Chapter Text
Ooh lover boy
What're you doing tonight? Hey, boy!
Set my alarm, turn on my charm
That's because I'm a good old-fashioned lover boyyyy....
"STAN! Hey, come on! The bus is here. How fucking loud is your music?? The driver's been honking and I practically shouted in your ear for god's sake!" Kyle pulled out one of Stan's earbuds and grabbed his hand, urging him forward with a tug.
"Oh shit. My bad."
"Whatever, it doesn't matter dude. Come on. He's getting mega pissed now" Kyle let go of Stan's hand and made his way onto the bus. Stan stood there for a minute and stared at the hand he held. "My hand feels strangely warmer now..". He brushed it off with a sigh and put his earbuds back in; stepping onto the bus and sitting right at the back with Kyle. He'd be lying if he didn't want to reach over and grab his hand again. He just.. really like physical touch. Yeah. That's it. Nothing else. Nothing else at all.
"Hey"
"Hm?", Stan took out the same earbud and turned to look at Kyle who stared him down with a serious expression. "Just what do you think you're doing?", he said. Stan froze. What the everloving fuck did he do now? "I.. Uhh.." he couldn't mutter out a single word. His friend's face only scrunched up more the longer he didn't respond. It took a solid 5 seconds or so, probably 15 even, before he started to muster up a sentence before he was silenced. "Do you really think you can sit right next to me, and listen to Queen without passing one of your earbuds over to me??"
".. You just made me panic so hard, you know that??" Stan said very, very quietly while Kyle just stared down at him with the most smug expression in the world. "Pussy"
"You bitch!" Stan struck him in the arm as they both began to laugh. "Whatever, whatever! Just pass one over or I will not tutor you today" Stan tossed his opposite earbud onto Kyle's lap without hesitation. "It's that one that goes "Ooh, lover boyyyyyy" by the way. I just clicked a random spotify playlist" Kyle smiled. "Seriously, the gayest song they've ever made?? Is there something you have to tell me?~" he teased, Stan taking true, pure offence. "Don't you use Freddie's gayness as a weapon! Plus, have you HEARD Bohemian Rhapsody?? Come on, man. You're more cultured in Queen knowledge than I am. You should know their most popular song is the gayest"
"Okay, okay. I won't say anythiiiiing else" Kyle forces a pinky promise between the both. They locked eyes for a moment once Stan finally looked back at him, both sharing an equaly happy smile. Neither of them had properly stared at eachother's faces. To Stan, Kyle's eyes were like 2 kaleidoscopes, both emerald green in colour and were practically weed to his eyes. "Fuck, that is so cringey". Small slices of romantic tension like this was what really made Stan's day. But, sometimes, was what made him want to break into tears. It gave him hope - a slither of hope specifically - that his love wasn't unrequited. Yet, it also made him feel that every moment was romantic only in his head and not in Kyle's. Like as if he wasn't supposed to feel this way about him. No, no, he was 100 percent sure he wasn't supposed to feel how he felt about Kyle. Not one bit. But then.. why couldn't he stop feeling how he felt? Why would he practically vomit after every encounter with him? Why did he want to confess all his feelings right then and there and hold him by his side for the entire bus ride and then some? He was in a civil war with his feelings. Every day he couldn't stop thinking about it, it was like he was losing a chunk of himself. He was wilting away from the inside out.
Tears began to well up in his eyes, but he was too mesmerised by Kyle's to even notice.
"Uh.. Stan?"
"Oh, uh yeah. Hi. Hey. Uhm.. sorry" He quickly wiped his tears on his sleeve. Well, his arm actually. His sleeves were too short. "You kind of started to.. cry.. or something" Kyle responded with occaisonal pauses, putting a hand on Stan's shoulder. "No, no! It's just.. I just didn't blink for like 15 seconds straight basically. That's why" he answered frantically, swallowing back the firey puke that was trailing up his throat suddenly. He was lying, yet he didn't even know himself why he was tearing up. Was the beauty of Kyle's face just that overwhelming, or was it the feeling that he had an empty hole in the middle of his heart getting too unbearable for him? All he knew is that he'd need to wipe many more tears off his face any second now as he felt more well up in his eyes again. "Oh, shit. You are crying again!" Kyle began to reach his other arm around Stan, but it was quickly shooed away by him. "No- NO! I'm - I'm completely fine!! Just.. just give me a moment..!!" Stan choked and stumbled over his words, which was enough for Kyle to take proper action. He forced stan into a hug and placed his head into his chest, making sure his grip was tight so he wouldn't be able to pull away. He glanced off to the seats around him to make sure no one was staring. The last thing he'd want is for Stan to come the first day back from summer break embarassed. "Just cry it out, dude. I know something's been bothering you lately" Kyle paused their tunes to focus on comforting Stan. His sudden crying outbreaks only began 2 weeks ago, where he even completely isolated himself from all his family and friends in his room for a day or 2. Wendy, Bebe, Butters, Kenny, Tweek, Craig.. none of them knew why. But thankfully he became more social the 2nd week, yet his sudden mood changes stayed but varied at random times. Usually it happened when the whole class was relaxing together; no drinks, games, music, or anything to distract them from their own thoughts or eachother. "I guess he just has a lot on his mind" Kenny once said. Yet that didn't stop them from making him feel better whenever he needed some time to bawl his eyes out. It ended up being Kyle most of the time being the shoulder to cry on, yet Butters (or Marj. Depends who he or she feels like the day) volunteered often. He's just a sweet soul like that. Sometimes he'd start to cry in more public areas. You can usually tell if he's still, has shallow breathing, and pulls excuses himself to more private area. If he's lucky, one of the friends'll follow him to give him his much needed comfort. If he's not, he'll have to cry by himself. Butters has often caught him when they were too late to help; usually staring down at himself in a mirror, crying into his knees in a corner, or just expressing his pain through physical matters (which usually ends in property damage).
"What happened 2 weeks ago?.." Kyle looked down at Stan's melting face sticking to his sweater.
"I'm sorry Kyleee..." Stan whimpered through his crying. "Stop apologising. You can't keep apologising for this! Crying is normal. You're obviously going through something and I'm your FRIEND. Don't you stop until you feel any better" Stan didn't even respond and just kept sobbing just as instructed. Kyle had leaned back in his seat to make it more comfortable for both of them. A good 5 minutes passed before the wailing came to a halt. Stan's face slowly pulled away from Kyle's chest like glue. His cheeks were all rosey and wet with tears, his eyes were glistening tremendously, and his frown well adjusted up to a small, just small, smile. "Feel any better, pretty boy?" Kyle inquired with a quiet chuckle. "I'm.. better.." he quietly said; stood still and seemingly stuck in time. "You can stop with your jokes, too.."
"Alright, you're definetly not so positive still", Kyle brought Stan's head down onto his lap without warning. "Take a rest. I can tell you haven't slept all week" Stan's eyes widened and he was left speechless, going redder in the face than he already was. "WHAT. THE. FUCK". "I'd prefer just to lay on the emtpy seats-" "Don't lie to me. You know these seats feel like concrete" "..."
"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit-"
Stan had no excuses left and couldn't think of another one on the spot (mostly because he was too busy being very, VERY flustered). He closed his eyes slowly and just tried to keep stable, calm, collected, whatever other zen words in the dictionary. Yet he failed miserably. His mind would not let him ignore the situation he was in for like, 10 seconds. It was only a friendly gesture. He's just overreacting, right? But at least it granted him with a fond memory to use as a quick conversation starter to keep his mind off everything. "Uh.. Hey, Kyle..?" he looked up at him, but his eyes were still blurry from all the crying which left his vision a mess. "Do you remember when I tried to rebrand Crimson Dawn the first month of summer break..?" "Well, yeah. Why'd you not go through with it? You put posters around the college before leaving with your phone number and everything"
"Seriously, Stan? You're rebranding again?"
"Trust me, Craig!! This time It'll be perfect."
"How many times have you said that this year alone and ended up tearing up the posters and deleting your promotion tweets?"
"..."
"Three times. And counting"
"Those other 3 times don't count!"
"I think they do"
"Okay, okay whatever maybe it went to shit a few times but I feel confident!!
"..."
"Stop looking at me like that! Hey, what about Tweek?? He's a pianist! Does he have some pianist friends or something??"
"Don't you bring Tweek into this!"
"Look, I'll pay you a solid 50 for fuck's sake if you spread it on your twitter or even by word of mouth, alright?"
".. Fine. I need to buy more yarn anyways"
"Thank you so much, Craig!! I'll never forget this!"
"You don't need to thank me. We're friends. This is what friends do."
"I can't believe I paid him that much for him to post a half-assed tweet to his.. 10,000 followers or something. I'm not a social media guy anyway." Stan sighed. "I knew that the first time you freaked out over us making you a facebook page" Kyle then made his voice sound higher and shouted "I am NOT getting sucked into it!!" Stan lifted his head up for a moment to protest. "You're the one who cried until I commented on your farm, Kyle! Also, you didn't need to highten your voice. You still sound like you're 10" Kyle froze and felt his cheeks glow a little red like Stan's. "Just.. just fucking sleep already. We've got an hour journey ahead of us and I can see those bags under your eyes are slowly turning into tumours at this point"
Stan huffed and laid his head back down, adjusting his head to make himself more comfortable. "Easy there, tiger. I know you're gay but careful between the legs!" Kyle remarked, needless to say not helping him go to sleep in the slightest. "For fuck's sake I am not gay, dumbass!! Stop bringing up the song! Now shut the fuck up so I can sleep like you wanted" Stan's face lit up red again for one last time, staring around the bus a for a couple minutes before his eyes began to feel heavy.
"Kyle?"
"Yeah?" He looked down at Stan to give him one last glimpse of his pale freckled face, big crooked nose, burning red curls and of course his genuine smile. "Holy shitballs, he's prettier every time I look at him"
"I.. I love you man"
"Yeah, I love you too dude"
"Bestfriends for life?"
"I think at this point that deal is sealed"
Stan reciprocated Kyle's grin one last time before finally knocking out; commencing with quiet snores. "Fuck, he's a snorer?" Kyle complained, taking Stan's earbuds and putting them in his own ears. He quickly grabbed his phone, which was thankfully still open on the Spotify app or else he'd have to guess the his password, and searched up ABBA before dropping the phone back onto the seats with a thud (damn, they were like concrete) "Much better". Before laying back and relaxing for the rest of the journey, he lowered himself down to Stan's head and planted a small kiss on his forehead.
"The day Stan returns to his normal self..
..is the day I can have him for myself..."