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Stan hums to himself, walking in the dark from Teagridy Farms to Kyle's house. The graduation party last night left him high and giddy, wishing Kyle had stayed the night. Usually, he's annoyed to find himself stoned out of his mind and only able to think about his best friend, but now it's led to probably the greatest plan ever conceived.
Low risk, high reward.
The world works around his fuzzy head with the mechanisms of its complex system of ropes and levers and pulleys, and it is so easy to ignore.
When he finally reaches the Broflovski residence, Stan smoothes back his mussed hair and knocks.
For a while there's nothing.
He knocks again, louder.
Some vague stumbling noise resounds inside and the door opens.
“Hey,” Stan gives a half–lidded smile. “Is Kyle home?”
Gerald itches the side of his nose with his thumb, clothes thrown on, thinning hair mussed, kippah pinned crookedly on his head with two visible bobby pins. Under the open collar of his green shirt shows Sheila’s late–night artwork, painted in faded smudges of lipstick along the nape of his neck. They must’ve taken the opportunity last night while both kids were out. “Stan it’s not even six, I just got up.”
“Woah,” He giggles. “You’re behind, I’ve been up since yesterday.”
Gerald squints in the dim twilight. “What’s with the dress, are you high again?” He asks, then after deciding the answer to his own question, looks back into the house briefly and lowers his voice to a murmur. “Is Kyle high?”
Stan plays with the idea and smiles. His friend is careful, but rarely partaking comes with a particularly low tolerance. “I dunno, does he look high?”
“I didn’t see him after the party last night, I was in bed. The walls are basically sound–proof.”
“Looks like that…” He pokes a finger to Gerald’s half–exposed collarbone. “...is a very lucky thing.”
Kyle’s dad huffs and rests a hand over the marks, looking embarrassed and unamused. As much as he’d like to be the uninhibited ‘cool’ dad that Randy is, if he can’t even laugh off a sex joke, he’s a lost cause; destined to his position as a nervous but generally dependable lawyer dad, observant, smart, prone to spiraling if left unchecked, and, above all, mistaken for a twink almost everywhere his lanky legs can take him.
Kyle’s mostly the same way; speaking of which, Stan slips past Gerald and up to his room.
The fan is on its highest setting and there’s music on quietly, that old seventies glam rock burbling from the CD player they dug from the attic last year.
Kyle’s sleeping over the blankets, stretched over his entire bed, wearing a pair of basketball shorts and an oversized T–shirt that’s crinkled to reveal his torso.
Maybe it’s the weed but Stan could watch him for hours, the earliest hint of sunlight lighting his hair like fire. And the freckles, they’re just all over. Fuck, he’s just got the cutest best friend. He sits at the edge of the bed, listening to the soft waves of his breath, and then unceremoniously flops a hand down onto his curls and ruffles through them.
Kyle groans and opens his eyes, green and hazy. “Mn— Stan? Hey. What time is it?”
Stan pushes him out of his starfish–like sprawl and lays down next to him. “Good Morning, Kyle.”
His brows furrow and he blinks himself fully awake. “You sound stoned.” He leans in with tired slowness and takes a long breath at the nape of Stan’s neck. It might have seemed weird if they weren’t super best friends. “And you smell like weed too.”
“Uh oh. Caught.”
“Dude, my Mom’s gonna kill you. Take a shower.”
Stan shakes his head and rests a hand on one of Kyle’s freckled cheeks.
He looks confused at the action, but other than tilting his head almost imperceptibly away, he doesn’t make any move to stop it.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be out of here soon, I’ve got a plan for today.” Stan murmurs, he can hear it in his own voice, the quiet drawl of weed.
“Uh oh.”
“Shh, it’s good.” He strokes his cheek like he’s comforting a baby and effects a soft, almost cliche backstory–narration. “After you left the party I started thinking— well, first I smoked a little more, and then I started thinking. That one girl was totally hitting on you.”
Kyle flushes a little. “No, she wasn’t.”
“Yeah, she was. Chicks flirt with you all the time and you’ve never had a girlfriend, not really… you have no practice, not a single brain cell devoted to romance.” Stan leans closer to accentuate his words. “And soon you’ll be off to college with no experience in that perfect, dumb, horny teenage passion.”
“Oh fuck off.” Kyle smiles, probably thinking it’s a joke. But it’s not. He only has three modes when talking to people. Witty small talk, hard–bitten mothering, or absolute ruthless and soul–crushing debate. Everything else is an anomaly, most of all romance.
“I’m gonna teach you how to get a girlfriend, dude. Today. It’s gonna be great.”
Kyle snorts a little laugh, eyes half–lidded with sleep again, he looks ready to sink back into the covers and dream the summer away. Maybe he’s still a little high too, although he doesn’t look it, and Stan knows he must’ve showered every lingering tracer particle of that smell from his skin the night before. “Oh yeah? How’re you gonna do that, asshole? A movie montage? A ten–step program?”
No anxiety, no nausea, the weed is easing this whole situation significantly. It fills his head with a gentle dizziness and a subconscious feeling of connection. “No.” Stan breathes. The hand he has resting on Kyle’s cheek slips back into that red thicket of curls and he leans in without even thinking.
Their lips brush, just a ghost of a feeling, and then more.
It only lasts a second but it feels intrinsically right, the way Kyle’s parted lips feel against his. Their front teeth bump with a soundless click and the taste is like nothing; not nothing as in void, but nothing as in the smell of home so familiar it’s unrecognizable.
And then Kyle pulls away. He touches his fingers to his lips as if to make sure they’re still the same as before, and stares at Stan wordlessly.
“Did you like that?”
He swallows hard. “You kissed me.”
“Mhm,”
“Stan. You kissed me.”
“Aha, so here’s where you’re wrong.” Stan shakes his head with a big and knowing smile. “I’m not Stan. I’m Stacy.”
Kyle sits up and leans on one shoulder, expression working semaphores in confusion, then realization, then concern. “Sta— uh you… Stacy. I know you’re not super into, like, formality or whatnot, but…” He puts a hand on his shoulder. “Are you sure this is how you want to come out to me?”
Stan snorts a laugh, then realizes just how serious Kyle is being, and almost laughs more. “Noo, Stacy’s just some random imaginary chick I made up. You need to learn how to date.”
Kyle’s emotion pipeline works backward. Confusion again. “I don’t… I’m not sure I follow.”
“Hah, okay. Think like this.” Stan gestures vaguely. “Teenage years are like a tutorial… but for real life, ‘n time is running out for you. So here’s me, but not me, hot–girl me, asking you on a practice date.”
He watches him for a second, processing the words, then sinks back into bed with a heavy sigh. “It’s too fucking early for this.”
Stan kisses him again, gently, tiredly, and there’s no resistance. He snuggles closer. “C'mon. It’ll be soo fun.”
“Stan–” Kyle starts.
“No, Stacy.”
“Stacy.”
“Your beloved girlfriend.”
“Stacy my beloved bleach–blonde, weed–smoking girlfriend, whom I adore very much, It’s the first day of summer. I was planning on taking it easy.”
“Easy like walking to Denny’s with me and going on a fun little fake date?” Stan murmurs against the nape of his neck.
Kyle groans into the pillow as if the decision is between life and death, and slings his arm over Stan’s shoulder. “That actually sounds pretty fun. Lay off on the kissing though.”
Stan gasps. “Wait!”
“What?”
“I… I just remembered something!”
“What?”
“It’s very important!”
“What is it?”
He leans up and kisses him on the lips. A slow, almost mockingly passionate embrace, and then pulls away. “Kyle loooves kissing his girlfriend.”
“Psh, asshole.” His friend shoves him playfully and stands up to get dressed. “Should I wear something fancy?”
“Only as fancy as me.” Stan splays out dramatically on the bed as if he were about to stage a seduction. He’s wearing fake pearls, a white summer–dress patterned with blue flowers, and a pair of white cork sandals.
“So careless summer chique.”
“I was thinking it’s sort of Italian woman–core.” He says.
“It actually looks pretty great on you.” Kyle undresses, which isn’t all that unusual, but now he seems embarrassed to fall into his unabashed stare. “Where’d you get it?”
“It was Shelly’s. I dug it out of the closet.”
He holds up an orange patterned sweater and a green short–sleeved button–down, silently asking which to wear. “Really. I thought she was allergic to dresses.”
“Well, she’s a woman of many facets.” Stan points to the green one.
“Apparently.”
He lazily reaches down to the floor and picks up a crumpled college pamphlet as his ‘boyfriend’ gets dressed. It must be a pretty prestigious place; all the pictures have those classical perspectives and cloudlike silhouettes. He reads a little. California.
Oh, far away.
Stan frowns and realizes this whole stunt is probably his own subconscious grand finale of the closest era in their friendship. Halfway through the summer Kyle’s gonna move out of town, out of state, and before then he’ll be busy.
Something about that breaks his heart a little bit.
They’ve known each other their whole lives, every change, phase, and fad was lived out together. Soon it just… won't.
He feels suddenly bereft not only of Kyle’s love but of his earliest bright image of himself, of his trajectory across the world.
It’s not fashionable, Stan knows, for a reasonably straight guy to think of finding his destiny in the love of another man, but that was how he’s always thought of it; In a strange sort of way, he had believed that Kyle was his, and that he was Kyle's.
“Hey, what’s the long face?” Kyle smiles with a hint of concern and pulls him off the bed by the hands. “We’ve got a date to make.”
Stan realizes his eyes are starting to tear up and hugs his friend, wiping his eyes on his shoulder. “Thank you.”
Kyle hugs him back, surprised. “For what?”
“You’re so out of my league, dude, it’s not even funny.”
He gasps dramatically and pulls away to look at him, a grin shining through his fake scorn. “Stacy, don’t say that. You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met.” This time he’s the one to lean in for a kiss. It’s comfortable, as if they really are in a relationship, and when he pulls away, he brushes the dramatic arch of his nose playfully against Stan’s.
It feels so right: he wants to cry again.
They go downstairs. Kyle pours himself a glass of orange juice and leans next to his dad on the counter.
Gerald takes a sip of coffee and looks at him.
“Before you ask,” He says. “I’m not high.”
“Okay, because if you were–”
“I know.”
“I’d have to hang you by your feet over a pool of piranhas.” He shakes his head sadly. “And that’s just so your mother knows I’m on her side. There’s no telling what she’d do.”
“I actually have an emergency cyanide pill, just in case.”
First thing in the morning and they’re already swapping their wise–ass remarks. Cartman says it’s ancient Jewish custom, if they’re not snarky, they die. Stan told him bullshit but with every passing day, he wonders a little more.
“So, what’s with the early morning, you two?”
“We’re going on a date,” Kyle says. Gerald hacks his coffee right back into the mug, but before he can say anymore, his son helpfully adds. “A fake date, for fun. He’s my first non–girlfriend.”
For some reason, he doesn’t find that any more normal. “Sound’s gay as Hell.”
Kyle nudges him with half annoyance. “Psh, don’t be so religious.”
“Sound’s gay as fuck.” He corrects passive–aggressively.
Actually, Stan laughs at that, snorting and covering his mouth with his hand to try and stop it.
Kyle gives him a disapproving look and goes to put on his shoes.
The sun is only half risen, but the world outside is in a trance of heat. Their shadows are long and flat against the street behind them, weighed down by the intense humidity.
Kyle pulls a pack of cigarettes from his pant–pocket and lights one up once they're far enough from the house.
“Scandalous.” Stan teases.
“I moderate.”
“Fantastic. Only you’re the least moderate person I’ve ever met.”
He raises his eyebrows and smiles. “Yeah, well the unmoderated fear of crossing my mother moderates for me.”
They laugh.
The smoke from his cigarette hangs in blue swags and coils, lingering in the heavy air when he passes it to Stan.
Once along the way they try holding hands, but it gets sweaty fast, so mostly it’s a competition of who can flirt most embarrassingly.
By the time they get to Denny’s Kyle is flushed and smiling. Stan can’t tell if it’s the heat but he figures he must be the same way.
They sit down at a booth. Stan orders a smoothie and pancakes. Kyle orders iced coffee, while they wait he drums his fingers on the fake–wood table like a mock piano. "Guess what I'm playing."
"Oh, is it romantic?" He waggles his eyebrows.
"Guess."
Stan wouldn't be able to guess even if it were 'hot cross buns', but he watches intently anyway.
Nobody carries their actions more passionately than Kyle, his swift tabletop staccato, sprawled-out hands embroidered with freckles and scars. For a moment, something akin to a recognizable rhythm swims dreamily in the cave of his fingers: he's lit up, electrified. Then it swims away. He stops, but Stan goes on watching the way he folds one hand over the other.
He's almost jealous. If he had the same opportunity to experience every movement and detail of his friend's body the way he must have for himself, there would be no time for hobbies.
Two long fingers come up and snap in front of his face. "Hey, Shefele, you gonna guess or what?"
"Oh. Jeez, I don't know." Stan shakes his head, but seeing Kyle's face is actually more of a hint than his performance, that near–smarmy smirk playing on the corners of his mouth. "You were rickrolling me, weren't you."
He bites his lips and chuckles, tilting his head down and looking up through mischievous, heavy–lidded eyes. "Ike made me learn it."
"Oh don't even try to blame it on Ike. I know you went on the computer and printed out that sheet music of your own volition." Stan shakes his head. "Red flag."
The waiter comes to the table and eyes them half–suspiciously while dispersing their order.
Kyle flushes in embarrassment to contrast Stan's smug grin, then waves a friendly thank you.
After that, they drink and talk for a long time, putting off having to go back outside now that the sun is fully out.
The sidewalks are almost empty: it's very hot, a new kind of heat, bright and dominating. Until now, people have sought the early summer sun: today they seek the shade. There are no men with sunglasses and video cameras, no women walking home with grocery bags, no elementary–schoolers measuring out the parameters of their vacation with faltering steps.
They've all been driven out of the open space by the sunny glare which has suddenly asserted itself, erasing the human dimension with a single stroke.
Kyle finishes his iced–coffee. "I heard it's gonna be this hot the whole week. A hundred and four degrees, apparently." And then, without any fear or hesitation, he starts talking about California, the life waiting for him out of town.
Stan wants him to stop. He isn't ready to hear about the future just yet, not during his grand finale.
He wishes he knew better, how to tell the difference between the good and the bad, the truth and the imitation. He wishes he could learn to read the structure of life like weathermen read the structure of clouds, where the future must be written if only he knows what to look for.
"Hey, do you want some pancake?" He asks to shut Kyle up about the imminent unknown.
"Oh, yeah thanks.” Kyle reaches his fork over to the plate of pancakes, but Stan pulls it away.
“We’re doing this teen–romance style. Remember?” He waggles his finger like he's chastizing a child.
“Oh come on. We’re too old for all that teenager stuff.”
“Respect the natural progression, Lover–Boy. Saying you can skip this stage of romance is like saying you can skip puberty. Not possible. Now come on, I’m getting old here.” Stan holds the piece of pancake between his teeth and leans into the middle of the booth, eyes closed.
Kyle mutters something and he pulls Stan further into a perfunctory kiss, stealing the piece of pancake in the process.
He falls back on his side of the booth dramatically to swoon at Kyle’s amused fake scowl. It's fun to be able to express these emotions, the ones he usually denies, without being held suspect. “I love you.”
He blinks, chewing and swallowing slowly. “I thought this was our first date.”
“Oh, right.” The temperature seems to rise. Maybe he can’t express every emotion. “In that case, I know I could fall in love with you. I feel really comfortable around you, like no matter what happens, you’ll always understand me, even if the whole world goes wrong around us.”
He laughs and looks away, flushing, maybe embarrassed. “That’s how I feel…" His smile falters, then falls away completely as he adds. "I didn’t know it was a romantic thing.”
“You wanna come to my house?”
“Oh, too far with this heat.” Kyle looks out the window as if he expects to find similarly positioned couples melting into the sewers. “Let's just head to mine.”
He bites his lip in contemplation, weighing how far he can take the teasing. “Will we be home alone?”
“My parents will be out,” Kyle says, apparently missing, or choosing to ignore the hint. He's still averting his eyes. “Ike’s probably watching the news though.”
“Oh, but that’s basically alone.”
“Yeah, bombs could drop around him and he’d still ignore them in lou of the news, ‘til they’re reported on screen.” He laughs as if he's trying to console himself. The orange ringlets framing his face jostles in a way that makes Stan's stomach flutter.
───※ ·❆· ※───
They were right.
Ike is home alone, watching TV and drinking cream soda with a straw.
Kyle leans against the couch and ruffles his hair. “Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman and this is the war and peace report.”
“Hey, Don’t make fun of my wife,” Ike mutters.
Kyle chuckles in a needlessly mischievous sibling way and apologizes without really apologizing. “What’s the consensus?” He takes Ike’s cream soda.
“Go away.”
“Fine.”
“Wait, my drink though.”
He shakes his head sadly and takes Stan’s hand to walk upstairs. “Soda isn’t good for you. I have to confiscate this.”
“No, Kyle, no.” Ike calls. “Please. It’s death in here. Really. Death. I’m dying, Kyle.”
He shuts the bedroom door behind him, cutting off the sound. And then he laughs, seemingly for nothing, and runs his fingers through Stan’s hair affectionately. “Oh, ew you’re all sweaty.” He pulls away.
“Oh, I see how it is. You like me until bodily fluids are involved. Tsk tsk.”
“That is true, unfortunately. I’m not a fan of bodily fluids.” Kyle takes off his socks and shoes, then slumps back into his bed, stunned with heat, and immobilized by the renewed comfort of the fan.
“You’ve got to be more accommodating if this relationship is ever going to last.” Stan tries to reach back to unzip his sweat–drenched dress but his hands can’t quite find purchase. “Zipper?”
Kyle sits up and unzips it for him. “I’m not that picky, but you’re hauling yourself into my room like the first human crawling from the primordial swamp.”
“Ouch.” He rifles through his boyfriend’s drawers, looking for some shorts and a t–shirt. “Your words, they hurt me.”
“Can you throw me a shirt too?” Kyle takes off his.
“No. I want to stare at your beautiful sweaty body.”
“Dude, weak.”
Stan glumly hands a shirt to Kyle, sitting on the bed next to him and kicking off his sandals.
The two of them lay back. The heat is infernal, it extends everywhere bringing with it the sweat and haze, the imprecision of desire meeting the exactitude of possibility. Stan throws his arms over Kyle, practically laying on top of him.
"You're blocking the fan." He complains but doesn't make a move to push him off.
"That's the point, I'm stealing it." Stan leans into his shoulder to hide his grin, enthralled with the feeling of their tangled legs, hot and lightly sunburnt. The two seem to stand at the dawn of the world's consciousness, Stan can feel himself missing today already, the incipient nostalgia for friendship and sweat.
He leans away and looks Kyle in the eyes. “Too hot to kiss?”
“Never. Not you at least.” Kyle delivers a peck to his lips.
Stan hums and frowns at the absence. “Come on, you can do better than that.”
He rolls his eyes and leans in again, pressing their mouths together for what feels like a long time, lips sealed, intentions resolute.
It’s not really a kiss, they're just leaning their faces together.
Stan reaches up and holds Kyle’s warm freckled cheeks to provide some interest. He flicks his tongue out to test his boundaries, and, when that earns a lip–parting inhalation, nips Kyle’s bottom lip.
Kyle pulls away with an almost inaudible moan and holds Stan a safe distance from his face. His eyes are almost scared in their watchfulness.
This is new to him, Stan realizes, the two had practice–kissed a few times before, particularly in eighth grade and it's profound sexual confusion, but tongues were never a part of the equation. Come to think of it, he doesn't know if Kyle's ever French kissed anyone at all.
"This is the usual next step." He murmurs assuringly.
"What, making out?" There's an uncharacteristic wobble in his words.
"You don't have to if you don't want to. I just figured you'd want to try it out while we're here since we're comfortable together."
"And you'll always understand me," Kyle repeats quietly, pupils dilated, cheeks stained with blood–red emotion. "even if the whole world goes wrong around us."
"Exact—"
Stan's cut off by a searing kiss. It catches him off guard in maybe the best way possible, he gasps into Kyle's mouth as his inner–lips are grazed by his teeth and tongue. Everywhere tingles. His skin is steadily being set aflame. He presses himself closer, twisting the fingers of one hand into the fabric of his shirt, and dropping the other to his neck.
The heat and slickness inside Kyle's mouth is at once unbearable and irresistible against Stan's tongue. He relishes the way his breath and whimpers play on his lips.
Stan lets a low keen and drags his hips up to match the dry, burning heat curling deep in his groin. He tips his head and trembles with each new facet of the kiss, letting the waves of pleasure wash over him. An especially daring move sends his hands scrambling for purchase.
Kyle gasps out a nervous little moan and his hands fall on Stan’s thighs to keep either of them from grinding anymore. “Wait—gah—Stan wait.”
“Stacy, remember?” He murmurs giddily, eager to resume.
“No,” Kyle shakes his head, lips red, voice slightly husky as if it’s the first thing he’s said today. “It’s not some random girl, it’s you. I’m kissing you.”
“Sort of, yeah, but you can pretend it’s a chick.”
“No. I can’t. I don’t… I don’t want to.”
Kyle’s hands are trembling now so Stan holds them and smiles, knowing his friend is freaking out but barely being able to comprehend that emotion over his own tired happiness.
He keeps shaking his head and stumbling over his words, his realization. His eyes are so large and liquid, so intricate in their irises, so filled with roiling emotion. “I love you. I mean, as a friend, I've always loved you." He squeezes Stan's hands. "You're funny and kind and privately miserable. Our togetherness always felt so— so right." He says, and a triangle of light shines on the tear layer of his eyes. "How was I supposed to know that this sort of love would feel good too?"
"Kyle..." Stan lays back on the pillows, so they're facing each other side by side. He kisses his forehead reassuringly. "It feels just as good to me."
This only seems to make him more upset. A silent tear rolls down his cheek.
He wipes it away with the backs of his fingers. "Why are you crying?"
"Why were you crying earlier today?"
"Because—" Stan winces in realization and stares into his green eyes. "...Because you're leaving."
Kyle just nods.
So that's it.
They've spent what feels like lifetimes together, they've followed each other overseas. It isn't fair that they're only confessing now, not after so many nights lost holding each other's hands in emergency rooms and in the lyrical labyrinths of their mysterious breakdowns and inspirations.
"I can't stay," Kyle says, and Stan's surprised he even considered it. "I've got to get out of this town."
"I know."
They hold each other and close their eyes. Kyle runs his fingers through Stan's hair, smoothing down what the fan has disheveled. He kisses him lightly.
"We'll figure it out. We always figure it out." Stan murmurs. He slides his fingers along his neck, relishing in the way it arches like a feat of engineering. "Remember? Super Best Friends. That's not so different from Super Best Boyfriends."