Work Text:
Love was an intimate, familiar taste. It rolled over his tongue like honey- a bit too sweet, a hint of bitter edge. It wasn't his favorite taste, but it was almost addicting.
Well, most things were addicting when your name was Stanley Marsh, and your father gave you a curse. There was only so much that raw self control could keep packed away- and love was a vice he fell into often. He needed to give and take, however possible. It held his heart firm, spreading himself thin between different definitions, different subjects and subtleties.
Most days, he loved his family. His mother was a saint for the effort she put in. Her soft features had started to sag, dragged down by the weight of her effort to provide emotional support for him. Stan had always loved her unconditionally. Then, even with the sharp bile of rage that bubbled behind his uvula when his father spoke, he loved him too. His sister was another story. She had mellowed over the years, enough to change. No longer was it two siblings against one another- no, it was them against the farm. If you had asked him four years ago, he would've said he hated her.
Feelings change, people do too. Love seemed to come and go in the same way. He loved his friends. He loved his girlfriend when they were together. It was an ever changing, shifting thing, bar one exception. No matter how many arguments they had or how many fists they passed between each other, one love never really changed.
Today, that flavor of love was coupled with something akin to pepper flakes. Red, hot, and angry. Stan had grown to accept that this was his favorite kind, the loud heat cutting through the overwhelming sweetness of the feeling. He sighed into the heel of his palm, eyes tracing animated arm movements when his ears stopped hearing the current tirade. He didn't mean to stop listening. In fact, maybe he was listening too deeply. Words were forgotten in exchange for hearing the way Kyle’s breath quickened and caught between his sentences- trying to keep up with his head. He heard the shifting of fabric, the unmistakable sound made when fists were clenched. He was so tuned into the way the other spoke that he was beyond the actual speech entirely.
“Right? …Stan- right?” Suddenly shook through his ears. It took another few seconds- and then fingers snapping in his direction, for Stan to blink once, then again a little harder.
“Whhh- sorry, dude, I didn’t hear you.” Stan admitted with a sheepish smile. One of his hands found the other, dragging his thumb through the hair growing at his wrist, then catching on the thin bracelet string he'd tied there a few days earlier. It was supposed to be a reminder- but it obviously hadn’t worked. The same half-finished work still sat at his desk, untouched.
“Yeah, I know,” Kyle sighed, shaking his head slowly at Stan’s lack of focus, which caused a sharp spike of guilt to embed in his spine. Stan sat up a little straighter, tugging at the loop around his arm in an attempt to drag himself back to attention. “What was the last thing you heard me say?”
He could feel his face go from cold to burning hot. Stan’s response was whispered- meek. “Start over?”
“Dude,” Kyle stared at him and Stan looked away quickly. He knew it sucked that he couldn’t keep his fucking head on straight long enough to hold a serious conversation. It wasn’t his fault that he got distracted- there was so much to look at, so many other important sounds to listen to. Kyle was something special, where his voice never got tiring. Neither did his movements, his habits, or anything about him. “Nothing?”
After some time, with anyone else, Stan would find himself disinterested.
Voices melded into white noise, faces would begin to fuzz, blur, and swirl. Everything seemed so distant, wrong. He had a meter, somewhere in his mind, that measured how much of any one person he could stand to be near for longer than a few minutes. How long before he’d finally break, either stomping away or stepping up to press chest-to-chest and scream about how much he hated whatever they were going on about.
Except Kyle. Sure, he’d gotten a bit fed up now and then, but whatever meter he had for Kyle seemed to reset the fastest. Within an hour or two, after an outburst, he’d always find himself coming back. Everything he said was interesting. Everything he did was worth paying attention to.
So, why the fuck couldn’t he ever focus when he was trying to listen?
“Sorry, yeah.” With a sigh, Stan twirled his finger, tugging the string tight to his skin and cutting off some of the circulation. Kyle opened his mouth to speak, and Stan released the hold instantly. He didn’t need the lecture this time. “You don’t have to start over, if you don’t want to. Keep talking, I’ll catch up?”
“Stan…” Kyle began with a soft tone, and he could feel his heart start to tighten. It felt like it decided right then to shrivel up and die. There was nothing good that could come from such a kind sound coming out of his friend. Was he in trouble again?
“I was distracted,” he started to explain, “I was thinking about something, and got a little lost. I promise I wasn’t trying to ignore you.”
The last thing he wanted was for Kyle to think that Stan didn’t enjoy his company. God, he cherished it more than anything. Truly, an addiction. Sometimes, it didn’t feel healthy- but he couldn’t give it up.
Kyle sucked his bottom lip between his teeth for a second, chewing as he thought. Stan didn’t want to linger on his attention issues any longer than he needed to, so he dug hard into his short term memory- trying to catch up with anything Kyle had said in the past… hour. God, really? He could’ve sworn it had only been a few minutes. Still, he had some kind of duty to remember something. Silently mirroring Kyle, he chewed on the inside of his cheek.
How had the conversation started? Stan hadn’t slept well last night, dark bags under his eyes really showcasing that fact. With a sympathetic look, Kyle had teased him- sighed through his front teeth and asked if Stan was planning on picking up the ‘goth’ look again. He had rolled his eyes in reply, knocking his shoulder against Kyle’s forearm and calling him an asshole to ignore the way his heart hammered when he saw that expression. He hadn’t dropped it immediately, poking a cold finger against one of Stan’s lower lids, then recoiling at the greasy texture of his skin. Oh, right. Right.
“Yes, if you text me the exact name of the product, I’ll get some.” Stan huffed quietly, trying to pick the conversation back up. Kyle’s expression didn’t change- why didn’t it change? He stared at Stan for a moment in silence, before his lower lip popped back out from between his teeth and his head cocked to the side.
“You already said that, dude. Shit, you really got lost. I thought Craig was our space-case, but you’re trying to give him a run for his money.” Kyle laughed.
Fuck. That blistering heat was back on his skin, burning all the way up to his ears. Stan shoved his face into his hands, letting out an anguished groan. “Sorry, tired.”
“I know. You okay?”
“Mm,” Stan bit a little too hard into his cheek, cringing at the pain of a canine tooth ripping through sensitive tissue. “Fuck- yeah, no, I’m fine- having a hard time focusing. Same shit as always.”
While he wasn’t lying, he couldn’t really tell Kyle that he was busy counting the freckles that had bloomed across his knuckles over the beginning of summer instead of listening. Watching the way that Kyle’s lip creased or his chest rose as he spoke. Yeah, absolutely not- Stan couldn’t voice that truth. He didn’t want to be seen as funny, as his father would put it. Granted, he hadn’t said that kind of thing since Stan was young.
“What do you need, Stan?”
He had to bite his tongue to prevent the bile rising through his throat at the urge to respond with ‘you.’
“A nap,” Stan laughed, knocking his head to the side and rubbing a hand over his face. He’d relaxed since sitting up again, now slumped forward over the table that the two were sitting at. There were a few moments of silence, where he let himself close his eyes and seriously entertain the idea of a nap.
“Well.. I have to read a couple more chapters before tomorrow’s quiz. I’d be done, except someone keeps asking for my attention.” Kyle smiled at him, beginning to stack his books together, sliding the clip of his pencil around the cover of his notebook. “I like working at your desk, come on. I can read, and you can take a nap until I’m done. I’ll wake you up.”
Stan hummed in confusion as Kyle stood, carrying his belongings. Stan watched as curls bounced with every step, spilling from the seams of a well-worn hat. It wasn’t his usual- he’d taken to stealing from Stan’s collection of beanies ever since he trimmed his hair. As much as Stan mourned the way his hair had looked before, he couldn’t deny that he was leaving his beanies at Kyle’s house more often. Sometimes he’d toss one on his desk in prayer that it disappeared. He didn’t deserve this- the small sign of hope that Kyle liked him in any kind of similar capacity. It was just what was comfortable- right? They’d always shared things.
Kyle didn’t wait for his friend to peel himself off the dining room table before heading up the stairs, slipping into Stan’s room as naturally as he’d move into his own. Another soft groan floated through Stan’s lips, but he did lift his body and move in a half-dissociated state up to the second story. His hand hung at his side, and he curled up his middle finger until it caught on loose string tied around his wrist again, tugging hard in an attempt to bring some sensation back into his body.
His tongue felt heavy in his mouth, forcefully swallowing down saliva. Whatever stress-fear-love response his body had developed, he hated it. Every single time Kyle left the room, Stan was stuck there for a moment before following, forcing his stomach to settle. That sickly sweet taste of love cut through with bitter acid. A mirror of his own hopes, that’s how he’d always seen it. He had to curl his tongue up, pressing the underside of it tight against the top of his mouth as he walked into his room.
It was too natural of a scene.
Kyle had his book open on Stan’s desk, leaning one elbow against the wood- chin propped on the back of his hand. He was looking down, eyes trailing across the page he was reading as his pencil eraser tapped near-silently against a folded-open notebook beside him. A desk lamp that Kyle had insisted he should get if he wanted to keep trying to write songs in the middle of the night was clicked on its dimmest setting. It was then that Stan noticed that he’d taken off his jacket, and an orange sleeve caught his eye hanging on the rack behind his door as he stepped into the room and closed it behind him.
Kyle glanced up at the sound of it closing, giving him a soft smile. The lamp light caught on every stray hair that had started to sprout from his chin, and on anyone else, Stan would’ve thought it looked sort of dumb. Kyle, though? It was somehow gorgeous. Maybe he was just sick.
“Dude, you look like shit.” He laughed, gesturing with the tip of the pencil towards the bed. The metal ring around the edge of the eraser was ever so slightly bent, like a tooth had been pressed into it. He’d borrowed one of Stan’s pencils, then. “Get some sleep.”
Stan had to do everything in his power not to sob. Love fucking burned. He nodded instead, tongue relaxing and swiping over the spot inside his cheek that was starting to become sore. A few more steps, and he was collapsing onto his bed. He could pretend, for just a little bit, that Kyle was his concerned partner trying to take care of him. It made it easier to close his eyes and let the exhaustion wash over him.
“Thanks, Ky,” he mumbled into his pillow, arms curling around it to mush it just right under his cheek.
“Um-” Kyle hesitated for a moment, but continued before Stan could lift his head and question him, “It’s hard to study when you’re passing out on your table, man. Makes me tired, too. It’s easier if I let you sleep through the stuff we don’t need to do together.”
“Yeah,” Stan admitted softly, turning his head and peeking at the form bent over his desk. He adjusted his arms again, trying to find a natural position where he could stare at his best friend’s back as he worked. This put his arm in front of him for a moment, then he sighed. “When I’m up, remind me that I’ve got that stack of worksheets to finish, under your book.”
“Stan!” Kyle sat up a little straighter, and Stan saw the edge of the book lift up. Kyle made a noise that was intimately familiar to him- one that was full of exhaustion, but still a laugh of fondness. Yes, he’d have to face the disappointment from his friend later, but with the sound of Kyle’s laughter in his ears, he could close his eyes and try to work off some of the exhaustion that he’d been saddled with today.