Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Kyle had Stan to thank, or blame depending on how you looked at it, for the majority of his musical interests. 

He’d thought it was dumb for most of his life. Of course he’d listen to music from time to time, and was a self-proclaimed master at Guitar Hero, but that wasn’t the dumb part. The dumb part was the actual making of music. The singing, the songwriting, the playing of instruments. It was, for lack of a better word, completely stupid and gay. He’d playfully teased Stan about his intention of joining the school’s orchestra and choir programs when the two were choosing their electives for their sixth grade year, only to find out that he was completely serious. And then he’d teased him even harder because seriously? Stan wanted to be one of those kids? Out of all of the possible classes to choose from? 

Stan didn’t take it as well as Kyle expected him to. They were best friends, they teased each other about everything they possibly could, but it seemed that this one specific interest had crossed a line. So he stopped, reluctantly, as Stan desperately tried to convince him to join the music classes with him. He refused, of course, opting for quite literally any other class he could get into. 

That was the routine for the next several years. Around the time of the school year that they made their class schedules, Stan would always find a way to bring up how fun and totally not gay his music classes were. And Kyle would listen, happy his best friend had something he was so passionate about, but would always respond with the same dismissive ‘absolutely not.’

That was, until Sophomore year. 

Stan had come to him abruptly after school one day, looking like he’d just gotten hit by a bus. It turned out that the choir program was losing members to the point that if they couldn’t recruit enough people by next year, it would shut down in its entirety. Stan begged him to join, even harder than he had all the years prior. And, as reluctant as he was to do so, Kyle couldn’t bear to see his super best friend so downtrodden. So he joined.

And now, Kyle really only had one person to blame for his current setup. 

An acoustic guitar in his hands, his laptop opened to the camera app, and embarrassingly cheesy song lyrics typed out in his phone’s notes app. 

Turns out, he’d been right all along. Choir was totally fucking gay. And it had infected him, plaguing him with the incurable disease of being completely head over heels for his best friend. His somehow totally straight despite being in choir for five years best friend. And it was driving him insane. 

Everything was different now. Every time he brought up a crush on a girl, Kyle was filled with a burning jealousy that didn’t go away no matter how much he willed it to. Every sleepover and hangout session was a contest to see how long he could go without accidentally staring into Stan’s stupidly pretty blue eyes and getting made fun of for it. Every damn time Kyle saw him was a nightmare, his internal dialogues in constant debate over whether or not just to spill his feelings out and get it all over with. 

But the worst part? He had no one to tell. Stan was always the person he went to with everything. From petty arguments with his brother to things of a much higher caliber, Stan was always there for him whenever he needed to let off steam. But now that support system was gone, because it wasn’t exactly like he could tell him what was bothering him without confessing feelings he wasn’t ready to. 

So, in an act he never thought he would do in a million years, Kyle found another way to cope. 

“Fuck you, Stan. This is all your fault.” Kyle mumbled to himself as he adjusted his laptop camera. He didn’t know why he bothered to make it look nice in the first place— it wasn’t like this song was going to leave his hard drive. It would rightfully rot in his downloads folder where it belonged, with him being the only person in the world to be aware of its existence. But still, the neat freak in him made sure the camera angle was adjusted to his liking.

He pressed record. He smiled nervously at the camera, the embarrassment already hitting him like a wave. Even though no one else would ever see this video, and he would die trying to make sure of that fact, that didn’t stop his brain from making damn sure he was mortified from even filming it in the first place. And that was fair enough— he was recording a gay love song about his best friend. That was about as embarrassing as you could get. 

He clutched the guitar carefully, and took a deep breath. He strummed a few simple chords he had practiced for a background beat, using the guitar pick Stan had excitedly gifted him after learning he was picking up the instrument. He’d treasured that pick like a precious antique, and made certain never to misplace it.

“This is for a special someone.” Kyle cringed as the words left his mouth. That made him sound like he was going to post this video online, which he would quite literally rather kill himself than do. Forcing his embarrassment aside, he continued to gently strum the guitar, and began to sing the lyrics he’d spent the past two weeks carefully planning out. 

Stan had always told him he had a nice voice. For years he had never thought much of it, taking it as nothing more than an odd compliment, but after his revelation it seemed it was all Kyle could think about. He thought back to their time in choir together. They sat directly next to each other, thanks to the lack of baritone voices in the class, so they could hear each other distinctly each time they sang. It seemed that every day, Stan had some new compliment about his singing. Nice diction, wonderful tone quality, great dynamics, the list went on. And as embarrassed as Kyle was to not know what half of those words meant, each of them struck his heart like a Cupid’s arrow. Stan himself, Kyle believed, had an even nicer voice. It was deeper than his own, making him one of the few basses in the class, and damn was it amazing to listen to. It was like his voice was made for singing, and Kyle wasn’t entirely convinced he wasn’t a Siren that had disguised himself as a human. He thought about what Stan would think if he saw this video. Would he critique it? Adore it? Convince him to write more? He’d never know, and as much as the thought pained him, it pained him even more to imagine the rejection that would come with an admission that the song was about him. 

The song finished before Kyle anticipated. It was as if he was in a trance, the words flowing from his mouth like they were destined to be there. And he grinned, bright and impossibly proud of himself, before stopping the recording. His laptop asked for a name for the file and, too high from adrenaline to come up with anything else, Kyle typed in ‘stupidsong.mp4.’ He saved it to his downloads folder, briefly wondering if he should hide it within another drive just to be certain no one would ever find it. Nah, he decided. The chances were so slim that it wasn’t worth it. He shut his laptop and set the guitar down next to his bed. The massive grin still hadn’t left his face, and he didn’t anticipate that it would. He had a sneaking suspicion that this song wouldn’t leave his mind any time soon. 

———

Two weeks later, Kyle had all but completely forgotten about the song. Sometimes he’d see it flash by while scrolling through his downloads folder, but never looked at it with more than a passing thought of fondness or embarrassment. He had never gone back and listened to it after the fact, afraid that upon reviewing the work he was so proud of he would realize that it was actually subpar. So he kept as far away from it as he could, doing all but actually deleting the file. 

Ping. Kyle’s laptop made an all too familiar sound, and an all too familiar stupid ass username popped up in the corner of his screen. 

marshy69: hey can u send me ur physics project

marshy69: i wanna know what mine should look like

Despite having forgotten about the song, Kyle had certainly not forgotten about his unbearably strong crush on Stan. 

kyleb: Yeah sure

kyleb: Please tell me youve actually started it though, its due tomorrow 

He didn’t have much faith, but figured he would ask anyway.

marshy69: …

marshy69: :)

Kyle sighed dramatically with the knowledge that he was more concerned with Stan’s grades than he was. He thought about retracting his offer, something about punishing procrastination or something like that, but quickly found himself scrolling to his downloads folder regardless. His stupid heart giving in to Stan’s stupid bad habits again. He looked for the file, aptly named ‘stupidassphysicsproject.mp4’ and dragged it into their chat application. Kyle pressed enter without a second thought, because, obviously he’d clicked the right file! What else could he have possibly sent? The thumbnail of the video didn’t appear, a common glitch he’d been having recently, but it was probably for the best. That project had been a pain in the ass to make, and he didn’t want to have to relive his suffering.

kyleb: Here you go

kyleb: By the way what’s your physics grade again?

kyleb: because i SWEAR if you’re failing again im gonna kick your ass 

It took unusually long for Stan to type a reply. The screen would show that he was typing, then stop, then start typing again. Kyle raised an eyebrow, but didn’t think much of it. He was probably just looking for a way to state what his grades were without Kyle freaking out. 

Safe to say, that wasn’t the reason. 

marshy69: YOU WRITE SONGS????

And Kyle Broflovski felt his life end right then and there. 

Chapter Text

Stan took a frankly obscene amount of pride in managing to rope Kyle into joining the school’s choir. Kyle ‘ew no, that’s gay as shit’ Broflovski, now a proud tenor of the South Park High School intermediate choir. 

But as proud as he was, small bits of guilt ate away at him from time to time. What if Kyle had only joined out of pity, and he’d just wasted a valuable elective slot on his best friend’s schedule through unintentional manipulation? In truth, Stan had little idea whether Kyle loved or despised the class. Every time he tried to gauge his opinion, Kyle would respond with only a dismissive comment or change the subject. Stan had given up his director’s offer to join one of the school’s advanced ensembles for the sake of being in class with Kyle, though he’d never told him that himself. Kyle would have yelled at him for even considering giving up something like that for his sake, and would have outright refused to let him make such a decision. So the thought that he’d given up something so important to him, only for it to be nothing more than an annoyance for his best friend? It didn’t feel good, to say the least.

But damn, was he a perfect fit for the program. To put it lightly, Kyle had a nice voice. Beautiful, really, was the only way to describe it. But he could never say that out loud without having the piss taken out of him, so he settled for whatever musical terms he could conjure up. And he couldn’t even tell how Kyle felt about that, either. Sometimes he’d get jokingly annoyed and playfully shove him aside, others he’d completely freeze up like a deer in headlights. An adorable, redhead deer. 

Because, as it turned out, Stan was doing an awful job at subverting stereotypes. 

He was, as most music students seemed to be, not straight. And he was, as most not straight people seemed to be, completely head over heels for his (straight) best friend. 

Stan shook the thoughts out of his head. He didn’t have time to think about this now— he had a physics project due at 7:30am that he hadn’t even made an attempt at starting. He could worry about his stupid crush after he made sure he didn’t have to retake the class. Which he honestly wouldn’t have minded, had he not been certain that Kyle would murder him if he did so. He opened up his chat app to a familiar profile, and typed out an equally familiar message begging Kyle to send his work to copy off of. They spoke a little, and Stan totally wasn’t grinning like a dumbass the whole time, until Kyle agreed to send his project for him to copy use as inspiration. The video uploaded, and Stan almost closed the app in an effort to procrastinate even further, but the thumbnail caught his eye. 

Was Kyle holding his guitar? Morbidly curious, Stan pressed play.

“This is for a special someone.” Kyle smiled at the camera, a light smirk that pierced directly through Stan’s heart. He was wearing a plain black t-shirt and pajama pants, his curls leaking out from under his hat more than they normally did. This felt personal, like a glimpse into Kyle’s life that even Stan didn’t get to see often. 

He had a suspicion this wasn’t his physics project. 

Kyle gently strummed his guitar, a small yet impossibly sweet smile on his face as he did so. It was difficult to tell through the compressed nature of the video, but it looked like he was using the pick Stan had gifted him as well. To put it lightly, Stan’s heart was a puddle on the floor. He paused the video momentarily to compose himself, completely mortified by just how severely something like this affected him. It was his best friend playing guitar, seriously? Had he really gotten to the level of pining where he couldn’t watch Kyle do basic activities without his face burning up? After a few deep breaths and some mental self-mockery, Stan resumed the video as a calm, collected man. It was just Kyle practicing guitar, he was fine . 

And then he started singing, and Stan’s world shattered beneath him. 

It wasn’t often that he got to hear Kyle’s singing voice by itself. There weren’t a ton of baritone voices in the class, but there were still enough to blend their voices together. Of course, he could still pick out Kyle’s voice from the group— with something so beautiful, how could he not?— but he rarely ever got to hear what it sounded like without the rest of the section contaminating it. 

So to hear his voice alone, filled with passion, and all with that sweet smile on his face? Stan couldn’t breathe. His hands rushed to pause the video before his lungs turned to gelatin, and held his face in his hands. 

“God, asshole. You don’t know what you do to me.” He could feel the warmth of his cheeks in his hands, and it was mortifying. It was just Kyle singing, something he’d heard nearly every day for the past several months, but he couldn’t stop himself. He just sounded so damn perfect, like an angel from heaven or something equally cheesy. Stan had been so focused on trying to remember how to breathe that he hadn’t paid much attention to the lyrics coming out of Kyle’s mouth, but to add insult to his lovestruck injury, they sounded almost romantic. He hadn’t heard them before, either, which made Stan wonder if it was an original arrangement.

Nah, it couldn’t be. There was no way that Kyle Broflovski would write a song without a gun against his head, let alone a love song. It was probably just an obscure number he hadn’t heard. 

Already regretting his decision, Stan resumed the video. The progress bar at the bottom of his screen told him he had only made it about a third of the way through the three minute video, and Stan had a feeling this was going to be an excruciatingly long two minutes. He couldn’t even look at the screen in front of him, instead opting to look down and play with his nails. He listened to Kyle sing, unusually sweet lyrics flooding his ears. It all sounded so distinctly un-Kyle like: feeling butterflies in his stomach, wanting to plant a kiss on someone’s forehead, getting lost in someone’s eyes. Kyle was never a particularly romantic or sappy person, tending to make fun of Stan for his mushy tendencies if anything, so it caught him off-guard in the best way possible. Stan started to feel a burning jealousy for this mystery person, even if Kyle was only repeating the lyrics of whatever song he was covering. He closed his eyes and lost himself in a distant daydream of Kyle specifically singing to him specifically, and it gave him such an overwhelming feeling of fluttery happiness that it hurt. His internal organs turned to cotton candy, his face burned brighter than Kyle’s hair, and he probably looked really fucking stupid right now, but god, he couldn’t have possibly cared less. 

The song was over too quickly, the exact opposite of what he expected. Stan’s eyes shot open as Kyle’s voice left his ears, and he was met with a bright grin as he leaned in to stop the recording that nearly split his heart in two. The video started to loop itself, but Stan immediately rushed to turn it off. There was no way he would be able to survive that again, at least not with his sanity intact. Almost without thinking, Stan pressed the download button in the corner of his screen and saved the video. It overwhelmed him to the point he wasn’t sure he’d be able to watch it for a while, but he absolutely wanted to make sure he had access to it for when he did. And he had a strong suspicion that Kyle hadn’t meant to send that video, so it wasn’t likely it would still be in his dms when that time came. 

Curious, Stan decided to look up the lyrics he had heard. He didn’t remember them very well, as a result of his freak out session, but there were a few he couldn’t quite shake from his mind. Mostly the ones about how he wanted to ‘kiss you underneath the moonlight,’ and how his ‘heart burns when you walk in the room.’ Total coincidence, of course. He typed the terms into Google, curious what song Kyle had decided to cover, but his search came up empty handed. Curious, he went back and listened to the beginning of the song again, and typed in those lyrics. Still nothing. Stan felt confused for a brief moment, before the realization hit him. 

Kyle had written the song himself. 

Oh sweet Jesus, he was going to kill him one of these days. 

It was difficult to imagine Kyle writing an original song, but once he accepted that it was reality, Stan couldn’t wipe the massive smile off his face. Him forcing Kyle down the choir kid pipeline had worked, and even better than he could’ve imagined. Stan’s jealousy for the mystery person in the song grew exponentially as he realized that the lyrics catered specifically to someone Kyle knew, but for now it was overshadowed by a pleasant shock that he had written a song. A love song too— Stan was never going to let him live this down.

It took Stan nearly a century to decide what to send to Kyle. There were so many things he wanted to say: ‘Oh my god, that was beautiful,’ who’s that song about,’ and the one that took up the most space in his mind, ‘I LOVE YOU SO FUCKING MUCH DUDE KISS ME NOW.’ But each time he typed out something, his fingers immediately rushed to delete it. He imagined himself in Kyle’s shoes, and receiving a bunch of compliments and questions after (presumably) accidentally sending something that personal would more than likely make him dig himself into a hole and never come back out. So, after perhaps a bit too long of angsting over it, he decided on something only moderately embarrassing. 

marshy69: YOU WRITE SONGS????

It looked like Stan’s suspicions were correct, because mere seconds after pressing send, the video above had been deleted. 

kyleb: ohvmt hod 

Stan could feel the embarrassment radiating from the screen. Poor Kyle. 

kyleb: I’m going to kms that is NOT what i meant to sent 

kyleb: PLS DONT WAYCH IT

Stan could be a good friend. He could tell Kyle that he didn’t watch past the first few seconds, that he respected his privacy, and that mistakes happened. 

…Or, he could get answers to all of his burning questions, and probably make his best friend explode with embarrassment. 

He chose the latter. Because all of his pity had evaporated in the seconds it had taken between messages, and it had been replaced by curiosity and more of the stupid burning jealousy that he hated feeling. 

marshy69: too late 

Kyle immediately started typing, and Stan rushed to beat him too the punch. 

marshy69: but that song is amazing dude honest 

marshy69: your voice is perfect and youve gotten really good at playing the guitar 

He responded with nothing more than a plain ‘thanks,’ making Stan raise an eyebrow. 

marshy69: i just woukdnt have expected u to write something so mushy

marshy69: whos it about ⁉️

Kyle was offline within seconds of pressing send, and Stan worried he had taken it too far. He thought about offering some sort of apology, but bit his tongue. It was Kyle’s own damn fault for sending him into cardiac arrest with that song, he could deal with the fallout it caused. Minutes passed like years as Stan waited for a response, or even just an indicator that he was alive and hadn’t actually killed himself over the stupid song. Finally, after eleven minutes and forty five seconds, (not that Stan was counting or anything) he came back online with a vague message. 

kyleb: Can you come over 

kyleb: Now

marshy69: uh yeah sure? why?

It was unlike Kyle to ask something like that so suddenly, and Stan worried his prying had caused something more serious. 

kyleb: I’ll tell you when you’re here

Cool, that wasn’t concerning at all. Having nothing better to do, and morbidly curious as to what was going on, Stan quickly made his way over to Kyle’s house. He threw on a plain t-shirt and his favorite hat, not wanting to waste any time getting ready. Stan had never been so thankful for living next door to Kyle, because that meant he only had to deal with his blossoming worries for around a minute. He wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but whatever it was, he could tell it wasn’t good. Had Stan pushed him too far and invaded his privacy? Or was this just Kyle inviting him over to be over dramatic about whatever crush he’d written the song about? Stan had no idea, and it was eating away at him. 

He couldn’t have gotten to the Broflovski household faster. He knocked on the door like his life depended on it, and it flung open suspiciously quickly. 

“Hey.” A smile curled on Kyle’s lips, but it was obvious that it was ingenuine. Stan raised an eyebrow. 

“Dude, what’s wrong?” He questioned, the uneasy feeling in his stomach becoming too much to bear. Kyle said nothing, instead simply him inside as he tugged on his hat. He took a seat on the living room couch, still not saying a word. “Kyle, what’s going on?” Stan repeated, an unintentional aggression leaking into his voice. “If this is all about me listening to that song then I’m sorry, but it was pretty damn amazing—”

“It’s not about the fucking song!” Kyle cut him off, an all too familiar anger in his voice. He took a deep breath in and out then continued, looking everywhere he possibly could except for Stan. “Well, it kind of is. I just need to tell you something. And you have to promise me that this won’t change things between us.” Stan didn't know what information Kyle was holding from him that could possibly make him this anxious, but he needed him to just spit it out already. He decidedly hated seeing his super best friend so upset, and he silently prayed that whatever it was, Kyle would be okay. 

He prayed even harder that the information was what he hoped it was. It was stupid, wishful thinking, and Stan knew that well, but he still held onto the hope. This conversation was regarding a love song, after all; Maybe this would be the picturesque confession he’d been daydreaming about for months. 

He doubted it. But still, he grasped onto the hope as much as he possibly could. 

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but yeah, I promise.” He looked over at Kyle with a smile, who in turn gave him a look that screamed ‘I’m about to throw up.’ And, of course, leave it to Kyle to still look fucking stunning meanwhile. He took a deep breath in and out, still looking like he’d been hit by a bus, and mumbled something uncharacteristically quietly.

“Itwasaboutyou.” All of his words merged into one to the point of being incomprehensible. 

“Huh?” Stan asked, and Kyle looked about ready to murder him. 

“It was about you. The song.” Kyle made eye contact with him for a split second before his gaze retreated to the carpet below. “You can leave, or insult me, or be all disgusted now if you want. I just needed to tell you.” Kyle picked at his skin, a clear look of regret washing over his face. 

Stan, meanwhile, had never been happier in his life. 

The song was about him. Putting two and two together, Kyle loved him. His heart fluttered in his chest, and a massive grin stretched across his face. The lyrics of Kyle’s song floated around in his mind, now with the extra sentiment that they were written about him. His distant daydreams that he had all but given up on were coming true right before his very eyes, and Stan almost had to pinch himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. 

“I’m so fuckin’ happy, dude.” That certainly got Kyle’s attention, and he looked over with a look of surprise.

“You… are?” His surprise quickly turned to joy as he realized. “So, wait, does that mean you…?” Kyle didn’t need to finish. 

“Of course.” Kyle’s face flushed a light pink. “I was hoping that song was about me. You don’t know how much I wanted it to be.” 

“Oh.” Kyle breathed a sigh of relief, and looked over at him. His impossibly bright emerald eyes shined with such overwhelming happiness that it almost hurt to look at, but Stan couldn’t tear himself away. “Oh thank god, dude, I totally thought you were gonna rip on me for that. But it’s so, so much better, and I…” Kyle trailed off, seemingly having noticed the unbroken eye contact between them. He scooted closer to Stan, the sudden closeness warning his entire body. Stan braced himself for what was to come, the moment he’d been dreaming about for the better part of a year now, but it never did. The two simply stared at each other, impossibly close with both of their faces the color of Kyle’s hair, but neither made a move. 

“Ladies first?” Stan teased, breathlessly. Kyle didn’t waste any time elbowing him in the side. 

“I can’t believe I wrote a song about you. Asshole.” Despite his words, Kyle pulled him into a kiss. Despite what Stan expected, he had gone for the lips immediately, and his poor heart nearly burst. Their inexperience was clear, and most would consider it a messy first kiss, but it was absolutely perfect to Stan. Just feeling the warmth of Kyle’s lips, something he’d accepted to be a dream he’d never accomplish, was more than enough. Kyle was the first to pull back, which was probably for the best; Stan likely wouldn’t have pulled back until he was choking and gasping for air. 

“So I’m the lady. Gotcha.” Stan was confused for a moment, until he realized the overwhelming warmth on his face. 

“Shut up, dude. This is your fault for that sappy song.” But god, was he ever happy he had written it. “Y’know, I wouldn’t mind a live performance…”

“Absolutely not.” His response was immediate. “You weren’t even supposed to see that in the first place! Do you know how embarrassing that was?” 

“I can imagine.” Stan laughed, and Kyle shot him a glare. “But you sounded amazing, dude. Please?” Stan attempted to make use of puppy dog eyes, praying that he could make him fall victim to them. 

“Fine.” Yes! “If you insist. Dick.” Neither of them made an effort to move, though, instead deciding to soak in the comfort of being near each other for a little while longer. Without thinking, Stan extended his hand out towards Kyle’s. 

“I love you,” Kyle said as he gripped onto his hand. The statement caught him off-guard, but he was quick to reciprocate. 

“I love you too.” The two smiled at each other, bright and full of love, and Stan was sure this was the best day of his life. His two favorite things in the world, Kyle and music, had come together in the most beautiful way imaginable, and he was certain that nothing would ever top this moment.

One thing was for sure, through: Choir was fucking gay.