Work Text:
“You don’t stop me from picking my cuticles anymore,” Kyle says.
It’s not an olive branch, but maybe a bellicose equivalent.
Stan shrugs and doesn’t look up from his phone.
“You’re your own person. I can’t stop you if you don’t want to stop.”
Kyle presses his lips together and his brows knit in the center.
He noticed the change a few weeks ago. Stan would show up late more often, call out more, and not care as much about his work.
Kyle understands hating their job. He hates his job more than anyone else on their team, and he’s the fucking manager. He should be the first to step in and put a stop to slander on the company, but he gets it.
He knows Stan needs the job, though.
He knows Stan needs to pay rent because he snapped on his dad and moved out instead of just laying low like he suggested. He knows Stan needs to pay his bills because he doesn’t have anyone else to do it. He knows Stan needs to afford his own alcohol because he has a drinking problem.
He knows all of these things and that makes it so much harder to be patient.
That’s from a manager’s perspective, though.
“What’s been going on with you lately?” He asks, louder.
Stan scoffs and rolls his eyes and Kyle feels the motion grind away at his patience.
“Nothing, dude, I just hate it here. This company’s backwards.”
“You begged me to get you a spot here,” Kyle reminds him.
“So? I need the money, but I don’t give a fuck about this place. I’m literally just here for the check.” Stan smiles as if what he’s said is funny.
Kyle doesn’t find it amusing.
“What does that have to do with my cuticles?” Kyle asks, tilting his head. He’s not stupid.
“Nothing,” Stan shrugs again and looks at his phone. “I just don’t really care anymore.”
“You don’t care,” Kyle repeats. It stings so much worse than tearing at his fingers.
“No, Kyle, I don’t fucking care,” Stan finally, finally snaps. “You can do whatever you want. I have my own shit to worry about.”
“So what changed, Stan?”
“Nothing changed! You’re reading too much into this!” He throws his phone down on the counter and steps away, starting to pace around the empty store.
“No, I’m not reading too far into anything,” Kyle says, crossing his arms as he watches Stan’s movements. “We’re best friends-”
“Yeah, Kyle, so maybe we shouldn’t be, okay?”
It stings so much worse than pulling his skin from his fingertips.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” He asks, voice firm.
“I can’t fucking handle you breathing down my neck at work and then trying to counsel me. I can’t draw that line, so maybe we should just erase it altogether.”
Kyle nods slowly and Stan stops pacing to face him head-on.
“And that’s a better option for you than finding a different job?”
Stan presses his lips together into a thin line and Kyle sees regret pool in his eyes.
“I don’t want to make this a bigger deal than it needs to be, Kyle.”
“Answer the question,” Kyle says. He clenches his fists, but Stan can’t see because he doesn’t dare uncross his arms yet.
Stan shrugs, looking Kyle up and down as if the answer is written on his clothes somewhere.
“I don’t like change. I don’t want to look for a different job.”
“Cutting me out of the picture would be a welcome change, though,” Kyle restates.
“That’s not what I’m-”
“That’s exactly what you’re saying,” Kyle laughs breathily, holding his arms out at his sides. “Listen to yourself and tell me where that’s not what you’re trying to say, dude.”
Stan frowns and the vein in his forehead bulges when he clenches his jaw.
“That’s fine, though,” Kyle says, striding over to the cabinet where they keep the iPads provided by corporate. “We don’t have to be friends. I can just be your manager.”
“I don’t want that-”
“No, Stan, I think you’re right,” Kyle says, pulling up his email. He can’t look Stan in the eye while he seals the deal.
“This hasn’t been working for a while,” He says, tapping harshly at the keyboard. “You don’t respect me inside or outside of work. You don’t respect my boundaries and you take advantage of my kindness.”
Stan sniffles and Kyle makes the mistake of looking up from the email he’s drafting.
When he meets Stan’s eyes, he doesn’t feel guilty.
Maybe this is for the best.
“I try to be patient with you because I love you. I understand that you have issues that can make it hard to work and maintain close relationships,” Kyle says, and he realizes he feels more like he’s reading notecards for a presentation than ending his closest friendship.
“Kyle-”
“No, Stan, you’re right,” Kyle smiles the fakest smile he can muster. It’s the same one he uses when he talks to his manager. “You can’t handle this. You can’t handle working with your best friend. You can’t handle finding a new job to preserve our friendship, and I’m not willing to find a different job either.”
Stan crosses his arms over his chest like he’s hugging himself as the first stifled sob escapes.
Kyle’s smile grows wider, more genuine.
“I can’t handle working with my best friend either, Stan. You know why?”
Kyle lets the silence grow thick between them. His bared teeth slice through it when he starts to feel suffocated.
“I can’t handle picking you up in the middle of the night, drunk off your ass, and showing up to work the next day just for you to call out. I can’t handle having to make excuses for why you get to fuck up all the time without getting written up. I can’t handle defending you and putting myself on the line for someone who doesn’t fucking care and wouldn’t do the same for me.”
“I would do-”
“No, Stan, you wouldn’t. The fact that you put me in the position where I have to defend you so often is proof of that.”
Stan whimpers, burying his face into his palms. Kyle just stares at him and finds that he doesn’t care, either.
“Stop fucking crying,” He snaps, murky indifference beginning to bleed into something more. “You asked for this.”
“I didn’t!” Stan protests, tearing his hands from his face. He looks pathetic, eyes bloodshot like they were last night when Kyle had to pick him up from wherever the fuck.
“You did, though,” Kyle snickers bitterly. “I don’t think you realize that you just said you wanted this.”
“When did I say I wanted you to talk to me like I’m a piece of shit?”
“Oh, I’m talking to you like you’re a piece of shit?” Kyle challenges, eyebrows raising and grin spreading impossibly wider.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s not like I knew you had any of these issues. You never talked to me about them.” Stan threads his fingers together, clenching his hands in front of his chest.
A gaggle of girls walks by outside and Kyle thinks to glance at the time.
7:59.
Perfect.
The reality of the situation sinks in as he moves to lock the door to the store.
Stan genuinely doesn’t understand what he’s done wrong. He truly thinks that he’s in the right. He always does.
Kyle sighs as he flips the lightswitch.
“I’m not going to bother explaining anything to you because you’re just going to argue,” Kyle says, strolling back over toward Stan to count down the register. The task gives him a sense of normalcy that makes the conversation feel unsettling. “The truth is that you’ve worn me too fucking thin, dude. There’s nothing else to it.”
“I don’t fucking get it, Kyle. I don’t get what I did to make you feel like this.”
“You’ll never get it, will you?” He snaps, slamming his hands against the register. “Just shut the fuck up. You made me lose my count.”
Stan sucks in a breath, but listens. He starts dragging through other closing tasks, huffing and puffing along the way so that Kyle knows he’s still upset.
It’s funny, Kyle thinks.
It’s funny that his best friend doesn’t know him at all. It’s funny that he doesn’t think he can do anything wrong. It’s funny that in Stan’s mind, it’s Kyle's responsibility to care for him and advocate for himself.
It isn’t, though. Kyle shouldn’t have to take care of him like he does. He shouldn’t really need to stand up for himself either, but Stan gives him a reason to.
Kyle always reaches out because Stan won’t. It’s Kyle's responsibility to start conversations, initiate activities, and swallow any emotion he feels that doesn’t align with Stan’s.
Kyle always asks how Stan is feeling. He always asks if there’s anything he can do to help.
Stan doesn’t check on Kyle.
Stan doesn’t check on anyone but himself, but even then, he won’t do anything about it, so Kyle still has to take care of him.
It’s exhausting.
So the pressure built and built and built and built and built and built and-
“Are you really just done with me?”
Kyle slams the safe shut and spins the lock.
“Yeah,” He answers, pulling his store keys from his pocket.
“We work together and see each other almost everyday, but you’re just done?”
“Yep,” Kyle confirms, not even bothering to look at him while he clocks out. “It was your idea.”
“Oh, grow up-”
“I am grown up,” Kyle says bluntly, finally looking at him for a moment. Stan freezes at eye contact and Kyle brushes by him to arm the store alarm.
“I’m agreeing with you. We can’t handle being friends anymore.”
“That’s not what I meant, Kyle.”
Kyle just shrugs and Stan follows him out of the store. When he locks the door, it becomes real.
“Well, I mean it.”
He turns to face Stan and he pockets his keys.
“I see with my own eyes and you see with yours. You see what’s right for you and I’m starting to see what’s right for me. I make my own decisions and you make yours.”
“So, we’re the same, aren’t we?”
“No, we’re different. You’re different,” Kyle says, shrugging. “I’m different.”
Stan sucks his lips in, tears welling in his eyes again.
“So, we’re just giving this up?”
Kyle’s ears start to ring and he feels a weight form in his throat.
“You gave this up. It was all you.”
He turns on his heel when his head starts to pound.
“Happy?” He calls over his shoulder mockingly.
He knows Stan’s not happy.
He’s not happy either.
He leaves his best friend standing at the door of their job, devastated by the outcome of his own actions for what seems to be the first time based on how hard he cries.
Kyle doesn’t look back. He doesn’t let a single thought cross his mind till he’s in the driver’s seat of his car.
He makes it all the way to his driveway before he crumbles.
His hands slip off the wheel.
He picks at his cuticles until every finger is bloody and throbbing.
His heart is exhausted.
He sobs, wailing until he can’t make any sound. He wishes Stan could see what he put him through.
“Happy?” He’d ask. “Are you fucking happy now?”
His phone buzzes on the passenger seat.
Stan.
He doesn’t even consider answering, but he says what he thinks to his empty car.
“Go fuck yourself.”