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They're his teammates, but as he watches them converse quietly up front, Token driving and Wendy in the passenger seat, Kyle realizes the irony in the fact he feels like they're more his rivals than the opposing team - this time, a Catholic school from Colorado Springs. He cares more about hitting the buzzer before they can during rounds one and three than he does about actually winning Matchwits. So far, he hasn't answered any questions incorrectly, and Wendy has once, two weeks ago. She had brushed Token's hand out of the way and slammed the button, shouting "Constantine!" Had the phrase "in the Middle Ages" not been enough of a tip off? Was she an idiot, confusing Charlemagne with Constantine? Kyle really had tried to conceal it, but Wendy knew he was ecstatic that she made a fool of herself on Rocky Mountain PBS, if the stink eyes she gave him over the next few days were any indication. Secretly, he thinks it's possible he even wants to lose, because if they win, South Park High School will be the first school with a girl captain to win Matchwits. She'll be so repulsively smug about it, making some superficial comment about how she couldn't have done it without the help of her teammates. Had the position come down to a vote, he knew Token would certainly have chosen Wendy over him because they're dating and he idolizes her, so Kyle begrudgingly accepted the inevitable and pretended he didn't care who the team captain was.
The three hour drive to Pueblo always really blows. He has a couple of audiobooks downloaded, even though he always ends up watching the mountain tops drift past his window while he listens to the Rolling Stones. Honestly, he doesn't really care for the rough vocals and guitar solos, but Stan recently copied a playlist of his favorites of their songs to his iPhone. He's sure it's not the case, but Kyle likes to think that Stan picked some of these songs specifically for him, since it's at least true there's a place for him between Stan's sheets. Thinking of weekend sleepovers in Stan's warm bed makes Kyle want to nap, even though he's just bored, not tired, but the last time he fell asleep he woke up with Token in his face saying they were in Cañon City, which was sort of embarrassing in a way he couldn't pinpoint.
Two hours of rock and roll later, they're in Cañon City again, where they've made a habit of stopping for a late lunch at McDonald's. Token is always really excited for this, since, he claims, he had never been to McDonald's before the time they stopped here on the way to their first Matchwits game last month. Wendy thought this was cute, and Token bought a Happy Meal (two, actually) by her recommendation that he should experience a taste of "the Americana childhood," which was so fucking dumb that Kyle couldn't hold back a snicker. But Wendy just laughed too, probably interpreting it as shared amusement that Token had never eaten a hamburger that cost less than twelve dollars.
Even though Kyle didn't sleep in the car, the Cañon City McDonald's fluorescent lights make him feel groggy. In addition to a chicken sandwich, he orders an iced coffee to try to perk up and get into game mode. The only thing that's really said at lunch is Token's incredulous trademark observation: "I just can't get over how something so inexpensive can taste so good." Before they leave, Wendy orders a hot coffee, which she adds a half of a packet of Equal to. Stan used to complain that Wendy thought she was such an adult, and Kyle has learned how true this is, what with her coffee habits, pastel cardigans, and neat buns. It doesn't help that Token and Wendy are in the front, like they're his parents and he's the baby in the backseat. Even if he is the youngest, he remembers sourly.
Fifteen minutes away from the TV studio is when Wendy starts getting amped, which is always freaky.
"Are you ready to beat the living shit out of these guys?" she exclaims, turning her neck to get an affirmation from Kyle.
"Of course," he responds evenly, though over the span of the past three hours he's become more and more averse to making this trip again next weekend.
"Did you call Stan to remind him to watch?" she asks, tilting her head back, but not enough to look at him.
"What? Uh, no not yet." What Kyle wants to know is how Wendy found out that he calls Stan to remind him to watch the show, though not until three thirty. He thought the dumpster behind the building was private enough, but evidently, Wendy is a snoop, or an eavesdropper or something. Part of what makes the forthcoming competition so juicy is how much she irritates him when she's all revved up like this. What a nosy bitch! And now she's basically shouting impromptu cheers. Why did she ever quit the cheerleading squad? Token is really into it though, commenting it should be another easy win. It's like baseball all over again, matching uniforms included. Also, was it normal for a person to be this affected by caffeine alone? Kyle tosses his ice-filled cup out the window, and Wendy is shockingly quiet until they arrive, when she gets out of the car and makes sure Kyle sees her toss her own empty coffee cup in the trash bin.
Before they meet the other team at twenty to four and get ready to air, they hang out in the studio's break room where Kyle and Token scroll through random sites on their laptops and Wendy primps in front of the mirror, tugging her hair out of the bun and pulling it up again half a dozen times until she settles on the bun. Their advisor, who's also their AP Bio teacher, a friendly guy in his fifties named Mr. Lindbergh, typically shows up at three thirty. Kyle uses his arrival as an opportunity to make what he thought was a sleek, inconspicuous exit while Wendy and Token brief Mr. Lindbergh on how they think this week's match is going to go.
"I have to make a quick phone call," Kyle says emphatically to no one, then looks at Wendy to let her know, yes, he is calling Stan, and no, she better not say anything because it's not cute, so shut up. Wendy raises her eyebrows with interest, like she thinks Kyle is playing a game that she doesn't understand the rules to. She goes back to rambling excitedly to Mr. Lindbergh and Token, and as Kyle hurries down the bright tile hallway out the back exit, he can hear them laughing, Wendy's voice embarrassingly loud. The second the door bangs closed behind him, he realizes he left his coat thrown over back of his chair in the break room. But he's certainly not going back to get it, so he bears the seventeen degrees, which is really like fourteen degrees with wind chill. He crouches down, back to the rough brick, and whips out his phone. Seven rings, eight rings, You have reached the voicemail box of – Hi, this is Stan Marsh, I'm not here right now, so please leave a message! – At the tone, please leave your message. It's odd for Stan not to pick up this three thirty phone call, but before he allows himself to get irrationally upset, Kyle calls again, and before it even starts to ring, he gets the call waiting signal, and thankfully, it's Stan.
"Hey. Sorry, I was…helping my mom with something," he says, sounding a little out of breath.
"Oh. Well, I'm just killing time before we go on, as usual," Kyle lets out, flicking a rock over the wet concrete with his fingertip.
"Think you're gonna win again?"
"Ugh, probably. I'm so sick of spending my Saturdays out here, with these guys. Wendy's like, fucking crazy about this shit," Kyle complains, lowering his voice and looking over his shoulder for any potential spies.
"Huh." Stan never seems convinced of Wendy's extreme pregame behavior, which is funny, because it's only a few notches above how intense he has definitely seen her get in the past. He shouldn't have brought Wendy up at all. It's been seven hours since he's talked to Stan, and he just needs to be reassured again that it won't be so bad being hatless on live TV.
"Well, you know I'm gonna be watching. Do you still have your hat on?" Stan asks. Sometimes when Kyle is hours away from South Park like he is right now, Stan's voice takes on a sort of fatherly tone. He knows his mom employed Stan to convince him to ditch the hat for the show, it's against the rules anyway, and for once in his life he was more touched than aggravated by his mother's meddling.
"Yes." He wanted to sound irritated, at least jokingly so, but it just comes out sort of pathetically, because it is pretty pathetic to feel so exposed just by having your hair show.
"Take it off?" Kyle does, and groans when the cold air blasts over his head. He knows Stan's smiling.
"Better go back now," he says, getting up and brushing himself off with his hat.
"Go get 'em."
Back inside, he can hear Wendy again, who's explaining to someone how the three hour drive from South Park is so worth competing in Matchwits. Kyle peeks into the break room to see her and Token along with the three boys from the opposing school. They look slightly intimidated.
"Oh!" she exclaims, motioning him into the room. "And this is Kyle Broflovski! Kyle, this is Paul, Jack, and Chris from St. Vincent's High School."
"Hey." He offers a small wave. They're all wearing suits, which is such a joke. Suits are definitely dorkier than the matching red polo's embroidered with the letters SPHS that Token, Kyle and Wendy are wearing, just in a different way. A douchier way. One of the cameramen creeps into the room then, saying they need to make their way to the actual studio now to get set up. Wendy skips ahead of everyone, humming.
During the first couple questions of the round one, Kyle is still distracted by lingering anxiety over his naked head, but once Wendy beats him to a question, he's able to fixate his mind on the game. Kyle beats both Wendy and Token to the buzzer for the next question, which is disappointingly easy, so of course he correctly answers, "the koala." They're crushing these poor private school kids, who are all looking at them suspiciously, like they think they're cheating or something, even though they did manage to claim two points for themselves.
Before he asks the tenth question, the host, a guy in his forties with brilliantly white teeth, says "This match is really heating up!" Kyle notices Wendy's hand is shaking above the table, ready as ever to pounce for the button.
"What gas will evolve when dilute sulfuric acid is added to zinc?" the host asks. Anytime Kyle hears chemistry keywords, he knows he's got the question in the bag, so he slaps the buzzer just as Token's hand begins approaching it.
"Hydrogen gas," Kyle states, leaning forward.
"That is," he pauses dramatically, "correct! Looks like South Park High School wins the first round with eight points! Now we're going to take a short break, but stay with us, because the speed round is coming up next!" The electric scoreboard is updated behind the host's podium, and he collapses on top of it after the smack of the time code clapper echoes.
"Two minute break guys. Two minutes," he emphasizes blearily.
"I'm getting a drink." Wendy scurries off set into the hall.
Kyle doesn't want to make small talk with Token, so he turns to look at the clock behind the cameras, wishing it was quarter after already so they could get a start on round two and get to round three, where he'll have his chance to tally more questions than Wendy. Just then, she returns looking frazzled.
"Are you guys hot in here?" she asks, reclaiming her spot between them at their stand and fanning herself.
"Nope," Token says.
"Kyle? Are you?"
"Not really." It's comfortable on the set, though his head is a little cold because he's hatless. In Stan's voice, he reminds himself not to think about it.
"Aaaand, action!" Then, the snap of the clapper again.
"Welcome back to Matchwits, folks! For those of you just joining us, we're here today with South Park High School, who's facing up against St. Vincent's High School. With a score of eight points, South Park is in the lead!" Even though Kyle's anxious to get to round three, round two provides a relaxing break from the fervent buzzer slamming, since they confer as a team before offering their answer. The screen adjacent to the scoreboard flashes a cheesy, colorful animation with the text "Round Two" bouncing around. These questions are harder, and the other team beats them to the first three. Kyle's pleased another chemistry one crops up that neither Token nor Wendy are sure of, earning South Park the first point in the second round, which brings their score up to a nine, but St. Vincent's scores the next point, inching closer with a score of six. Wendy gets panicky when the scores get close, not that she hasn't been a wreck since the game started. Before the last question of the round, the score is a devastatingly ten to nine, but South Park is still in the lead.
"In what way did Brazil achieve independence that was different from other Latin American countries? You have a maximum of thirty seconds to converse with your teammates." The question appears on the monitor, and the South Park High School Matchwits Team huddles together.
"I have no clue," Token admits first. Wendy jerks her head to the left, her face almost theatrical with how desperate she looks.
"I…I don't remember," Kyle confesses, though he is pretty sure he never knew anything about Brazil's independence.
"Fuck!" Wendy whispers, barely moving her lips. Kyle and Wendy both stare at Token now, who's clearly thinking hard, hopefully dragging fragments of his knowledge of Latin America from the back of his brain. If not, Token is still their best bullshitter when they're screwed like this.
"I don't even know enough about Brazil to think of a good crapshoot." Wendy sucks in a breath through her nostrils, gaping at her boyfriend like she can't believe this shit. Kyle's about to ask which one of them fucking pressed the buzzer when he processes it's not theirs bzzzzz-ing, it's the other team's.
"Unlike most Latin American colonies, which endured bloody revolutions to obtain freedom, Brazil faced little resistance from Portugal in gaining its independence, although the republic's new constitution deposited the King of Portugal's son, Pedro I, as president of the country," the tallest boy explains, folding his hands and straightening himself up in a way that makes Kyle want to roll his eyes. Instead, he tosses a quick glance at the lens, hoping Stan catches it.
"And that's the end of round two! In an exciting turn of events, looks like South Park and St. Vincent's are tied! Let's get started on round three and see how this game ends!" the host blares enthusiastically. Wendy is red-faced, her hands gripping the sides of their table, wide eyes staring at the scoreboard viciously. She's the only participant visibly engaged. The third round is exactly like the first round, which means Kyle still has a chance to one up her in number of questions answered.
"First question is a geography one: In which city would you find the River Thames?" Kyle shoots his hand over the buzzer and is half a second away from actually hitting it when Wendy's hand crashes on top of his. He struggles to free his ambushed hand by pulling his arm out, but it's trapped under Wendy's palm. The BZZZZ fills the room agonizingly now, and Kyle complements it by screaming when the first blast of pain shoots up his arm. Wendy jumps, finally freeing him.
"What the fuck, Wendy!" Kyle shouts at her stunned face.
"Stop rolling!" the host barks to the people behind the cameras.
"I think you broke my fucking hand!" Wendy's gaping at him confoundedly, her mouth open like she's about to say something, but she's speechless. Kyle crouches behind their stand, gently cradling his numbing hand with the other, grunting Fuck! continuously. The unbearable throbbing is up there on the list of worst pain he's ever felt. Mr. Lindbergh appears, asking what's wrong. Was he not watching?
"I-I hit Kyle's hand when he went to answer the question. Oh god," Wendy moans.
"Do you think it's broken? Should we call an ambulance?" Mr. Lindbergh asks slowly, kneeling down and putting a hand on Kyle's shoulder.
"Yes, it's fucking broken!" Kyle bleats, the pain settling in now, making him feel less angry and more defeated.
"Okay, okay, I'll call 911."
Mr. Lindbergh guides Kyle to the break room, where he makes the emergency call and Wendy is waiting with a pack of ice. He ignores her and reaches to snatch his ushanka from the table with his injured hand, but drops it, then curses loudly when another wave of agony gushes over it. With his left hand, the good one, he picks it up before Wendy can and awkwardly smooshes it over his hair, then accepts the ice, glowering at her.
"Your phone rang," she mutters, eyes shifting to his backpack. Kyle retrieves his phone from the front pocket and sees three missed calls in the past few minutes, two from Stan and one from his mom. He calls Stan back.
Stan picks up on the first ring. "Kyle! Jesus! Are you ok?"
"No. Wendy broke my fucking hand," he growls. She's crying now, of course, with Token suddenly in the room and at her side, like she's the one with a broken hand.
"Are you okay?"
"No, ah, fuuuck," Kyle says, touching the ice pack to the back of his hand, which is terrifyingly starting to feel numb. "There's an ambulance coming." The pain is at least distracting him from thinking about the embarrassment factor of getting his dainty bird bones crushed by a girl and screaming at her on live television. Shit, will this be in the news?
"What, you're going to the hospital? Fuck, do you want me to come? I can come, dude. I won't get there till like – ugh, seven, seven thirty?"
"No – don't. Don't, Stan. My mom can come get me. I mean, if it takes a long time. Shit, it's gonna take a long time, isn't it?" Kyle's eyes have been dry up until now, but thinking about spending all night in the emergency room of some strange hospital in Pueblo makes him want to sob. He should just give in, but if he makes Stan drive all the way here, he's going to feel like such an idiot baby. He wipes away an idiot baby tear from his eye before it spills onto his cheek.
"I'll come so your mom doesn't have to. Just try to text me at some point with the name of the hospital, okay?"
"Okay."
"Leaving now."
"Okay," Kyle says again. He's glad Stan knows how he thinks, knew that if he phrased it like he was just doing Kyle's mom a favor, Kyle wouldn't have to feel guilty about the long trip, the cost of gas, the simple aggravation of three hours' worth of driving. He sits down and tries the ice again.
"Kyle?" Wendy implores quietly. He pretends not to hear her and stares out the window for any signs of the ambulance, prodding at his hand delicately with the icepack. "I'm so sorry, Kyle. I am so, so sorry for what I did to your hand."
"Fine," he says, wanting her to go away.
"Mr. Lindbergh is going to go with you to the ER, so me and Token and probably going to head home. Is that okay?"
"Yes," Kyle hisses, still not looking at her.
The ambulance sucks, talking to the EMT sucks, running through his medical history to the nurse when he signs in sucks, and of course, the waiting room sucks a whole fucking lot. However, the sandwich from the hospital cafeteria is surprisingly not that bad.
"You can go home, you know. My friend is going to be here soon," Kyle offers again to Mr. Lindbergh, who's sitting across from him, his face buried in a newspaper.
"It's fine, Kyle," he says, peering over the edge of the paper. It's not that Kyle feels guilty, like he's making his biology teacher keep him company, he just doesn't really want to be around him anymore. It's quarter to seven now, and he still hasn't seen a doctor. Over the past two hours, his hand has swelled into something grotesque and violet, which revolts him every time he looks at it. There's also a sort of fucked up looking bump at the back of his wrist, and he really hopes that it's just swelling too. It still hurts a lot, but a nurse did give him two Ibuprofens, so he isn't rocking back and forth on the verge of tears like he was at the studio.
"Kyle Bro…flawzki?" a woman in a white lab coat who appears from the double doors asks into the waiting room, looking up from her papers for the owner of the name she just butchered. He picks up his backpack with his left hand and follows her into the bright hallway behind the doors, thankful she doesn't ask if she can carry it for him. She leads him past the occupied exam rooms, her sloppy up-do of dirty blond hair bobbing around as she meanders past the medical equipment bombarding the hall.
"Sorry this is taking so long. Admittedly, there wasn't a radiologist on call when you came in, but I'm here now. My name is Dr. Sewell. Before you see a doctor, we're going to have to get an X-ray of your hand. Can you tell me what happened?" she asks politely, opening the door for him into a dark room with giant machinery.
"My friend accidentally hit my hand." He's been abridging the story more every time he has to repeat it. The X-ray is at least sort of interesting, and while he rests his deformed monster hand flat on the table in the dim room, which is quiet besides the ominous humming of the X-ray machine, he realizes how exhausted he is, how badly he wishes he weren't so far away from home.
"Okay, that's all I need from you. You can head back to the waiting room and we'll call you again after I take a look at these," Dr. Sewell says, returning from behind the window and dragging the lead apron off his lap.
When Kyle goes back to the waiting room and sees Stan hunched over in a chair, he's so intensely relieved he wants to drop himself into his lap.
"Kyle," Stan says, about to hoist himself up, but Kyle's already about to sit down next to him. He presents Stan his enormous purple freak hand, which makes his eyes bug out.
"Jesus. Does it still hurt?" he murmurs, lowering his head to get a closer look.
"Well, I'm not screaming anymore, but yeah it still really hurts. One of the nurses said she'd have the doctor write me a script for codeine if I still feel like I need it by the time I see him. I just got the X-rays done, and I've been here for like four hours."
"Oh… Hey, your mom said she doesn't want me driving back again tonight, so she had your dad book us a hotel room. She packed you a bag too, so that's why I was a little late," Stan explains, sounding worn himself. Somehow, it's already quarter after eight. Kyle wishes he could just take the codeine and leave, but he's thinking he's probably going to have to get a cast, which will take God knows how long. Staying in a hotel in Pueblo sounds pretty shit too, even though he has no doubts his dad booked a room in a nice one. He just wants to go home.
"No, it's fine. I'm just glad you're here. So, thanks. Thank you." The noisy, overly-bright emergency room and the throbbing in his hand are a lot more bearable now that Stan's here, but the fact that he's too self-conscious to so much as rest his head on Stan's shoulder is intolerable on a different level.
"Come back with me when they call me, please," Kyle utters quietly fifteen minutes later, leaning on the arm of his chair opposite Stan, holding his head up with his good hand.
"Sure, but uh, don't you think they'll think it's weird? Me in the room?"
"At this point, I don't really give a shit." Kyle closes his eyes, wondering if he has the nerve to shut off the TV since some jerkoff turned it back on to watch the news.
For the most part, they sit without speaking until it's almost nine, when a young nurse calls Kyle back. She's the first person on the hospital staff to pronounce his last name right.
"The radiologist has your X-rays, so she's going to look over them with you. Then the doctor will come in to apply the cast and go over taking care of your hand, so hopefully we'll be able to get you out of here relatively soon," she says over her shoulder to Kyle, guiding both of them down a different hall of exam rooms in the ER. Kyle is disappointed to hear the word "cast," even though was pretty sure he'd have to get one.
"She'll be in shortly," the nurse says smiling, opening the door of a vacant exam room and plopping a thin manila folder onto the desk once they're inside. When she doesn't shut the door, Stan slowly pushes it closed, and Kyle takes the two steps forward to where Stan is standing. He slouches a little, pressing his forehead to Stan's chest.
"I'm so glad you came. I think I would have died if my mom had come and bitched at me all night about ruining that stupid game show," Kyle says in a low voice when Stan settles his chin on top of his hat. Stan's arm moves behind Kyle's torso and he rests his palm over his back.
"You looked so smart though. On TV." Kyle only responds by huffing out his nose flippantly, if anything amused that Stan thinks this, because the game ended with Wendy getting more questions. He wonders if Stan counts like he does.
Kyle jolts when hears the doorknob turning, springing away from Stan's half-embrace. He gives him an apologetic look before the door opens entirely, Dr. Sewell peering in like she isn't sure she has the right room.
"Turns out it's not your hand that's broken," she states, closing the door forcibly behind her, then thumbing open a red file in her hands. Kyle moves backwards, climbing onto the exam table. She acknowledges Stan with a bland expression, and Kyle is glad she doesn't ask who he is or why he's here, then pulls a black sheet from the file and fastens it to the X-ray view box.
"You fractured your wrist, actually. The Scaphoid bone." Dr. Sewell glides her fingertip over where the bones of his arm end, then taps her finger where the fracture must be. Kyle gazes at his illuminated bones wearily, unable to discern any visible breakage. He can see it when she switches the X-ray with a side view one: there's a point where it's obviously snapped, the bone visibly separated. It's horrifying.
"Now," she says, pulling the stool out from under the desk with her foot and sitting down, "the doctor's going to have to set it before he applies the cast. Do you think you'll be able to handle that?" she asks, looking at Kyle gravely behind her plastic red frames.
"Um. Yeah." He isn't sure he will be, but doesn't want to know what the alternative is.
When the doctor, a hefty guy who looks old enough to be a grandfather, presses his wrist bone firmly together, Kyle is sure everyone in the entire hospital hears him scream. He has to avoid eye contact with the nurse stationed at the front desk, where he signs the discharge papers with his left hand. His handwriting is hilariously atrocious, but he doesn't care. The shock from getting the bone set is still reverberating up and down his arm, but he did get the codeine filled.
"Do you want your coat?" Stan asks, pulling Kyle's backpack off his back, getting ready to open it.
"No, I'm ok." He doesn't want to think about shoving his still tender, now-casted forearm through any holes. Plus, Stan would help him put on his coat, which perhaps isn't really embarrassing in itself, he supposes, having a broken wrist and all, but it has the potential to be.
Roughly six hours since he arrived in the ambulance, Kyle's leaving the hospital at last, trudging through the salty pavement of the parking lot with Stan. Now he's relieved they don't have a long trip back to South Park ahead of them, plus it'd be dangerous anyway: it's pitch black outside, almost eleven o'clock, and starting to snow in heavy clumps. The familiar smell of Stan's car and the heat from the vents blowing faintly on his face are so comforting Kyle thinks he might fall asleep.
"Do you know where the hotel is?" Kyle murmurs sleepily as Stan drives onto the entrance ramp of the freeway.
"Yeah. Ten minutes down the highway," he says, reaching over to thumb Kyle's knee, his eyes still on the road.
The check-in at the hotel is quick and easy, something Kyle is glad for, since he was dreading an issue would crop up with the hasty reservation, but his dad had properly organized a one night stay in a room with two double beds. Kyle tries to at least carry his backpack to their room, but he doesn't protest when Stan steals it from him, hoisting it up along with both of their duffel bags like the football champ he is. When Stan catches Kyle smirking wryly, he smiles hugely himself. Kyle unlocks the door with the plastic card and stumbles gradually to the nearer bed, falling listlessly onto the soft comforter. Stan dumps the bags and shuts the heavy door, then kicks off his tennis shoes and joins Kyle on the bed, curling up at his side.
"I'm exhausted," Kyle says, his face buried in bed. He took one of the codeines in the car, and is starting to feel a whole new level of sleepy from the drug. Stan moves one of his fingers over the back of Kyle's sleeve.
"Let's go to sleep then." Kyle doesn't say anything, and he's mortified when he feels Stan get up off the bed.
"I'm gonna change," he hears him say, and Kyle quietly chastises himself for assuming Stan was moving to the other bed. It's something he worries about though, that one day Stan will admit it's too gay and they need to stop. When he hears the sounds of Stan undressing, he wishes he hadn't stuffed his face in the comforter like this, because there's no way he can discretely peek now without shifting his head in a very obvious manner. Then, Stan resumes his position on the bed, scooting closer this time, but still allocating room for Kyle's clunky white cast. Kyle turns his head to look at him blearily, craning his neck to brush the tip of his nose to Stan's.
"Do you really think I'm smart?" Kyle asks, his lids fighting to stay open. What he really wants to know is if Stan thinks he's smarter than Wendy, which is probably a stupid thing to even think about. It's possible Stan doesn't even care. The past three Saturdays of butting head-to-head with Wendy on Matchwits have made him feel humiliatingly unintelligent, despite her Charlemagne fuck up. He was definitely glad he tallied more points than Wendy at the show last weekend, but hadn't felt particularly good about himself.
"Dude, what are you talking about? You're like, the smartest person I know." Kyle sits up and stares at his wrist, prodding the solid cast forcelessly with his index finger.
"Wendy is smart too." He's praying it sounds more like an observation than what he's really trying to say, because he regrets it as soon as her name is out of his mouth.
"Um. Yeah?" Stan says, sounding at a loss. Kyle is quiet, still poking the cast. He mentally reprimands himself thinking, You should've just kept your mouth shut instead of bringing this shit up.
"Kyle?"
"I just – Christ, Stan. Are you really surprised that I compare myself to Wendy? She was your girlfriend for like, years," Kyle fumes, curling into himself and pressing his head to his knees. It's rude to be springing this on Stan after he drove here all the way here from South Park and spent the night in the ER with him.
"I… I didn't know," Stan replies, sitting up as well and tossing his legs over the edge of the bed.
"Yeah. Well." Kyle gets up and rummages through his duffel bag for whatever pajamas his mom packed, bringing them into the bathroom. "Messing around," which is the most appropriate term for what he and Stan do underneath the sheets at night, is the highlight of his week, but every successive Saturday he understands less what it means. After a particularly intense sleepover he'll feel convinced Stan is gay too, until he sees him flirting with one of the girls on the cheerleading squad or something the following week at school. Is he just paranoid? Is Stan just being nice to them? He scrubs his face with the unfamiliar hotel soap, feeling a little more alert from getting revved up and from the cold water on his face. After rubbing the moisture away with the puffy white washcloth, he lifts his shirt off over his head, which takes his hat off too. This fucking hair! he wants to scream. He grabs his hat and shoves it back over his head to hide the fuzz fest. Of course, with only one arm, he can't get his pajama top on, which is just an old T-shirt from basketball camp, so he exits the bathroom shirtless, scowling. Stan hasn't moved, except maybe his shoulders are slumping more sadly now, which is upsetting.
"I wish you wouldn't compare yourself to Wendy," Stan says in a small voice. Kyle wants to say Stan's got him there: he's not even filling her spot as the person Stan's officially with, so he has no right to. Instead, he fishes through his open duffel bag for his glucose meter, grunting irately under his breath when he realizes he's not going to be able to test his blood sugar one-handedly either.
"Kyle – "
"What?" Kyle snaps, turning around to face him, feeling like a truly evil person when he sees Stan's consternate expression morph into honest distress.
"Come here," Stan pleads. Kyle relents and sits next to him on the bed, dumping his shirt and glucose meter in his lap.
"Just- listen to me? Ok?" Stan's practically begging now and Kyle is sort of perplexed why he's so upset over this.
"Okay."
"When I was with Wendy, I felt like I had to always remind myself that is was normal. Uh, I mean, I never had real sex with her, but- Fuck. Like, when I was alone with her, I was always so nervous, but it wasn't a good kind of nervous. She's fucking tiny, and I felt so cumbersome around her, like I was physically too big? But also because, hah, she'd try to get me to do all this shit I didn't want to do, like she was trying to squish me into this mold or whatever she wants a boyfriend to be, and I didn't fit. I didn't fit with her, and then I stopped giving a shit about trying to. Maybe that sounds dumb, but, ah, when it's just me and you, I don't feel…out of place. Because yeah, you're my best friend, but it's because, um, you're a boy too, so when we do stuff together it just feels normal to me, like doubling, or mirroring or something. I don't know. It makes sense in my head."
"You think I fit with you?" As they grew up, Stan steadily shot ahead of him in height and sheer mass and Kyle sometimes thinks he must look sort of ridiculous next to him.
"Yes," Stan responds, nodding, his voice cracking a little. Kyle drapes both his arms around Stan's shoulders and pulls him against his chest, understanding that yes, this fits. He's already overwhelmed with affection from Stan's winding rambling, and now that his breath is brushing over his exposed skin, he's in danger of getting hard.
"I need you to hold this for a second," Kyle breathes, drawing his arms back and giving Stan the glucose meter, embarrassed by how riled-up he sounds. Kyle presses his middle fingertip to the test strip, and Stan winces as he clicks the button and the top of the strip is soaked red. Kyle glances at the reading and tosses the meter into his bag without taking the strip out.
"Do you want to wear that?" Stan asks, eyeing the shirt Kyle still has balled up in his good hand.
"I guess, yeah." Stan takes off Kyle's hat first and puts it in his lap, then pulls the T-shirt over his head and helps him thread his numb hand through the arm. He puts his hat back on too, pulling the ears down. Kyle yawns and Stan turns off the lamp on the nightstand before they crawl under the fluffy comforter. In the dark, Kyle only knows that Stan's face is very near his and he doesn't register it's moving closer until he senses something wet press against his lips, which is confusing, until he comprehends that he's being kissed. His brain is yelling at him to kiss back, but upsettingly, he isn't sure exactly what that entails, and Stan pulls away before he's even able to open his mouth.
"Goodnight," Stan says, and Kyle thinks for a moment he's going to say "I love you," but he doesn't. Kyle wants to stay awake like this, his knees bumping up against Stan's under the blankets, giddily reveling over their first kiss and rehashing their whole conversation, but Kyle's the kind of tired he usually only is at five a.m., the kind that pulls you into unconsciousness before you even have a chance to go over the events of the day.
The sun rises early Sunday morning, its light pouring into the room through the open blinds, gently shoving Kyle into semi-consciousness. He gradually processes that it feels like his heartbeat is in his hand, that the texture of the bedding is foreign, and that something hard is nudging him in the lower back. These preoccupations are forgotten when Kyle recognizes it's Stan pressing against him, and he huddles closer to the warmth of his heavy body before drifting back into sleep.
A dull but loud ache in his hand wakes Kyle up four hours later. The pain is frighteningly bizarre until he looks down to see the hard white cast, and he swiftly recollects the nightmare that yesterday was. As soon as he's feeling more awake, he'll get up and take another one of those pain pills, though it will probably just make him more tired. He moves his fingers a little and decides he'll tolerate it for now, because he treasures waking up with Stan as much as going to sleep with him. Plus, he can still feel Stan's morning wood grazing his butt and he enjoys it a lot more than he has the audacity to admit. When Stan wakes up, he'll be embarrassed and pull away. Every time it happens Kyle tells himself the next time he'll object, reassure Stan it's fine, that he really doesn't mind that his dick is incidentally pressing against his ass. In the meantime, he relishes it, deems it an example of Stan's concept of "fitting together," but then he feels foolish and guilty, because if Stan were awake their position might seem a precursor to a more explicit act, something Stan surely mustn't think about just because he's more comfortable jerking off a guy than doing whatever the hell he used to do with Wendy. Two years ago, when Stan and Wendy were last together, Kyle had been naïve enough to convince himself that there was no way those two were actually having sex. He feels sort of betrayed, if only because Stan never told him before. Deep down, he wants to believe Stan had found vaginas terrifying and revolting too.
When Kyle feels Stan shift into wakefulness and move away from him, he opens his mouth to begin that objection, but only a quiet sound of frustration comes out. Stan gets out of bed and Kyle hears him go into the bathroom, the door creaking as it closes, but he only hears it tap the metal, not click.
"Kyle? You up?" Stan whispers when he comes back, sliding under the covers again. Kyle only grunts affirmatively. With his eyes still closed, he rolls onto his back and envisions Stan's face hovering over him. It reminds him of Sleeping Beauty, or Snow White, being out of it like this, wanting to be brought back to life by being kissed, and maybe if he can relax his face muscles enough Stan will think he looks delicate enough, kissable. He'll just blame the codeine for this pathetic, girly type of thinking, ignoring the fact that since his hand hurts, the effects must have worn off. Stan doesn't kiss him, but he does brush his fingertips over the hair peeping out from under his hat, essentially petting him.
"It killed me, seeing your face on TV when Wendy broke your hand," he says softly, his thumb gliding over Kyle's eyebrow now.
"I don't think we're gonna be allowed to go back. You know, to compete. Ever," Kyle murmurs, laughing sadly. He hasn't heard anything concrete about South Park High School's continued eligibility, and Mr. Lindbergh didn't mention anything about this to him in the ER, but Kyle's guessing as much.
"I'm sorry."
"I was getting tired of it anyway." Kyle regrets that he was starting to detest the trips to Pueblo for Matchwits, because now it does feel like a loss. Not a big loss, but the disappointment – not to mention the guilt – is beginning to manifest. He's not going to think about any of that crap right now though.
Kyle takes half of a codeine and determines he'll find some coffee remaining from breakfast downstairs, or buy some elsewhere, otherwise he worries he'll be so doped up from the drug he'll pass out on the way back home. While Stan's feeling motherly toward him, Kyle needs to take advantage of the three hours in the car to prod him for more info on the definition of their relationship. Although this could also be a bad idea, especially because Stan's been taking care of him, since he might just tell him what he wants to hear. But Kyle needs something more cut-and-dry than the disjointed, metaphor-laden explanation that Stan provided last night. His blubbering had been sweet, yes, but Kyle was too flattered by it and too tired from the day to be assertive and inquire further. And what would he have said, So are we dating now? like some chick? There was hardly a pragmatic way to go about this.
They grab a quick lunch and then stop for gas, and while Stan fills up the tank, Kyle trudges over the slushy pavement to the convenience store to get coffee, the sugary vanilla stuff that he's gotten really into lately. Using his left hand for everything is quickly becoming a big pain in the ass. He feels vaguely sticky all over, desperate for a shower, but that will require profusely saran-wrapping and sticking his hand in a plastic freezer storage bag, which sounds like an even bigger pain in the ass.
"Ready to head home?" Stan asks when he hops back into the driver's seat after snapping the fuel door cover closed.
"Yeah. I mean I sure as hell don't want to be here anymore, but going home means I have to face the aftermath of this bullshit. We have those Matchwits meetings on Mondays too. And fuck! My mom too! Did she seem pissed when you went over there yesterday?" The best way Kyle knows how to deal with his mother is by trying his absolute hardest to tune her out so he won't hear her say some condescending remark that will set him off. He doesn't feel like he's equipped to block her out today.
"She seemed stressed. She was worried." For his mom, "stressed" means freaking the fuck out. Kyle hopes it wasn't too terrible for Stan to stop by before he left for Pueblo.
"Well, we'll see when I get home," Kyle mutters, taking a long sip of the warm coffee.
He's trying to appreciate how sunny it is for January, but he's not really in a fantastic mood. He wishes he were though, is trying to pretend he and Stan aren't going home, they're heading somewhere like the beach for vacation, just the two of them. Completely opposite to his feelings yesterday, he's enjoying the car ride at least, still relishing the fantasy they're going somewhere fun or important while they make idle conversation about passing billboards. It's peaceful, the heat in the car a perfect temperature too, but Kyle's getting nervous watching the time speed by on the electric clock, wishing Stan would bring up last night at the hotel instead of proclaiming his whimsical dreams of being a farmer as they pass farmhouses buried in fresh snow. An hour into the trip, Kyle's downed all the coffee, and although he still feels vaguely drowsy in a weird way, he's also worked up enough that he has the gall to revive last night's discussion himself.
"Hey, let me ask you something. What does the stuff we do together um…mean. To you?" Stan better get what he means by "the stuff we do together," because if he doesn't, Kyle's worried he'll just give up and say, "Never mind, forget it."
"It means a lot to me." Yeah, but that wasn't the question. "Why, do you not want to do it anymore?" The pitch of Stan's voice is odd, like he's trying to level it out as he speaks.
"No. I, ah- I still want to do it. Just, you do know that I am probably actually gay, right?" It's the first time he's ever said so out loud and it instantly sounds absurd, unquestionably ridiculous to verbalize such a thing. Now instead of teetering between meager confidence and slight apprehension, he's outright uncomfortable, too self-conscious to speak in the daylight about their nighttime fornication sessions.
At least twenty whole seconds later, Stan simply says, "Oh." Kyle clenches his jaw forcibly and turns his body towards the window so he's not facing him as much as possible. What a fucking embarrassment. He should have foreseen this.
"I still want to keep doing it too though," Stan adds cautiously.
"Why?"
"Kyle, what? What do you mean, 'Why?' Because I like you and it feels good! Jesus Christ!" Stan's outburst actually makes him really angry, but Kyle sighs as if he's mature and composed enough to be taking it in stride, something he knows will make Stan mad.
"I'm just saying I think we both know that I take it more seriously than you," Kyle states as calmly as possible, feeling disgusted by the way the dialogue has developed. Stan jerks the car out of the lane onto the side of the road, and at first Kyle thinks Stan's trying to save the life of some poor little squirrel, until he punches the breaks and the car stops completely.
"How the fuck would you know how seriously I take it! Do you think I'm just messing around with you because I'm bored or something? Do you know how long I thought about touching your dick before you let me?!" Stan shouts, and Kyle's legitimately taken aback, not so much by Stan's volume and intensity, but because he knows Stan's telling the truth and he can hardly digest what it might imply.
"I – " Kyle begins, because he feels he needs to say something, allay the tension, although he isn't even sure what to think yet. What he needs is for Stan to go on, because Kyle has never allowed himself to make inferences from anything Stan's said about their evolving relationship.
"What else do you want me to say? Sometimes I feel like you're the only person in the whole world who I don't hate, and God, do you realize how much it fucking stresses me out when we fight? It feels like it's been happening a lot lately and I hate it. I really fucking hate it." Stan has his forehead pressed against the steering wheel now and Kyle hopes he isn't crying, but judging by how wrecked his voice sounds, he probably is. Had they really been fighting that much? At the moment, Kyle's having a hard time thinking of any other recent fight besides last night at the hotel, maybe.
He reaches out to lay his good hand on Stan's back and God, he's shaking a little. Kyle feels like a fucking monster. "Stan – I'm sorry. I guess, Christ, all this competing with Wendy in Matchwits – I just keep thinking, she was your girlfriend, and it's retarded, but fuck, I just wanted to look as smart as her, and it made me feel like I was losing my mind on that goddamn show, like if I couldn't beat her ass on those questions I wasn't worth like, replacing her old spot as the person you were with. And the part that made me feel worst was that I was so sure I'd never get that spot," Kyle tries to enunciate, but regretfully, he's tearing up too. Stan lifts his head and leans into Kyle, pressing their foreheads together.
"Kyle. Kyle. You can have that spot. It's yours, dude. It kind of always has been." Technically, Kyle isn't sure that's true, but Stan must mean something beyond "dating"– the comfortable joy in the unique situation of falling for your absolute best friend, who you grew up with: having a playmate because your little brother was too young, knowing you have someone to walk with to class with, to eat lunch with, to wait in line with, to get a souvenir for when you go on vacation, to share a bed with on Saturday nights. He feels overwhelmed by how much he loves Stan right then, like the feeling of drinking tea that's just cool enough to not burn your mouth, except it's like the water is running back and forth from the tip of his head down to his toes. It's such a relief that he doesn't have to hesitate to press his lips to Stans', which are wet and salty from his tears. Stan opens his mouth slightly, and Kyle thinks, no, I can't do that, not yet, but when they pull apart for a second, panting and sucking in the car's hot air, Stan looks so good, his face flushed and eyes lidded, some of his lashes still slicked together from the tears, and Kyle wants to absorb everything he is. It's sort of crazy, being in someone's mouth like this, but it feels good, and Kyle kind of never wants to stop. He's really, really hard, and it's grating, uncomfortable since he's twisted towards Stan while still wearing his seatbelt. Just kissing is nice though, because he's wanted this for so long, long before they started messing around under the covers in the early morning hours. Stan is the one who pulls away, breathing in harsh pants, trying to catch his breath.
"So yeah? You'll be my uh, boyfriend or…um. Ah. Yeah," he says, letting out a quiet, anxious laugh.
"Yeah. Yeah, of course," Kyle answers, biting his lip or else he'll smile too hard.
They kiss for a while longer, their lips getting raw, and Kyle's pretty pleased when he notices out of the corner of his eye that Stan's hard too, tightly wedged between his thigh and his jeans. He wants to touch it, badly, but just making out is a stretch by his standards while cars are regularly passing by. Being kissed by Stan in broad daylight feels like the wordless touching in the dark is being compiled into a meaningful part of their history; he doesn't have to tell himself it's just about getting off anymore.
"Let's go home," Stan says eventually, thumbing Kyle's cheek bone. For the next two hours, they catch each other staring, breaking out into the kind of smiles which progress into relentless, giddy laughter over nothing.
In front of Kyle's house, Stan twists the keys slowly from the ignition, then pauses, getting close to Kyle's face and brushing his lips quickly, childishly, against Kyle's mouth. He pops the trunk and gets out of the car, hoisting Kyle's stuff onto his shoulders.
As expected, in the house, Sheila Broflovski is a mess. "Kyle! Why didn't you return my calls!" she cries upon answering the door, letting them in from the wintery wind.
"My phone died," Kyle lies. It was almost dead, anyway. Stan drops the duffel bag and backpack near the door, offering a small wave and heading back outside to the car. Kyle doesn't blame him for fleeing an incoming Broflovski family argument.
"Why couldn't you use Stan's phone?" his mother questions.
"Oh. I didn't think of that." She inhales starkly and presses her lips together, clenching her eyes shut.
"Let me see your hand." Kyle gingerly lifts the cast.
"What did they say? How long will it take to heal?" she asks, her voice softening considerably.
"Six to ten weeks." His mother sighs loudly and shakes her head.
"Well, bubbeh, I think you should know Mr. Lindbergh called all the parents to tell us the studio has, ah, not allowed you kids to go back to the show. Ever. Your father's very upset about all this. With that young lady, too."
"Oh Jesus…I can't deal with that right now. We're not suing anyone, ok? That would be stupid. I'm going to take a shower." Kyle stoops to grab his duffel bag at least, leaving the backpack there, and blocks out his mother's grating voice as she goes on about his father's plans to contact the PBS headquarters. Before he heads upstairs, he bolts to the kitchen to grab the saran-wrap and a freezer bag from the kitchen and prepares for the first taste of how tedious bathing is about to become for the next two months.
Besides making a short appearance at the dinner table, Kyle spends the rest of the night holed up in his room, working himself into a fit over how bad his handwriting looks on the French homework he's trying to finish up. Even if Wendy still does have the Matchwits meeting tomorrow after school, he's decided he's not going to go, because there's no point if they're banned from the studio. Listening to Wendy moan and complain about the studio's decision, or worse, hearing her offer constant apologies, would be a really shit way to end what he can already feel is going to be a bad Monday. He gets ready to go bed at quarter to eleven, which is exceptionally early for him, but he doesn't feel like being awake anymore and he took another whole codeine after dinner, so he's sleepy enough.
His bed feels all the better after he hasn't slept in it for a night, the thick blankets comfortably familiar. Under the covers, Kyle thinks about kissing Stan's salty lips and the taste of the inside of his mouth. Three days of not masturbating usually produces sex dreams, really fucked up ones, but two days of simply being around Stan so much, not to mention the feverish make out session, makes it feel like it's been at least five days. His left hand is all wrong though, and after ten strained minutes he's not even into it anymore, which always really aggravates him, but he does pass out afterward.
The next morning when Kyle wakes up, he doesn't feel as rested as he thinks he should be for going to bed so early. His morning routine is a struggle with one hand, but he's out the door by seven twenty regardless. No one else in his family wakes up until at least quarter to eight, and he's more grateful than ever that he has quiet as he spends five whole minutes trying to tie his boots properly. He's really not in too bad a mood though: his hand only hurts a tiny bit and he's ecstatic to see Stan today. When he locks the front door behind him, the sun is just peeping over the mountains, shining away the last traces of night. Kyle trudges a path through his own snowy backyard, into his elderly neighbors', the empty lot, then up through Stan's. Even though the sliding glass door to Stan's kitchen is always unlocked for him in the morning, he has to knock first, because otherwise, there's a chance for it to be super uncomfortable: strolling right into the Marshs' kitchen to observe a barely conscious Randy in his underwear and robe, pausing from his breakfast to gape at Kyle like he has no clue who he is or why he's in his house. So, he raps on the cold glass two times, just loud enough, then drags the dinged wooden handle away from him and steps onto the mat inside. Randy is digging inside the fridge, shifting things around like he's looking for something, so Kyle shoves his snowy boots off and sneaks upstairs before Randy has the chance to acknowledge his presence and possibly offer some sort of commentary on the sorry state of his wrist.
Toward the end of middle school, Stan became habitually late to school, not showing up at the bus stop and arriving just before homeroom ended. When they entered high school, it became typical for Stan to miss entire days- he'd say he just wasn't able to get out of bed. Kyle can't remember when exactly he started going over to Stan's in the morning to wake him up, though he thinks it must not have been too far into their freshman year, at which point Stan was regularly absent from school once a week. His grades went from average to abysmal, so he was put on temporarily probation from the football team, which depressed him even more. Some days, Kyle really had a hell of a time convincing Stan to wake up, and there were even a handful of mornings he gave up and left for school. Gradually, the difficult mornings became less frequent. Stan came back to life in the early spring and was reinstated on the freshman and sophomore team for the coming fall, though as running back instead of quarterback. Secretly, Kyle likes to hold himself vastly responsible for Stan's revival.
Kyle opens Stan's door, then gently presses it closed behind him. Normally what he does is boot up Stan's old desktop and kill some time on Facebook while he tells him he really needs to get up now unless he wants them to be tardy again. But today he sits on Stan's bed and leans down, brushing away his bangs, which are getting long.
"Hey dude. Wake up," Kyle says, barely whispering. Stan sleeps like a rock, so he'll have to shake him soon, which is always sad to do, because Stan looks so serene while he sleeps, curled up on his side, his chest rising and falling evenly with quiet breaths.
"Stan. Wake up," he repeats, his voice normal speaking volume. Stan murmurs incoherently behind his closed lips, and Kyle sighs, climbing under the dark blue comforter.
"I'm so tired." Stan says some variation of this every morning before school, but today it's painful how exhausted he sounds. All the driving this weekend must have taken it out of him, Kyle concludes, and he feels pretty bad, but if Stan doesn't make it to class today, Kyle will be even more loath to go. Not that he's thinking about skipping.
"Let's skip today," Stan murmurs flatly. Instead of responding, Kyle eases open Stan's hands. Stan tends to sleep in a fetal position with his arms to his chest, fingers wrapped together almost like he's praying.
When Kyle started coming by to wake him up, Stan would suggest they play hooky at least once a week. Any time Stan made this proposal after ninth grade, he was just trying to be funny. Kyle never agreed when Stan had been serious though, but he's frivolously thinking if they were to ever skip a whole day of school, a Monday in January of their senior year wouldn't be a bad day to do it. Maybe he deserves a sick day for his wrist, anyway. So he can get better at writing with his left hand.
"Well. Ok," Kyle responds, sweeping his thumb over Stan's fingers. He must have cut his nails last night- the edges are particularly angular and boxy.
"What, really?" Stan asks incredulously, flitting his eyes open halfway, his voice still abrasive from sleep. "I was sort of joking."
"No you weren't."
"Hah, I know. But it's ok, because I've only missed two other days this year, and one was for a funeral. And we only have like two tardies, right?" Stan shuts his eyes again, his brow crinkling shallowly.
"Yeah," Kyle says, smiling at Stan's honest defense of his perfectly adequate school attendance record.
"Get under the covers with me."
"I am." Kyle's really just under the first layer though, the comforter.
"I meant like, more," Stan clarifies, raising his arm and limply trying to pull Kyle into his dark cocoon of heavy winter blankets. Kyle wants to chastise himself for scooting closer with such unashamed eagerness, but he lets it go when Stan immediately wraps his heavy arm around him, sighing so deeply it might have otherwise sounded theatrical.
"Did you not sleep well?" Kyle whispers into Stan's chest, inhaling the scent of him. Once in a while, he gets a text from Stan just past midnight saying he has no idea why, but he's too nervous to fall asleep.
"Yeah, after I did go to sleep, at like one."
"Couldn't fall asleep?" Stan hadn't texted him.
"Oh, no, it wasn't that. Uh, I was kind of jerking off all night," Stan admits, tossing in a casual laugh.
"All night?"
"Well like, multiple times, yeah. You really riled me up yesterday," Stan mutters.
"Yeah?" Kyle asks, positively delighted by Stan's confession. He presses his open palm to Stan's solid hip, over the drawstring waistband of his flannel pajama bottoms. Thinking of Stan lying on this bed in blacker darkness, his knees maybe bent as he touches himself with fervent determination, makes Kyle really need to kiss him at least, so he pushes himself up to his level and experimentally touches his mouth to Stan's. Despite the intensity of yesterday in the car, he's still hesitant, overly cautious in taking the initiative. At first, their kissing is lazy, but it bubbles in scaling intensity, becoming less calm, less careful. The garage door thunders below them, and they hold their breaths until the abrupt noise of the door making contact with the pavement jolts the now-empty house, serving as their mutually understood signal to fully grab each other.
They pass out late in the morning, their fatigue freshly renewed, until shortly after two thirty, when the sharp ring of the doorbell surges Kyle into bleary cognizance.
"Stan?" He realizes not only the bed, but the whole room is empty. When he sits up, feeling lethargic and crusty, he's panicked that he can very clearly hear Wendy's dramatic soprano rambling on about something downstairs.
"Fuck, shit," he grumbles, remembering he's not only naked, but also half coated in dried cum. He makes a beeline to the attached bathroom and takes the fastest shower of his life, scrubbing himself one-handedly, his right arm pivoted outside to avoid the cold water. By the time he rushes down the stairs, he's mostly put together; wearing his own shirt and a pair of Stan's old gym shorts, but the fabric is clinging to him on his back, where he neglected to completely dry his skin.
"What's going on?" he blares at Stan and Wendy, who are sitting at the kitchen table across from each other, a large white box between them. Their wide-eyed stares almost make him want to turn around and shoot back up the steps: he must look and sound absolutely outrageous, booming down the steps as if he expected to encounter a felony in progress. Hell, he probably still has flecks of dried cum in his hair too. And Christ! He forgot his hat upstairs!
"Wendy brought you a cake. She stopped at your house first, but no one was home and since we weren't at school today, she figured…" Stan explains, trailing off. He says "cake" very cautiously, regarding Kyle with pleading eyes. Kyle's about to ask him why the hell he let her in, but then he remembers this is Stan's house.
"Oh." The self-conscious awareness of how goddamn crazy he must seem to both of them really sets in with the relatively simple explanation.
"How's your hand?" she inquires pleasantly, but Kyle can hear the wary undertone. Instead of offering a real answer, he lifts his arm and shows her the cast, looking at Stan bitterly.
"It turned out he broke his wrist, not his hand," Stan tells her.
"I didn't break my own hand." It's horrible of him to be such a shit when it's obvious Wendy feels genuinely awful, but bringing a cake! Really! He shouldn't blame her for this, since very few people know he's diabetic, but it still revives his anger. Kyle tugs the white string off, peeping into the box. Inside is a cake decorated with a pattern of blue and white alternating diamonds with little shiny beads at their corners that looks good enough to be on the cover of one of those magazines they have in the checkout line at Michael's.
"Woooow," Stan says, looking from Wendy to Kyle with raised eyebrows, nodding his head just slightly. When Stan's trying to mediate situations, notoriously those between Wendy and Kyle, he sounds like a dumbass. In neat script, the blue icing reads, "I'm sorry, Kyle."
"Where'd you get this, Wendy?" Stan asks her very friendlily.
"I made it." She says it coolly, instead of as if she's very flattered, as Kyle was expecting her to. He admits it is freakishly impressive- he's never seen a cake in real life that looks as good as this one.
"Well, I need to get going. But, Kyle," she begins, turning to look at him very intently, "I am so sorry. I know you don't forgive me or anything, and I understand. I don't think I would either, but- I really need you to know how sorry I am. And if you need anything, please tell me? I mean, I kind of figure you won't, but please don't hesitate to ask. Ok?" God, he feels bad now.
"Okay. Yeah – uh, I will."
Her face breaks into an immensely relieved smile. She grabs her coat, then waves to both of them as she's heading out the door.
"I had to convince my dad not to sue anybody over this shitfest," Kyle groans half-heartedly, dropping himself on the couch once Wendy's car zooms away. Stan instantly scurries to the living room too, piecing himself around him, and without really wanting to, Kyle can't stop another one of those goofy smiles. Sometimes Stan is unbearably adorable.
"What?" Stan asks like he missed something.
"Oh – nothing. You can have that cake if you want. I don't want to bring it home and have my dad be all, 'Kyle, don't think you can't still sue this young lady just because she made you a cake,'" he says, imitating his dad. Stan shorts into his shoulder.
"Ok. It kind of looks too perfect to actually eat though."
"How is it that Wendy's able to make me feel like the bad guy here?" Kyle gripes, returning the subject to the cake's creator.
"I don't know. She's good at that stuff. But she is really sorry. I'm sure she hates herself for this. She's really bent out of shape. And dude, I bet if you called her up and asked her to do, like, all your homework or something for the next six to ten weeks, she'd do it. That's how bad she feels." Stan clutches him tighter, trailing his fingers under the hem of Kyle's shirt.
"I'm not mad at her anymore," Kyle lies. "I just wish she'd leave me the fuck alone."
"I feel like she thinks you guys are friends."
"That's sad." It's probably true though. He feels like an ass.
Stan gets up to grab a blanket from the hall closet, springing back to wrap it around them, and they cling to each other like they're hesitant to see what will happen if they detach again, speaking into the other's skin about innocuous, mediocre topics like what they might do the coming weekend, how far away spring break is, and upcoming movies, things less troublesome than Wendy or Kyle's broken Scaphoid bone.
Of course, everyone in their small high school who cared to know knew who broke Kyle's wrist and how she broke it. The one great relief was that Cartman kept his mouth shut, because people still talked about how Wendy beat the living shit out of him in fourth grade. The Matchwits Club disbanded officially after their next and final meeting, a get together at Harbucks coordinated by Mr. Lindbergh, who, while dunking his black tea bag in his cup of steaming water, said, "Rocky Mountain PBS can go fuck itself," which made Kyle's eyes water with how hard he laughed. His wrist didn't hurt anymore, but it was still hard to write, so he got permission to bring his laptop to school. Cartman was vocal about this though, frequently declaring Kyle was cheating by looking up the answers in a hidden browser window. A lot of people asked Kyle if they could sign his cast, but he didn't want anyone like Bebe, of all people, to scrawl some girly, loopy handwriting onto his very arm. Besides, it would look sloppy, and it wasn't like he could take the cast off if he felt like it. He certainly would if he could, because it got really fucking itchy sometimes. The only person he let sign his cast, per Kyle's own request, was Stan, who inked his tiny initials, "SRM," at the top, inside his palm. Those two weeks after the incident, Kyle felt more upbeat than he could ever remember consistently being in his life, ready each morning to get through the six hours of school, because after seventh period, he and Stan would be home free to fool around in Stan's unmade bed until at least five, when Randy came home.
Late in the afternoon on a Tuesday that Randy's working late and Sharon has one of those late night nursing shifts, Kyle's sitting between Stan's legs in a freshly drawn bath, his arm flopped over the side of the tub, hastily wrapped up in saran-wrap just in case.
"Happy Valentine's Day," Stan says, pressing his chin tiredly to Kyle's shoulder and gliding his arms around his stomach, under the water.
"Hah, thanks." Kyle sinks into the hot water, sliding down Stan's chest. Upon flipping through his planner last week, he had a fleeting concern he was supposed to do something for Valentine's, like get Stan a present, but he decided that would be dumb. Also really gay. Some girls at school today had received huge stuffed bears from their boyfriends, which was perplexing. What would they do with those things? He could commend Token for getting Wendy earrings, since jewelry was at least sort of practical.
"Hey, um. I love you," Stan murmurs, his lips pressed to Kyle's damp skin, voice low and careful, though certain. Of course Stan would use Valentine's Day as an opportunity to tell Kyle he loves him. Because this is Stan, it's almost distressingly sweet instead of cheesy.
"I love you too, dude. You know that." He can say with conviction he's loved Stan almost his entire life, and now it's like he's progressed to a more intricate level of loving Stan, where not being around him is hard to tolerate instead of just being boring and un-fun.
After drying off and getting dressed, they put together a joke of a dinner of leftovers and freezer food, then eat sugar-free Klondike bars for dessert.
"I feel like going somewhere," Kyle states, wrinkling the wrapper from his second Klondike bar and tossing it in the trash next to the fridge.
"Where?"
"Nowhere. Anywhere. I just feel kind of antsy." Stan's house has always felt so much more exciting than his own, and he can avoid his mother's rampages here too, but they've done little else but roll around in Stan's bed for the past two weeks. Which has, of course, been incredible beyond definition, and Kyle's gloriously elated to know that it means something now, but a drive at least does sound ideal.
They drive out past Kenny's part of town, then past the farm, where the houses grow farther apart and the pines closer together. The sun glows harshly, coating the sky and the snow orange, like a grand finale before it drops quietly behind the mountain tops.
"Want to head back?" Stan asks as they're approaching the next county.
"Guess so, yeah." Kyle yawns, though he's not especially sleepy.
"Hey. I love you." Stan takes his eyes of the road for about a second to look at Kyle very seriously, like he's afraid he may have thought he was joking in the tub.
"I know. You told me," he says, biting his lip to combat another one of those conspicuous, uncontainable smiles.
"I'm gonna say it a lot now though. Maybe even every day. Just so you don't forget." Stan shoots him a short glance, his eyes reflecting the last shreds of the day's light.
"I won't forget," Kyle assures him, though he's blissfully contented Stan wants to make sure he's reminded of just how much he's loved on a daily basis. It's consuming him, how overwhelmingly loved he feels right now in Stan's car, driving back to the little town where they grew up together. He holds his left hand out, palm up, for Stan to interlock with his right. He thinks, maybe, he's the kind of person who needs to be told frequently that he is loved, because hearing the words from Stan's mouth complements perfectly how much he can feel Stan cherishes him.