of her room, dressed up with some new clothes and freshly showered too, Kenny realised that he had been wearing the same clothes for two consecutive days and decided that it was time for him to take a shower and change, he could drop Craig’s clothes later. 

After his awfully cold shower, Kenny put on some clothes and checked his phone. He had some unread messages from his group with Stan, Kyle and Cartman, one from Butters and another one from Craig.

cartman & co

kyle: cartman where u at?

cartman: away fro ur fag ass

kyle: asshole

butters with u?

cartman: why?

stan: something happened?

kyle: hes not answering my calls

neither does ken

cartman: ill call him

stan: wheres kenny?

cartman: tf should i know?

he’s prob suckng craig dick

18:30 read

cartman: found butters

hes grounded the pussy

says hell met us at tokens today

kyle: k

stan: news from kenny?

He tipped a quick response

kenny: alive n tired

when should i pick u guys up?

stan: were meeting at kyles at 9

kenny: k.

He got out of their group chat and pressed the bubble with messages from Butters.

butt: i found something

(1) Missed call.

(2) Missed calls.

(5) Missed calls.

butt: kenny answer pls

(2) missed calls.

butt: ok, ill tell you at tokens, my dad is taking my phone.

hope ur ok.

Kenny frowned, but let it go as soon as he read the last messages, shit, there was no way his parents were going to let him visit if he was grounded, he was going to have to wait for Token’s party for Butters to show up and tell him whatever he found out. Well, he still needs to check on Craig’s texts.

cocksucker: truck guy followed me

home safe now

truck is at ponds b careful.

Kenny frowns at that, truck guy had followed him? Shit, that was bad, that was really fucking bad, that was really fucking bad. He feels sick to his stomach and tries not to focus on it, he had a good breakfast, the first one in weeks, he doesn’t need to throw up all that now. 

To: cocksucker

shit

r u ok?

coming to drop ur clothes off

talk when i get there.

He doesn’t wait for him to answer, instead he shoves his phone in his pocket and searches for his backpack. When  can’t easily find it, he worries that maybe he had forgotten it on his truck, and thinks about the long walk he would have to do just to get there, it’s not until he searches under his window that he fins it, next to it he finds the picture that he had picked up with Craig. It’s all wrinkled now, clearly forgotten, he shoves it inside the pocket on the back of his jeans. Once he shoves all of Craig’s clothes in his backpack, except for his chulo, which he decides to wear that day. He puts on a long sleeve shirt with a sleeveless orange hoodie, and leaves.

After his ten minute walk to the Tucker’s residence, he knocks on the door and waits for Craig to come out, it’s Tricia the one who answers.

“Hee-” he starts saying but stops once he’s faced with the youngest of the Tuckers “you are not Craig” he says and frowns.

Tricia maintains expressionless “yeah no shit” she says but steps away to let him in “what are you doing here?”.

Kenny walks in and can’t help but feel uncomfortable, he can hear some sounds in the kitchen and just know that it’s not Craig the one who’s making them, he had never been with Craig’s parents alone, he wishes this doesn’t end up being the first time.

“Uh, yeah I was looking for your brother?” he asks as he scratches the back of his neck impatiently.

However, Trish does frown at that “why?” she asks.

Suddenly, the noises from the kitchen stop and he hears a femenine voice ask “Trish? Who is it?” .

Kenny freezes, shit, shit, shit, he was never good with parents, hell, parents hated him. Younger and older siblings? They loved him, he could totally deal with that, but parents? Yeah, he was sure that the only reason why his friends' parents actually liked him was because they had known him since he was a baby. 

Tricia doesn’t answer right away, instead she just stands there studying him, almost as if trying to understand the real reason why he’s there in the first place, Kenny offers her a weak smile, she gives up and sighes.

“None” she says, to her mom who hadn’t come out of the kitchen yet “just some idiot playing a prank” then, she lowers her tone and whispers to him “he’s still asleep, he’s not a morning person”.

Kenny mouths a ‘thank you’ to her and makes his way to Craig’s room as silently as he can, once he reaches the door, he lets himself in and closes it behind him.

Craig is, just as Tricia had told him, asleep on his bed. He remembers all the things people say about when they find someone sleeping, all the poetic and beautiful descriptions, how people seem to be more peaceful when they sleep, how it is like they are angels and all that shit. 

Craig doesn’t fit that description at all. Craig sleeps in his stomach, with a leg out and he snores softly. Kenny wants to laugh, he looks ridiculous, nothing like the stoic and serious Craig he was used to. He’s wearing pajama pants and a shirt.

He makes his way towards his bed and nudges him waiting for him to wake up, he doesn’t even move. He tries again, this time not as careful, then again nothing happens. Kenny frowns to himself, maybe if he tries again, this time more firmly.

Nothing happens. 

Maybe he should just kick him? 

Nah, he doesn’t want to get beat up today, instead he looks around the room and finds a sock on the side of his beed. He picks it up with two fingers and suspicion and once he finds that it’s not, in fact, a cum sock. He slowly hands it closer to Craigs face, as silently as he can and with nothing but concentration in his face. He manages to put it near as near his nose as he can.

Then Craig seems to sniff it, he wrinkles his nose.

Kenny doesn’t manage to silence his snort.

And then Craig opens his eyes.

“What the fuck is your problem?!”Craig yells as he slaps his hands off his face and starts to sit. 

Kenny can’t help but laugh, he’s laughing loud and clear, he’s cackling, bending over himself, crossing his arms over his stomach trying to catch his breath, but he can’t.  

The problem is that Craig is not a morning person. 

Oh, not at all.

That’s why being woken up by a Kenny McCormick putting a used sock in his face is already setting him in a bad mood, a really bad one. Bad enough for him to reach for his shoe and throw it at his head. It doesn't make Kenny stop laughing, but it definitely makes him feel slightly better when he watches him rub his head, where the shoe had knocked him.

“Oh, man” Kenny says still laughing, wiping the tears from the corners of his eyes “you should have seen your face”.

“I’ll fucking kill you” Craig says with a snarl “I’ll fucking murder you”.

“Please” Kenny says with a smug look in his face “we both know that won’t work”.

Ugh, right, fucking inmortality.

There’s a pause, where Craig contemplates either going back to sleep and ignore McCormick’s presence or throwing another shoe at him, he finally exhales, trying to get himself to relax and rubs his eyes. “What time is it?” he asks.

Kenny, who seems to be in a better mood than he’s and also respects no boundaries, sits on the edge of his bed “quarter to two” he answers.

Well, at least he slept longer than usual. 

“What are you doing here?” Craig asks, he moves his hands off his eyes and looks at Kenny who’s smirking at him, that pisses him off even more. He considers giving him another black eye. Then another questions pop in his head “how the fuck did you get here?”.

No one comes into his room when he’s sleeping, no one. Everyone in his family knows that Craig is the absolute worst in the morning so it doesn’t make sense that his mom had let him in. Has his mom met Kenny yet? And what-

Tricia.

That fucker .

“Someone helped me sneak in” Kenny says with a shrug, “got your clothes, he says taking his backpack off and opening it “I-uh didn’t wash them? I hope you don’t mind” he says, cringing to himself as he takes the clothes off the backpack and sets them beside him. “Also, what the fuck happened yesterday?”.

Yesterday? What did he-

Oh, right.

He had been chased by a fucking maniac. Right. 

He groans “fucker chased me when I dropped you off” he says, and Kenny makes a sound to make him know that he’s listening “i lost him at the gas station I think, then drove to Stark’s Pond where Clyde picked me up”.

“Butters says he knows something” Kenny tells him, and instantly, Craig turns to stare at him, intrigued by the new information, Kenny shakes his head though “he didn’t say, his parents grounded him, says he’s telling us at Token’s”.

Great, that was long enough time for them to get killed. 

Fucking Butters and his stupid parents.

Craig stays still for a moment, before finally getting up from his bed, stretching his arms while Kenny’s eyes follow him, he doesn’t say anything until he’s by the door.

“Wait, where are you going?” Kenny asks, almost desperate, because well, yeah he doesn’t want to be alone in Craig's room, what if his parents walk in? 

But he thinks he deserves it, so Craig shrugs.

“I’m getting breakfast” he says and opens the door “don’t touch anything, I’ll be back”. He says and turns away.

When Craig makes his way downstairs, the first thing he does is glare at his sister who shrugs at him. That asshole. He then make his way to the kitchen where he finds his mom cleaning the dishes from lunch, that he had not been a part of since he was peacefully sleeping thank you very much, well at least until an asshole decided to fuck with him. 

Laura says something to him, which he doesn’t listen to because he can only tolerate so much in the morning, instead he grabs two mugs and prepares some hot chocolate for him and Kenny, along with a plate with cookies because he can and because his mom is not so bad after all. Maybe he should have paid her attention after all.

Once he finally reaches back to his room, he finds Kenny in the same exact position as he had left him, which certainly surprises him because he was almost certain that Kenny would be already going through his things like the noisy little shit that he is. But no, the dude is still sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the door, waiting for him like a puppy.

He’s almost disappointed.

“Here” he says, handing him a mug, Kenny accepts it curiously while he sits back on his spot in his bed and sets the plate of cookies between them. Craig is already sipping on his hot chocolate when he notices Kenny staring at him.

Licking his lips before frowning at him, Craig asks “What?”.

First, Kenny blinks and then grins, Craig frowns even more “Nothing, nothing it’s just” he gestures to the mug in his hands “I didn’t picture you like a hot chocolate kind of guy”.

And… what the fuck was that supposed to mean?

“Why?” Craig asks to take another sip before grabbing a cookie, Kenny seems to find that endearing.

“I don’t know” he admits “I thought you were more of a black coffee kind of guy”.

He wrinkles his nose at that “why the fuck would I drink that? That’s disgusting” he had Tweek make him try it. He spat it out.

Kenny shrugs “I don’t know, you just looked like it” he takes a cookie too, “dude, this are fucking good” he says before shoving the whole thing in his mouth and moaning out of pleasure.

And ok, that’s-

That’s definitely a moan, ok.

Craig tries really hard not to blush. He would normally find the sight of Kenny shoving a whole ass cookie in his mouth kind of gross, but he can’t help but feel pleased since those were homemade cookies that his mom made every year.

He hums in agreement “yeah, mom makes them” he informs, and Kenny seems to be really enjoying them because he actually rolls his eyes, when he shoves another one in his mouth. 

“Dude” he says, his mouth full “tell her these are great” then he opens his eyes and stills “wait, no, don’t tell her, she doesn’t know I’m here”.

And maybe it’s because he just woke up, but he lets himself laugh softly. Kenny smiles at him.

Then because Kenny seemed to finally get comfortable, he stands up and makes his way towards his wardrobe, and starts rumbling through it.

“What are you doing?” Craig asks but doesn’t make any move to stop him, instead he relaxes into his own bed, watching as Kenny looks at his clothes.

Kenny doesn’t answer right away, instead he starts taking some of his clothes off and making faces, sometimes he frowns before shoving the piece of clothing back into his wardrobe and other times, he hums in agreement and throws them in the end of his bed.

“I’m helping you choose what to wear tonight” he declares, as if that was the most normal thing in the world, Craig can’t help but feel a little confused “when did you buy this?” he asks and takes out a light green button up shirt. Fuck, he forgot he had that there, he should give it back to Tweek.

“I don’t” Craig answers, and turns his gaze towards his mug still between his hands “It’s uh- it’s from Tweek” he finally admits.

Kenny blinks “Oh” he says and decides to put it back inside his wardrobe.

He doesn’t say anything else, instead he keeps roaming through his clothes, taking some of them out, and putting some of them back on. Eventually, he takes out a leather jacket that Clyde had once bought for him because ‘it would fit his edgy personality’ and his eyes seem to light up at the sigh “Dude! Why the fuck you never wore this!?” he asks and well, at least someone likes it.

Craig however, doesn’t so he groans at the sight of it “Ugh, I hate it”. 

And Kenny who seems to have fallen in love with it, hugs it close to his chest in a defensive way while frowning confused at him “why the fuck no?”.

He defleats “because it’s a fucking cliche” he says exasperated.

Kenny, could only look more confused “how so?”.

“It’s like the Smiths” he says, and yeah, Kenny is even more confused than, Craig is forced to elaborate “everyone pretneds as if liking The Smiths is something out of this world like they are some kind of underground band, even though everyone fucking knows them”.

Kenny takes a moment to process that information “so you don’t wear it because it would make you a cliche of a 90’s bad boy?”.

Well, he didn’t mean it to sound so stupid. 

Kenny grins when Craig doesn't say anything, and sets the thing on the edge of his bed “you’re wearing it tonight” hesitates before going back to his task of going through his wardrobe.

“What? No” because who the fuck Kenny think he is?

Still not stopping to stare at him, Kenny answers “because you’ll look hot in it”. And ok.

Sure, that’s nothing. Let’s just let that out there and not react at all.

Thankfully, he doesn’t have to say anything back because then Kenny’s getting out a white shirt -that he also wasn’t aware that he owned- and smiling proudly of himself. “And” he said, throwing the shirt on top of the leather jacket “done”.

Craig, who was still sitting on his bed, a mug in one hand and a cookie on the other, stared at the pile of clothes before turning to glare at him. Kenny didn’t pay any mind, instead he set both of his hands on his hips, and gave a firm nod.

He was so going to beat his ass. 

“Well” Kenny finally said “my job here is done”. He clapped his hands together before turning towards the doorway and stopping in his tracks, realising his mistake.

For a moment, Craig smirked smugly, there was no way Kenny could leave if it wasn’t with his help, his mom would see him, and his dad would be home in any moment now, so there was no-

Then Kenny turned on his heels and started walking again, but the door was behind him, so that could only mean and yeah, yep, Kenny was climbing down his window.

“What the fuck are you-” Craig said running towards Kenny who now had half his body outside his window, he stopped in his track when he looked up at him. For a moment neither of them moved, Kenny was staring blankly at him.

He was too close, Kenny was way too close, one hand on the window frame, the other one on the stool and a foot already out. But his eyes, his eyes staring right at thim, light blue eyes that remembered him of ice but were as warm as a clear sky during the summer were right on his. He felt hypnotized.

Then Kenny grinned, and in one fast movement, he took the chulo that had been on his head the entire time off, and set it on his head instead. And just like that he was gone.

Craig had half of his body out the window, staring down and with a horrified expression on his face when he saw McCormick staring up at him, his feets were carefully placed on the bottom frame of the window that was right under his while he held on to the top frame with his hands. He gave him a cheeky smile before jumping out onto the floor, like it was nothing.

Unable to say anything, Craig just watched as Kenny waved at him and walked away.

What the fuck had just happened?

Kenny doesn’t go back home right away, instead, he makes his way towards Stark’s Pond where his truck was left. He’s in a good mood, mostly because he didn’t have breakfast once, but twice! And Kenny loves breakfast, he had a partially burnt coffee and homemade cookies with hot chocolate, so he was in a good mood.

Lunch? He was used to it, he had it almost always at school. Dinner? He had them when he was at his friend's house, and even if it sucked he could go to sleep without it, but breakfast? Breakfast was a luxury. To be able to wake up and drink something warm with something tasty? Now that was life.

So today was a good day, today it was the first day of the christmas holidays, today was the first time he had two breakfast in one day, today he didn’t have to worry about nothing except what to wear that night, or to not get drunk enough to the point of throw his organs out in the bathroom of Token’s house. Today was a good day

“Oh my god” Cartman said before facepalming.

Kenny turned out to be more excited than he had anticipated, he had rolled himself a joint before leaving, and got way too carried on trying to see what to wear, he was in a mood, so nothing really mattered to him. He was wearing the same long sleeved shirt, but he decided to put on a short sleeved button up Hawaiian shirt that had the most ridiculous colors he had ever seen. He was also wearing sunglasses but that had been just a matter of luck when he found those.

Maybe that’s why Cartman seemed so pissed off at him.

It was that or the fact that he was blasting ‘Cherry bomb’ on full volume on the radio of his truck, he wasn’t sure.

“Finally” Kyle said once, Kenny parked in front of his house, Stan and Cartman by his side “I was starting to think you wanted to freeze to death”.

Kenny grinned at them, while he rolled down his window, he stared at them over his sunglasses and said “Ready to leave, cuties?”.

Stan tried to suppress a laugh while Kyle smiled softly at him, his irritation long gone by the ridicules of his friend's action, Cartman looked like he wanted nothing more than for Kenny to just stop.

“I swear to god Kenny” he said, still covering his face with his hand,  “I don’t know how you manage to get even more ridiculous, but you do”.

Kenny didn’t protest, instead he grinned and pushed his sunglasses up, as his friends climbed inside the truck, on their usual positions. Cartman sat in the passenger seat, while Stan and Kyle sat behind them, he was about to start the car, when Cartman spoke up again, this time glaring at the radio.

“Can we change this shitty music?” he said as he clicked the ‘next’ button, “I can’t believe you listen to this bullshit, there’s nothing more-”

Then ‘dancing queen’ started blasting, but Cartman changed it again before Kenny could start singing.

“So?” Kenny asked, as he started the car to leave for Token's house. “What’s the plan for tonight's night?”

Cartman turned around to reach the bag that Stan had been carrying, taking out a can of beer, and cracking it open before he started drinking from it, ah so it was one of those nights.

“Get drunk” he answered, after burping which made Kyle shot a disgusted stare his way “get Stan fucked up enough to projectile vomit all over Token’s living room, and then get Kyle to stay with him all night because he’s a little fa-”

“We are not doing that” Kyle interrupted him leaning over a little “I swear to god Cartman, if you even think about spiking up our drinks-”

“It was one time!” Eric protested.

Stan groaned from the backseat “guys it’s christmas, can we not-”

“You heard your boyfriend sh-”

“He’s not my boyfriend!”

Ah, yeah, his friends were still his friends. The same idiotics bastards that couldn’t stop fighting and get him into more trouble than he would ever want to.

“Has anyone heard about Butters?” Stan asked.

Aaand his good mood was gone, puff just like that. 

It wasn’t like he didn’t want to see Butters that night, it was just that he would come with bad news, bad news from the shitty situation he was trying really hard to avoid, by getting drunk as soon as possible. 

“He’s still grounded” Kyle said, glancing sideways at where Stan was sitting “his parents took his phone”.

Kenny doesn’t need to look at Cartman to know that he’s rolling his eyes, “he’s too much of a pussy to try to take it back”.

“Well, they are his parents though,” Stan tried to reason.

Cartman glaces at him frowning “So what? Do you listen when your drunk of a dad tells you something?” 

Stan shifts uncomfortably in his seat.

“Can we please, please just not talk about this tonight, you guys?” Kenny grimaces “I just want to get drunk and not think of this for the rest of the night” the three of his friends stare at him “I mean, it’s christmas you know? It’s supposed to be all happy shit and stuff”.

For a moment neither of them say anything, until Cartman huffes and finally agrees.

“Fine” he says before turning to stare off his window like an angry kid “but I refuse to say anything nice until I get to make Clyde cry at least once”.

Kyle snorts at that “when did you ever say anything nice? You always say mean shit ”

Still not staring at Cartman snaps back right away “yeah, to your mom when she’s fucking moaning for my-”

“What the fuck did you say about my mom?!”

“Guys” Stan groans.

Ah, yeah, this is much better, Kenny thinks.

Craig should’ve known when Clyde almost started crying that wearing the jacket was a bad idea. That’s why he sticks with Jimmy as far away from him as possible, which is weird because Clyde is also trying to stay away from Bebe as much as possible which is also what Craig is doing as well. Which is weird, but still. 

He’s in the middle of a conversation with Jimmy when he hears the sound of Token’s front door slamming open, even with the loud music he heard the sound of it. He knows exactly who it is -or who they are- without having to turn to look over there.

“AAAOOOHH!”  And holy shit, that was McCormick, what the hell was he doing?

On the other side of the room, the group of four is making their way in, the problem is that McCormick, for some reason looks wild. Not only because his clothes are possibly the second thing closer to a disco ball, but because he seems like… like he’s desperate to get drunk, which he gets, don’t get him wrong, he took a shot of vodka as soon as he spotted the bottle, but Kenny looked, well he looked like he was ready to party.

“Jesus Christ Kenny!” Kyle said, startled by the loud scream of his friend “what the hell is your problem?!”.

Kenny smirks at him and without shame, he takes a bottle of beer from a random dude's hand, who lets out a ‘hey !’ that Kenny ignores as he drinks the whole bottle in one go.

So he is desperate to get drunk.

“My problem is that you” he says and points at Kyle with the empty bottle in his hand “need to get me as drunk as possible, as soon as possible” he grins.

Kyle stares at him with the most unimpressed look in his face, but sighes after a minute and says “if you’re getting drunk, we’re all getting drunk” he takes the new bottle of beer that appears once again in the same dude’s hand, he protest once again but Kyle ignores him “I think we all need to get drunk today”.

And that seems to do the trick, because as soon as those words are out of Kyle’s mouth, the three of them look at each other as if their parents had gave them permission to do something dangerous and that they should definitely not be doing, which is basically how Stan ends up doing shots with Token, while Kyle and Cartman argue about whenever Stan’s going to throw up before or after having to go to mass in the morning.

And Kenny’s enjoying himself, he truly is, he has one beer in one hand a cigarette in the other, and life is good. It seems better when he spots a black leather jacket and a black haired hair in the far end of the room. And because he may be kind of, and just a little bit tipsy, he makes his way in between the mass of people that cover the whole room, until he’s in front of him. 

“Tucker!” he says excitedly, looking up and down at him, “looking good”.

And maybe it’s because Craig is also kind of drunk, that he doesn’t pretend to hate him, instead nods in knowledge and stares at him

“Mmh” he looks down at himself, before adding “a weirdo that broke into my room picked it out for me” 

Now that was completely uncalled for.

Squinting his eyes, Kenny gestures at him with his beer “rude” Craig offers him a smug look, and Kenny’s already thinking about a comeback when he remembers. He stands up straighter and his eyes wide, which makes Tucker arch a -truly endearing- eyebrow  “hey, I brought you something you might like back” and before Craig can answer or ask him what, he’s taking him by the hand and dragging him outside, Craig blames the alcohol as his excuse of why he follows him.

They end up on the front of Token's house, right where Kenny’s truck -as well as their classmates' vehicles are parked- Kenny let’s go of his hands when they reach it, and Craig tries to not think about it too much. He takes a sip of his cup that, thank god, hadn't spilled completely when Kenny had dragged him outside.

“What-” he asks when Kenny opens the front door and throws half of his body inside the car, reaching for the glove compartment, and proceeding to take something out. It’s when Kenny closes the door and turns to hand it out for him that he sees what Kenny’s giving him  “Huh”

Craig takes the camera and studies it, as if he hadn’t ever seen one before. Kenny finds the sigh kind of hilarious.

“Yeah I found it in the truck today” he shrugs and Craig looks up to stare at him “figures I could hand it to you today”.

Something just clicks inside Craig in that moment, later he would blame it on the vodka or whatever it was he was drinking -Jimmy prepared it for him saying it was his ‘magic trick’ (Craig thought his magic trick tasted like ass, but whatever to make him drunk)- something he can’t and won’t put a name on it.

It just does, it does because, he just knows that objectively speaking, Kenny was attractive, no scratch that, Kenny was way too attractive. Everyone with eyes could see that, hell everyone is South Park knew it, he had incredible natural blond hair, impossible blue eyes, fucking freckless all over his face, cheekbones and a jawline that coud-

Aand no, he was not, going down that pathway, definitely not, less when he was drunk

Nuh-uh, that’s a big no no for him.

“That’s” he says after a second of silence, holding the camera close to his chest, “Thank you”

“Not a problem man” Kenny grins. He looks around, and Craig can’t seem to take his eyes off him, then again, totally the vodkas fault, a hundred percent. He only feels a bit disappointed, when Kenny gestures back to the door and says to him, “come on, let’s go back inside”

When they come back in, Kenny is already talking to him about nothing and everything at the same time. His eyes are shiny and his mouth doesn’t stop moving, but Craig doesn’t have the heart to tell him to stop. Instead, more than happy to let Kenny make conversation for both of them, he just nods, and hums in agreement every now and then. He was having a good time.

“Take a picture of me,” he says suddenly.

And Craig has to stop, because what?

“What?” he asks.

Kenny rolls his eyes. And well, you couldn’t totally blame him, right? He was drunk, he was having a great time and then he remembered, Craig has a camera, a camera that takes pictures, which duh, obviously, but still.

“Take a picture of me” he says louder, because maybe Craig hadn’t heard him because of the music, and he also has a really confused and funny expression on his face.

At this Craig shakes his head, but steps closer to him to talk, because the music really is loud “no, I heard you the first time, but why?”

Why? Well, why the fuck not?

“Why the fuck not?” Kenny asks and shrugs, Craig stares at him confused again, as if the whole concept of taking a picture of him is really bizarre “come on, the only pictures of me that you ever took were really fucking morbid” he reasons, which true, but still “this will be a lucky one”.

He could protest and say no, because Craig only takes pictures of things he likes -like the snow, Stripe, sunsets, Clyde’s ugly crying face, those kinds of things- but he doesn’t really not like Kenny, if that made sense. He doesn’t like taking pictures of things he doesn’t like because at the end of the day he spends money on those pictures, for new rolls and for the whole ‘reveal’ process. But he doesn’t really mind now.

So he accepts.

“Fine” he says, and looks around the room he finds a place that’s not so crowded with people and gestures to him “there”.

When they reach it, Kenny’s stands and holds his beer up, with a bright smile on his face. Craig tries not to stare so much and take a picture.

“There” he says, and because he’s really unlucky and this was supposed to be a one time thing, that’s when Token and Stan -completely wasted- finds them.

“Duuude” Stan says, with a cup with whisky in his hand “you brought a camera? Take us a picture!”

He says excitedly and wraps an arm around Token’s shoulder who stumbles a little because of how drunk he is.

“I’m not going to-”

“Bro, you’re going to take a picture, I want in!” and of course that’s when Clyde decides to finally find him, and yep, that’s tweek stoned out of his mind next to him.

“I said that I’m not going to-”

Of course he ends up taking them a picture. 

Kenny decides to go find Kyle and Cartman then, since he lost them since the start of the party. Along the way, he stumbles across a bunch of his friends who pass drinks to him and all kinds of shots, he agrees of course, because he’s having a good time. He’s having a great time even, he’s having such a great time that he doesn’t even remember that there’s a weird ass dude that is probably dying to get his guts out and sell them in the dark market.

Of course, when he’s watching Jimmy and Clyde take shots that’s when Butters decided to appear and ruin his mood.

“K-kenny?” he hears someone say, he doesn’t notice at first too busy yelling at Clyde to not be a pussy and take his shot already “Kenny!” and this time someone is tugging his shirt a little too furiously.

When he turns around, he notices that it is Butters. He’s dressed in his pajamas, but Kenny’s too drunk to notice, he also doesn’t notice the frightened expression on his face.

“Butters!” he yells instead, and wraps an arm around him, “Hey dude, look, look at-” he tries to say, pointing at Clyde who’s now covering his mouth to try not to throw up all over Token’s carpet.

But Butters doesn't look, instead he unwraps himself from Kenny’s arms and spins him around to make him stare at him. “Kenny I need to tell you something, is about-”

Kenny groans.

He usually has a soft spot for Butters, he really cares about him, truly. But he’s wasted, and in a really good mood to be ruined by whatever Butters was trying to tell him

Kenny rolls his eyes, and puts both of his hands on Butters shoulders who’s still staring at him with panic in his eyes. “Dude, relax, it’s christmas, you can tell me at mass or whatever”. 

Because if there is one thing he knows, it’s that even if half the town always goes to mass at christmas, Butters never fails to be there. Butter is always at mass on christmas, so it can wait.

He let’s go of Butters shoulders to turn back again his attention towards Clyde, but then Butters grabs him by his arm, harder “I-it’s about that, Kenny you need to-”.

Kenny groans, an exasperated look in his face, he drags a hand through his face and turns to look at him “Butters, Leo” he gives him a tired smile, “I really, really can’t do this right now” he says, and Butters seems like wants to interjects but he doesn’t let him. “Look I know, believe him I know, but right now, I just want to fucking chill”.

“No, K-Kenny you don’t understand”.

“Stop!” he yells louder this time, and Butters takes a step back, Kenny frowns at him “Dude, for real, not now”.

“But-”

Knowing that he’s probably not going to stop insisting, Kenny turns around and walks away. He makes it to the kitchen not before accepting two shots along the way, but he’s finally away from Butters. Whatever, that could wait.

He spots Kyle talking to Wendy in the kitchen and doesn’t hesitate to make his way towards them.

“Kyle!” he says and scratches the red cup he is holding  “Man, give me that”.

When Kenny downs it in one go, Kyle and Wendy turn to him worried, at his sudden desperation to get even drunker than he already is.

 “Hey are you ok?” he hears someone ask, he thinks it’s Kyle.

“Better than ever” he answers, and then notices the taste of the bebrige in his mouth “what kind of light baby shit is this?”

Then he blacks out.

When Kenny wakes up, he notices that the sun is up and he’s not in his house. 

He also notices that he wants to die. He feels like throwing up and his head hurts like a bitch, he tries to move but groans in pain when he notices that his whole body hurts, also his mouth tastes like shit too. He hears someone groan too and mumble a ‘shut the fuck up Kenny’ before someone else groans in pain. 

So, they were all wasted, that was cool.

Still not opening his eyes, he asks whoever is in whatever place he is at that moment “What time is it?”.

“It’s quarter to shut the fuck up” ah, that’s Cartman, at least he sounds as in pain as he feels.

“It’s going to be 10 am in twenty minutes”.

He hums in response. Then he reacts.

“What?!” he asks, and a bunch of people groan at the sound. 

When he looks around he notices that he’s still at Token’s house, and he’s on the floor. He’s in the floor of Token’s living room, and he was going to be late for mass if he didn’t get the fuck out of there as soon as possible. He looks beside him to find Stan still sleeping with an arm around his face.

“Dude”, he says as he starts moving him “dude, we need to leave”:

“Don’t wanna” Stan mumbles before he turns around.

The problem is that Kenny doesn’t want to either, but if he doesn’t take Stan and his sorry ass to mass, not only Kevin’s going to kill him, but also Stan’s parents, since he had agreed to take him there too. He feels kind of jealous that Kyle is jewish and Cartman just doesn’t care. 

“Stan, wake up” he starts moving him again “we need to leave now dude”.

He hears Stans sigh “fine” he finally says and finally stands up, Kenny looks up to him and sees as Stan's tired face starts to turn into a panicked one “I’m gonna be sick” he says before he runs towards Token’s bathroom. 

Shit, they were going to be so fucking late.

Kenny finds himself being surprisingly patient as he helps Stan throw all of that night's mistakes out in the toilet. Because he is a good friend, he doesn’t say anything when he throws up a little in his shoes, and instead brushes his head softly to help him relax and brings him a glass of water.

Once Stan’s done feeling sorry for himself, and tells Kenny that he’s never ever drinking again -this time for real man, i’m never touching a beer ever again- which is a lie just like any other time, they finally make it to church only five minutes late. He’s surprised to find that Craig and Clyde are there too, also looking like they want to die, but there nonless. 

Kenny makes his way next to his brother and sister and listens as father Maxi speaks.

“-to love us, because God love us, he loves you, he loves you” he signs at different people that smile softly at him “he loves us, so don’t fear do not fear even when the nights are dark and there’s just blackness in the end of the road he’s here, with us, with you, with me, with our sons and daughters and-” then he stops. 

He stops so abruptly that Kenny thinks he might be having a stroke, he stops and his eyes are on him. Father Maxi is staring at him, directly at him, and Kenny can’t help but feel overwhelmed, no one seems to notice. All their eyes are focused on Father Maxi, with his raised hands and his emotional speech, but suddenly his eyes are on him.

It sends shivers to his spine. 

There’s noise in his ears, he can’t understand what it is, he can’t make out what it is, where is it coming from. It starts to get louder, stronger.

Louder .

A smile starts to creep in his face, and Kenny can’t look away, he can’t stop staring back at thim.

Louder .

Father Maxi continues, his smile wider, brighter “And do not fear” he says, his voice is more firm and calm at the same time, as if he was relieved, and Kenny can’t help to feel that he is talking to him not to all the people that’s around, at him, and just him. 

The sound it’s louder, thumping in his ears, he wants to look away, he wants to stop hearing. He feels the anxiety start consuming his body “do not fear because, today, today it’s the day we remember Christ. Christ who lives in our hearts and souls, he’s with us, and he has blessed us” his voice cracks in the end, emotional, he’s about to cry. Kenny can’t look away, Father Maxi’s eyes are on him, he feels cold all of the sudden, “he has blessed us, and he has sent us a vessel”. He smiles emotionally, and his smile twitches as if he’s about to cry, he sighs happily, relieved. But his eyes never leave Kenny’s.

Louder.

Kenny feels like he has to run, but he can’t.

He’s paralize.

He feels like he’s breathing faster, but not, he’s not because he also knows he’s not breathing, or maybe he was? Was he going insane? He can’t feel his body, he can’t stop feeling like he’s shaking but he knows he’s not, he wants to move, he wants to cover his ears, he wants to leave.

Louder.

Father Maxi is staring at him, he’s reading him, he’s opening him up in the most twisted and incomprehensible way.

“He has sent us a vessel, a vessel from God for a reason, in this very crucial moment because he loves us” he actually starts crying now, some people start making noises, worried and some others happy too. Kenny becomes aware of how many people are in the church then, how filled it is, but he can’t look away, even when he knows all of his friends are staring confused at each other, even when he feels Craig stare at him confused too. Kenny can’t look away. 

He feels panic start to rise upon him. He thinks he’s shaking, he’s not, he knows he’s not. He wants to keep the noise out, why can’t he keep it out? Why is he nothing? 

Suddenly, Father Maxi drops to his knees, and some people gasp. Kenny can’t move, he can’t move he wants to go away he can’t.

LOUDER.

“He loves us” he’s crying “God loves us and he chose us because he loves us and wants us” he starts sobbing and Kenny can feel the people around him start to whisper some of them happy, some of them worried, but he can’t. He can’t look away “he wants us to witness the salvation in form of an angel that he sent us, and he loves us, he loves us that he sent him to help us, to love us too” Father Maxi stil on his knees, looks up he’s praying. People starts moving around him, some others starts saying ‘amen’ but he can’t look away “Celestial father you have blessed us and we will do as you told us, we will rise our cups up for you, we will because we love you and you love us” Kenny feels something around him, he can’t move “we will drink from the blood you gave us to get us closer to you, and we will thank you”.

He looks at Kenny one more time.

LOUDER.

He can’t breathe.

L O U D E R.

He is not breathing. He’s going to die, he’s not breathing.

L  O  U  D  E  R.

“We will thank you” tears are running down his face “and the angel you had sent us”.

It stops.

“Kenny!” 

His eyes move towards the noise. 

Craig is there, Craig is there, he has both of his hands on his shoulders. There's a worried expression on his face, he doesn’t need to turn to know that his siblings are staring at him the same way, but he can’t afford to care. His heart is beating fast, he’s breathing again, faster now, he wants out, he wants to go. The walls are closing on him, there’s too many people, there’s not enough space. He feels sick, was he going insane? 

No, he was fine.

He was ok, he was fine.

Fine. 

Kenny swallows “I need air” , he says and before anyone can ask him if he was ok, he leaves. He walks to the door and ignores the burning eyes on his neck, he ignores all the people saying ‘amen’ to the sky, he ignores the sobs and uncontrollable cry of Father Maxi.

When he opens the door, wind slaps him in the face like a bucket of cold water. He’s sobering up, he’s fine. 

Kenny wasted no time in taking out a cigarette and lighting it up, he’s hands are shaking now, he doesn’t know if that's better or worse. His hands are sweaty and they can’t stop shaking,

Suddenly the door opens again, when he turns to stare at the person who had just come out of the church he’s disappointed to find that is Stan. He has bags under his eyes, and looks like shit, he supposes he must look the same.

“Dude” Stan says when he spots him, he walks towards him and for a moment he stares around him, as if he was searching for something, someone out there. Then he asked, “Have you seen Butters?”

“What? No, why-” Kenny asks, he frowns at him. He can’t stop shaking, why can’t he stop shaking? “He’s not here?” 

Stan shakes his head, he seems worried. Why is everyone worried, why is everything so grey, he wants to stop, he needs air, but he’s outside, he needs to stop shaking. 

But Butters never misses Christmas mass. Butters was supposed to be here.

“No dude, he’s parents are fucking pissed” Stan says, he sighs “I don’t think I’ve seen him since the party”

“Y-yeah” he needs to stop shaking, he needs to stop worrying, he tries to think that nothing happened. Everything is fine. “Me either, do you think he might, I don’t know maybe he’s home asleep or something”

And Stan seems about to protest, he opens his mouth and everything, but then he stops when he looks at him. He must look like shit, he must look on the edge of a breakdown, because Stan just gives him a forced smile, because he knows. Stan knows that he can’t worry about this right now.

“Sure”  he says and the door opens again.

Everyone starts coming out, and Kenny feels like he needs a cigarette, 

He forgets that he already has one.

For a moment he manages to stabilize himself, he feels like it’s mostly because of Stan’s hand on his back, that’s guiding him around towards where the shared ‘brunch’ is. There are tables and people serving food everywhere. For the first time, he doesn’t feel hungry, he can’t afford to eat, he can’t eat that food.

They are serving meat, stew with meat, everything there has meat. He feels like the thought of meat might make him throw up for real. But it’s only him. His brother is eating it, Stan is eating it, Karen is eating it, everyone is. He gets so absorbed staring at the people that are eating the stew, naming faces, some of them who he doesn’t know for some reason, some of them he does. 

Then he sees him . He sees him talking with her . He feels a pressure dawn on him, he needs to leave.

He makes his way as fast as he can to where Craig and Clyde are eating their stew, talking quietly.

“Tucker” he says as he turns around, Craig is staring at him concerned again, but Kenny needs him now, he starts dragging him by the arm, ignoring the way Clyde stares at them “Craig” he can hear the desperation in his voice. 

“Wha-” Craig tries to ask.

But Kenny is panicking, he feels himself shaking and he wants it to stop, so he grabs on Craig’s arms, trying to stabilize himself, and he must look terrible because Tucker doesn’t brush him off, he doesn’t say anything, instead he stares at him even more worried, tossing the stew over one of the tables near him as Kenny stares at him with wide fanatic eyes.

“Truck guy” his voice is shaking too, why is everything shaking. He tries to breath out but a sob comes out of him, he can’t cry know, he can’t  “he’s fucking here, dude, he’s talking to father Maxi, dude he´s-”

And his voice must be cracking or shaking so much as well as he is because then, Craig's hands are on both of his arms, grabbing him tightly and making him feel more grounded. And he’s staring at him nodding before gazing somewhere behind him while Kenny tries to catch his breath.

“Ok, ok” he says, Kenny can’t look away from him because if he does he feels like he might cry. “Ok, come on, follow me”

“W-what” he tries to ask.  

But Craig is already dragging him out of the place, he is dragging him towards where his own truck is.

“Come on, we are going”

The truck is not so far away from where they are, so they move fast, or they should or have. But for Kenny, he feels like he needs to get there faster, why weren’t there yet, why were they taking so long, they were going to die, they were all doomed, they were going to die and he doesn’t know why or how but he’s sure, they were all going-he

He’s inside the car, “Ok, ok” Craig says, and looks behind them to see if truck guy was there “I think we’re safe” he turns to stare back at Kenny. “we are safe now”.

It crushes him like a wave. It dawns on him like a hurricane, all of the sudden, it slaps him in the face.

Butters was not there. Butters didn’t come to church even though he never, ever, misses mass on christmas. Because Butters parents are stricts, and Butters is a good guy, he’s a good friend that always takes care of him and is always there for everyone. Butters had tried to warn him, he had tried to protect him, he had tried, he was in pajamas in the middle of Token’s party, and he was probably grounded and sneaked out, and Butters never, ever does that.

Because Butters is a good kid.

Butters is a good kid and protects his friends.

Butters had tried to protect him and Kenny shut him down, he shoved him off.

And now Butters hadn't shown up at mass on christmas.

“I-I” the thoughts make their way on him like a bullet in his brain. He can’t feel his hands, they are shaking, he knows because he can feel his whole body shaking, and he wants to tell Craig but he can’t, he tries to speak but he chokes. He can feel himself sweating, he can’t speak, he feels like someone is choking him. The car feels too small, he has to get out, he needs out. “I can’t breathe”. He manages to get out.

“W-wha-” Craig says when he notices how fast Kenny is breathing. Kenny grabs his own neck, trying to remove whatever is choking him but there's nothing there.  “Ok, look at me, McCormick, look at me” he hears Craig say, and he must be crying too, because he feels dizzy and there’s something that doesn’t let him see Craig clearly  “look, I’m here, we are ok, look, let’s count together ok? Let’s take a deep breath” he tries to mimic him as Craig shows him how to take a deep breath, it’s so simple, but he’s sobbing so hard that he can’t do it, Craig tells him to do it three more times, when he finally manages to exhale  “Good, good keep going” Craig says in an encouraging voice, “Now, out” he manages to breath out again, “Perfect that’s awesome, come on, once again”.

They end up doing it four more times when he finally stops crying. Craig stares at him for a moment until Kenny gives him a nod to let him know that he’s fine, he’s fine now, he’s ok. Unsure, Craig accepts it before taking out his leather jacket and setting it on Kenny’s shoulders, and starts driving, Kenny doesn’t want to ask where he is going and just sits there in silence.

After five minutes of silence, he speaks.

“I-I” he tries, Craig’s eyes are still on the road as Kenny’s, he can’t bring himself to look at him, “I think something happened to Butters” he confesses his voice cracking at the end, he can feel the tears back in his eyes, he licks his lips before continuing “a-and I think it’s my fault”

“Hey” Craig says right away, he sounds firm, Kenny can see his knuckles turning withe as he grabs tightly into the steering wheel. “None of this is your fault, ok?” he stops looking at the road for a moment and turns his gaze at him, “look, look at me, he’s going to be ok, he’s fine, don’t worry about it” Kenny, still in tears nods “It’s ok”

After a moment of silence, Craig speaks again.

“We are going to my house, we are picking up my car and we are driving to Stark’s Pond, we are going to leave your truck there, and we’ll go back in my car” he says and then, hands him his phone as he keeps driving, Kenny accepts it confused, but before he can ask, Craig talks again, “call, Cartman, tell him you’re staying over”.

“No, no I need to-” Karen , he thinks , Karen needs to be safe, he needs to pick her up.

But Craig is having none of it, because he slams a hand on the steering wheel which makes Kenny jump in his seat, startled at the sudden action, even if he knows it’s not directed at him.

“You’re staying over there” Craig snarls, he’s mad, he doesn’t want to argue right now. Kenny guesses it’s his way of dealing with this situation. Still, Craig takes a deep breath before talking once again, this time he’s calmer but his tone is firm “I’m taking Karen, she’s going to be ok, but I need you to stay there, I’ll pick you up tomorrow and we’ll talk”

He’s not up to discussions.

“Craig?”

“Yeah?”

“W-what happens” Kenny tries to ask, but he’s afraid that he might cry again,  “What if something happened to Butters?”

The silence that fills the car when he asks that question makes him feel claustrophobic.

“It’s ok” Craig says, and he doesn’t even manages to convince himself when he says so,  “nothing happened to him, he’s ok”  

Butters doesn’t show up at home the next day.

That’s when his parents start to freak out.

Chapter Text

Kenny gets sick after he gets dropped off at Cartman’s. 

He blames the alcohol, and the cold and everything for it. He gets a fever so bad he’s delirious for a while, and he can’t eat anything because he ends up puking it. He doesn’t remember the first three days very well.

If he was honest, he didn’t really want to remember either. What he does remember though was being dropped out at Cartman’s, being sat down on his couch while Liane checked on him, he remembered being able to catch a glimpse of Craig and Eric talking at the door, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying, then it’s all black. He had some moments of consciousness, where he remembers himself throwing up in different places, mumbling things he didn’t really understand, like ‘it's my fault, it’s my fault, it’s my fault’ all over and over again. He remembers waking up and seeing Cartman staring down at him with a frown.

He thinks he remembers Stan and Kyle coming to visit, but he’s not sure. He had some really bad days.

On day four he stops passing out and his fever calms down, he doesn’t see Cartman the whole day even if he’s in his room. Liane comes to check on him, and when he asks she doesn’t answer, instead she brushes his hair off his face and says ‘oh honey’ with pity in her eyes ‘come on, go and take a shower’. He’s confused, but he obeys.

Cartman shows up the next morning, he doesn’t stay for too long. He’s searching for something in his room when he wakes up, when Kenny asks what he was doing, where was he going, Cartman just tells him to shut up and doesn’t even look at him, until he’s about to leave his room. 

He doesn’t understand the look that he gives him.

On day five, he’s better and Kyle shows up.

“Hey” he greets him, he has two mugs of tea, he supposes that from Liane, and sits on the edge of the bed “how’s it going?”

Kenny’s still in bed, he’s not sweaty or hallucinating anymore, which is good, but he’s tired. Shrugging he answers “you know, having the worst fever of my life” he lets out a small chuckle “but better already”.

Kyle’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes. For some reason, he looks exactly like he did when he woke up at the party, he had bags under his eyes, and looked like shit. Maybe he was having trouble sleeping, but Cartman looked the same too. 

“Well, that’s good dude, that’s good” Kyle says and takes a sip of his tea, Kenny does the same.

“Where are the others?” he asks, and Kyle stays still, wide eyes “like Stan, Cartman and Butters” he asks confused, because he hadn’t seen them in a while now and hell, Cartman literally lives here “where are they?”.

Kyle didn’t reply right away, he was staring at him with his eyes wide open. He wasn’t saying anything, just staring at him and maybe it was because of sleep deprivation, but after a moment he started blinking rapidly at him, resting his tea on the night table beside him and excusing himself telling him he needed to make a call. Kenny can only watch as he leaves the room with a questioning look.

For a few minutes, he’s alone. He doesn’t mind, he drinks his tea and waits for his friend to show up. 

But then he hears the sound of a car pulling over, and he can’t help but walk to the window in Cartman's bedroom to see what’s going on.

A Honda Civic Sedan 2005 pulls in the driveway as Kyle makes his way out of the house, he watches and is surprised to see Cartman and Craig get out of the car. He can’t hear anything, but he can see Kyle start yelling at Cartman, he sees him in full rage mode, he can’t heat but he can see him yelling and shoving Cartman off. And for some reason, Eric doesn’t move.

Which is the scariest part, because Cartman would never, ever let Kyle treat him like that, but he’s doing it. He looks worse than he did last time he saw him. 

Then he looks at Craig, he’s standing beside them, he has a bruise on his cheek and he also looks like shit, but he is not saying anything, he just let Kyle’s outrage towards Cartman. In what appears to be a few minutes, Kyle stops yelling and shoving Cartman around, he’s breathing fast still, but he stops. Then Cartman starts talking, he can’t read his lips, but he’s calm about what he is saying even if his expression is not. 

He watches as Kyle nods and brushes a hand through his hair, he gestures inside the house and after a moment they all nod and start making their way in. 

Kenny doesn’t need to be a genius to know that something bad happened. He makes his way back to the bed where he stis covering his legs with Cartman’s blankets and drinking his tea. A few seconds later, the three of them come inside.

They look worse from there than from afar. He doesn’t think he has ever seen Cartman like this, he doesn’t just look tired, he looks like he hasn’t slept in three days, he looks older and has lost some weight too. In another scenario he would make a joke about it, and Cartman would tell him to go fuck himself. But he felt like that wasn’t the moment.

“So” he says, because no one had said anything since they all came in, Craig and Cartman are staring directly at him, but Kyle doesn’t seem to be able to do so. “What’s the deal?”

A lot of things happen in a short amount of time, he knows when Craig looks away, and when Cartman puts a hand over his leg that something bad happened. Then they tell him.

It stung. Kenny doesn’t remember ever feeling a kind of pain worse than he felt when he died, it always hurt, it was always painful, but nothing was more painful than the words that came out from Cartman’s mouth.

Butters has been missing for five days now, no one knows everything, they are searching everyday everywhere.

For a moment, it was like he needed to process exactly every single word that had been told to him, like they needed to sink and be inked into his brain to actually comprehend what was going on. Because Butters was missing.

After that the words starts to dawn on him, Kenny has a breakdown, well, he guesses he does because he doesn’t really remembers when he starts crying, he just knows that when he starts to get conscious again, Craig and Cartman are trying to get him to calm down and there blood in his hands. After a few minutes, Kyle’s back and Liane is with him. She looks at him with eyes full of pity. 

Turns out he broke the mug and he cut his hand, great. 

Then he felt numb, he doesn’t really remember either when he’s in Cartman's kitchen as Kyle is taking care of his wound, he can hear Craig and Cartman talking in the living room, then someone’s at the door too, and soon after Stan is in the kitchen with him. Stan only has to take one look at him before he’s rushing towards him and hugging him like his life depended on it. Kenny corresponds with the same feeling, pressing his face in his neck as he starts to sob once again. 

After some time, he lets go and he sees Cartman and Craig in the kitchen with them. Kyle is looking away as he saves the first kit aid in its place. The worst thing is the silence, because it’s not uncomfortable, it’s not awkward. It feels like grief, but Butters is just missing, he’s not dead, so fuck them.

“Well” Kenny says when he notices that no one is willing to break the silence, he wipes his tears with the back of his hand “what do we know?”.

Cartman is the first one to talk “we already gone through all of South Park, we checked every place possible” he exhales, and Kenny’s sure Cartman did because he looks exhausted “the police took us all for investigation, they asked us all the same questions, but no one saw anything” then he turns to glare at Craig “at least we all said so”:

Kenny follows his gaze and stare at Craig, he’s staring down at his feets, but he doesn’t look ashamed, “i took a few photos at the party” he admits “i sent them to reveal them yesterday, so we need to wait for them to be ready, just in case we find something”. 

Ah, so that’s the reason behind the bruise in his cheek. 

Kyle decides that it’s his time to talk now “we need to be careful” he says, and his eyes are determined “we need to not be alone, and to always move in groups” he said staring at all of them “the police tried to take all of Butters things to investigation, but the lawyers managed to get them to not do it” he said and for a moment, he sighed and stared at a point in the floor before speaking again, this time softer “we need to- we need…”

He couldn’t continue, but Cartman did it for him “we need to break into his room and see if we can find his phone or laptop” he said.

Kenny wanted to protest, he wanted to scream and throw things at them, he wanted to cry all over again because it wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair because it was Butters room, and it needed to be just as he had left it for when he came back, because he was missing and it was unfair for them to touch his stuff when he wasn’t there. 

Maybe his watery eyes, and clenched jaw gave him away, but he was thankful when Stan put a hand in his shoulder and told him “hey, we’ll take them back once we are finished checking on them” he had a reassuring smile and Kenny wondered how he did it “we just need to see what had he found”.

“Butters knew something” Kyle spoke again “he knew something that was important enough for them to go after him” he took a deep breath “we need to see if we can find something that may help us know where he might be, or something that would lead us to the people that took him”.

It’s too much. It’s way too much.

“Ok” he finally says “ok”.

And he doesn’t even know what he’s agreeing to, but he does apparently. 

About thirty minutes later, Kenny takes a shower, and gets dressed. Apparently Craig and Cartman got in contact with his brother and were able to get some of his stuff out of his house and bring them to Cartmans. He has his orange parka on when he makes it downstairs to find all of them waiting for him. They go to the woods where there’s already another search going on, there’s a lot of people, Kenny hopes that Butters knows how much people care for him.

Kenny thought that after years of dying and watching people rush towards him, screaming, crying, saying reassuring things to him, he might already feel apathetic towards this kind of thing.

He realises he’s wrong when he watches Butters parents breakdown during the search. The cries and pleads of his mother that just prays for her son to come home, the tears from his father when he hugs her as she falls in the snow. Kenny has to look away but he’s sure he won’t be able to forget the sound of her cires.

The first twenty-four hours are crucial when it comes to the disappearance of a person, after forty-eight hours the chances that the person is alive starts to lower. He doesn’t think what that could possibly mean when five days have already gone through.

Kyle and Stan wait until midnight to sneak out. Their parents have already gone to sleep, still, Kyle is careful when he closes his front door to meet with Stan who’s waiting right outside his house.

“Ready?” he asks when he’s beside him.

“Yeah”.

The night is cold, and the streets are filled with snow. Stan tries to not think about the ‘missing person’ papers that cover the town, he tries not to think about the picture of Butters smiling on them. Apparently he wasn’t doing a good job because after a few moments of walking in the cold night, he felt Kyle’s hand cover his.

Kyle was staring at him with empathetic eyes, he looked sad “come on” he said “it’s going to be ok”.

He knows he’s not talking about Butters, because Kyle is smart.

He’s so smart that it’s almost too painful for him. Because Kyle knows stuff, and even if he didn’t say it outloud, he remembered the look on his face when they told him there were no traces of him after the second day of investigation. After the first forty-eight hours.

Even Cartman, who Stan thought would be the first to admit that they wouldn’t ever see Butters again, had denied it. It was a surprise, because Cartman hadn't ever stopped searching, he had gone to every house to knock on the doors and ask for information, he had seen Cartman walk around the woods at late hours in the night even if the search had finished at midnight, he had seen him drink four cups of coffee to stay awake as long as he could, he had seen him pass out of exhaustion in his couch only to wake out three hours later to keep searching.

But Cartman had also seen the look in Kyle’s eyes, and he had looked away as soon as he realised what that meant.

Their walk to Butter’s house was a short one from their houses, it was only ten minutes away. So when they reached it, they had to stop to just look at it for a few seconds. Memories of them coming there to pick Butters up and ask his parents if he could come out and play started to fill their memories.

“Come on” Kyle said again “we’ll do it fast”. 

It took them a few tries to finally be able to climb to Butters window, but they managed to do it. Once inside, they both were unable to move. Butters room was exactly as they remembered it, just that his bed wasn’t made. The covers were pushed aside as if they hadn’t been moved since he had left home to make it to Token’s party. 

Butters always made his bed in the morning, and that day he hadn’t done it because he didn’t know he wasn’t going to come back.

Stan is about to break down, when Kyle clears his throat and holds his hand once again. Kyle looks tired, he looks exhausted as he felt, he wondered if he looked the same way. But Kyle didn’t tell him to ‘come on’ again, he didn't say anything. Stan wondered if it was because he might cry if he did so. Instead he moved, still holding his hand, to his nightstand and turned on the light. 

And how more real that made it all, but the kicker, what made both of them stare at each other so intently as if trying to reassure each other, trying to stop each other from crying with all of their forces, was the cries.

‘I want my baby back, I need my baby back home’

‘I know, I know’

‘Please, please I just want my baby boy back’

Linda was crying, she was probably crying in her bed hugging her husband as she did so. Linda was pleading for Butters, his baby, to come back home, and it was so intimate, so hurtful to hear. It wasn’t just a normal cry, it was a bereaved cry, and she screamed in pain because her son wasn’t home, he wasn’t with them and they couldn’t hold him anymore. It was hunting.

Blinking away the tears didn’t help, so instead, Stan let them fall as he grabbed Kyle's hand and moved to pick Butters' laptop and phone up that were lying on his desk. They didn’t say a word as they made their way out the window and walked home. The night got colder.

They didn’t look at each other, they didn’t have to, to know that the other was crying. It was a silent cry, the kind of cry that didn’t need to be heard but to be seen. 

“I-” Kyle said once they reached his doorway, Stan lived right besides him so he didn’t question when Stan just stood there, waiting for him to go inside, he still had tears rolling down his cheeks and sad eyes, Kyle cleared his throat, trying to speak again, he held Butters laptop close to his chest, he had the phone on the pocket of his coat “I’ll try to see if I can find something useful”.

Stan sniffed and nodded before looking away. He wasn’t moving. Kyle didn’t move either.

“Do…” Stan started, he struggled with his words, Kyle stared at him expectantly when he finally turned his gaze towards him “do you think he’s going to come back?”.

Kyle never felt a heartbreak as hurtful as the one he was having in that moment.

The tears seemed to flow uncontrollable down to Kyle’s cheeks, and Stan admired when he still managed to smile at him and put a hand on his cheek.

“Go home Stan”. He said softly.

And Stan did as he tried not to break down, at least not until he was alone in his room five minutes later.

The next morning Kenny woke up with a headache. He felt disappointed when he realised that it wasn’t because his fever had come back, nor because he had drunk an excessive amount of alcohol, no, this time his headache was because he had spent the night crying. 

He woke up in Cartman’s bed again.

Kenny wondered where Cartman had been sleeping, he had never protested about not having a place to sleep, and there was never a mattress on the floor that indicated that Cartman had slept there. He was alone in Eric's bed. 

Still shirtless, but having the decency to put on some pants he made his way to the bathroom, and stared at his reflection in the mirror. If he didn’t look like shit yesterday he definitely looked like shit now, his eyes were red and puffy, as well as his mouth and nose. Kenny didn’t like to cry because it was impossible for him to hide it after, his whole face made it impossible to hide. 

With a sigh of defeat, he washed his face and brushed his teeth -with the spare toothbrush that Cartman had for him- careful to not move his right hand too much, since his cut still hurted too much. It wasn’t going to get infected at least.

He started making his way downstairs when he heard the voices.

‘-not ok, and not safe, they are going to try to-’

‘I’ll be with him, I need to talk to him about-

‘I don’t give a shit about what the fuck you want to talk to him about, you need to fucking-’

But before Cartman could finish his sentence, Kenny was already at the bottom of the stairs, and both Craig and Eric had turned to stare at him, not having expected him to be awake. There was an uncomfortable silence, they were both staring at him, he wanted to tell them to stop, to look away, to just fucking stare at something else. But he couldn’t because he got it, they were talking about him.

“Good morning” Kenny tried.

Cartman snorted and rolled his eyes, however he didn’t seem to find his comment funny at all. He was moving towards the kitchen, leaving Craig and Kenny alone in his living room as he said “It’s one pm shithead”.

Kenny watched him go and then turned to look at Craig, who still hadn’t teared his eyes off him “Hi” he said as he took a step closer “what was that about?”.

There’s something about the expression that Craig makes that confuses him, the mixture of sadness and anger, he thinks he gets it. Craig and Cartman must have been in struggle for his issue and with the search of Butters -even if the subject affected Cartman the most- but not only that, but also they must have been talking about his meltdown at church. 

“Nothing” he says “I’ll go pick up the pictures” he says and reaches to the door.

But Kenny stops him “I’ll go with you”.

“No”.

“Yes”.

“No”:

“I’m not asking you, you asshole” Kenny snaps, and now they are staring at each other. It bothers him to no end the dark bruise in his cheek, Kenny wishes to remove it, but he knows he can’t. He also wishes that Cartman would stop being such a douchebag but then again, he can’t.

They stare at each other for a moment, finally Craig sighs and looks away, Kennny feels proud, “I’ll go get dressed”.

For some reason Kenny doesn’t feel the threat of Craig leaving without him, even if has the chance. He could totally leave without him, he could just open the door and leave while Kenny gets dressed, but he also knows that he could have done the same when the whole thing had started, he could have told him to back off, he could have told him to never speak to him again and to not drag him into this kind of bullshit. But he didn’t,

When he comes down, Craig is sitting on Cartman’s couch texting someone. 

“Ready?” he asks.

Craig looks up to him and frowns “I’m the one who’s supposed to ask that”.

Kenny shrugs and sips his parka up “but you didn’t”, he moves to the door and feels Craig follows him behind. 

Cartman doesn’t reappear to say goodbye to them, and Kenny knows that because if he does, he’s going to punch Craig in the face again. It’s strange, he thinks, how Cartman had been dealing with all of this, he knows that sooner or later he’s going to have to ask him about a bunch of things, but now it’s not the moment. He wants to ask what is he investigating, why is he so secretive, how’s he dealing with the disappearance of Butters, why doesn’t he ask for help?

He’s also sure that if he asks he will get his ass kicked.

When they step outside, he is reminded of the fact that they are not driving in his truck anymore, now Craig has a car. Right he’s now completely relying on him now, his car, his sister, his problems.

“Nice ride” he says as he makes his way towards the passenger seat.

It’s an old car, clearly used, but it’s Craig’s new-old car. And it’s a present so it’s not polite to not say anything he thinks.

“Thanks” Craig says, and climbs into the driver's seat “your truck is at Stark’s Pond like we agreed” he says and starts the car. 

Kenny hums in response, “so” he starts even though he knows he won’t like the question “you and Cartman, huh?”.

Never in his life Craig would have thought that he would be working side by side with Eric fucking Cartman, the guy annoyed him to no end, he hated his guts and everything that reseambled him. But he cared in a way that Craig didn’t completely get but accepted.

When he had dropped Kenny off in his house, he had cursed and insulted Kenny even if the guy was on the verge of dying -not literally this time- but at the same time, he had offered him his bed, he had cleaned him when he dropped on the floor and started throwing up on his shoes and carpet, he had brushed his hair out of his way when he was able to throw up on the toilet, he had bathed him, he had fed him. All of this was done while insulting him to no end but still. Craig knew that not everyone would do the same for a friend.

Still, there were disagreements, when he had told Cartman what had happened he basically called him useless, which made him almost punch him in the face if it wasn’t because Clyde was there with him to stop him. Then they all had reunited in his basement. It was chaos.

It was mostly because everyone was still shocked by Butters disappearance, and the well being of Kenny -on Stan’s gang side- but his friends were being protective of him, knowing that he now was probably a target too. Or that anyone who got close enough would most likely be one.

Because Butters had gone too close, and now he was missing.

They all had been going through the events, from Butters telling them he had a new discovery -which was the reason the abducted him- to the still mysterious number that didn’t make sense, and finally to the weird christmas mass where truck guy had been spotted talking to Father Maxi and Miss Philips. When Craig remembered that he had taken photos of the night, two days later, Cartman had punched him in the face for taking so long to remember.

He let him, because if it instead of Butters it would have been Tweek, Token, Jimmy or Clyde, he would have destroyed the guy.

“Yeah” he said “don’t even ask me how we got here”.

They start driving and there’s silence, Kenny wouldn’t normally mind -yes he would- but he had been out for so long that he has questions.

“How’s Karen?” Kenny asks, breaking the silence.

“Good” Craig answers, not tearing his eyes away from the road “you should probably call her sometime” he says because Karen was starting to get nervous about her brother “your brother too, by the way, he wants to know how you’re doing”.

“How are you doing?” Kenny asks.

It takes him by surprise, he should be the one asking that. Kenny’s the one who was in the middle of this, Kenny was the one that was probably going to die with no explanation next time, he was the one that had a missing friend, he was the one that had spent the last four days delirious when the only thing he could do was repeat ‘it’s my fault’ over and over again while throwing up.

“Fine” he answers anyway “I don’t know if we’re going to find something” he says and feels the gaze of Kenny on him “in the photos I mean”.

Kenny wants to hope that they will “It’s fine” he says “everything helps”.

When they get to the shop, Kenny starts looking through everything once again, there are so many useless and old things. He thinks that the only reason this place exits it’s because of Craig’s obsession with taking photos with an old camera even if he could use his phone. 

“Thanks” he hears Craig say as he accepts the package with the photos. He then pays him for two more camera rolls. 

They both can’t wait and as soon as they make it to the car, they open the package and start roaming through the pictures. They find a few that are before the party, but then they find five of the party.

“Hey I forgot you took this” Kenny says once he finds the one that Craig took of him at the party.

“Huh” Craig leans a bit closer to stare at it, it’s a good picture. The flash of the camera didn’t fucked it up as it usually did, all the colors contrasted with each other, and there was a lot going on in the background, the lights and the pose Kenny was making, still, for some reason that was unknown for him, everything got lost in Kenny’s smile. The colors of his awfully colored Hawaiian shirt, the cheap sunglasses that were on top of his head, the ridiculous smile and mess that was his hair. Kenny shone through the picture.

“It’s good” he agreed, Kenny snickered beside him, “what?” Craig asked.

“You just admitted I look good”

“No I didn’t, I said the picture looks good”

“Because I’m on it” Kenny insisted, a smug look on his face.

“No” Craig snached the picture of Kenny’s hands “It looks good because I took it, and because the lighting is good”.

Kenny rolled his eyes but didn’t pressure, knowing it was a battle he wasn’t going to win either way “Whatever” he said as Craig put the picture with the others that wasn’t at the party “you’re really good by the way”.

“It's just a picture,” Craig said.

Kenny rolled his eyes, why couldn’t he take a fucking compliment? “No dude, I mean it” but Craig wasn’t paying attention to him, he was trying to look at the pictures Kenny had in his hands.

“What is that?” Craig asked, pointing at one of the pictures.

Kenny turned to stare at the where Craig was gesturing, he found that it was the picture he had taken of Token, Stan and Clyde. 

They were all posing in a ridiculous manner, clearly wasted and with alcohol in their hands -and in Clyde’s shirt- behind them, the sea of people that wasn’t doing anything in particular other than also being drunk and talking. The problem was that all the way back, there was someone. Someone that was standing besides the principal door, dressed all in black with a hoodie that didn’t let them see their face.

“What the fuck?” Kenny asked horrifided, “who the fuck is that?”.

“I don’t know” Craig answered still staring at the picture “we need to call the guys, tell them we’re meeting at fatass’s basement” Craig said as he started his car

“Wait, wait, shouldn’t we look at the rest of them?” Kenny asked while he took his phone out to do so.

It didn’t really matter, he knew they were going to find something, they already had something but the idea of finding something else, something worse and not having anyone for moral support or to prevent them both from panicking wasn’t one that Craig was pretty fond of. 

“We’ll do it later” Craig said as he speeded up, not enough to call the cops attention but enough to make it  back to Cartman’s in record time “whoever that is, knows something”.

“Yeah no shit” Kenny said as he slowly texted with his wounded hand “but what if they had something to do with Butters?”.

For a moment Craig didn’t say anything, his eyes focused on the road “maybe, but if they do, we still need to know who they are in case that…” he didn’t finish his sentence.

Kenny noticed, he knew the implications of those words, he knew what Craig was trying to say, he hoped not, he hoped that it was something else, something not as horrible “in case of what?” he asked, but Craig didn’t answer, instead he swallowed dry and clenched his jaw “in case of what?” Kenny insisted again.

“In case that someone else goes missing” he finally stated.

Never in his life had Craig wanted to be more wrong as in that moment. He wanted to be wrong, he wanted to be over exaggerating he wanted Kenny to tell him to stop fucking with him, to not do that, to stop saying such bullshit. But when he didn’t, Craig knew that the possibilities of him being wrong were close to none.

“Oh shit” Kenny hissed after a few minutes.

“What? What is it?” 

“They are all at church” Kenny said staring at him, Craig glanced at him, a frown forming in his face as he turned to stare back at the road “Linda and Father Maxi organized a meeting at church to pray for Butters, half town is there”.

That was bad, that was really fucking bad, they all had to try to be as far away from the church as possible. He knew that Cartman and Kyle were most likely not there, but Stan and Craig’s friends were there for sure. If Father Maxi had something to do with truck guy and by proxi with Butters disappearance then it was fucked, they were all fucked.

“Fuck” Craig said “ok, we’re meeting them there”.

Kenny nooded, unable to form a word as fear started rising on him once again.

Stan didn’t know how to feel. He was tired, he was exhausted.

He wasn’t able to sleep last night, hunted by the cries and pleads of Linda, having been witness to something so terrible as were her cries in pain. It was hunting him, preying on him every time he closed his eyes, it was there, that sound that laughed at him when he tried to make it stop. 

“Hey” he heard someone say beside him. He flicked his head around to stare at Clyde who was staring back at him with a concerned look on his face “are you alright?”.

No, he wanted to say, I couldn’t fall asleep because I had to break into my missing friend house, I had to wait for everyone to fall asleep to fucking break in his house, I had to see his room where he last slept to find it just as he had left it before he went missing, I had to hear Linda fucking cry for him, I had to hear her pleading for her son, who is one of my best fucking friends, to come back because he’s missing and Kyle thinks he’s not coming back, which can only mean one thing, and I just can’t stop hearing and fucking thinking about-

“Yeah“ Stan said trying to give him a reassuring smile, that was more of a grimace “yeah I’m fine”.

He didn’t think he was able to deal with Clyde’s worried look and concerned question, it was too much for him. Instead he focused his eyes back ahead of him. There was another row of people, people he wasn’t sure he knew, he could manage to pick out a few of his teachers, but after that, he didn’t think he actually knew any of those people.

Ahead of them, Father Maxi was telling what was supposed to be a hopeful speech to make them -and Linda who was standing beside him- less worried and reassure them that they were going to find Butters, that Butters was going to come back home, he was going to be back with them. 

Stan wanted to rip his eyes and ears out.

“No matter where he is, no matter who he is with, God is with him” Father Maxi was saying, Stan wanted to call bullshit “God is with him and he will always be with him. Leopold was a strong kid that God loved and will always love, he’s with him right now, telling him to go back home, to come to us. Because the Lord is love and he is hope, and no matter where Leopold is, God is holding his hand right now, he is holding him tightly against his chest, and he’s giving him hope, he is giving him strength-”

Linda was crying softly again, it silenced whatever Father Maxi was saying. 

Stan wanted her to shut up, he couldn’t focus on anything else, he couldn’t hear anything else that Father Maxi was saying, he could only hear those sad and ripped sobs. He wanted her to stop, to just shut the hell up, to just-

“Amen”

“Amen” Stan said at the same time as everyone else did.

Slowly, he saw how everyone in the room started to make a line to say some reassuring words to Linda. He didn’t want to, he had been avoiding Butter’s parents since the beginning, Kyle and Cartman had been stronger, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t face her, he couldn’t face his mother. What was he going to say, what eh fuck was he supposed to say to the mother of his missing friend? I’m sorry? He hated it, he wanted to scream, to tell everyone to just fuck off and keep searching to prove Kyle wrong, he wanted to call bullshit to all fo this and to punch Father Maxi in the face.

He stood behind Clyde as they all made their way to her, everyone took their time, one by one they all talked to her. 

Stop, stop acting like he’s dead, stop this and go back to the fucking forest, Stan thought, stop fucking wasting your fucking time and go back to the fucking town to search for him, stop this, he’s not dead, he’s alive, he’s somewhere and he’s fucking cold so go and fucking find him, go and search for him you fucking assholes, I’ll fucking kill all of you, my friend is fucking scared and none of you are searching for him now, he’s fucking-

It was his turn.

Stan never realised how hard this was going to be. 

In front of him, there was a woman. It wasn’t Linda, it wasn’t Stephen's wife. She wasn’t his friend’s mom. No. In that moment, standing right there in front of him, stood Butter’s mom, and that’s what made him almost break down right there. She wasn’t Linda anymore, she was Butter’s mother, a mother whose son was missing a mother who couldn't sleep because she was crying for her son, a mother that for now, had lost it all. He hated, he hated that the worst part of it all, is that for one moment, he wished that Butter had died, he wished that instead of missing, Butters was dead and it was his body in a coffin and this was his fucking funeral.

Because there was nothing worse than to not know if a son was alive or dead, was he cold? Was he hungry? Was he trying to come back home? Was he lost? Was he being hurt? They didn’t know, and when he stared back at Butter’s mom's eyes, he knew. She was dead, there was no life behind her eyes, and there was probably never going to be again if Butters wasn’t with her. If Butters didn’t come back home.

“Stan” Linda said, there was just sadness in her eyes, her sad red eyes. He wanted to look away, he didn’t want to look at the bags under her eyes, he didn’t want to see the lifeless shadow of her eyes.

“I-” Stan tried to say, but he didn’t know what to say, I’m sorry? I’m so fucking sorry that your son went missing and he’s probably not coming back? I’m sorry that you’re experiencing the worst feeling in the world, I’m sorry this is breaking you and us, I’m sorry that even if I feel like shit it will never be compared to what you’re feeling right now? I’m sorry I couldn’t do more to-

“I know,” Linda said, as she put a hand on his shoulder, and Stan was able to see something.

He hated it, he hated that she was the one whose son was missing and still she managed to reassure him, he was suppose to be the one doing that, not the other way around, he wasn’t supposed to stare at her eyes and see that sadness but hope behind her eyes, she was supposed to see that on his eyes. 

“I know,” she said again. 

She wasn’t Linda. She was Butter’s mother. 

He couldn’t do this, he couldn’t do that, he couldn’t bear the pain. 

Not saying a word, Stan turned around and left, he could feel everyone’s curious eyes on him as he walked as fast as he could towards the door, he couldn’t. He didn’t turn to stare at the sad look that Linda was giving him, it was too much, too much too soon. 

When he finally made his way out of the church and the cold wind slapped him in the face, he wasn’t able to contain it anymore, his tears started to go down his face without his consent. It was too much, too much pain, too much sadness that revolved around town, around his house, around him. 

“Fuck!” he said loudly at nothing in particular, he was outside the church and he knew he shouldn’t be cursing benig the house of god or whatever, but he couldn’t he couldn’t stop himself “FUCK!” he yelled louder.

He covered his face with both of his hands, he was breathing hard as he cried. He was angry, so fucking angry at himself, at the town, at no one in particular but he was angry. He tried to calm himself down, trying to stop the broken sobs that came involuntarily out of him. He dragged his hands off his face, just as the doors behind him opened again.

“Hey” he heard Clyde call for him.

When he turned around to look at him, Clyde was already walking towards him, a sad and concerned look on his face. He was getting tired of people always staring at him like that, they shouldn’t, they needed to stop. Butter’s mom was the one going through worse.

“I saw you run out” he said as he put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, it was the most friendly that Clyde had been with him while sober “are you ok?”.

Stan wanted to yell at him and tell him that no, he wasn’t ok , he wasn’t fine , he was fucking far away from fine. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and nodded anyway.

“Y-yeah” he said, “it was just too much”.

It was when Clyde gave him a sad smile and muttered a soft “I know”, that it dawned on him.

Clyde didn’t know exactly, but he did understand pain. Clyde understood pain when he was a kid, a child. Clyde lost his mother when he was just a child and everyone made fun of him for it for a while. Clyde had grieved, he had laid in bed hugging his mother’s shirt as he cried himself to sleep, he had known pain for a long time now, he had experienced it in blood and tears. 

It was only five seconds, where they could only stare back at each other in understandment for all the pain and loss that they both shared.

Suddenly the sound of a car honking at them made them turn away.

“Hey!” they heard someone call, when the took a closer look they manage to see that it was Craig and Kenny in the car “we’ve got something, come on we need to leave”

Clyde patted him on the shoulder and gave him a small smile before calling out to their friends “I’ll go get the guys”.

Stan nodded and made his way to the car, he sat on one of the backseat when he realised, “uh guys?”.

“Yeah?” Kenny asked while he texted someone on his phone, probably Kyle and Cartman.

“How are we all going to fit in here?”

That made both of them turn around to stare at the backseats.

“Shit”.

In the end, they did manage to fit all seven of them. Clyde and Jimmy had to sit on the truck of the car but they managed to fit, which was the important thing, even if none of them had shut up since the car started moving, telling each other to move or to stop kicking the seats. Craig had decided that it was the first and the last time he drove all of his friends -and Stan- in his car, they could call an Uber or something next.

“I already tried that”

“You probably misspelled it”

“I didn’t misspell it, jackass!”

Once they reached Cartman’s house, they were greeted by Liane who told them that Kyle and Eric were already down in the basement, they were arguing again.

“You could have!”

“But I didn’t!”.

Kenny and Stan stared at them with annoyance, “What’s going on?” Stan asked.

Kyle groaned as he shoved Cartman off and sat on the couch with Butter’s laptop in his lap “I spent the whole night trying to guess Butter’s password, but I can’t fucking unlock it”.

“Wait” Token said as he went down the last steps of the stares, he stared at Kyle and Eric with wide eyes “you broke into Butter’s house?”

“ We didn’t break into Butter’s house” Eric said, putting emphasis on the ‘we’, before gesturing to both Stan and Kyle “ they did”.

“What?!” Tweek asked, glancing at Stan and Kyle with an incredulous look on his face.

Kyle rolled his eyes “thanks for having our back, asshole” he said glaring at Cartman.

“What the fuck man? That’s fucked up” 

“We needed it to figure out what Butters found,” Kyle argued.

“And you figure it would be good to just break into his house?” 

“Did you have a better idea, asshole?” Cartman asked, glaring at Token “easy for you to say, we have to do all the dirty work to make sure your fag of a friend here doesn’t fucking die”.

“Oh, now it's we , huh?” Kyle said to Eric who ignored him as he kept his eyes on Token with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Don’t call him that” Kenny said, frowning at his friend.

Craig turned to look surprised at Kenny, just as everyone else did the same, he hadn’t expected Kenny to jump to protect him, even if the insult didn’t particularly hurted him at the moment, given the circumstances, but maybe another time, he would have tried to kick Cartman in the face.

“Great” Eric said “now you also had to side up with the bitch” he rolled his eyes and waved his threw his arms dramatically “can anyone fucking apreciate our hard work here?”.

“Oh, eat shit Cartman,” Kyle said, turning his attention back to the laptop. 

“Yeah, dude” Stan said while he made his way to sit next to Kyle, to see what his friend was doing “they are not here to fight, they are-”

“We’re here to help” Token finished for him, Clyde and Jimmy nooded with him, Tweek just stared hesitantly at all of them “we came here as soon as Craig and Kenny-”

“Oh right” Kenny said as he reached inside of his pocket “we got the pictures”.

“Great, you went with Tucker to get his gay photos, just fucking great” Cartman said.

“You got a problem with that?” Craig finally dared, narrowing his eyes at Cartman.

But Eric didn’t backed up, instead he stared back at him with the same intensity “yeah, I fucking do, you piece of shit” he spited out, Kyle and Stan turned to look at him wearly of what their friend was going to say “you go and fucking take him to the first place the creep saw you and ask me what the problem is?”.

“Dude, nothing happened-” Kenny tried to defend.

“He’s fine ,” Craig said, taking a step closer.

“What? Are you his girlfriend now, Kinny?” Cartman asked teasingly. Kenny knew he was reacting like that because he was worried and mad that he could have put himself in danger, but he couldn’t help but turn his hand into fits beside him “are you trying to replace the little bitch place?” he said, gesturing to Tweek.

“Cartman!” Kyle snapped, moving the laptop to the coffee table and standing up “shut the fuck up”.

“Say one more thing about him and I’ll destroy you” Craig snarled, taking another step closer.

But Cartman didn’t react, instead he took another step closer too “What? You’re going to kill me, huh? Just like you could have gotten Kenny killed by-”

“Dude!” Stan said standing up too and making his way towards Cartman “cut it the fuck out!”

“Say that one more time” Craig was about to throw himself at Cartman, but was stopped by both Clyde and Token who grabbed him by the arms. “I fucking dare you, you piece of shit”.

It was bad, Kenny knew it. He didn’t know how they had managed to make it work when he was unconscious, but things were about to get pretty shitty if they didn’t stop it soon. 

He understood that Cartman was reacting like that because of the lack of sleep, stress and pressure he was under, but it wasn’t going to lead then nowhere if he kept that attitude up, even if it was kind of his fault too since Cartman had tried to prevent Craig from taking him with him to get the pictures, it was dangerous, yes, but he wasn’t going to just sit there and watch as his friends did all the work and got their hands dirty.

“Dude stop” he said as he stood in the middle of Cartman and Craig, they weren’t paying attention to him, instead glaring at each other over his shoulder. 

“What, you’re on his side now?” Cartman asked him, but his eyes were still on Craig “you’re all about sucking his dick and not caring if-”

Craig was trying to get away from his friend's grip, but Clyde and Token still managed to keep him still.

“Woah, woah dude” Clyde said.

“Craig, stop it!” Token reproched too, struggling to keep him still.

Kyle moved to stand besides Kenny, “back the fuck off dude!” he said, “Kenny didn’t do shit to you to-”

“Of course, you will fucking defend him” he said sarcastically.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kyle deared, leaving behind the intention to stop them both from fighting and instead glaring at Cartman too.

“Fucking please” Cartman said, and Stan stared at him confused “you seriusly thought it I didn’t notice when you sucked Kenny off in the backseat of his car all this time?”

“What?” Stan asked, glancing at Kenny and Kyle.

“Dude” Kenny said, knowing this was going to end up badly “stop it”.

“What the fuck did you just said?” Kyle asked, shoving Cartman off. Now it was Kenny’s turn to held him back so he didn’t punch Cartman in the face “what the fuck did you just said?!”

Jimmy and Tweek had made their way towards Craig too, noticing that both of his friends were struggling to keep him calm. Stan was also now struggling to keep Cartman down, now that Kyle had shoved him off he was also trying to throw himself on him.

“I said” he started saying with pure rage in his eyes, but Kenny knew when he turned to stare at him instead that now he was now going to need someone to held him “I know how Kenny’s enough of a bitch to not only let himself be sucked off by his friend but also for the biggest fag bitch in this place”, Kenny clenched his jaw and his grip on Kyle’s arm turned tighter, enough to make his friend wince and turn his atention at him “it’s not much of a secret really” he continued, and everyone stopped for a moment to stare at Kenny and Cartman. 

It was a second where everyone was not focused on them, that Stan had stopped trying to grab Eric so hard that he actually got away from him and took a step closer to Kenny. 

“After all what did we expected” he continued talking, Kenny closed his eyes and took a deep breath, he needed to control himself, he needed to remind himself that this wasn’t Cartman speaking, this wasn’t his friend who had given up his bed to him and had fed him when he was sick “everyone knows it, Kenny’s a fucking slut, that’s what we all say, don’t we? You think that Stan doesn’t think so? You think the reason Kyle came out to you was because he trusted you? You think Tucker hangs out with you because he considers you a fucking friend?”.

He was trying, he was trying so fucking hard, he needed to relax, he needed to remind himself, that this was what Cartman wanted, he was expecting a reaction, he was expecting him to get mad at him.

“The only reason they do it’s because you’re so easy that anyone who asked you nice enough could have you” Kenny tried to contain himself, why wasn’t anyone trying to stop him, why none of them were saying anything, “the only reason we’re here it’s because you put everyone’s life in danger, because you just can’t seem to stop fucking things up, and decided to drag us all into this mess. You did it with Butters, because he’s not here, is he?” It was starting to get hard for Kenny to just breath “he’s not here, because you dragged him into your problems, he’s not here and that’s your fault, Ken, who knows what happened to him, maybe he’s cold and he’s being tortured, probably he’s already d-”

Silence.

Just silence, Kenny didn’t want to open his eyes, he didn’t want to see what had happened, had he finally snapped out? Had he punched Cartman in the face as he thought he did? He didn’t know, but when he finally got the courage to open his eyes, he was shocked to see that no, it wasn’t him.

Cartman was on the ground with a swollen lip and a bloody nose, slowly he turned to look up and there it was.

Stan was staring at him, with wide eyes, as if he hadn’t even expected himself to punch Cartman in the face. His knuckles were not white, not red, but turning purple. He blinked but said nothing, no one said anything. They were all staring from Cartman, to Stan to Kenny, not knowing what had happened, how they had managed to reach that situation.

Then Eric looked up, frowning at Stan with a hand on his face, he touched his nose and winced, he looked at it. Blood, then back at Stan, who was still too shocked to speak. He spat at Stan's shoes, making them dirty with blood and spit, before he stood up by himself and stared angrily at his friends.

“Whatever” he said, and made his way out his basement, not turning back to stare at them.

No one moved, no one said anything. Stan’s hands were shaking. 

“I-” he tried to say, but once again he was lost for words. He didn’t know what happened, he didn’t remember what happened, one moment he was getting angrier and angrier at the way Cartman was treating his friends, hearing all those nasty things he was saying about Kenny, waiting for Kenny to snap, to be the calm one, to be the voice of reason as he always did when it came to their friends problems, and then he said it. He named Butters, he implied something horrible about Kenny and Butters, and then he saw red.

He didn’t remember punching Eric, he didn’t remember raising his hand. But his knuckles said otherwise.

“It’s ok” Clyde said once he noticed that Stan couldn’t speak, he stepped away from Craig and put a hand on his shoulder “you did good”.

It was uncomfortable, none of them knew what to say. 

Craig’s gang had been witness to the arguments that Cartman and his friends had, they all had seen how Kyle and him rill each other up, how they said the nastiest of words to each other, how they called each other names, how nasty things could get. But not like this, never like this.

The three friends stood still, not daring to move, not sure of who to reassure first, Kenny for having been called all those things and humiliated like that in front of everyone, Kyle for being forced out of the closet in front of a bunch of people too, or Stan for being too stunned for punching their friend in the face?

Butters would have known what to do.

But because Butters wasn’t there, the responsibility fell on Kenny.

They all heard as he took a deep shaky breath, and blinked back the tears “Ok” he said, and everyone turned to stare concerned at him “it’s ok, we-” his voice broke but he cleared his throat and managed to speak again “we’ll solve that later, n-now we have more important things to talk about”.

Carefully they all nodded and started uncomfortably at each other as they sat in Cartman's basement. 

“Did you manage to log in Butters laptop?” Token asked Kyle.

Kyle, who was still too stunned to speak, blinked a few times and stared back at him, while he reached to grab the laptop and set it in his lap “n-no” he said as he opened it and the menu screen lighted up “I was trying to guess the password but I don’t know what could possibly be, I already tried ‘Butters123’, ‘123Butters’, ‘password123’, and ‘123password’” he said.

Stan sat beside him and thought about it for a moment “have you tried with the capital P?” he asked.

Kyle frowned at the screen for a second before tipping it on the bar, a second later the screen turned to the starting screen, making Kyle frown even harder.

Jimmy snorted and everyone turned their attention to him “S-sorry, sorry” he excused himself as he chuckled “it’s just, it’s so dumb”.

For a second no one said anything until Clyde started chuckling too “y-yeah” he said, and Jimmy laughed louder “yeah it is”.

Slowly, one by one started snickering softly, except from Kenny and Stan who simply smiled a little, and glanced at each other, reassuring themselves that yeah, it was such a Butters thing to do, so dumb and innocent that it was funny. 

“Ok, so” Kyle said when the laughter died “I’m going to try to unlock his phone from his computer too” he explained “and search through his things if he discovered something from here, Kenny, what were you saying about the pictures?”

Craig turned to stare at Kenny as he placed the pictures on the table for everyone to take a look while Kyle kept on researching. He could see the way Kenny’s moves were more shy, almost as if he was scared of making a wrong movement. He wished that it would have been him who had punched Cartman in the face.

“We only looked through one of the pictures” he said as he gestured the picture he was referring to, the one with Clyde, Stan and Token on it, “here” he pointed to the strange person that was in the back of the picture “we don’t know who they are but like, it’s fucking weird”.

Tweek took the picture Kenny was talking about to take a closer look, Craig pretended he didn’t notice the way Kenny’s finger flinched when Tweek moved to pick it up. 

Clyde and Jimmy took another one that they hadn't checked out, while he and Token took two different pictures. He didn’t remember taking them, he was way too drunk at the time, and it showed in the picture he was holding since it was all blurry. He managed to catch with the corner of his eye how Stan wrapped an arm around Kenny’s shoulder and whispered something to him. He pretended he didn’t see Kenny nod.

“Guys?” Token said, making everyone turn to stare at him.

Token’s eyes were glued to the picture he was holding, they were wide open and it could only mean one thing, they had found something. Before anyone could ask what it was, Token slowly turned the picture around for everyone to see.

The picture wasn't taken by Craig. He didn’t take that photo, because Craig was in the picture too. 

It was out of a horror movie, it was a nightmare come true. They were all passed out in Token’s living room, everyone was there, sleeping, unconscious, and someone had taken Craigs camera from him and took a picture of them. This wasn’t just a picture, this was a warning, this was a threat.

This meant they knew who they were, they knew they were investigating.

They were being watched, followed. 

And whoever took that picture, was probably the same person that took Butters with them.

“Holy shit” Jimmy whispered.

And Craig couldn’t agree more. Holy shit indeed.

“Ok” Stan said, his eyes focused on the picture, something inside his eyes, a mixture of determination and fear “we need to solve this now”.

It took Kyle twenty minutes to successfully unlock Butters phone, they all started naming possible scenarios, possible names, possible future threats. They started using one of Cartman’s walls to stick the pictures, names and possible correlations like a police investigation. They had been searching and discussing possibilities for an hour.

“Anything about the numbers?” Kyle asked as he scratched the side of his head with a pencil, trying to write possible meanings to each of the numbers of the truck plate. “Something? No acronym?”.

Craig was staring at the walls filled with pictures and names. Truck guy who had no name, Butters, the numbers of the plate, Kenny, the picture, Texas, it didn’t make sense, nothing made sense. 

“No, nothing” Kenny said from where he was sitting on the floor, searching stuff in his phone, trying to make them make sense. “Maybe it’s something else”.

“Like what?” 

“I don’t know,” Kenny said before dragging a hand through his face, “Stan? You got something?”.

“No dude, I’m lost”.

“Why didn’t we put Father Maxi in here?” Craig suddenly asked.

They all fell in silence as they turned around to stare at him, but Craig was still facing the wall, not paying them any mind.

“Why would we put Father Maxi’s name?” Clyde asked, confused.

Equally confused, Craig turned around to stare at them as if he couldn’t believe they were asking him that question, it was when he saw the look on Kenny’s face that he understood why. “You didn’t tell them”.

Kyle started glancing at Craig and Kenny in confusion “tell us what?”.

“Yeah dude”, Stan said, staring at Kenny with concern “did something happen?”

“I mean” Kenny started, uncomfortable by everyone's eyes on him “I’m not sure it could mean anything, everyone spoke to Father Maxi during mass but-”

“But?” Token asked

“But I saw truck guy and Miss Philips talk to him the day Butters disappeared”.

They all fell in silence until Kenny started speaking again. “I could not mean anything” he tried to explain “look I was just under too much pressure a-and there was so much going on that-”

“Wait” Kyle stopped him, turning to stare at Tweek “what was that you said about the numbers and shit?”

Confused, Tweek answered “Uh… That maybe they represented something else? I mean it’s just a theory, it’s like that conspiracy about prime numbers is not really-”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah” Kyle said interrupting him “but what if they do?”.

“What if they do what?” Clyde asked.

“What if they do mean something” Kyle said, and everyone stared at him, waiting for him to continue “what if we're not looking at the entire picture”.

“I’m… not following,” Clyde said confused.

Rolling his eyes, Kyle took Butters laptop in his hands and started tipping something up “ok, what if they do mean something, right? Not a letter, not an acronym or something but they mean something?” he licked his lips and looked up at them “have you guys ever heard of something called ‘numerology’?”

In less than ten seconds, everyone was already sitting or standing around Kyle, waiting for him to continue, hoping that it would lead them somewhere.

“Ok, so numerology is the study of humber but like, in a mystical way” he explained as some of the nodded and others just listened really closely “It’s the belief that number carry a meaning, either luck or bad luck or even personality traits, supposedly you can calculate your numerology shit to have like a knowledge in yourself or whatever”.

“Does it actually work?” Clyde asked.

“I don’t know, I guess it’s kind of like astrology or some shit?” he answered before starting to write down his notepad “ok, so let’s suppose we’re not searching for someone numerology chart or whatever that is, but for the meaning of the numbers, we have 4 7 6 8 1 4” Kyle wrote down each one of the numbers and started reading from the laptop as everyone followed his movement with their gaze “Four it’s like an unlucky kind of number I guess? But it also says that represents practicality, loyalty and whatever, number seven it’s like an spiritual number and-”

“Wait a second” Kenny interrupted, “it ends and starts with a four”.

“Yeah, so?”

“So” Kenny started “doesn’t that mean anything, like if numbers repeat themselves or whatever?”

“What if they’re not repeating themselves” Token said, staring at the numbers Kyle had written down.

“What do you mean?” Kyle asked.

“What if it’s not one and four, but fourteen” he said as he tried spareated the numbers with lines making them all separated from each other except the fourteen. “what if it doesn’t start and end in the same number but it’s in fact a different number?”

“Well, in that case” Kyle looked from the screen of the laptop to the notepad “It’s not numerology”.

“Why not?” Jimmy asked.

“Because numerology works from numbers 0 to 9 not two digits numbers”.

Silence again. 

They needed to find something, they needed something that would lead them somewhere, something that would get them to a place, it didn’t matter where, but somewhere.

“What if…” Stan started “it’s not numerology, but something else”.

“Like what?” Token asked.

“I don’t know but like… don’t numbers mean a lot of shit? Like everyone uses them to put meaning into things, so like… I don’t know”

Kyle rubbed his temples as he groaned, they needed to find something, they needed something that would lead them somewhere, but they had nothing, absolutely nothing “Ok, you know what, here” he passed the laptop to Kenny, who set it on his lap “see if you can find something, Stan and I didn’t find anything”.

Nodding, Kenny accepted it and started searching through Butters things, from his archives, photos and facebook messages, to his twitter account. Then he went to his google historial. “Uh, guys?” he asked.

“What is it?” Stan asked, when Kenny finally spoke up.

“Was Butters like...” he stared at everyone for a moment “really religious or something? Because there are like, hundreds of pages about christianity shit or whatever in here”.

Before anyone could ask something else, Liane appeared from the stairs of the basement, telling them that it was getting late, and with everything that had happened, she would prefer them all to go home early. Then she wished them all a happy new year. 

Happy new year.

It was december 31. New Year’s eve.

Butters was missing during New Year’s eve. Happy fucking new year.

Everyone fell quiet after Liane left the basement, because Butters was missing and everytime it that fact was brought up it made everyone fell quiet, because Butters was fucking missing. It was New Year’s eve, and there was no party, no smiles, no celebration, no ‘happy’ New Year because Butters was gone. 

“We should go,” Kyle finally said, but his eyes were still on the floor. “Liane is right, it’s getting late and we still need to make sure everyone gets home in pairs,” he said.

They all nodded, because then again, what else was there it was to do? What else there was to say?

Token left with Clyde, Tweek left with Jimmy, and Stan left with Kyle. But Craig and Kenny didn’t leave right away.

“So” Kenny said, once they were outside “that was fucked up”.

“No shit” Craig said.

It was snowing outside. It was freezing.

Kenny had decided that there was no way he was staying with Cartman that night, not until… things get better at least. He was going to have to search for a place to sleep, maybe the school had some door that wasn’t locked, or maybe he could go and see if his brother was in a motel room for the night.

They were making their way out, Craig was going to go in the car, and Kenny was going to walk home, or somewhere, but then Craig had stopped walking, and turned around to face him.

“It’s going to be ok”.

And it’s so simple, such a simple sentence, shrot, simple. But that's all it takes for Kenny to take a step back, and shake his head at Craig, as if he had just betrayed him, because for him, he kind of did. Craig wasn’t supposed to say that, he wasn’t supposed to, he was supposed to just shut up, drop him home and go away. He was supposed to push him away and tell him everything was his fault, to yell at him because he put him in danger, to punch him, kick him because now everyone was getting involved in something he caused.

“You don’t know that”, Kenny said with a sad smile on his face.

Craig stares at him, silent for a moment, he nods but doesn’t look away. “You’re right, I don’t” he’s staring right back at him, and Kenny feels small “I don’t but you don’t know that either, so shut the fuck up and get in the car” he said and turned around to open the passanger seat before making his way to the drivers seat and getting inside the car.

Knowing how things were going to get, Kenny went inside and closed the door.

It was when Craig started the car that Kenny decided to ask him.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked, but Craig didn’t answer, Kenny didn’t want to know where he was taking him, he didn’t care “why? Why are you doing all of this?”.

Craig didn’t answer. 

It made Kenny insane, it was everything coming down on him again, Butters, Cartman’s words, the picture, Craig being silent and not answering him, New Year, everything.

“Answer me!” he yelled, but Craig didn’t say anything “Jesus Christ, Tucker. Fucking say something for god’s sake!”.

“What?!” Craig finally snapped, stopping the car abruptly, making them both shake in their seats by the sudden stop. The streets were empty, so no other drivers would yell at them for being still in the middle of the road “what the fuck do you want me to say?!” Craig yelled back.

“Say something!” Kenny yelled back, he was already blushing by rage, he couldn’t stop himself “say something you fucking asshole!”.

“No!” Craig yelled, his face was also filled with rage, he looked vivid, “shut the fuck up, already!”.

“Say it!” Kenny yelled and pushed him, because he needed him to say it, he needed him to get mad, he needed him to say something he needed Craig to snap, to hate him, to push him away, to get as far away from him as he could. “Say something, you fucking shithead!” he yelled and shoved him again.

It took everything inside of him to not punch Kenny in the face, Craig wasn’t exactly someone with really good self control, he was aware of that, he was really well aware of that, but it was the way Kenny’s hands were shaking again, how glassy his eyes were getting, how desperate he looked what made him not do it. 

Because he knew what Kenny was trying, and he was not going to give him that.

“I won’t tell you shit!” Craig yelled and grabbed Kenny by the collar of his parka “so stop fucking tryng to get me to say something cause I fucking won’t!”.

“Say it!” Kenny yelled again trying to get Craig’s hands off him “say it you bitch!”.he yelled but it came out with a strangled sob, and Kenny knew he was going to break if Craig didn’t push back.

But Craig didn’t, instead he held on his collar tighter and dragged him closer to him, the position was uncomfortable, but he needed to do this, because if he didn’t he knew Kenny would make it his life mission to get as far away as possible from him, and he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t let that happen.

“It’s not your fault!” Craig yelled right at him, he was so close he could see the frantic little moves of Kenny’s eyes to his own “you want me to say something?! Fine, you’re not to blame for what happened to Butters, I won’t leave you, I won’t fucking stop digging the same hole Butters did and I won’t let you get killed because Cartman’s a dick!”

Kenny didn’t say anything right away.

They just stared at each other like that, both of them filled with rage, by each other’s reactions, Kenny could see every tiny detail of Craig’s face, from his ice cold eyes, to his pores and the way his eyebrows furrowed together, making him look impossibly angry at him. 

It made Kenny even more mad, “Fuck you” he hissed right into his face.

Groaning to himself, Craig let him go, turning to stare right ahead of him as he took a few deep breaths trying to get himself to relax, he’s doing it on purpose, he wants you to get mad, he’s just mad at Cartman, not at you, he’s trying to push you away , Craig tried to rason, because if he didn’t he was going to do exactly what Kenny wanted him to do.

After a few minutes of silence Craig rubbed his temples and started speaking again “what Cartman said is bullshit, ok?” he said, and turned to stare at Kenny, who was staring at the road with a frown as he shook his head “Kenny, what he said is bullshit, he’s a fucking piece of shit who doesn’t know what he’s talking about” he could see Kenny struggling to maintain himself still, so he continued “you’re right, I don’t know if everything’s going to be ok, but neither do you, so don’t tell me otherside because I swear to god I’ll fucking hit you harder than Marsh did to fatass”.

The warm and proud feeling of watching as Kenny let his head drop to hide his smile didn’t go unnoticed by him.

“He did hit him pretty hard though,” Kenny said under his breath.

Craig smirked, “Well, I’ll do worse”.

“Stan’s pretty strong” Kenny muttered, as he glanced at him from the corner of his eye.

“Marsh doesn’t have shit on me” Craig commented, making Kenny grin.

Kenny finally turned to stare at him with a shy smile on his face. He didn’t say anything.

It was so dumb, how that small smile in his face made Craig want to smile even more, -even if he didn’t really- how much he wished he could take a picture of Kenny like that, and print it to himself, to keep it as a secret and not show it to anyone else, because it was so dumb how fucking pretty it looked, how warm, how close it felt, how intimate, that stupid and fucked up smile it made him feel.

“I’m sorry” Kenny finally said.

Craigh shrugged “It’s ok”.

“No, for real” Kenny said “I shouldn’t have done… all of this'' he admitted.

In some way, Craig knew he was right, but he also thought he had all the right in the world to react like that, because what the fuck else was he supposed to do? No one had prepared them for this, Kenny didn’t ask for any of this, none of them did, this just happened and they were just forced to deal with it because there was no other thing to do.

“Look” Craig said “let’s just forget about it, we still need to go home, and try to get you as silently as possible in my room”.

SIlence.

“What?” Kenny asked, confused.

“Uh, yeah, my parents won’t like you being there, so you’ll need to be quiet and shit, we’ll eat dinner in my room” he explained to him “we don’t really do much for new years either way, so they won’t mind. Your sister will be with Tricia in her room, so you can be with her for a while if you want”.

Silence again.

“What?” Kenny asked again, because what was going on? “You’re inviting me” he gestured to himself “me, to spend new year with you, in your house, in your room so your parents don’t notice, and so Karen can spend it with me too, me, Kenny, the same Kenny who just yelled at you” he said.

Because it didn’t make sense, it just didn’t.

“Yeah?” Craig answered, staring at him confused “Why?”.

Craig was staring at him as if what he was saying didn’t make any sense, as if it was the obvious thing to do, to just invite the guy who just treated him like shit to spend new years with him, to offer him a place to stay, so he could have a roof over his head, food in his stomach and he could see his sister. Craig was offering him that as it wasn’t nothing.

It didn’t make sense to him, Craig could literally disappear as Butters did, Craig could be gone in a blink of an eye because of him.

But he was asking him to stay with him.

It was the nicest thing anyone had done for him. 

“You just…” Kenny didn't know what he was trying to say.

But it didn’t matter really, because Craig was the nicest thing that had happened to him. In that car, with the night falling down on them, and with that curious look in his face, the way his eyebrows did that stupid thing when he furrowed them, the way his stupid and old chulo lookwd on him, and how fucking dumb and nice he was. Craig was the nicest thing Kenny had experienced in his life.

He noticed that in his eyes, he started to glow more that night.

“You’re a strange guy, Craig” Kenny said with an amused stare.

Craig rolled his eyes before he started the car and drove.

Kenny didn’t take his eyes off him the entire ride.

Chapter Text

476814

He didn’t understand, it didn’t make sense.

Kyle turned around once again, he checked his phone.

02:19 am. Great.

School starts tomorrow and his sleep schedule was messed up. They hadn’t been able to find anything related to the numbers in the past four days after New Year. December 4, and school started December 5.

It was fucked up, if they asked him. Butters was still missing, they didn’t have any clues about anything, people were starting to give up and Cartman had not apologised to any of them yet. Happy New fucking Year.

476814

Maybe he should make himself some tea and try to fall asleep again, maybe he should just stop fucking thinking.

He checked his phone again.

02:25 am. Fuck.

There were no messages, maybe he should text Stan? No, he was probably asleep right now, probably everyone was asleep right now.

He didn’t have any new messages from Cartman. But who cares? Fuck him.

They tried to go to his basement yesterday, but Liane said that Cartman prefered to be left alone at the time.

Alone, huh, he could be alone all the time he wanted that fucking asshole.

476814.

Fuck it, he was going to make himself some fucking tea and he was going to sleep like a fucking baby.

Kyle made as little sound as possible, he didn’t want to wake his parents up, he had already been in too much trouble for going out almost every single day since Butters went missing. He got it, they were his parents after all, they just wanted to protect him, be safe and all that stuff. But there was no way he was going to stay inside all day because some psycho was loose.

Black tea? Nah. Lemon tea? Mmm, no. 

Ginger? Maybe, yeah, he would go with ginger.

Huh, if Cartman could see him he would make a joke.

Kyle frowned to himself as he finished preparing his tea, fuck Cartman. That fucking asshole could go fuck himself f he wanted to. He wasn’t going to just pretend as if what he had done wasn’t bad, like he didn’t just threw him out of the closet like that in front of all of his friends, as if he hadn’t said those awful things about Kenny.

No, not this time.

His phone lit up with a notification.

He checked the time

02:48 am. Text from Cartman.

What a fucked up coincidence.

Kyle glared at the phone before unlocking it and reading the text.

fatass.

 u up? emergency 

He could ignore it, he could just lock his phone and go back to bed. He took a sip from his tea.

Maybe it was for the best, to just lock his phone and go upstairs, get inside his cozy bed and try to sleep, he could do that it would be for the best, he wouldn’t have to deal with whatever Cartman called an emergency, because fuck that guy, fuck Cartman and his idiotic behaviour and his stupid face and his stupid fucking fat mouth. 

But.

But what if it was an actual emergency? What if something was happening to Cartman? What if he was being chased by the same guy that chased Craig and Kenny? What if it was the same guy that had taken Butters?

Would he be able to live with himself if he knew he could have done something but chose not to?

476814.

Fucking fatass.

Kyle

depends.

He glared at the phone as he noticed that Cartman read his message as soon as he sent it. He better have a good explanation for this or else he was going to beat his ass.

fatass

meet me at library.

Like hell he was going to go there.

fatass

its bout the numbers.

Well fuck.

kyle

Fine

So, yeah. He would like to say that it took more convincing than that. 

But it really didn’t.

So that’s how Kyle found himself walking towards the public library in the middle of the night, pajama pants and his coat on because it was fucking cold outside. He wanted a cigarette, he wanted to be in his bed and he wanted Cartman to fucking apologise or something. 

He didn’t even try to hide his annoyance when he saw Cartman standing by the stairs. He was still mad.

“I found what you guys did in my basement and-”

Kyle cut him off by raising a hand, Cartman could explain all the shit he wanted to later, but right now? Kyle wanted an apology, a good one, one that sounded like he was being genuine, one that he could accept.

“Shut up” he told him, and Cartman stopped, his mouth closing and staring back at him. Kyle took a deep breath before asking “aren’t you going to acknowledge anything? Do you seriously expect me to pretend as if nothing had happened?”.

Cartman looked troubled for a moment, as if he hadn't been expecting him to bring that up. Because he didn’t actually, but still, Kyle maintained his eyes on him as he watched Eric’s eyes become colder and his jaw clench for a moment. 

“Fine” Cartman finally said, glaring at him “fine, what do you want me to say?”.

“What do I- Cartman are you fucking kidding me right now?” Kyle asked bafleed.

Cartman groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose “right now, Kyle? Are you seriously asking me to do this right now?”.

“Um? Yeah?”

Eric sighed and looked right at him, a firm expression in his face “Ok, you know what, fuck it” Kyle glared at him “I’m sorry, ok? I’m fucking sorry I said all of that shit, I was wrong, now can we please get this shit moving?”.

Not good enough for him.

“No”.

“Good cause- What?” Cartman asked, staring at Kyle as if he was crazy “What do you mean ‘no?’”

Kyle kept a peaceful expression, he wasn’t going to just make it that easy for him, if Cartman wanted him to follow then the asshole needed to properly apologise to him, and Kenny… And Stan, not sure why, but he needed to. 

“No, I want a real apology” Kyle demanded, he didn’t have anything to lose.

Cartman simply stared for a moment, this was difficult for him, Kyle knew it. Eric wasn’t used to apologising, he was one stubborn son of a bitch, he knew this better than anyone else. But he was worse, oh yeah, he knew he could be worse than Cartman if he really put his mind into it, so there was no way he was going to let this go so easily.

Eric seemed to notice since he shut his eyes for a moment, as if trying to keep himself from insulting him, and then decided to talk.

“Fine” he said and stared back at him “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said all those things about you nor Kenny, I’m sorry for being a fucking asshole and I’m sorry I didn’t reach out sooner” he said.

Kyle started expressionless at him for a moment before giving him a small smile, Cartman sighed in relief.

“You need to apologise to Kenny and Stan” Kyle said, and Eric groaned again.

“Are you fucking- Now? Do you seriously want me to apologise now?”.

“No, dumbass,” Kyle said, rolling his eyes as he made his way towards the public library doors, “come one, what did you want to show me?”.

Cartman made his way next to him and opened the door, Kyle shouldn’t really be surprised to know that Eric knew how to do that. He opted to simply not question and follow along with whatever it was that Cartman wanted to show him. They turned the flashlights on their phones on and went inside.

He didn’t speak to him at all as they made their way through it, shelf after shelf filled with books, until suddenly Cartman stopped. He grabbed a book and set it on a table as he pointed at it with his flashlight.

It was a book called ‘The Message of Numbers’, he had heard of it, but never read it. His father had a copy of it in his office, he knew this because it was among all the other books about religion that his dad owned.

“When I saw all the mess you guys did on my basement I went through all the stuff you guys wrote down and pointed on the wall” Cartman started explaining as he passed through the pages on the book, Kyle stared expectantly at him “you were almost right about the fact that the numbers had an actual meaning, it was just not numerology” he stopped flipping through the pages to stare back at him “Butters had discovered what they meant, it was all biblical, I think he went to ask father Maxi about it that night but something must have happened on his way there”.

Cartman took a pen out his coat and started marking specific parts of the book.

“If this is correct they all  have a similarity, the numbers mean different things but have a few coincidences as if they were a code or something, here” he tapped on a segment he had marked up “Number seven tends to mean completeness and perfection, given that god created earth and all its shit on six day but finished on the seventh, it's also the number of statements that Jesus said during the crucifiction”.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Kyle asked.

“That’s where I’m trying to get to” Cartman explained as he went to a page before that one and marked another paragraph “number four means creation since the physical stuff of the world were created on that date, it’s also the number of points that the cross where Jesus was hung, it represents a door”

“A door to where?” Kyle asked.

Eric swallowed, he had a face that Kyle couldn’t describe.

“Salvation” he answered before turning around and flipping back to the page he was before “number eight means a new beginning”.

“You mean that the door leads that way?” Kyle asked again “Salvation it’s the new beginning? That’s why the numbers are in that order?” 

Cartman nodded as he kept reading “I think so, look, it says that the ‘angels’ use these numbers to send messages. The number eight means new beginning because even if God finished creating everything on the seventh day, the eight means that something new has to come”.

Kyle frowned “but not everyone was with Jesus when he ‘died for our sins’” he pointed out “that would mean that only a few are selected for the new beginning, right?”

Cartman stared at him for a moment, before saying “that’s why number six it’s the number that follows it”.

Kyle didn’t have to check on the book to know what the number six meant “human weakness and imperfection” Kyle said as Cartman nodded and looked away “the manifestation of all evil things”.

Cartman didn’t correct him, nor did he add anything else, which could only mean that Kyle was right.

“Fourteen” he said in a low voice “salvation, God manifested in a material way on the fourteenth day. It means double completion”.

Kyle closed his eyes.

Holy fucking shit.

“So?” Kevin asked him as soon as he walked in.

Kenny sighed, he had every right to be mad, he hadn’t called until that morning, he knew he was worried, he knew he had every damn right to be since the last time he heard from him was at church and then from a message from Karen telling him that Kenny was safe and with her at the Tucker’s residence. 

But still, Kenny wished he would remove that look on his face.

“Look, I know I messed up-” Kenny said as he sat down on the table, he spotted Tweek cleaning the counters not so far away, he wished Kevin wouldn’t be so loud so he didn’t hear him. He didn’t need anyone else to know about his personal problems.

“Messed up?” Kevin asked as he sat straighter on his seat “Kenny I didn’t hear from you in like a week, even more” he said, and Kenny couldn’t help but look down at the table, embarrassed by his own actions. “Did you not think I was worried? Kenny your fucking friend went missing and you didn’t answer any of my calls, the only thing I knew from you was because your stupid friend called me and told me you were with him”. Kevin was speaking louder, but not enough to call everyone’s attention at the place, just to make Kenny feel more and more guilty.

“I was fucking worried Kenny? I thought something might have happened to you, I didn’t know if Stuart had done something to you, if you had an accident, or something, hell I thought that maybe-”

“I know” Kenny said, interrupting him, and finally looking up at him with a guilty expression. Kevin looked stressed, and hell he probably was given what he had been telling him, he already had enough on his plate for him to give him another reason to worry about “I know, and I’m sorry, ok? I’m fucking sorry. I know that Craig was-”

“Who?” Kevin asked.

Kenny frowned at him, “Craig? You said my friend told you where I was”

Kevin shook his head “I meant Cartman, he called me to let me know that you were sick on his place, that Tucker guy called too but tits called me almost everyday”.

It took Kenny by surprise. He didn’t know that Cartman had done that for him. 

He still hadn’t talked to him, tomorrow they would be back at school so he would be forced to face him, but still in the last two days he hadn’t heard a word from him. Knowing this about him made him feel a mixture of confusing feelings. 

On one hand, he was kind of touched to know that Cartman had not only called dibs on him to take care of him at his house and also took the responsibility to call his brother to inform him of his state. On the other hand, he was still mad at him because of all the hurtful things he said. 

“Still” Kenny continued “I’m sorry, I should have called and I should have said something sooner, I know you worry about us and that you already have a shit ton of responsibilities to take care of”.

Kevin sighed but relaxed a little.

“Look I was just worried because you seemed to be freaking out that day at church and after all that happened with your friend and shit…” he shook his head “I’m sorry about that too, how are you holding up?”.

Kenny shrugered.

How was he holding up? He wasn’t, his friends were holding him up, when he found out that Butters had actually gone missing he broke down, he had cried like a baby. The thought of his friend being missing it still stunged on him, he still couldn’t process that fact very well.

“I’m ok I guess” he said and Kevin gave an understanding nod “I mean, as ok someone can be when one of your best friends is missing I guess”.

Kevin reached out to hold his hand over the table.

“I’m sorry” he said, and Kenny couldn’t help but sniff a little, already feeling the tears swelling up “I know this is hard for you, but they are doing everything they can to find him, he will appear back soon”.

It didn’t go unnoticed the fact that he didn’t say alive, he said appear back. Soon. Dead or alive.

He didn’t want to think about it.

Thankfully, Kevin didn’t seem to want to push the subject even further. He let go of his hand and smiled softly at him.

“So, what’s been going on with you?” he asked.

And what a change of subject that was.

While Kenny explained to Kevin how awful his week had been, telling him about the fever he had and all the times he had projectile-vomit on Cartman’s place, Tweek had asked and given them their coffees.

Kevin, who was Kenny’s older brother, catched up on every movement he did. 

He still listened to what Kenny was telling him, with a laugh every now and then when he remembered how Cartman had looked at him when he threw up on his shoes that one time, but Kevin noticed. He may not be as involved in the life of his little brother as he would like to, but he knew a few things about him, and he knew what all the town knew about. 

Tweek was Craig Tucker ex boyfriend, and Kenny had been hanging out with Tucker. So, when Tweek had settled the two coffees on the table, Kenny’s eyes glanced at him with a sad expression for just a second. Kevin had already made some theories up in his head.

“So” he finally said when he made sure Tweek was far away enough to not be able to hear their conversation “this Tucker guy”.

“What about him?” Kenny asked with an arched brow as he took a sip of his coffee.

Kevin shrugged, a smirk forming in his face “I don’t know, you’ve been spending a lot of time with him”.

He had to give him some credit, since Kenny didn’t blush and just rolled his eyes at him “nothing’s going on dude, he’s just… in the same mess that I am”.

“And what mess are you in exactly?”.

Shit.

Kenny had made this far into the conversation avoiding the ‘some-weird-ass-guy might-be-following-me-and-it-may-be-related-with-my-missing-friend’ subject, he didn’t tell him about why he had freaked out at church, he hadn’t told him the reason behind him not being around.

“You know” Kenny said, trying to come up with an excuse “I may be in some trouble” he said with a grimace.

Kevin’s entire expression fell at that.

“Please tell me it’s not drug related”.

Kenny shook his hands “no, no, no” he said and Kevin felt himself relax at that. “It’s complicated,” he said.

When Kenny started scratching the back of his neck, Kevin knew he might not like this.

“Look” he said “I don’t know what it is, but you can tell me, alright?”.

For a moment Kenny didn’t talk, he just stared at his brother as he contemplated his options.

The main problem that he was having at the moment was that he didn’t want his brother to be involved, Kevin being involved meant that something bad could happen to him too, and he already had enough with his friends being with him and trying to help -which he really appreciated-. But Kevin was Kevin. Not only was he his older brother that would most likely do anything in his power to protect him, but he was also Karen’s older brother.

If something happened to him, Kevin had to be the one taking care of her, not him.

But then again, Kevin was his brother. His last name was McCormick too, so it wouldn’t be hard to figure it out, if the guy that was behind him hadn’t done it yet. So maybe, informing him wouldn’t necessarily put him in more danger than he already was but actually protect him, given that he was most likely already involved.

Kenny sighed, “Look, I’m going to tell you but” he said making sure that Kevin had all his atention on him “you need to promise me that you won’t freak out or do anything stupid, I know how all of this may sound like, I fraked out too, everyone freaked out, but right now we’re all trying to figure how to solve this, so please, please don’t freak out” he begged.

Kevin nodded firmly.

And after taking a deep breath, Kenny did. 

He told Kevin everything he could explain, he avoided the ‘I’m immortal’ part but gave him enough details about everything else that happened.

Once he finished telling him everything, Kenny noticed that his brother was silent, he wasn’t moving but only staring back at him with a slight frown in his face.

“What are you thinking?” Kenny asked him, kind of worried.

Not changing his expression, Kevin answered “I’m trying not to freak out”.

Yep, maybe it wasn’t a good idea.

“I know it sounds insane, and I know it worries you-”

“It worries me?!” Kevin said louder, making a few of the people in the place turn to stare at them, as Kenny tried to sign him to lower his voice desperately “Kenny are you insane?! Of course it worries me, you’re telling me that-”

“I know, I know what I’m telling you, I know it’s insane and I know it’s fucked up dude” Kenny said shutting his brother up and glancing around the place as some of the people turned back to their owns conversation “but right now dude? I need you to please chill out for a second and listen to me”. 

When Kevin didn’t say anything, but stared at him Kenny knew it was safe for him to continue.

“We are searching for a solution, we can’t tell the police because there are things that they don’t need to know” he thought about the fact that there were actual pictures of him dead “and I know it may seem insane, but believe me, it’s better if they don’t know. What I need you to do now it’s to keep yourself safe, don’t do anything stupid and please, please take care of yourself”.

Before Kevin can answer, Tweek slides past Kenny to stand beside them at their table making their attention turn to him.

“I know it’s probably a bad time” and Kenny wants to say no shit , but he doesn’t “but Craig is asking for you since he said you’re not answering his calls”.

And shit, if having the ex-boyfriend of the guy Kenny may be a little inclined to like -JUST a little- tell him that said guy is asking for him right IN FRONT of his brother isn’t uncomfortable, then Kenny doesn’t know what else to think.

He’s been staying at the Tucker’s residence for two nights, after New Year’s eve passe by he spent the night at Stans for two days before Randy started asking uncomfortable questions hinting for him to leave, and since he wasn’t talking to Cartman yet, and Kyle’s parents were a sure no, he spent another night at Craig’s. 

So this morning when he woke up at Craig’s he decided to let the guy sleep and snuck out to get some new clothes, shower and meet his brother here. Also forgot to charge his phone so, ups?

“Yeah” Kenny said, uneasy under the gaze of his brother and Tweek, “tell him I’m here and that my phone is off please?”

Tweek nodded at him “Sure” and left.

Of course, because his life sucked, that seemed enough to take Kevin’s attention off the main subject and turn to him with a sly smile.

“Tucker, huh?”

This time, Kenny did blush a little “oh fuck off, man” he said as he rolled his eyes at his brother implications “he’s just a friend”.

“Uh, huh” Kevin said but didn’t change the smug look on his face.

“Shut up” 

“Is he also in this?” Kevin asks.

“Yeah” he admits as he glances back at Tweek who’s currently messaging Craig apparently “he’s been really helpful actually, his sister is Karen’s best friend so she’s been staying there for a while”.

“So Tucker's having a thing for both of my siblings is totally normal then?” 

Kenny wants to laugh but he decides against it and simply shakes his head with a smile. 

After finishing the coffee and asking all the important questions that needed to be asked, Kevin and Kenny proceeded to talk about other stuff until Tweek came back to tell him that Craig was coming to pick him up in ten, which made Kevin wiggle his eyebrows at him.

Not that Kenny had tried to stop him, instead he tried to focus on his brother's stupidity rather than the fact that Tweek was smiling softly at his phone as he typed.  

It was unfair of him, he knew this. Not only the fact that he didn’t have a reason to be bothered by Tweek and Craig’s friendship or whatever that was going on, but also because Tweek was a good guy. Even despite their natural rivalry between them given the fact that the two groups used to hate each other, Tweek was always a good guy.

And god how much he wished he wasn’t it would be easier to hate him.

“Why didn’t you call the police?” Kevin asks.

“And what am I supposed to say? Hey guys? I think there’s a creep or a group of creeps that are following me around because of some reason, oh and we think it may have to do something with the disappearance of my friend, oh, not to forget that dad still has problems with the cops and they hate us”

“Well, fuck then” Kevin says exaspearted “you need to do something about this”

“I know, I know” there was nothing else that Kenny would like more than to not be going through this “believe I know, we’re working on it”

“What are a bunch of teenagers going to do about this, Kenny?” Kevin asks, and he looks more like an older brother than ever, adopting his protective and most thoughtful self to talk to him “one of your friends is missing and you’re supposed to wait for your friends to come up with a plan?”

Nothing, to be honest? Nothing, but they couldn’t call the police, if the cops were involved then they would think they were all crazy, then the pictures of him dying would have to come up at some point, and so were all the fucked up shit that was going on with Stuart, and right now, losing the house and having to deal with ‘child protection’ was not in their plans.

“Look” Kenny started, Kevin listened but he knew he was going to have to really argue about this if he wanted him to trust him “I know how dangerous this is, and I know that this shit is insane, but I need you to trust me, give me three months, three months is all I ask and you can call the police and say and do whatever you want, ok?”.

Kevin didn’t answer right away, instead they stayed staring at each other’s eyes, Kenny begging for him to just trust him on this and Kevin trying to convince himself out of it.

“Two months” Kevin finally says and Kenny let’s out a soft ‘thank you’ as he relaxes in his seat “but you need to inform me of whatever is going on if this gets way crazier, got it?”.

Nodding Kenny agrees “got it” he says with a more relaxed expression “you have my word”.

Kevin hums as he maintains eye contact with him. “Your friend is here”.

“He’s not my friend?” Kenny says confused as he eyes Tweek who is back to cleaning the counters as they speak.

“Kenny” he jumps at the mention of his name from an unknown source behind him -not really so unknown really- but he can see the sly smile on his brother's lips as he takes his coffee cup close to his mouth. 

He turns around slowly only to be faced with a really pissed off Craig Tucker, who’s staring down at him from where he’s standing. Maybe he should have left a note or something to let him know he was going to meet with his brother.

“Hey Craig” Kenny tries, sounding as casual as he can manage “nice seeing you here, have you met Kevin, my brother?” he asks and Craig’s expression doesn’t change one bit, instead Kenny thinks he might have seen his left eye twitch a bit.

Only then Craig’s eyes move to Kevin for a moment, only nodding at him in greetment as they move to frown back at Kenny.

“A note” Craig says keeping his fierce eyes on Kenny’s “you could at least have left a fucking note”.

“Naw, calm down dude” Kenny says holding his hands up “I just wanted to meet up with my brother here”.

“Calm down, Kenny are you-” Craig stops for a moment and takes a deep breath as he closes his eyes for a second, trying to keep himself under control to avoid making a scene. He ignores the way Kevin looks amused at him, almost as if he’s enjoying this. “Fine, you know what? Ok, finish whatever you two were talking about, I’ll wait for you in the car”.

“We were just finishing,” Kevin said as he rose from his seat. Craig looks at him curiously while Kenny looks panicked because what the hell was his brother thinking leaving him alone to deal with a pissed off Craig. “He was just filling me up from what has been going on lately” he said as Craig gave Kenny an interested look.

It wasn’t like Craig minded Kevin knowing, the opposite really, he was older than them, probably smarter and the guy knew how to defend himself and his siblings too, having him know what was going on would probably help them be safer and more ready to deal with whatever they will have to deal with. But Craig was suspicious about what Kevin knew… Given that Kenny was his brother, did he remember? Was he also part of the tiny group of people that actually knew what could happen to Kenny?

“He’s all yours” Kevin said as he dropped a twenty dollar bill on the table, he walked until he was right in front of Craig. He was a few inches taller than him, but that wasn’t enough to intimidate Craig “Just make sure nothing happens to him, because if something does happen” he says as he flicks his tongue “I’ll have to take care of it in my own way” Kevin says and walks away.

Craig only has a second to process what just happened because… Has he just been threatened by Kevin McCormick? 

“What was that?” Craig asks as he turns to stare down at Kenny who’s still sitting on his chair staring at Kevin as he leaves the place, with a confused expression.

“I have no idea” he answers. 

When he rings the bell, he needs to stop himself from running away. He needs to do this.

But shit, what is he supposed to say? What is he supposed to do?

Mabe coming here wasn’t his best idea, maybe he should have stayed at home, maybe he should have stayed in bed and try to sleep, yeah, he should have done that, tomorrow was the first day back to school and he only slept a few hours these past days, maybe he could take his dad whisky and take a few swings, or maybe half of it, or whatever it was necessary for him to fall asleep, or at least forget, maybe he should have-

“Hello?” too late “Who’s-  oh” she says.

And she looks tired, she has these bags under her eyes, and these wrinkles and this sadness in her eyes that makes her look older, that makes her look so depressed. He can only imagine it’s the least she could be feeling right now.

“Stanley, honey” Linda says, and he knows he doesn’t have to say anything “come inside, please. It’s too cold outside”:

The inside of Butter’s house looks darker than he remembered and it’s not much warmer than the weather outside, Stan notices. The lights are all off, but the light that comes from the windows doesn’t seem to do much for the place, it looks so depressing even if everything is still the same from the last time he was there. Nothing has been moved, nothing has been touched. 

He makes his way inside and stares around the place, he has to stop himself from breaking down at the sight of the family pictures from Butters and his family, or the ones from him when he was nine.

“I know” Linda says once she notices him staring “come on, follow me” she orders as she walks towards the kitchen.

Never in a million years Stan had thought he would be sitting in Butter's kitchen next to Linda Stotch drinking tea in silence, but he is and he can’t help but feel that the silence is speaking volumes for both of them but not enough at the same time. 

He’s almost over with his tea when Linda finally decides to speak.

“You know” she says, and Stan turns to look at her, even if her eyes are focused somewhere else around the room “he used to talk about you guys all the time” Linda says as she lets out a small smile “he used to talk about how amazing and how you were the best friends anyone could have” Stan is about to interrupt but Linda beats him to it “yes, even Cartman”.

Stan let’s out a soft laugh at that, and Linda smiles too.

“I remember we used to ground him all the time, because it always seemed to dangerous for him to be outside” Stan stops smiling at that “he would sometimes tell us about those crazy adventures you guys always went on, about the crazy stuff you guys did and he would always tell us that with a smile, even if he knew we hated it, but oh, how much he loved you guys”.

Linda laughs at the memories of her son talking non-stop at the dinner table with a bright smile on his face, the way his eyes would lit up when he shared those memories with them. 

“I’m sorry” Stan says, and he doesn’t really know why.

“Don’t be” Linda finally turns to stare at him, and Stan wishes she didn’t because he doesn’t think he would ever get used to the way her eyes would start to fill with tears even if she has this smile on her face that reassures him to no end but also saddens him too “he is a strong kid, I know he is. No matter where he is, I know he’s alive you know? He is, and he’s holding on the memories of his friends because he loves you more than anything in the world”.

When the tears start running down his face, Stan knows he can’t stop them, it’s too late, it was too late when he decided to ring the bell and come inside, it was bound to happen. He feels his chest tighten as he lets out a broken sob, because his best friend is missing and nobody seems to care enough, nobody seems to understand the gravity of the situation enough, because Butters is missing and he might not be coming back. 

The weight of Linda’s hand over his shoulder as he covers his eyes with his hands feels almost as heavy as the weight he’s feeling in his chest. He can’t stop crying, he feels the sounds that are coming out of him, scratching his throat, they are not sobs anymore, they are sounds of pain. Because his friend is fucking missing.

Linda starts to stroke his shoulder when Stan starts trembling as he continues to cry, because he doesn’t feel sad anymore, he feels hopeless.

He doesn’t care anymore that Linda is right there with him, making shushing noises and whispering comforting things to him when he cries, he doesn’t care anymore because he can’t afford to, instead he lets himself go. He wails, he cries and hugs her when he feels like if he doesn’t he might die. He feels his head start to ache as he hugs her and puts his face on the crook of his neck,, he bawls like a little kid and feels the saliva, snot and tears mess up Linda’s cardigan. But he doesn’t care.

He cires, Stan cries and drools and screams and wails and he does everything and more until he can’t, until he’s incapable of producing more tears. He does it until he can only be held by Linda’s arms as he softly sings a lullaby. Stan wonders if that’s what she used to sing to Butters when he cried, when he felt hopeless and desperate.

Linda doesn’t say anything when he leaves, she just waves at him with a small smile.

Like he hadn’t just been crying in her kitchen a few minutes before.

Like he hadn’t just ruined her cardigan with his snot, tears and saliva.

Like his face isn’t red, sweaty and scrunched.

And Stan waves back, like he hadn’t done anything, like he had just visited the mother of his missing friend to comfort her, not to comfort himself.

Even if he didn’t manage to do either of those things. Not fully at least.

Stan knew this wasn’t good, he knew he needed to get some rest, to talk about the nightmares or about everything that was going inside his head, but he couldn’t, not with Kyle busy doing research, Kenny busy trying not to die, and Cartman… Well, out of the picture really.

“Stan!” he heard Randy call from the inside of his kitchen. He didn’t even notice how long it took him to come back home, he didn’t even remember getting there.

He approached the kitchen only to find Randy half passed out with a bottle of whisky on one hand, he could see the sloppy drool of saliva that was coming out of his mouth and covering his chin. 

“Hey dad” Stan greeted as he grimaced at the sight. He looked around at his surroundings, at least there were no broken plates this time “where’s mom?”.

At the mention of Sharon, Randy groaned as he tried to sit up straighter on the floor, “I don’t know, probably with that fuckass from work, Dave something or whatever” he shook his head before meeting back Stan’s gaze “what about you, son? Had a nice day?”.

Over a wall not so far away from him, Stan saw the clock and read the time, it was only three o’clock in the afternoon. His day wasn’t even over, it barely even started, but it was already shit.

“Something like that” Stan said as he walked towards Randy and sat on the floor next to him.

“Huh” Randy said, he stared as his son took the bottle out of his hand and took a gulp from it, and passed it back to him. 

They stayed like that for a few minutes, just passing the bottle between the two of them, waiting for the alcohol to do its job and help them forget about their shit at least for the day. Maybe it would even help Stan to sleep better, he needed that. 

He didn’t know what time it was when they finished the bottle.

The rest of the day went fairly quiet given the situation they were in, with Craig not being able to hide Kenny in his house for the night, Kenny spent it at his own house, glad that his parents weren’t there at the moment. Kyle had been grounded by his mom for coming home late and Cartman was busy trying to figure the mess out.

It was the next day, once they were all making their way inside the school, where nothing seemed the same since Butters was gone, the conversations were quieter, everything seemed to lack color.

“Clyde” someone said, Clyde froze in his place, locking his phone and trying to shove his books in his locker as fast as he could, “Clyde!” he heard again.

Once he finished he shut the locker door with force and turned around, only to be met with the intense gaze of his current girlfriend.

“I’m sorry babe, but I need to-” he said as he tried to go past her.

But it was enough, or at least for Bebe, she had been walking on thin ice the whole week, the whole time since the day they got to pick Craig up from Stark’s Pond it felt like there was something wrong, even more since Clyde had never even bothered explaining to her what was going on. 

And then Butters happened.

“Stop avoiding me!” Bebe exclaimed as she frowned at him, even if the height difference was pretty noticeable she knew she was more intimidating than him  “I know something’s up!” Clyde glanced at both their sides, careful to not have someone listening. “I know something is going on and I know, I know something’s wrong”.

Clyde tried to get her to calm down, trying to reach to her shoulder but she shoved his hand away quickly “Bebe I don’t think this is-”

Groaning, Bebe ran a hand through her hair before speaking to his again, this time more serious than before but less demanding “baby, I know that whatever that Craig is involved in right now is probably both crazy and dangerous but you involved me once you decided to pick him up with me” she says as Clyde swallows, knowing he did in fact fucked up when he decided to pick him up with her,  “so you need to tell me what’s going on”

He stood in his place staring at Bebe with a worried expression, he didn’t know what to do, should he tell Bebe? That meant she would be involved and she would want to be a part of it. It was dangerous Craig and Kenny were being followed, and Butters… Butters was fucking gone.

“I-” he tried to say but struggled, finally he sighed “I can’t”.

Clyde let his head fall on the lockers behind him while he squinted his eyes shut, stressed out and not knowing how to deal with the situation, Craig was going to kill him if he knew Bebe was also involved then, and he would have to deal with all that it involved.

But given how insisting she was, Bebe wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

“You can” she said as she grabbed him by the shoulders making him turn to stare at her, “you can and you will” Clyde looked at her with hesitation “what? You don’t trust me?”.

It wasn’t like Bebe actually thought so, but she needed Clyde to break, and if she needed to play the relationship card she was going to. She let go of his shoulders and crossed her arms instead.

With wide eyes, Clyde exclaimed “No!” he said and this time he was the one grabbing her by the shoulders as she stared at him with a frown, “no, no! It’s not that, baby, I promise!” Clyde took a deep breath and tried to think of a way to explain this out. “Look. It’s just-”

“Just what?”

“It’s not safe,” Clyde finally said.

Bebe didn’t say anything, instead she stared back at Clyde’s worried eyes. Safe. It’s not safe. She thought about all the possibilities, drugs? No, Craig didn’t look like the kind of guy that was into that kind of thing, maybe something worse? Maybe he owed money to a guy or something, but then again who could Craig be owing money that was so dangerous if it wasn’t about drugs? Maybe it had something-

Her eyes widened.

“Does it have something to do with Butters?”  

“I-” Clyde started but quickly realised that he didn’t even know where he was going with that sentence. “I don’t know”

“Oh god it does” she whispered as she covered her mouth with a hand and her expression changed from confused to a terrified one  “Clyde, baby, what happened to Butters? Where is he?”

“I don’t know!” Clyde exclaimed and soons as he did so, he noticed some of his classmates stare at them with curiosity, so he quickly lowered his voice “I don’t know” he admitted, but that didn’t seem to calm his girlfriend down “I think… I think that the same guy that was chasing Craig that night has something to do with what happened to Butters”

“Then tell me what the hell is going on,” she said.

Clyde shook his head “Just… Not here” he looked up to stare at the hallways filled with students when he noticed, no one used the music room at this time of the day, less on the first day back from winter break. “Ditch first period with me” he said, turning to stare back at her.

Contrary to popular belief, Bebe wasn’t stupid, yeah, she wasn’t as bright as Wendy, but she wasn’t dumb. So for a moment she thought about it, this was like one of those red pill blue pill situation, what was she going to do, was she ready to get herself involved into whatever this situation was and stick with it to the end, or was she going to ignore it and live her life as peacefully as she could but with an itch she couldn’t scratch.

How dangerous would it be if it had something to do with what happened to Butters?

How far was too far?

She swallowed dry before answering. “Ok”

Clyde nodded and licked his lips, feeling nervous about the whole situation. If they were going to do this they needed to be alone, no one could know.

“I need you to please not say anything to anybody” he said, knowing how hard it was for her to keep a secret “Not even Wendy” he specified because it had to be something he needed to specifide.

,

“Clyde you’re scaring me”

“Believe me” Clyde said, staring back at his girlfriend's eyes so she could see how serious this was, “I’m scared too”.

On the other side of the hallway, Stan was making his way towards the English class he shared with his friends. He didn’t really hate the class, but he was dealing with an insufferable headache. He didn’t remember when he got fucked up enough to throw up on the kitchen floor, he just remembers his mom looking down at him with a worried expression, helping him to get back to his room and then how she argued with his drunk dad. 

Waking up after having drank like that never ended well, even after the pill he took, he still felt like shit. 

He was almost by the door when he spotted Kenny who waved at him.

“Hey” Stan greeted him as he turned to stare around, he was alone, Craig was nowhere to be seen. And shit if it didn’t weird Stan out how much those two seemed to hang around these days, “Have you seen Kyle?”.

The blond shook his head “No, dude” he admitted as he entered the room with the rest of the students. “I thought he was with you”.

“No man” Stan said, remembering the poorly written text he got that morning from their friend, “his mom grounded him and it’s taking him to school from now on until…” he tried to think until when it was that Kyle had said but ‘ forever dude this woman is insane she plans on keeping me here until next Hanukka h’ didn’t seem fitting  “well, until they find Butters or things chill out for a bit” he finally settled on saying.

Making his way to his usual seat Kenny paused for a moment, right, he always sat next to Cartman during this class, he wondered if maybe he could change seats with someone else or something “Huh” he decided that maybe fatass would move himself since Stan did punch him in the face last time, and things were weird between them “Have you seen Cartman yet?”.

At the reminder Stan winced, no, he hadn't actually seen Cartman,which was both worrying and satisfying to a certain extent. He didn’t know how to act around him anymore. He had seen all kinds of outbursts from the dude but not like what he had said about Kenny, hell he could have seen something like that coming at him, but Kenny? No, never.

“No” he admitted as he sat on his usual seat next to Kyle who was nowhere to be seen, “No, I don’t know what to do if I see him though” Kenny nooded.  “Look, I know we never talked about it, but about what he said…”

Kenny shook his head, as he turned on his seat to look at his friend with a soft smile on his face.

“It doesn’t matter” he said, even if it did hurt him, he didn’t want to talk about it, he didn’t want his friend to worry about it. “Look, he’s shit, ok? I know I shouldn’t care, and whatever, it’s cool dude”

“You sure?” Stan asked, not so sure himself. 

“Yeah” Kenny lied, because he knew he could open up with Stan. When they were alone they knew they had each other and he could tell him anything, but the class was about to start and he didn’t want to be interrupted or heard by someone else, “look, we can talk about it later if you want, we need to go to classes now”

Almost as if he had been slapped back to reality, Stan’s eyes widened comically “Oh shit, I forgot about this!” he said as he took the piece of paper their teacher had given them, it was something biblical, he remembered just as much  “I didn’t read the text she gave me”

“Tell me about it” the blond said as he did the same, “I was waiting for Kyle to be here early so he could help me with this”   

“Yeah” he said with a more genuine smile this time before reading his own paper and proceeding to frown at it. “Why are all these biblical texts so damn morbid?”

Kenny was about to answer with something along the same lines, when suddenly Kyle bursted into the room and made his way as fast as he could into his seat. He looked like shit, almost as bad as Stan did. He had the same underbags but his expression reminded Stan of Tweek when he drank too much coffee.

“Guys” he started once he was in his seat, he looked pale “we-”.

Before his could continue, the teacher got up from her seat and started speaking

“Welcome back class” the teacher -Miss Philips as she wanted Kenny to call her apparently- said making everyone in the class turn to face her  “I know that this is a… difficult situation, given what happened to our classmate and friend -to some of you- Leopold” she said which caused them to share a skeptical look  “I know we’re all scared and worried, but we need to keep in mind all the good things, and to focus on the better things that are coming”.

“Good things?” Stan asked, leaning a bit so Kenny could hear him too “What the hell is she talking about?”

“Guys I know this is probably a bad moment but-” Kyle tried to interrupt once again.

“So now, I need you guys to please take out your-” she continued saying, but it didn’t matter once she took out her purse.

Because once she did, they froze in their seats. It was there.

Engrabled in a piece of metal on her purse, there it was, the number. That number had been hunting them since they saw it the first time.

476814.

 She had that. On her purse.

She was involved.

“Is that…?” Kenny tried to ask, feeling himself grow more and more uneasy around her presence.

“Holy fucking shit”.

And he must have said it louder than he expected, because then whatever Miss Philips was saying died in her mouth as every student turned to stare at him.

“Stanley?” she asked, making him swallow “Is there something you want to share with the class?”.

It was as if all the air of the room had been drained once she took out her purse, the room seemed colder and as if the lack of open windows made it lack oxygen. The room fell silent, it was Kyle’s panic, Kenny’s fear and Stan's confusion, it was the eyes of every other student, it was the analyzing and cold eyes from their teacher. They felt cornered.

“No I-” Stan tried to say, but what was there to say? “no”.

Not waiting a second, but lingering her eyes on Kenny for a bit longer than necessary, Miss Philips continued “Well then..:” she said and a smile started to cover her face as she turned to stare at someone else, “Wendy, why don’t you start reading what you got from your text”

It was then when Stan turned to stare at her. Because he knew that she was also looking and that was bad.

Wendy and him hadn’t talked that much not since their last… fall out kind of thing, but if there was one thing that Stan knew about her it was that she was smart, clever and ready to do everything in her power to achieve those things she wanted. And then, with her confused eyes on his, he knew she knew something was up.

“I-'' She said, caught by surprise by the mention of her name, she stared back and forth from their teacher to Stan before signing,  “Sure…”   “ Matthew 6:9-13 "Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” she finished, and cleared her throat, “I think this verse is really about salvation, praying for salvation and safety that only God could give them,, but I think it’s also about the fear people had about being thrown into hell, they are devoted to God, but not because of the goodness that it would bring to them or their lives but because of the fear and-”

“Enough Miss Testaburger” their teacher said, interrupting them.

It was clear for them, but the rest of the class, that she didn’t want her to continue, as if her reasoning and conclusion was’t one for her taste.

Miss Phillips cleared her throat as Wendy frowned at her for interrupting her, but she turned to look away to the other students and smiled kindly as if that hadn’t just happened. Kenny and his friends could only stare back, still shocked by their recent discovery.

“Did that just happen?” Stan asked, not tearing his gaze out of their teacher even if he could now feel Wendy’s stare on him.

Kyle nodded but his eyes maintained on their teacher, “Guys we need to talk soon, Cartman and I-”

“Wait, you talked to Cartman?” Kenny asked, now focused on his friend.

“Not the point,” Kyle answered. He knew that Kenny was still mad at him for all he had said and that Cartman had yet to apologise to him since he wasn’t in class yet, but he needed them to trust him in this “we made a discovery about the numbers, and I know it may sound insane, but I think we are finally getting into  something that is related to what happened during-”

“Broflovski” Miss Phillips talked once again. The three of them stayed in silence as they averted their attention towards her once again, she had that creepy smile on her face again, but this time they could see past it. It was too fake for them now, as if she wanted to scream at them but couldn’t because of her fake facade that she had on when teaching. “Is there something you would like to share with the class?”.

“No, sorry, I was just-” Kyle was trying to explain but got interrupted once again.

“Then I would like for you to wait till the end of the class to say what you wanted to say to your friends” she said and her lip twitched this time, “I know that your beliefs may interfere with the ones being shared here, but It would only require a little bit of your respect and silence to let the other say what they think too”.

Kyle frowned as his friends stared at her with a surprised expression, she had just insulted him… for being a jew? Even if it wasn’t that obvious but it did get into Kyle’s nerves. He had enough insults from Cartman to know when someone was insulting his ‘beliefs’ as she called them, to know when someone was being disrespectful, or more likely, insulting towards him.

Still, while turning his hands into knuckles and holding them with way too much force under the table, he kept his eyes locked into hers and with the same fake smile she was giving him, Kyle nodded and let her get away with it.

“Sure, It won’t happen again”. He said.

They could only stare back and try to keep their nerves down as Miss Phillips smiled and continued the class.

Wendy did not tear her gaze from the once, until the end of the class.

“We need to go to the library” Kyle said once the class was over and they were exiting the classroom.

“What the hell was that, dude?” Stan asked.

Kyle didn’t answer right away but headed straight to the library as his friends followed right behind him.

“Shit, do you think she might know we already know?” Kenny asked, glancing at Stan with worry all over his face.

If his intention was that his friend was going to help him relax or give him some reassurance he was wrong, because Stan looked as worried as he was.

“I don’t know but she was giving us all these looks at us, I think she might be-”

“Guys” Kyle interrupted once they reached the library door, the hallways were filled with people running towards second period, and even if he never missed one, Kyle was letting this one go to explain to his friends what might be going on. If they were right this might be bigger than what they once thought it was. “Look, I need you guys chill for a bit because this might be confusing at first but I think-”

The library door opened behind them.

“What the fuck is taking you so long?” Cartman asked as the three of them turned to stare surprised at him. “Come inside before someone sees you” he said and turned back inside the library.

Stan and Kenny stared back at Kyle, expecting him to explain that one too.

“Just follow us,” Kyle said, not giving them time to question it.

Quietly and not so surely they followed him into the library. Not many kids used it anymore, so it was almost always empty. 

When they walked in, Cartman was already a few steps ahead of them, heading towards a table that had all his stuff on it, and sat on one of the chairs.

The guys were only a few steps behind him, ready to take a seat when the door slammed open once again.

“Stan” they heard a voice call over them, they all turned around, already knowing who that voice was coming from. “Stan” she called once again but continued walking towards him. 

Before Stan could answer and tell him that it was not the moment, or something to try to keep her out of it now, it was Cartman the one who turned to make his way towards her and glare.

“Fuck off, Wendy” Carman said as he stood right in front of her. Wendy stopped in her tracks and stared right back at him “We’refucking busy right now”

Even if Cartman was a head taller than her, that didn’t intimidate her, so instead of taking a step back or being surprised like most kids did when Cartman was in a mood like that, she glared back.

“I wasn’t talkin to you, asshole” Wendy said as she looked past him to stare at his ex-boyfriend “Stan what the fuck was that?” 

“Look, Wendy, I can’t talk right now,” Stan said nervously.

“Bullshit” she said making Stan blink in surprise at her reaction “I saw what happened during class, you really think I’m that dumb?” she didn’t give him time to respond “Something’s going on, you guys have been acting weird for the past month and now this during class? Waht the fuck is going on?”

“How do you know we've been acting weird?” Kyle tried to question, not really because he didn’t like or trusted Wendy, but because given the situation, he couldn’t afford to trust anyone who wasn’t his friend. “Have you been following us?”

Wendy gave him her most sassy look as she explained “no, you idiot” she said and that made them all blink at her “but do you really think that you guys talking to Clyde and his friends, moving in groups all day long and Kenny being glued to Craig wasn’t suspicious?” she said and shook her head “at first I thought they were dating maybe and you guys were trying to get along with them for him” she gestures towards Kenny “but there’s no way in hell that Cartman would willingly hang around Clyde and Craig if it wasn’t for something much bigger”.

They all stared at her in awe. Well, maybe they weren’t being as careful as they thought they were. Huh.

“What’s going on?” she insisted again, taking her time to stare at the four of them “look I don’t know what kind of new mess you are all into now, but if it’s somehow affecting me and making you guys act all weird then it must be something important”. No one answered “I need you guys to tell me what the hell is happening”.

The four of them stared at each other in silence, was it worth it telling her? Maybe they could come up with a lie, but what could it be? Wendy was too smart for her own good, if Stan or Kenny made up a lie it would probably suck and make her even more suspicious. It all laid on Cartman and Kyle.

They took a moment to look at each other too, a silent conversation.

“But he didn’t tell you though?”

Token groaned as he passed Tweek his phone.

Craig, leaning over Tweek, gets a look at Token and Clyde’s chat. Nothing, he was right, Clyde had not answered since Token asked him where he was the first time, he had said that he would be back in a while, but he wasn’t.

“Should we go look for him then?” Jimmy asked. 

They hadn’t heard from Clyde since first period started, it had been a group decision to meet at the boys bathroom during second period to see what to do. Narrowing his eyes, Craig took one more look at the chat. It was too unusual, Clyde was always glued to his phone, when someone sent a group message, he was always the first one to respond. He wouldn’t think much of it if it wasn’t because they were probably all still in danger, but they were, so he could only start making assumptions in his head.

“Do you think someone got him?” Tweek asked anxiously as he passed the phone back to Token.

He shook his head “Nah, he was with me when he entered school, no one could have gotten to him here”.

“Are you sure of it? You know how many kidnapping cases take place at schools? Cause I saw this documentary about it and-” Tweek was beginning to freak out, but Craig stopped him by putting a hand over his shoulder.

“He’s probably fine” Craig wasn’t really sure about it, but maybe saying it would make him believe it too “we’ll just go look for him”.

“Yeah, we’ll all go together,” Jimmy said, trying to give Tweek a reassuring smile.

As soon as Jimmy said that Token started shaking his head as he took his phone back and shoved it in his pocket “we can’t do that dude, they are monitoring the hallways, if they see us all together we’re going to get caught and they’ll send us all back to class”.

“So what? Are you saying that we need to separate?” Tweek asked as a joke, but the serious stares of all his friends made him realise that it was ,in fact, not a joke “wait, you’re kidding right?”

“I mean, he kind of has a point,” Jimmy said.

“No!” Tweek said louder, the idea of separating scaring the crap out of him “It doesn’t! When people separate in movies they die!” he said and this time Craig knew he was going into freak out mode “are we seriously debating this?! You guys know the deal, we separate, someone start chasing us, the black dude dies first, then-”

“Woah, woah, woah” Token said as he held his hands up “what’s with all this racism all of the sudden?”.

“Who said anything about murder?” Jimmy asked too, “for all we know, Butters may still be alive”

“Are we not going to talk about the whole ‘the black dude die first’ thing first?” Token asked incredulous as he stared at all his friends who were not paying attention to him.

“He has been missing for weeks Jimmy” Tweek as if that was the clear proof that he was dead.

“So?” he tried to reason, as he frowned at his friend “he might still be alive, that’s why they are still searching for him”.

“You can’t seriously think he’s alive, come on Craig, back me on this” but Craig didn’t answer right away, which made Tweek stare at him over his shoulder, confused as why wasn’t he talking.

Craig shrugged “I mean” he tried “he might be somewhere where-”

“Oh my god!” Tweek groaned.

“Are you seriously not going to talk about it? Black lives matter isn’t a thing anymore or what?” Token asked, trying to catch his friends' attention, they all ignored him.

“What?” Craig asked as he frowned at his blond friend.

“You can’t be serious” Tweek let out a sarcastic laugh “Kenny isn’t here you know, you don’t have to lie”.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”.

Tweek noticed the confusion on Craig’s face, which almost made him want to laugh “we know you’ve been hanging out a lot with him because of this, but you don’t have to lie to us to protect him, you know?”.

“Why would I do that?” Craig asked, as he leaned over one of the counters taking a step back from Tweek, making clear that he didn’t think like that “I don’t care about Kenny’s feelings, it’s just the truth”.

“Oh please” Tweek said with a laugh, this time Jimmy wasn’t going to talk, knowing that this wasn’t just about what happened to Butters “he’s Kenny now? What happened to ‘McCormick’, huh? You keep saying that-”

“Is it because I call him by his name?” Craig frowned.

“Don’t pretend as if you-”

“Guys!” Jimmy said loud enough to make both of them stop arguing, he didn’t want to lose more time, if they kept this going on, not only something may actually happen to Clyde, but Craig and Tweek would get into a huge argument that didn’t happen since they dated. “I don’t care, really, but we need to go and do something for real”.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Craig closed his eyes and sighed, defeated and already pissed off at what his friend and ex-boyfriend was implying “Fine, fuck it, we’ll go togehter, you go with Token”. He said as he gestured to Jimmy.

He pretended not to be bothered when Tweek rolled his eyes but didn’t protest either way.

“We’ll go check the first and third hallway, you guys go check the second and the cafeteria” Jimmy said. Craig nodded and started walking towards the door, Tweek close behind him.

“Are we seriously not going to talk about it?” Token asked, still not processing their earlier conversation but still walking towards the door with his friends.

“Oh for fuck’s sake” Tweek said, “you know that’s true”

“Yeah” Jimmy agreed as he smiled at his friend “we’re not the racist one, the producers are”

“Like in ‘300’”

“Or ‘A Christmas Story”

“Or ‘Aliens’” 

Craig nodded as he walked out of the bathroom “‘Alien vs. Predator’ too”

Jimmy grinned “and ‘Aline vs. Predator Requiem’”.

Giving up, Token let out a deep breath “Yeah, ok, I got it”.

Token and Jimmy were searching for twenty minutes, trying to avoid the hall monitors that were walking down the hallways, and there was no news about Clyde. 

Since what happened to Butters, the school had taken new security procedures to make the parents and some of the students feel safer when coming back to school, hallway monitors were one of them. It was kind of hard, but they had managed to avoid most of them, and they had successfully lied to the ones they had encountered. Still there was no sign of Clyde.

“Do you think Tweek may be right?” Jimmy asked after a while, as he walked besides his friend.

Token shook his head, “no dude” he said as he peered over one of the doors to see if maybe Clyde was on one the empty classrooms “he’s probably smoking weed somewhere or I don’t know”.

He didn’t really think so, he didn’t know what Clyde could be doing, but he didn’t think he was missing. Of course, that was also because he was ignoring the voice inside his head that was telling him ‘ the other guys probably thought the same about Butters ’.

“He’s fine, I promise”

Jimmy didn’t answer, instead he kept on looking inside the classrooms along with his friend.

“Hey, what was that with Tweek and Craig?” Token finally asked, to break the silence and the intrusive thoughts in his head.

Jimmy chuckled “What? You mean the whole Kenny deal?”.

“Yeah, what was that?”.

“I think Tweek is just trying to get Craig to get his head off his own ass and admit that he’s gay for Kenny and stop thinking with his dick” he adressed, as he looked over his shoulder to see if there was anyone behind them.

Token glanced back at his friend with curiosity for a second before turning back to keep searching “You think Craig likes Kenny?”.

“Well, he is spending an awful lot of time with him” he pointed out “he also asked him for drivers lessons”.

“Yeah, because they are both being followed and because the only two people in our group sucks at driving,” Token tried to reason.

“Nah, dude” Jimmy said with a smirk on his face “that’s a gay plot right there, Craig’s drawn to blonds the same way that bees are drawn to honey”.

Token pulled a face at that “I don’t think bees are drawn to honey, dude”

“What do you mean no? They are always drawn to honey in movies, have you not seen ‘bee movie’?” Jimmy asked with a frown.

He was about to open a door to the last classroom of the hallway when Token stopped in his tracks to turn around and stare at his friend to make things clear.

“No dude, they make honey” he said as he drawed the word a bit so Jimmy could understand “they are not drawn to it”.

“But they always go there?” his friend asked, confused.

“No dude, they are drawn to-” suddenly the door behind them opened, revealing an agitated Bebe and a worried looking Clyde “HOLY SHIT!” Token yelled as he turned around to face them “you scared the shit out of”.

“Well, he’s definitely not in danger” Jimmy pointed out with a smug look as he eyed Bebe and Clyde down.

“Aw, you guys were searching for me?” Clyde asked as his worry disappeared and was replaced with a genuine smile “yo that’s so sweet”

Token sighed relieved that his friend was ok “yeah, Craig and Tweek went looking for you over-” but he stopped himself mid sentence when he took one glance at Bebe’s face.

Immediately all relievedness (Is that a word?)  disappeared from his face and was replaced with annoyance and frustration.

“You told her?!” he asked as he gestured towards Bebe.

Bebe stared at him with wide eyes as Clyde cringed.

“I had to!” he tried but Jimmy was already groaning and Token was dragging a hand to his hair in a stressed manner.

“No, you didn’t!” Token reproached “she’s going to tell the whole school, and we’re going to be in huge problems, man!” he then turned to stare at Bebe who was still staring at him with wide eyes “no offence”.

“Yeah, dude!” Jimmy said from the back “what is wrong with you? We are not the only ones into this, stop thinking with your dick!”.