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Call him a cheesy high school movie stereotype for falling for the boy next door, but one thing Kyle Broflovski loved more than anything was watching his super best boyfriend on the football field.
Stan was a crowd favorite and a veritable MENACE out there.
A natural team leader, a strategist and a wall of strength. At least, that’s how the town saw him. But Kyle knew his soft side, his deep, complex layers. The way he worried and fretted for his friends and suffered those horrible thoughts in his brain that Kyle couldn’t save him from.
But Stan Marsh was a trooper through and through. He didn’t like to be saved; he liked to DO the saving. But so did Kyle. Whether it be the history homework that “made no sense” or another bout of inexplicable sadness, Kyle was there. Holding his hand. Drying his tears and encouraging him.
One wasn’t complete without the other. They wore each other’s numbers at their respective sports games and were there for every victory and loss.
This was senior year, and tensions were high.
Not just for himself, but for Stan, too.
His partner, notoriously flighty when it came to extracurriculars growing up, had found his calling in football. Recently he’d confirmed that the childhood dream of playing professionally had been rekindled. “I’m good at it, Ky.” And that he was. “I think I should really start trying.”
He was SCARILY good at it, actually. But Kyle knew his boyfriend. His deep seated insecurities would have him giving his all at ANYTHING he had a natural talent for, regardless of if he liked it or not. Luckily Stan liked playing quarterback. He honestly had a good shot at getting scouted by some pro teams this year.
Senior fucking year.
Personally, Kyle was taking his last school year in South Park with a grain of salt and a regurgitation of nervous stomach acid.
Medical school was the ideal, even if it took more than the standard four years of college. Specifically general care. He’d always been the one to patch Kenny up when he got hurt growing up, the one who knew exactly what a sick and always (habitually) dehydrated Stan needed to feel better. He was the one who put his people back together. Any possible thing he could do, he’d do it.
That meant perfect grades and even more perfect recommendations in order to get into a decent program.
Only the first week of October, and he was overwhelmed. Part of Kyle wanted to maybe drop one of his clubs or something to lighten the load. Hell, maybe he’d even quit basketball. It wasn’t like he was planning on playing in college, and he’d be delusional if he expected a scholarship for it. He fell from grace and his reputation as “the free throw king”, and his “mad white boy hops” were no longer keeping him afloat on the court among the taller players.
Those ‘hops’ were more like *flops* when you couldn’t even jump higher than the average human anymore.
But he’d stopped feeling sorry for himself a while back. Tons of people had knee problems and still played basketball. He would always love the sport, even if he wasn’t as good at it as he used to be.
The crowd exploded with cheers as David kicked a FLAWLESS field goal. Kyle grinned. Scouts would be watching him too, as the season continued, both here and on the soccer field. It was wild to him how so many of the people he grew up with had become so well rounded and, well, kind of jocks. Hell, even CARTMAN had spent a stint on the football team and thoroughly enjoyed plowing through people, before he got bored, claimed to be “sick of Stan’s gayass locker room speeches” and switched his full attention to band.
Speaking of his childhood tormentor, ‘Senior Drum Major Eric Cartman’ was leaving the stands to line up his band on the track, followed by the school’s small dance team. How that high and mighty weasel had manipulated his way into a leadership position, Kyle would never know. Kenny’s theory was that Liane was having an affair with the assistant director.
The buzzer sounded, and the announcer (unfortunately Mr. Mackey tonight) called “That’s Halftime, mmkay?”
As he always did when halftime came around, one Stan Marsh pulled off his helmet and found Kyle in the stands. He waved enthusiastically and *blew a kiss* because he was fucking lame like that. Kyle’s heart thudded as he mimed catching that kiss and waved back. Stan was beaming when he and the team ran off to the field house.
Having ZERO desire to watch Cartman in the halftime show, he joined the myriad of fans (mostly parents, c’mon, this is South Park) in the herd to the concession stand. The second game of the year had everyone buzzing, talking about how “we’re lookin’ at a real good chance of going to State” and “Jesus, the THROWING ARM on that boy”. Kyle loved hearing that last one, every time, even if he’d prefer to be *held* in his boyfriend’s arms at that moment.
The student council ran the “snack shak”, and Kyle had yet to be on duty during a game. Apparently “cheerleaders, band, players, and people in love with the team captain” were exempt from serving microwaved hot dogs and overpriced candy to high school football enthusiasts. Karen smiled when he approached the counter.
“Hi Kyle!” His friend’s younger sister always looked happy to see any of Kenny’s group.
“Hey, dude. Big crowd tonight. you guys need any help in there?”
She shrugged. “It’ll die down after halftime, anyway. What can I getcha?”
Kyle Broflovski was a creature of habit. “Nachos, a pickle pop, and cherry coke, madam.”
Karen laughed, quickly producing his order, plus a water bottle. “Will you give that to Kenny? He forgets.”
“Dude, trust me, I know. He’s gonna call me “mom”, by the way.”
“Does that make Stan his “dad”? Or are you guys both motherly figures to him?”
Kyle grinned around his straw. “Little of both, I think. Have fun, Karen.”
He glanced at the clock on his way to the bleachers. No doubt Stan would be hyping up his team in the locker room right now, all sweaty and the epitome of handsome boy who should definitely (and wouldn’t be) hydrating instead of riding his adrenaline high and blasting ‘Through The Fire And The Flames’ to keep everyone in ass kicking mode.
Marj spotted him first when he leaned over the rail, looking up from her conversation with Kenny and smiling, cute as a button in her cheer uniform. She still wore the boy’s version due to her parents insisting that she was a man, which pissed Kyle off to no end, but Marjorine Stotch was resilient. Only a few months, and she’d be out of that house and free to live as herself.
“Hiya, Kyle! It sure is getting cold tonight.”
Kenny had taken off the head of the mascot suit, which wasn’t technically allowed, but the guy was inclined to not give a shit. “Personally, I need it to start getting colder. Fuckin’, I’m baking in the stank ass cow suit.”
Kyle laughed, because that’s what Stan called it too. He handed his friend the water.
“Your sister told me to remind you that liquids besides Mountain Dew exist.”
“Thanks mommy.” Predictable. “Gimme some of those nachos too. I must feed.”
“Dear God.” Kyle passed him a few chips anyway, mildly disgusted at the sensation of plastic cheese on his fingers. “Cheer squad’s looking good out here, guys.”
“Thanks!” Marj patted her boyfriend on the chest. “This fella is STILL insisting on convincing Bebe to let him add boobs to the cow suit, but, well, that’d be ridiculous!”
Kenny shrugged. “Most things are improved by big ol’ plastic titties.”
“Please don’t start with the “Pisswasser” song again.”
“C’mon, Ky.” He smirked. “That’s my ANTHEM.”
And he had forced their whole group to listen to that stupid ear worm GTA song the entire summer. Unfortunately, all of them could quote it word for word now, often dramatically blurting out the “FUCK THE DUTCH” line at random intervals, which offended Clyde the first time he heard that.
“Yeah, yeah. How was Fatass’s performance, dare I ask.”
“He stood on the sideline blowing his whistle the whole time, naturally. Dude, if I was drum major, I’d totally do all the flips ‘n shit like the pros.”
Kyle wrapped Stan’s varsity jacket tighter around himself as a breeze passed through. “Knowing you, that wouldn’t end well.”
Kenny chuckled. “That’s fair. Awww. You’re cute as all hell wearing Stan’s clothes, Firefox.”
“Don’t call me Firefox.” Kyle rolled his eyes, watching the opposing team’s band finishing up. “Jesus, we still have hours of this shit.” Football culture did not particularly interest him; he came to every game solely for Stan.
“What, are you impatient to get a post game dickdown sesh to ‘Mr Brightside’?” Kenny teased.
Kyle spluttered at that while Marj scolded the mascot for being gross. He’d have to kill Stan later for telling Kenny about the fact that fucking ‘Mr Brightside’ had been playing during their first time. Objectively, it was funny, but definitely not something that the general public (or the ever-eager to make innuendos Kenny) needed to know about.
“Gross, dude! I don’t get “dicked down”!
“Y’all switch? I figured you for a power bottom with a praise kink.”
Thank GOD the buzzer sounded, because he was far from eager to discuss things that were PRIVATE. “You’re disgusting, Kenny. Go get in your fucking cannon.”
Kenny grinned and put the costume head back on, jogging over to where he would be shot across the field into a crash pad to kick off the second half.
Kyle grumbled on his way back to his seat. Ordinarily he would have told his friend to be safe, that getting shot out of a cannon like some depraved circus act was stupid, but he was annoyed, damnit. He sat down with a huff as the band announced the return of the team with the fight song.
Sharon put an arm around him. “What’s wrong, sweetie?”
He’d ridden with her to the game, since he was spending the night at the Marsh’s house anyway. Randy was nowhere to be found, probably high as a kite back at his stupid farm or passed out in a ditch somewhere, but Stan’s mom and boyfriend would NEVER miss a chance to see him play.
“Just Kenny being vulgar.”
She shook her head. “That boy. I love him to death and I love how sweet he is, but he really doesn’t speak appropriately sometimes.”
“Tell me about it.” But Kyle grinned when he spotted Stan lining up at the 50. The other team had some concerningly huge defensive linemen, but Stan was fast and agile. Plus the South Park team was good at protecting their quarterback; Kyle only worried about a bad tackle a little bit.
They were still OWNING this game, scoring again only minutes into third quarter. Victory pizza and video games (and, yes McWhoremick, some awkward teenage action) would be in order.
Another play was set up. Kyle heard Stan’s voice calling to his teammates. The ball flew into his hands as helmets crashed together, and he backed up, preparing to throw.
Then one of the players broke through the line, taking him down.
Stan wasn’t getting up. Fuck, why wasn’t he getting up? The referee blew the whistle and the athletic trainers ran out while the football teams took a knee. Sharon gasped. Kyle sprang up.
He prayed hard on his way down the steps. Contact sports came with the danger of head injuries, of which Stan had sustained a few over the years. He really hoped this wasn’t another concussion.
Kyle hopped the railing clumsily and dropped to the track, not even factoring the risk of himself getting hurt too. He had to get to Stan, had to make sure he was okay.
“Broflovski, get off the field!”
He ignored the coach and the fact that he wasn’t supposed to be on the turf. Everyone in this town knew what Stan meant to him. Where he went, Kyle followed. ESPECIALLY if he went down.
Kyle’s stomach dropped at his super best boyfriend immobile on the ground, sobbing openly and holding his arm, gasping as he fought to breathe through the tears.
His right forearm was bent unnaturally halfway down from the elbow. Clearly snapped completely in half.
“Holy shit, dude!” Kyle fell next to him, wanting to hold him, to comfort him, but knowing it would hurt. “Stan, sweetheart, it’s okay, you’re gonna be fine. I’m right here, babe. I’m right here.”
“…K-Kyle.” Stan choked it out, and Kyle almost wanted to kill that linebacker who’d hurt him.
The paramedics had arrived. “Kid, you’re going to need to give him some space.” He reluctantly did, so they could load Stan onto the stretcher.
“He- has to c-come w-with me.”
So while his heart broke for his injured partner, Kyle held his good hand in the back of that ambulance all the way to Hell’s Pass.
———
He couldn’t sit still in the waiting room, instead pacing frantically while Sharon filled out her son’s paperwork. She’d met them at the hospital and had given up on trying to calm Kyle down. Part of him felt guilty that she was going to have to deal with two very upset seventeen year olds, but the rest of him just HATED that Stan was back there in a room BY HIMSELF, probably still crying.
Kyle didn’t know if the tears were because of the pain, frustration, fear, or all three. Stan’s reactions when he got hurt ranged over a spectrum.
He would laugh it off.
Or he would panic.
Or he would try to downplay it if Kyle was upset by it.
Or, if it was really, really bad, it would send him into a full downward spiral.
That last one was by far the worst, and Kyle could see it looming over the horizon.
At long last, Stan emerged from the back room, sporting red rimmed eyes, a vacant expression, and a cast covered with cartoon faces.
None of the guys had broken a bone in a hot minute, not even Kenny, so it was news to him that you could apparently get Yoshi to adorn your broken arm now.
“Stan, sweetheart, oh my God.” Kyle pulled him gently into a hug. “I’m so sorry dude, I’m so fucking sorry.”
“This is the worst thing to ever happen in the history of the world.” He mumbled against Kyle’s hair. Shit, he was REALLY upset. “They didn’t have Waluigi.”
Kyle drew back with a laugh. “My love, you used to have nightmares about him. Trust me, this is better.”
Sharon patted her son’s back, looking relieved that there weren’t any more tears. “It’ll be fine, Stanley. I have to talk to the doctor real quick, and then we can go home. Your bag is in the car.” She passed Kyle the keys, who led his boyfriend out the sliding doors.
They both went for the backseat. “Does it hurt a lot?”
Stan shook his head, which he’d planted in Kyle’s lap. “They gave me the good drugs. I’m just… I’m really pissed, Ky.”
He could only imagine. If Stan needed to vent, he’d be there.
“I’ll be out most of the season. It’s totally snapped, dude. One place, but they had to re set it and EVERYTHING. I’m in a cast for six fucking weeks. That leaves one regular season game before playoffs if I can even bounce back by then! And I can kiss the fucking Broncos goodbye, because there’s no way in hell I’ll get drafted straight out of high school now.”
“Oh, dude.” Stan would hopefully stop worrying about the football thing after he was home and out of his uniform, at least for a while. “Don’t think about it right now, okay? Here.” He reached into Stan’s duffel bag and pulled out his phone. “Just relax and listen to some music. It’s okay.”
The clumsy way he opened up Spotify and scrolled through his endless playlists one handed made Kyle’s chest ache. Even more when he chose the one he’d named ‘life sucks and then you die’. Shit, poor Stan. He was taking this extremely hard.
The interior lights flipped on when Sharon got behind the wheel, smiling softly at the two boys. “Everyone situated?”
She didn’t comment on the lack of seatbelt usage, thank God. Stan took out one earbud and murmured, “Momma? Can Kyle still spend the night?”
“Of course.”
Kyle relaxed a little. Stan needed him now.
———
Helping him change was no easy feat, but Kyle managed even with whatever painkillers Stan was on kicking in more by the second. He seemed to go from lethargic and sluggish to angry and panicked at the drop of a hat.
Kyle was glad Sharon had let them shut the door for once, because seeing her son like this would break her heart. Hell, it was breaking Kyle’s.
Stan dropped to the bed, and Kyle knelt down in front of him. “You need anything? Something to drink?”
Something flashed in his boyfriend’s eyes, prompting him to reach out to the nightstand, open the drawer, and pull out-
“Ohhhh no. You are not going to drink about this, Staniel.”
“What the fuck else am I supposed to do? I’m upset! That’s what I do when I’m upset!”
It had actually been a while since he’d seen Stan binge drink. Kyle was not about to let that happen now. He grabbed the vodka from him and placed it on the far side of the room.
“There’s another thing you can do when you’re upset.” He said softly while joining him on the bed. “You can talk to me about it.”
Stan was silent for a heavy moment before he sighed, glaring down at his arm.
“I can’t do anything I like until this thing comes off. Can’t play guitar, football, carry you around if you get sick in the next six weeks…”
Kyle huffed out a laugh. “Please. I hate when you carry me like a damsel in distress.” He loved it, truth be told, Stan holding him in his arms when his blood sugar was low or his knee was hurting.
“I happen to believe that you enjoy it.” Ah, there was that smile. “In fact, I’m willing to bet that you pretended to fall asleep in my truck that one time JUST so I would take you to bed.”
That was a truth Kyle would take to his grave.
“I’ll take you up on that bet.” He kissed Stan softly. “I’m really sorry you got hurt.”
“Me too, baby.” Stan groaned, back on the frustration. “I’m gonna have to quit football.”
“Hey, hey, no you’re not! Stan, listen, it’s just a little while casted up, some rehab, and you’ll be back to normal in no time. You LOVE playing football.”
“And you love playing basketball, but look where that got you. And now both our sports fucked us over for life.”
That was… that actually stung a little. Low blow, honestly. This wasn’t about him, though. This was about Stan.
“You are NOT fucked over for life.” Kyle insisted. “Don’t speak that over yourself.”
Stan didn’t snap at Kyle very often, but he did now.
“Fucking THINK about it! I miss most of the season, DON’T get seen by the scouts, and even if I DO go back, coach isn’t going to let me start because I was out for so long! Don’t you GET my reasoning here? I’m not you, Kyle! My backup plans don’t have backup plans! I never HAD a backup plan in the first place! I wasn’t even gonna go to college! The whole idea was to go pro straight out of high school, but of course I harbor grandiose ideas and now THE ONLY PLAN I FUCKING HAD is destroyed! I wanted to be a rookie football legend, I-“ his voice broke. “I wanted to support you through medical school.”
Unfortunately, Stan made his point. He might actually need a backup. But if Stan was serious about quitting, Kyle would give up HIS sport too. It wasn’t like he hadn’t thought about it already.
“Dude, hey.” Kyle took Stan’s good hand, tracing the knuckles with his thumb. “There’s still time. If you really need a backup plan, I’ll help you figure one out, okay?”
Tears were falling again. “What would I even do, baby? That was my whole life.”
It wasn’t. Stan was multifaceted. He had gone through a lot of different life goals. He just needed to fix his eyes on a different one.
“What about animal conservation, or something in that area? Remember how you used to want to run a wildlife rehab?” Stan was an AVID animal lover, held every dog (no matter how big) like a baby, had been vegetarian since he was eight, and did all his volunteer hours at the local shelter.
“Do you have to go to school for that? My grades are passable at best, Ky. I’ll never get an academic scholarship like you will, and then I’ll have to worry about paying for a zoology degree or whatever.”
“We’ll get by.” Kyle promised. They were a team; they lifted each other up. “We can look into grants, get part time jobs, all that.”
“See?” Stan gave the barest hint of a tired smile. “You already have a course of action.” He looked at Kyle with those puppy dog eyes of his. “Baby, I’m so sorry for yelling. You know I hate when I hurt your feelings, and I was being a colossal dick.”
“Maybe, but you’re MY colossal dick.”
Stan grinned mischievously. Damnit.
“Don’t.” Kyle warned. “If you say something REMOTELY Kenny-esque I won’t kiss you for a week.” Like he could hold out that long.
“Fine.” Stan chuckled. “I really am sorry, though. I’m just upset. And probably high.”
Kyle laughed because Stan was definitely riding the painkiller wave. “I’m not mad, sweetheart. Will it make you feel better if I sign your cast?”
Stan nodded rapidly and Kyle made a beeline for the desk, procuring a marker and gently taking his boyfriend’s injured arm into his lap.
“Please don’t draw a dick.”
“I won’t draw a dick. Kenny will when you see him tomorrow, though.” Their blond friend had sent Kyle a text saying that exact thing, promising to do his sacred duty of phallicizing any surface available. He’d also been working on an oil painting of Stan in action on the field for his eighteenth birthday just around the corner. Kyle hoped he wouldn’t scrap that now, because it was coming along incredibly well. Yeah, Kenny was a man of many talents, dick drawing included.
Kyle wrote his message between the Yoshis in careful handwriting, signing his name with a heart. “Done.”
Stan’s face stretched into a grin when he read it.
“To my beloved knight who was wounded in battle: Strong May You Stay.” He was probably about to cry again, but not out of anything but happiness. “Dude.”
“You like?”
“I LOVE.”
The cast was hard against his back while Stan hugged him, squeezing tight. Kyle had considered going with a Toolshed joke, but their ‘Stick of Truth’ game from growing up was more special to them. Because they’d been on the same side. Strong May You Stay was what Kyle as the king of the drow elves would say to his dearest companion before each ‘battle’ the kids ‘fought’, and it only seemed fitting now.
He gave him a soft kiss on the forehead. “Gonna be okay?”
“I actually think I will be.” Stan whispered. “Thanks to you.”
Kyle gently pulled him under the covers, still not letting go. Stan didn’t let go either.
“You always have me on your team, Stan. No matter what game you play.”